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deRaismes Combes is Assistant Professor of National Security at the U.S. Army War College. You may follow her on X @deRaismesCombes. John Nagl is Professor of Warfighting Studies at the U.S. Army War College. You may follow him on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/johnnagl. This article reflects their personal views and not those of the Army War College, the Department of the Army, or the Department of Defense.
The horrific Hamas attacks on October 7th, 2023, have led to predictable reprisals by Israel and an equally predictable outpouring of public concern for Palestinian civilians in Gaza affected by Israel’s military incursion to “destroy Hamas.” Hamas’s deep-rooted presence in Gaza after 15 years of governance makes Israel’s stated objective nearly impossible. Reports indicate that the conflict’s first four weeks resulted in more Israeli and Palestinian fatalities combined than the total number of deaths there since 2007. This number has only skyrocketed in the intervening months. To honor the Israelis and Palestinians who have lost their lives since October—and to prevent future generations from suffering similar tragedies—the imperative now must be to chart a new course toward peace, no matter the difficulty or seeming implausibility. The Israeli strike on an Iranian consulate in Syria and Iran’s air attacks on Israel in reprisal only underscore the importance of acting sooner rather than later, before an already horrific war expands to cause additional death and destruction across the entire Middle East.
The path forward should be built on a viable two-state solution grounded in the principles of UN Resolution 242. The current energy in the system, which has been absent for decades, should not be wasted. Several regional factors including the Abraham Accords and Iran’s recent rapprochement with Gulf states create a favorable environment to depart from past failed initiatives and forge a new reality. Arab states that have normalized relations with Israel, particularly Egypt and Jordan, are best positioned to take a leading role, with the United States and other allies guiding diplomatic efforts from behind. Involving China should be considered. While addressing the immediate humanitarian crisis in Gaza and returning all hostages take precedence, concurrent diplomatic efforts signaling a genuine pursuit of an equitable solution for all stakeholders must also be a priority.
Background
The current war is now in its seventh month and has killed an estimated 34,000 Palestinians and 1,500 Israelis as of April 2024. In response to the horrors of the October 7th assault, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas to safeguard the state of Israel, greenlighting a full assault on the Gaza Strip—a 141 square mile (365 km2) landmass with a total population of 2.3 million. However, Israel’s objective to “eradicate” Hamas is unlikely to succeed. Hamas is not ISIS, despite what some Israeli leaders have recently suggested. In contrast to jihadi groups that reject the legitimacy of elections and the world order of nation-states, Hamas as an organization is firmly rooted in a nationalist struggle and seeks to establish a Palestinian state recognized by the international community. (GLOSA)
Created during the First Intifada in 1987 from remnants of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas drew on Islam to reinvigorate and refocus the broader Palestinian movement for national liberation. Hamas won a majority in the 2006 legislative elections in the Palestinian territories, defeating Fatah. Violent attempts by Fatah to oust Hamas subsequently failed, leading to a split in governance in 2007 between the Gaza Strip controlled by Hamas, and the West Bank under the control of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority. Israel responded to the newly established Hamas government with a ground, air, and maritime blockade of the Strip. Frequent rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza’s various militant groups—including Hamas—have led to a number of military engagements with Israel between December 2008 and August 2022, killing a total of roughly 4000 Palestinians and 107 Israelis. While the original Hamas Charter of 1988 called for the complete elimination of the Jewish state, the updated 2017 charter implies Israel’s right to exist. Moreover, several of the group’s political leaders, like Ismail Haniyeh, have publicly accepted the two-state solution based on the 1967 borders.
The group itself is not a homogenous entity, with divisions between the militant wing (Qassam Brigades), local governance bodies, and the party’s political leaders, most of whom have lived in exile in the broader Middle East for over a decade. Those divisions were clearly visible on October 7th to those who knew where to look. Political leaders like Haniyeh and Khaled Mashal seemed to be caught off guard by the attack. The savagery of the assaults has understandably blurred any distinctions among Hamas for most Israelis, but the splits indicate that there has been room for compromise and perhaps even a lifeline for thinking through what a future peace might entail.
Lessons from U.S. Coin
If the Israeli government is truly serious about achieving sustainable peace and security, then it is approaching this war with Hamas myopically with a short-term focus that will not produce lasting peace. Instead, it might set the conditions for more killing of innocents on both sides for years to come. Lessons from the U.S. counterinsurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan illustrate a potential path out of the current crisis and the broader conflict that has existed in various forms since Israel’s creation in 1948. The first lesson centers on the roles of civilians and information operations in counterinsurgency campaigns, while the second addresses the future control and governance of Gaza. Both are linked.
The diagrams featured in this essay depict the lines of operation in a counterinsurgency campaign from both the 2006 and 2014 editions of the United States Army Field Manual 3-24, Counterinsurgency. The 2006 version demonstrates that Israel will never be able to destroy Hamas or completely eliminate terrorists in Gaza as long as the Palestinian population remains neutral, passive, or (not depicted in the diagram) actively supportive of Hamas. The number of Palestinians in that category increases with every bomb Israel drops and every day the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) patrol Gaza.
