How do you permanently end a war with a Jihadist death cult deeply embedded in a population of 2.2 million people, dedicated to your annihilation, which openly proclaims its objectives?
A death cult that, having committed barbaric atrocities over 19 months ago, followed by indiscriminately targeting your entire population with many thousands of missiles, promises, when given the opportunity, to replicate both?
A death cult willing to enter into a cease-fire as a temporary pause but intent on retaining its munitions and renewing its war when its military capabilities are fully restored. That is Israel’s dilemma.
For Hamas and its Iranian sponsors, no sacrifice is too great. They are the vultures of humanity, political scavengers dedicated to maximising Palestinian civilian casualties to generate political support from the well-intended, politically naive, and ideological and political opportunists.
They have learnt how easy it is to manipulate global headlines & stories devised by journalists dedicated to simplistic portrayals of good and evil who avoid all complexity.
They have also learnt, like the conductor of an orchestra, how to play on the heart strings of international political leaders to recruit them as unconscious allies in their war to demonise and delegitimise Israel and undermine its capacity to win the war Hamas initiated and continues to fight.
Like the carnivorous Venus Flytrap of botanical fame, Hamas essentially embraces, entraps, and digests the Palestinians it purports to represent and then spits out their names, exploiting their deceased martyrdom to demonise its adversaries and justify its atrocities. The demonisation is then inflated by international organisations, which choose to adopt the Hamas-created narrative.
Hamas’s success in persuading many throughout the world that this is Israel’s, not Hamas’s, war is facilitated by not just Israel’s malign adversaries but also by some of its supposed friends and allies who ignore Hamas’s readily observable conduct and strategy intended to maximise and also exaggerate Palestinian casualties.
The silence from the world about Hamas' jihadist activities
Little, if anything, is said by them about Hamas’s use of civilians as human shields, it’s extensive militarised tunnels located adjacent to and under civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, homes, schools and mosques and UN facilities nor about Hamas launching a war without building bomb shelters for civilian use or it denying civilian access to shelter in tunnels reserved for terrorist militants.
Egypt’s refusal and that of the rest of the Arab world to provide a safe haven to many Palestinian civilians caught up in the war and stranded in Gaza, as provided by Western countries to Ukrainian refugees escaping Russia’s war, is a topic never discussed. Little reference is ever made to the battles and real fire fights in Gaza between Hamas terrorists intent on restoring Hamas rule and members of the IDF because unlike film of the tragic impact of the war on Palestinian civilians, including some contrived by Hamas for propaganda purposes, the fire fights are not filmed and presented nightly on television news.
The occasional missiles still targeting Israel from Gaza, some of which fall short, imperilling Palestinian civilians, and the fact that the IDF’s defensive war has substantially reduced their volume, rarely, if ever, feature in global news reports.
But Hamas’s narrative is assisted by the IDF’s killing of civilians either accidentally or incidentally when targeting Hamas militants and other terrorist operatives and their leaders, by the devastating destruction throughout Gaza and by the enormous dislocation suffered by Palestinian civilians as they move or are ordered to move for their safety from one Gaza location to another.
The withholding of aid, either creating a food shortage or lending credibility to the existence of such a shortage and allegations of starvation and withholding essential supplies, including medical supplies, understandably lends credence to allegations of Israeli inhumanity.
Hamas steals and hordes aid
Assertions that Hamas steals and hordes aid and that Gaza received sufficient aid to meet the population's needs for many months do not cut it when visuals from Gaza show people in desperation seeking food and allegations are made of children dying of hunger. The aid embargo, now replaced by new, so far inadequate aid arrangements, together with television and social media footage of Palestinian casualties, is copper fastening a growing global political and public perspective that Israel has gone too far and places it at risk of becoming an international pariah.
It cannot be legitimately denied that urban warfare against an enemy embedded in a civilian population intent on your destruction is enormously complex. Hamas has designed it to be so.
But Israeli strategy and actions should not facilitate Hamas's luxuriating in the death of Palestinian civilians & politically profit from its nihilistic, demonic actions. Israel’s anxiety to rescue the remaining hostages unlawfully and inhumanely held in Gaza and its objective to ensure the atrocities of October 7, 2023, are never repeated should not result in the abandonment of moral principle and replicating Hamas’s inhumanity.
