From Ceasefire to Truce

In Israel/Palestine, evaluating events and directions by ethical precepts is not helpful. Both sides (Jews and Arabs, broadly speaking) have defensible ethical claims. Putting morality aside, the Ganz piece I’ve been linking to, by my interpretation, analyzes the Hamas attack of October 7th as — my words, not his — a brilliant success. Israel is losing this conflict, and the harder it strikes, the more firepower it deploys, the more Palestinians it kills, the more it loses. It is failing to liquidate the Hamas military but it is destroying its international reputation. What it is doing is the opposite of defending itself.

It is past time for Israel to stand down, for its own good. I take the point that no state could have been expected to ignore an attack such as that of October 7th, as indeed Hamas must have counted on, and indeed Israel has not. To the contrary, it has exacted many pounds of flesh. In that sense it should be done.

I’ve elaborated the only plausible path for the region here. I fully acknowledge it is wildly implausible under current circumstances. But it is less so than alternatives. That is the point. Policy is a matter of comparing alternatives, not debunking options in isolation.

Hamas by all accounts lacks any semblance of progressive features, or even overtones. It is in no way a model for any Left. But in its own way it is the distillation of the alternative that Zionism has left for Palestinians: pure, homicidal rage founded on retrograde identity politics. Not incidentally, support of Hamas by the Israeli state has been noted.

At the same time, it would be racist to suppose that Hamas is too primitive to be beyond negotiation. In fact it has engaged in it with Israel for years. It did so again this week, by agreeing to release some hostages. It depends on ties with Islamic regimes. It is a political formation that trucks and barters.

In a broader respect, a truce should be possible. “Ceasefire” doesn’t quite do it, since it implies a temporary pause, but as a political matter, this affair is over. Both sides have gotten what they could, given the circumstances. Hamas survives as the most righteous defender of Palestinian honor, and Israel has leveled half of Gaza.

A complicating factor is the personal interest of Israel’s head of state, Bibi Netanyahu. His need to evade prosecution implies policies not necessarily in Israel’s national interest. Since his peers are not stupid, I imagine this is well understood and his days in power are limited.

In any case, however, Israel and Palestine are in a box from which any non-catastrophic exit is unclear. Truce is just an intermediate stage.