Like most insurgent groups, Hamas militants, estimated at 40,000 strong in 2023, easily hide amongst the population (or below it), having built an extensive network of tunnels over the years to circumvent Israel’s blockade. More often than not, the IDF has chosen a heavy-handed approach to the daunting challenge of determining combatants from civilians. However, even though recent survey studies have indicated a decline in Hamas’s popularity among Gazans (by October 6th, 2023, only 29 percent of Gazans expressed trust in their Hamas government), that does not mean that the IDF’s military campaign will garner local support. Indeed, it is hard to imagine that the razing of much of the Strip and the massive number of Palestinian fatalities inspire anything but greater antipathy towards Israel.
To win peace, Israel should be working to reduce the percentage of the Palestinian population that supports Hamas instead of cowing them with overwhelming blunt force. Swaying the population would mean providing the people with good governance and essential services like food, water, and electricity; supporting real economic development; and creating host-nation security forces that would take over responsibility for security in Gaza from the IDF even as Israel continued small, focused, targeted combat operations against Hamas operatives for the foreseeable future.
Moreover, this effort must take place within an overriding cocoon of information operations with the message that Israel is dedicated to a viable two-state solution and is willing to make hard sacrifices to get there. Doing so helps decrease the public support that currently sustains Hamas and allows it to swim, thrive, and survive “like fish swimming in the sea of the people,” to paraphrase the late Chinese leader, Mao Zedong. Failing to conceive of Israeli military efforts to defeat Hamas within a narrative of an achievable two-state solution increases support for Hamas among the people of Gaza and helps create more terrorists willing to conduct the next horrific attack on Israeli soil.
The 2006 Counterinsurgency manual argued that information operations are decisive; the 2014 manual agreed but elevated creating, training, and equipping host-nation security forces to an equal stature as IO. This is the second major lesson to be derived from U.S. counterinsurgency campaigns over the last two decades. The failure to create effective host-nation security forces lengthened the American occupation of both Iraq and Afghanistan and led directly to the loss of the Afghan war. If Israel does not want to occupy Gaza forever—and create new terrorists every day—it must ask for Arab help to build security forces now and start training Palestinian security forces yesterday. Given Egypt and Jordan’s proximity to Gaza and the West Bank, both countries are well-suited to send peacekeeping forces to Gaza, though troops from other Arab states that have normalized relations with Israel through the Abraham Accords should also be considered; a fair estimate is 50,000 troops to police the Strip (about the same number of police in New York City). The ultimate objective is to have vetted Palestinians with public support in a Palestinian security force protecting the West Bank and Gaza—but this will happen only with a dramatic shift in Israel’s support for a two-state solution.
A Long-term Solution
The crisis in Gaza is only the most recent and violent manifestation of a broader conflict that extends beyond the confines of the Strip to include the West Bank and refugee camps across the Levant. Real solutions to the immediate challenge of Hamas can only be effective if they are embedded in a more expansive set of actions towards sustainable peace. The effectiveness of information operations in counterinsurgency hinges on conveying the right message. In the case of the war against Hamas, the only message that will allow for a real and lasting peace—and not just in Gaza—must involve a comprehensive plan founded on UN Resolution 242, leading to the establishment of a contiguous and defensible homeland for Palestinians based on the 1967 borders. To have any chance of winning over the Palestinian population, that plan must therefore also address the Israeli settlements, Right of Return, and Jerusalem.
First, while almost impossible to imagine given the current climate in the occupied territories, Israel must dismantle its settlements in the West Bank, all of which are built on land seized from Palestinians. Coordination mechanisms should be established to devise plans to build transportation infrastructure linking the West Bank and Gaza as envisioned by the Oslo II Accord. This allows for the creation of a contiguous and defensible Palestinian state. Alternatives to removing settlements should be considered on the basis of consulting with relevant Palestinian communities and be conditional on the willingness of residents of these settlements to integrate into the Palestinian state. Second, to demonstrate the seriousness of the peace initiative, the plan should clearly address the ongoing issue of the 1948 Palestinian refugees. A fair solution should include recognizing their right to return to what is now an Israeli state; offering the option to reside in vacated settlements in the West Bank; providing fair compensation for their land; addressing their humanitarian needs; and/or facilitating coexistence in their host countries. Third, East Jerusalem should be named the capital of the future Palestinian state, with appropriate measures to ensure shared access to holy sites in either part of the city.
Finally, as previously noted, a future unified Palestinian state must have a capable police and security force to ensure order and help the fledgling government establish control over the entirety of its sovereign territory. To that end, the international community must train replacements for the Arab-led host forces initially patrolling Gaza. That training, conducted by the United States and other supportive parties, should begin immediately, in Jordan and in the West Bank, with an aim of developing 50,000 Palestinian security forces.
