Jesse Kline: Ending the war in Gaza not as simple as it may seem

Last Tuesday, thousands of Israelis took to the streets, blocking highways and setting tires on fire, to pressure the government to reach a deal with Hamas.

Einav Zangauker, whose son has been languishing in Hamas captivity, made a passionate plea for more Israelis to join the demonstrations, arguing that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “afraid of one thing — public pressure,” and that, “Only with our strength can we bring about a comprehensive agreement and an end to the war.”

Those sentiments were echoed by Democrats MK Gilad Kariv, who said that the previous hostage deals “only happened because of public pressure,” and that if enough pressure is put on the government now, Netanyahu will have no choice but to reach an agreement to end the war and release the hostages.

The opposition parties are fairly united in their disdain for the current war strategy, which has recently seen increased fighting in Gaza City as part of Israel’s plan to take over the roughly 25 per cent of the Strip that’s still under Hamas control. But Netanyahu’s facing pressure from both sides of the aisle.

Last month, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the ultranationalist Religious Zionism party, said he had “lost faith that the prime minister is able and wants to lead the IDF to a decisive victory,” while other members of his party threatened to leave the coalition because they believe the new strategy is simply a ploy to force Hamas to come to an agreement that’s acceptable to Israel.

And they’re right: the prime minister has said many times that only increased military pressure will force Hamas to lay down its arms and give up the hostages, which is why he approved plans for a renewed offensive, despite opposition from his own military chief.

But for the ultranationalist members of his coalition, nothing short of a complete annexation of Gaza will be acceptable. They have so far been successful in persuading Netanyahu not to accept any deal that doesn’t result in the release of all the remaining hostages and Hamas’s surrender.

The terrorist group is also receiving pushback from its own war-weary citizens and other Arab countries. At the end of July, the 22 members of the Arab League took the unprecedented step of backing the “New York Declaration,” which, among other things, calls on Hamas to disarm and relinquish control over Gaza.

But at the same time as Israel and other countries are attempting to force Hamas to capitulate, the terrorists are trying to ratchet up pressure on the Jewish state. Their strategy has been to create as much death and destruction in Gaza as possible — real and imagined — while normalizing claims that Israel is committing a “genocide,” thus turning it into a pariah on the world stage. Recent reports of famine taking hold in Gaza only serve to strengthen the jihadists’ hand.

As Esmat Mansour, who NPR describes as a “West Bank-based Palestinian political commentator and former militant,” told the American public broadcaster recently, “The (Israeli) military is exhausted, Israeli protests are increasing, maybe the government will fall, maybe there will be international pressure — especially because of the images of hunger, Europe will pressure the U.S. Hamas says: ‘There is nothing worse than surrender. Why should I surrender? I am remaining steadfast and maybe the situation will change to my advantage.’ ”

Indeed, the hostages are Hamas’s only remaining bargaining chip, and it’s not likely to give them up and accept defeat so easily. This much we know given that Gaza’s terrorist rulers have clung to power for nearly two years in the face of a far superior military force. Thus, the rest of the world has been relegated to issuing strongly worded statements about the pressing need to release the captives and disarm, even though everyone knows the West holds no influence over Hamas.

So world powers, including Canada, have instead focused their pressure campaigns on the other parties — Israel and the Palestinian Authority — most recently using the threat or promise of recognizing a Palestinian state to get them to give in. But different countries are using Palestinian statehood to achieve different ends.

Prime Minister Mark Carney predicated his recognition on the Palestinian Authority’s “commitment to much-needed reforms, including the commitments by Palestinian Authority President (Mahmoud) Abbas to fundamentally reform its governance, to hold general elections in 2026 in which Hamas can play no part and to demilitarize the Palestinian state.”

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer used it as a threat to try to force Netanyahu’s hand, saying the United Kingdom would recognize Palestine unless Israel ended the war, committed to a two-state solution and allowed the United Nations to resume aid deliveries.

What we have here is an old-fashioned Mexican standoff in the Negev. Everyone’s trying to force everyone else to stop fighting on their terms. But Hamas is a genocidal jihadist organization that sees the suffering of its own people as a feature, not a bug, and has nothing left to lose. Netanyahu is trying to balance the majority of Israelis who want a deal with the right-wing members of his coalition who hold his political future in their hands, and the knowledge that unless Israel gets the job done now, Hamas will rebuild and attack again.

Something drastic needs to change in order to upend the current status quo, but what that may be is, at this point, anyone’s guess.

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