Israelis' right to security and to an end to the perpetual threat of missile and terrorist attacks should not be the catalyst to Israel seeking or compelling the expulsion of the Palestinian civilian population of Gaza as an alternative to a permanent end to conflict and the creation of conditions in which a permanent peace is possible.
Some of us who understand Israel’s dilemma, the true history, complexity and different strands of the Israeli/ Palestinian conflict, it’s impact, and in particular the impact of October 7, on almost all Israelis across Israel’s fragmented political spectrum, the real time concern and fears of the distraught families of Hamas held hostages and the nightmare of the hostages predicament, the rivalries and animosity, both personal & political between and within Israeli political parties, the competing narratives between the Israeli right and left, suspicions relating to the motivation behind Israeli government action and the extent to which belief in the practicality of any agreed permanent peaceful solution to permanently end all conflict has collapsed. Fear that flawed judgment and military action are resulting in Israel continuing a war that is not only undermining the Israeli state's moral authority and international credibility, but also resulting in indefensible death and injuries inflicted on the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza.
Deaths and injuries, which are privately celebrated and publicly excoriated by Hamas and its Iranian sponsors, and also internationally politically exploited by Israel’s adversaries to Israel’s detriment.
There is much argument and debate as to the credibility of the Gaza “civilian” casualty figures daily published by the Hamas-controlled Health Authority as cited daily by international organisations, media, campaigning groups, and foreign political leaders. Never categorising deaths from natural causes, never identifying total combatant deaths, varying and inconsistent collation of alleged child and female fatalities, all confirm that the Gaza Health Authority figures are deeply flawed, as has been established by independent researchers.
But that does not undermine the reality that even if the proportion of civilian to combatant deaths is significantly lower than that of past conflicts across the globe, in human terms, lives are being lost, terrible injuries are being inflicted, and innocent families are being destroyed.
To excuse the deaths as either collateral damage or to apologise when accidental, including apologising when those accidentally killed are escaped Israeli hostages or hostages held captive by Hamas in tunnels, doesn’t in any way diminish the impact of what occurred or result in the resurrection of the dead. The recent horrific deaths of paediatrician Dr Alla Al-Najjar’s nine children in Khan Younis from an Israeli air strike starkly illustrate the imperative of the war rapidly ending, as does the perilous fate of the remaining hostages.
All such deaths are a consequence of Hamas’s responsibility for a continuing war that Hamas will only temporarily end if its current demands to retain its arms and for the IDF to leave Gaza are agreed upon. So are the almost daily deaths and injuries of members of the IDF in Gaza and the deaths and injuries of Israeli civilians on the West Bank and within Israel’s pre 67 borders perpetrated by terrorists.
To those can be added the deaths and injuries suffered by Palestinian civilians on the West Bank resulting from the illegal actions of Israeli religious zealots and extremists, and also the Palestinian civilian deaths and injuries there for which the IDF is responsible. All of these will inevitably continue to multiply until the war is over. Another Israeli dilemma of no concern to the fanatical leaders of Hamas, who revel in death and destruction.
For Hamas, the suffering of its own people is ammunition with which to target Israel in the world of public opinion and to undermine its political legitimacy. It is content that it continues, increases, and is weaponised as it has discovered it is more effective in achieving its objectives than atrocities, guns, drones, and missiles.
The Israeli government has allowed itself to be ensnared by Hamas' malignancy and is fulfilling the role intended and scripted for it by Hamas. Rather than the continuing war securing Israel’s future and safety, it risks laying the foundations for decades of continuing terrorism and danger that will impact Israel, Israelis at home and abroad, and also Jewish communities outside Israel.
Even if Hamas leaders still surviving and some terrorist militants are forced into exile or all known ones are simply eliminated, others will inevitably emerge to carry the flag, committed to fulfilling Hamas’s malign genocidal mission.
Hamas knows that it still retaining hostages and fears that the hostage's survival contributes to growing division within Israel, and that the impact of its war on Palestinian civilians has lit the fuse across the globe of a reawakened antisemitism, which in its ignorance and virulence subsumes criticism of Israel and antisemitism into a single demonising narrative.
Hamas welcomed the recent murder of two young Israeli diplomats, Sarah Lynn Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, in Washington, which risks being the first of similar atrocities being perpetrated elsewhere in response to Hamas and its malign Western supporters' call to globalise the intifada.