If Israel chooses not to entertain these bold steps, they will fail to learn what the United States eventually understood at such cost in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead, Israel will lose the information operations war, have to police Gaza permanently itself, and sow the seeds for a recurrence of the horrors of October 7th.
Major Challenges Ahead
None of this would be easy. It would cost huge amounts of money and even more political capital. The toughest sell will be the Israelis themselves, whose political and religious divides and the traumatic aftereffects of fear, rage, and vulnerability from October 7th, make this an enormously difficult sell. U.S. President Joseph Biden has told Israel not to make the same mistakes that the United States made after September 11th, 2001. While understandable in the wake of a terror attack, rage and fear can lead to more suffering and make a country less rather than more secure. Any viable two-state solution requires Israel to give up land while assuming more risk. In the short term, such a deal does not seem like a deal at all. Rather, it will feel like a swindle, especially with tensions so high. But perhaps because tensions are so high, now is the time to contemplate and push for the impossible.
On the other side of the Separation Wall, the Palestinian Authority suffers from systemic corruption and does not enjoy much popular support or legitimacy. The local police forces, although trained in part by the United States, are perceived as Israeli stooges or as a corrupt arm of the Palestinian Authority. Moreover, the West Bank suffers from lack of access to good jobs, the cantonization of the territory into restrictive zones, an outdated education system, ongoing poverty in the numerous refugee camps, and its own militant groups. As such, the existing governance structure in the West Bank is not a viable model for a future state. While the general population would likely be open to extensive political reform under the auspices of independence, a thorough restructuring that incorporates the Gaza Strip as well as potential right of return refugees will have substantial growing pains.
The international community will also face challenges. Israel’s Arab neighbors have long pledged support and aid to the Palestinians without actually offering up much in the way of either. Palestine sells well as a political issue, but Palestine as a real problem to be solved requires much more political will than most of these Arab states have actually had. The current war is slowly changing that calculus as demonstrated by ongoing efforts from Qatar, Egypt, and Jordan to negotiate a ceasefire and the safe release of hostages.
The United States, too, must face some hard truths. The self-proclaimed “honest broker” has never been seen as such by the Palestinians or Arab states, which makes any efforts by Washington to promote a sustainable peace appear disingenuous. Indeed, the conditions President Biden recently placed on the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Israel is more performative than substantive in terms of changing the course and nature of the war. However, Biden’s gesture does reflect a deep, and at times acrimonious, split in America’s domestic sentiment. Ongoing demonstrations for and protests against both sides of the crisis mean that American involvement will be politically costly.
Still, as a State Department official recently told Israeli foreign ministry officials, the current course of action guarantees a “major credibility problem” for both Israel and the United States, potentially across generations. The challenges and risks associated with a radical peace plan like the one above are daunting, but not entertaining the possibility of a solution—however improbable—dooms all parties to further hatred and violence.
A Way Forward?
While the depraved attack on Israeli citizens in October and the ensuing carnage since then do not augur much hope for a solution, it is exactly that loss of life that necessitates such bold counsel. If sustainable peace is the ultimate goal, then the first step is to successfully end the war in Gaza. As American troops learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, the key task for an occupying power like the IDF is to protect the people first. In addition to a strict adherence to rules of engagement that minimize the chances of civilian death, this also requires working to reduce the percentage of the Palestinian population that supports Hamas through the provision of essential services, thoughtful messaging, and training Palestinian security forces to provide sufficient security for daily life to resume. But that is not enough. If sustainable peace is the ultimate goal, then the second step must be movement towards a broader two-state solution based on UN Resolution 242.
The short-terms costs of and barriers to such a plan are astronomical, but the long-term benefits are manifold. Beyond removing the central issue animating the conflict in the territories and Israel themselves, a two-state solution might serve as a catalyst for greater regional peace. Hezbollah will have less direct grievance with its neighbor, as will Iran. A regionally supported plan built on active participation would also mean buy-in from other major players of the Middle East, now invested in maintaining that peace. Global support also potentially creates safer avenues for erstwhile competitors like the United States and China to work together for a common goal.
As of now, Benjamin Netanyahu and his government do not appear willing to entertain alternatives to their current course of massive retaliation. In return, Hamas has not been forthcoming about releasing hostages, nor has the group been at all contrite about placing roughly two million Palestinian civilians in harm’s way. Both sides bear some blame for all the death and destruction, just as both sides have legitimate grievances. At this stage, however, a solution must go beyond finger-pointing—no matter how tempting or deserved. The cycle right now is such that one horror begets another.
The enormous obstacles to a sustained peace reflect the enormous long-term benefits of such a courageous and historic leap of faith. The current trajectory of the conflict is a downward spiral toward more deaths and a worse future for the Palestinian and Israeli peoples. Learning some of the lessons from the mistakes America made in its recent conflicts offers hope for breaking the cycle and creating a better peace in a world that was so shattered by the horrors of October 7th.