FLASH
Shkruar nga Shlomo Ben-Ami
If Hamas falls and there is no legitimate Palestinian political authority capable of filling the void it leaves behind, Israel may find itself in a new kind of Hell.
A year after the start of World War II, the United Kingdom's War Cabinet established a committee that would be responsible for clarifying Great Britain's objectives in that conflict. A year later, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved the Atlantic Charter, which announced their war aims and a shared vision for the future.
As Israel continues its relentless air and ground military campaign against Hamas - and as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza deepens - US President Joe Biden desperately hopes that his Israeli rebel allies will mount a similar effort.
But to date, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has refused to discuss any vision of a political deal that would end the fighting in Gaza, let alone a broader Israeli-Palestinian peace. In fact, the current destruction in Gaza seems to serve no strategic purpose at all.
Netanyahu's only real objective appears to be political: to preserve the cohesion of his far-right coalition so that he can stay in power. And above all, this means the continuation of the war. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, of the far-right Jewish Power, threatened to break up the coalition if Israel halts its military operations in Gaza.
According to Netanyahu, only when all Israeli hostages held in Gaza are released and the total and unconditional "disappearance" of Hamas is achieved, can the war stop and an agreement be implemented (possibly including a new Israeli occupation of Gaza).
But this goal is as unrealistic as it is dangerous. Hamas is an Islamic nationalist organization with deep roots and considerable support. Since its founding in 1987, Hamas has threatened the exclusive rule of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in the West Bank.
In fact, "security cooperation" between the Palestinian Authority and Israel has been nothing more than a euphemism for a joint battle against Hamas in the West Bank. But Hamas has continued to thrive.
And now, because of his defiant stance against the Israeli army in Gaza, he is gaining popularity among Palestinians, especially in the West Bank, where the devastating effects of the war caused by the October 7 massacre that this group caused against Israeli civilians.
If Hamas achieves the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the remaining hostages, as is currently being negotiated, its popularity will peak. Of course, there is a chance that Israel will succeed in eliminating Hamas' military and political leadership, damage its chain of command, and destroy its ability to function as a formal organization.
But Hamas's popularity suggests that its cause will remain central to the Palestinian national movement. In fact, if it were possible, destroying Hamas could harm Israel's security. Because in the chaos that would exist after the conflict, thousands of Hamas fighters would join criminal gangs, like the ones that are already apparently holding some of the Israelis hostage.
While others would join Salafist groups that are even more radical. In the modern Middle East, political vacuums always fuel jihadist violence and unrest. Afghanistan became a center of cross-border terrorism during the Soviet occupation in the late 1980s.
The now defunct Islamic State (ISIS) "caliphate" emerged in areas of Syria and Iraq where government authority had been overthrown during years of chaos and civil war. Former officers of Saddam Hussein's disbanded Iraqi army formed the backbone of this radical group. Former Iraqi military officers also strengthened the ranks of Al-Qaeda.
The consequence is more obvious. If Hamas falls and there is no legitimate Palestinian political authority capable of filling the void it leaves behind, Israel may find itself in a new kind of Hell. Establishing a permanent buffer zone between Israel and Gaza, as the Israeli government seems intent on doing, will do little to prevent this outcome. Rather, it will only drain Israeli resources, just as the "security zone" in southern Lebanon did until Israel withdrew in 2000. Sustained divisions and unrest on the Palestinian side further undermine prospects for a lasting post-conflict peace. .
The Palestine Liberation Organization political party, Fatah, is committed to a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But as PLO President Mahmoud Abbas knows well, an increasingly popular Hamas must be represented in Palestinian institutions.
A "revived" PLO could not legitimately govern Gaza after the war - as the United States has claimed - without the approval of Hamas. Such approval would require reconciling the PLO's attempt at a "political" compromise with Hamas's struggle for the "historical" rights of Palestine.
But for Hamas, the adoption of the Oslo Accords that the PLO negotiated with Israel is a non-starter, because recognizing Israel and abandoning its armed struggle against the "occupier" - the two terms of the Agreement - would destroy its legitimacy.
Hamas recently released an 18-page statement that emphasizes the need to punish the "Zionist occupier" but does not identify reasonable goals for the war and does not mention the possibility of a partnership with the PLO or a political solution. Apparently, neither the biblical agony of Gaza nor the brutal destruction of Hamas troops and the destruction of its strategic assets can impose an ideological transformation of this movement.
As long as the PLO fails to integrate Hamas into the political process, it will be impossible to establish a legitimate Palestinian government in post-conflict Gaza, not to mention fulfilling the Palestinians' dream of a state of their own. This is bad news for both Israelis and Palestinians. But this serves Netanyahu and his coalition of extremists. /Adapted "Pamphlet" from "Project Syndicate"
Note: Shlomo Ben-Ami, former Israeli Foreign Minister, currently vice president of the Toledo International Peace Center and author of "Prophets without Honor: The 2000 Camp David Summit and the End of the Two-State Solution."
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