Netanyahu is under pressure to keep his coalition government intact. Two far-right partners have threatened to bolt in protest at any deal they deem to spare Hamas. A centrist partner, ex-general Benny Gantz, wants the deal considered. Hamas has provisionally welcomed the Biden initiative.

  • homura1650@lemm.ee
    10·
    6 months ago

    Kicking the can down the road in Gaza has been Israeli policy for over a decade. The strategy is called “mowing the grass”. The idea being you can destroy the terrorist of the week’s tactical ability to strike and buy Israel a few years of peace. Repeat this cycle every few years until ???, then magically resolve the issue.

    This failed catastrophically on October 7, because the typical cycle of Gazan attack happened to allign with a catastrophic security failure on the part of Israel.

    The question remains: what comes next. The US’s complaint from October 8 on has been that Israel has no day-after plan. Without a day after plan, all that destroying Hamas will accomplish is have the next round be conducted by a terrorist group not called Hamas.

    Every tactical move Israel makes today harms its strategic position for the day after plan. At the beginning of the war, some strategic concessions were needed to adress the very real tactical concerns. But there are massively diminishing returns.