Ironically, Hamas’s greatest allies in its internationalised propaganda battle are those on the extreme right of Israeli politics, both within and outside the Israeli government, who, with an extraordinary lack of self-awareness and humanity, perceive themselves as its greatest opponents.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich celebrated that Israel is destroying everything in Gaza and that there will be nothing left for Palestinian civilians. He and Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir are advocating that Israeli settlements be re-established in Gaza and its population expelled or “encouraged” to emigrate, drip feeding the hostile narrative of Israel’s adversaries, as do others in the Israeli government when they join the chorus.
Attacks by fanatical West Bank youth, encouraged by some West Bank leaders, on Palestinian civilians and their homes and the takeover of farm land, sheep stealing, and destruction of olive groves compound the international perspective of Israel’s malignancy, as do failures to swiftly investigate and fully prosecute those responsible. Dreadful terrorist atrocities resulting in the death and injury of Israeli civilians on the West Bank are no justification for a breakdown in law and order, detrimentally impacting Palestinian civilians trying to avoid conflict.
Chants of “Death to the Arabs”, blatant racism, intimidation, and violence with apparent impunity by hordes of lawless Israeli youths, some spitting at local Arabs and Israeli peace activists during Jerusalem Day celebrations, provide welcome additional ammunition to be deployed by Israel’s critics.
While the extreme right has a unique capacity for repetitive self-harm and causing international opprobrium in recent days, those on the left have also illustrated their capacity for foot-in-mouth disease.
Yair Golan’s now retracted despicable reference to Israel killing “ babies as a hobby” endeared him to all of those wrongly accusing Israel of deliberately murdering children. Ehud Olmert’s sincere attempt to generate renewed support for a two state solution has resulted in his use of language critical of Israel when interviewed by British and Irish broadcasters the impact of which he presents as not fully understanding when spoken outside the febrile competitive world of Israeli domestic politics and which is manna from heaven for those who advocate Israel’s destruction and have no interest in any such solution.
Haaretz’s Gideon Levy, presented simply as an Israeli journalist to facilitate a British, Irish, or American TV or radio station portray itself as providing balanced coverage of the conflict, solely pillorying Israel’s government for the war continuing, feeds the narrative of the Israel haters.
So, how does Israel permanently end a war initiated by a Jihadist death cult dedicated to its destruction, which gives conflicting messages about resuming its rule of Gaza and advertises its intent to perpetrate future atrocities? And how does it do so without alienating those whose international friendship and support are necessary to maintain the economic well-being and security supports essential to a modern, fully functioning democratic state, obliged to protect the well-being of its citizens? The truth.
There is nothing that can be done to ensure or guarantee that any such war is permanently over and will not recur in the future. For decades, there will remain Palestinians and Jihadists dedicated to Israel’s destruction and replacement by a Palestinian state.
The best that can be done is to agree on arrangements that end the current conflict, effect the rapid release of all hostages in Gaza, implement the security measures required to ensure no repeat of October 7, and create the space for ongoing good faith engagement with those on the Palestinian side genuinely committed to a peaceful future. The legacy of October 7 and the current war will cast a long, enduring shadow over any such engagement and act as an obstacle to realistic, constructive progress. So will Israeli and Palestinian political rhetoric will be intent on exacerbating and exploiting hate and division for partisan domestic electoral political benefit.
In addition to the release of all hostages, the most immediate issues related to the current conflict ending are the demilitarisation of Gaza, an agreed governance structure that excludes Hamas, the rapid provision of all essential aid, and a reconstruction plan that includes the destruction of all remaining terrorist tunnels.
For much of that, Israel requires the help and engagement of its Arab neighbours and Iran to be coerced into stopping its malign meddling in the region. On the Israeli side of the Gaza border, the return of all still displaced Israelis who wish to return to their pre-October 7 homes, reconstruction of homes damaged or destroyed, or the provision of new homes and security arrangements that ensure October 7 can never again happen are crucial.
As for the longer term? That depends on the holding of Israeli and Palestinian elections, the policies supported, and the leaders and parties elected. It also depends on whether a significant majority on each side votes for more conflict or for building a permanent peace. Current calls for a two-state solution by foreign leaders whose states and citizens' future well-being and safety are not dependent on what is or is not agreed are merely irrelevant background noise.
The author is a former Irish Justice & Defence Minister & former chair of the Irish Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee.