US President Joe Biden is taking a big risk with his proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza. Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed, but will he stick to it? It is also questionable who will get Hamas to give in.
The American president puts forward a proposal on how to end the war and finally free the hostages. The Israeli government agrees and Hamas says it is “positive” about a ceasefire.
Gerhard Spörl has always been interested in global political events and changes, which of course also affect Germany's role in the international structure. He worked in leading positions in the “Zeit” and “Spiegel”, was a correspondent in the USA for a while and now writes books, preferably on historical topics. You can read all articles here.
It has now been a few days and the plan has not come into effect. Optimists will say: take it easy, be patient. When an American president publicly presents such a far-reaching proposal, it is guaranteed to be accepted by both Benjamin Netanyahu and the Hamas leadership.
Pessimists may argue that Joe Biden has been snubbed by Netanyahu so many times that he will leave him empty-handed this time too. Neither the Israeli prime minister nor Yahya Sinwar, the military leader of Hamas, show the slightest interest in ending the war or even in establishing a ceasefire.
In this region, which is used to orgies of blood and death, terror and violence, a pause would be a blessing. The conditions for more peace have already been met, with Saudi Arabia wanting to make peace with Israel. Their common enemy, Iran, is preoccupied with itself after the death of its president in a helicopter crash, so the ever-possible expansion of the war seems minimal.
There is also no doubt that Hamas has been significantly weakened, otherwise Ismail Haniya, the political leader in exile in Qatar, would not be pushing for a permanent ceasefire. The competition with the military wing in the Gaza Strip will determine whether Hamas accepts the proposal, delays it or rejects it.
A maximum Israeli war aim is to completely liquidate Hamas. This is something one can wish for, but on closer inspection it is unrealistic. A more pragmatic war aim is to permanently weaken Hamas so that its rule over the two million inhabitants of the coastal strip on the Mediterranean becomes impossible. But who will then take over the government there? The weakness of the American plan is that it leaves this crucial question unanswered for the period after the war.
The strength of the Biden plan, however, is that the hostages will be released as soon as the Israeli army begins its withdrawal from Gaza. Almost no one knows exactly how many of them are still alive. There are reportedly still 134 people in Hamas's power. Their fate has been lost sight of due to the belligerent talk of a major invasion in the south and the actions of the Netanyahu government, even though demonstrators in Tel Aviv and other cities remember them with increasing despair almost every day.
For a long time, the Middle East has known only one direction: downward. Israel's army is too strong for a major war like in 1967 or 1973 to take place. Some of the enemies of that time made peace, for example Jordan or Egypt. Today's enemies prefer an asymmetric war, for example Hamas on October 7, 2023 and Hezbollah with its rocket attacks; then there are the Houthi rebels from Yemen with their attacks on world trade by ship.
The only way Israel can protect itself against such attacks is through liquidation, that is the logic. As soon as Hamas is eliminated, Hezbollah will be next, which controls Lebanon just as Hamas controls Gaza. These asymmetric wars would only end with capitulation. In the case of Hamas, it is even theoretically conceivable that it will give up. But Hezbollah has a larger country in its stranglehold and Iran as a protective power, which has built up bastions in neighboring Syria and Iraq.
In Israel, the national religious figures in Netanyahu's government are against any compromise. They have announced the end of the coalition as a precautionary measure if Netanyahu submits to the American president. If Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich had his way, Rafah in southern Gaza would be completely destroyed. Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote of the US president's proposal: “Hamas loves Biden.” In these circles of power, the idea of driving the two million people out of Gaza and replacing them with Israeli settlers is circulating – following the example of the (illegal under international law) occupation of the West Bank.
