Steven Simon thinks that Israel may be able to avoid a regional escalation

ON OCTOBER 7TH Hamas showed that it was true to itself by abandoning its periodic ceasefires and skirmishes with Israel and embracing Götterdämmerung. Perhaps it expected its murderous attacks to spark a regional conflict that would bring Israel to its knees, with Palestinians battered but triumphant. But this motivation seems unlikely, and we may never know. Regardless, America, Israel and key Arab states such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia must now plan for the day after, if only to avoid the prolonged immiseration of Gaza’s population and a resumption of regional hostilities.

Hamas’s problem is that even a widened conflict including Iran, Hizbullah and a motley collection of smaller Iran-backed militias would not overcome the fundamental power disparity between Israel and its foes, let alone Palestinians. Moreover, both Iran and Hizbullah, its most powerful proxy, have reasons to avoid escalation.

Hizbullah has refrained from engaging in a full-blown conflict with Israel on its northern border since the Hamas attack, though there have been exchanges of fire. Iran’s leaders and senior commanders have reportedly concluded that there is not much they can do, apart from tacitly permitting their country’s proxies to act as they see fit. These prevarications have given Israel time to mobilise an immense army, deploy a large part of it to the Lebanese border, evacuate local towns and buttress its air defences.

True, to dismiss the risk of escalation because it would not serve the alleged interests of Hizbullah or Iran could be just another example of the mirror-imaging and wishful thinking that plague policymakers of all stripes—and which contributed to the Israeli blunders that opened the door to Hamas on October 7th. Hamas may yet find fellowship in its self-immolation. Nonetheless, compared to Hamas, Iran and Hizbullah are conventional creatures and can therefore be deterred by the prospect of a punitive Israeli response. Hamas clearly can not.

Hence Israel’s conclusion that Hamas must go. This has entailed the sudden reversal of entrenched policy. As Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has explained, Hamas was an essential tool in Israel’s effort to split the Palestinian national movement, weakening the more moderate, West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA). Hamas functioned, perversely, as the loyal opposition to Likud governments. Even Israel’s ultra-right was on board; Bezalel Smotrich, the hardline finance minister, has described the PA as a burden but Hamas as an “asset”.

The scale and sadism of Hamas’s rampage on October 7th has made a return to the old arrangement unthinkable for now. Although Hamas is not Islamic State, its participants in the atrocities were weaned on IS’s gruesome videos, which had redefined the culture of jihad. Whatever the precise inspiration, the resulting performance of Wagnerian apocalypticism has now reached its culminating acts of fire and purification. If past were prologue, this process would be interrupted within weeks as the marginal costs exceeded the returns for both sides. This time, the past is merely the past.

Israel’s friends, especially America, have expressed concern about its war aims. The Biden administration must worry about regional escalation, and about its own reputation as Palestinian civilian casualties grow. It must also fear an all-out push by Israel that fails to eliminate Hamas but pulverises Gaza and ends in a comprehensive Israeli blockade, a traumatised population, a public-health crisis, warlord rule and a lost generation of Palestinian youth. The question of who rules Gaza if Hamas is toppled, or even crippled, is therefore urgent.

There are good reasons to doubt Israel’s ability to dislodge Hamas as the power in Gaza. Its army is not battle-hardened, urban combat is more gruelling than open warfare—and Hamas will have prepared the battlefield to compound the challenge. Toppling Hamas could require a lengthy occupation of Gaza, raising the spectre of an insurgency amid the ruins.

On the other hand, Israel’s armed forces are powerful and highly motivated, the war has unified a citizenry riven by political differences just weeks ago, and there is something like a consensus over the need to remove Hamas. Toppling the group—not as a social movement, but as a government and army—is thus at least a plausible aim.

Victory, however, could prove pyrrhic—not least if there is no government to replace Hamas. Israel will need to hand responsibility for Gaza to a competent, temporary steward as soon as is practicable. Such a transitional government will have to be formed of a coalition of states and perceived as legitimate and effective, as well as being acceptable to Israel. It will need to be authorised and equipped by the UN to defend itself while administering Gaza’s urgent needs, and it must be ready to enter the territory when the shooting stops. And as it restores order, it must also prepare the ground for reassertion of Palestinian rule through elections in both Gaza and the West Bank. Planning for this will require time and complex diplomacy.

The PA, however, is run by a president elected in 2005 and legislature elected in 2006. It is corrupt and widely perceived as a tool of Israeli occupation. It is incapable of stemming Israel’s building of settlements in the West Bank and their occupants’ attacks on Palestinians. Any expectations of a role for the PA in governing a post-conflict Gaza are unrealistic unless these conditions change.

Furthermore, Arab states’ participation in a transitional administration will hinge on the promise of Israeli concessions on the West Bank, including a halt to the building or expansion of settlements, curbing violence by settlers and the transfer of some land from mixed Palestinian and Israeli control to the PA. No long-term solution to the problem of Gaza is possible without this. It will require the application of a defibrillator to the peace process, as well as the resumption of Israeli-Saudi normalisation talks.

Of the many obstacles to this approach, Israel’s willingness to make concessions is the most formidable. How formidable will depend on what kind of government emerges in Jerusalem after the war.

Bernard Avishai, the author of “The Tragedy of Zionism”, believes that “the combination of corruption, fecklessness and extremism of the hard-right government—and especially Netanyahu himself—will be expelled like a hairball from the cat.” A darker view is that the terrible costs of the conflict, global opposition to Israel’s military campaign, tinged as it is in places with antisemitism, the awfulness of October 7th and intensified mistrust of Arabs will push Israelis to continue backing hard-right rule. If so, the dystopia won’t just envelop the Gaza Strip.■

Steven Simon is the professor of practice in Middle Eastern studies at the Jackson School of International Relations, University of Washington, senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and the author of “Grand Delusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East” (2023).