Israel and Gaza at war

This is an audio transcript of the Rachman Review podcast episode: ‘Israel and Gaza at war’

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Gideon Rachman
Hello and welcome to the Rachman Review. I’m Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator of the Financial Times. This week’s podcast is about Israel and Gaza in the aftermath of a massacre of Israeli civilians carried out by Hamas. My guest is Professor Lawrence Freedman, author of Strategy: A History and many other books, and also a regular commentator on international affairs through his Substack Comment is Freed.

So does Israel have a strategy for dealing with Hamas? And what are the risks of a wider war in the Middle East?

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The Hamas attack caused the greatest loss of life on the territory of Israel since the foundation of the state in 1948. The death toll is now thought to be over 1,000 people, most of them civilians. And the details that are still emerging are gruesome. In the aftermath of the attack, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, vowed to crush Hamas. Here he is in an address to the Israeli public saying the country is at war and will win.

Benjamin Netanyahu in clip
[Speaking in Hebrew]

Gideon Rachman
But the very fact of the attack looks like a massive failure for the Netanyahu government. And though Israel is bombing Gaza heavily with much loss of life, it’s not clear whether Israel yet has a strategy or an end game in mind. So I began my conversation with Lawrence Freedman with that question. What is Israel’s strategy for Gaza and the wider Palestinian question?

Lawrence Freedman
I think the Israelis have got a real difficulty. First, deterrence failed. They pounded Gaza before. So there’s no surprise that they’re pounding it again and they’ll take out some Hamas capabilities. But the problem is that the rhetoric has demanded more. You’ve either got a degradation of Hamas capabilities or you’ve got regime change. Well, they can’t do regime change and they can’t occupy Gaza. And I don’t think they believe they can. They don’t have the numbers. Even if they charged in and took people, the threat would regenerate. So they’re ending up degrading the capabilities again, punishing Gaza for allowing this to happen. And at the same time, by putting the siege on, or aggravating the siege even more by taking out electricity, water, internet and so on, putting more pressure on the ruling group to try to find a way out of this.

But the problem is that there’s no obvious end point in terms of a negotiation because Hamas hasn’t got demands other than easing the blockade and maybe getting its prisoners back. Israel hasn’t had much of an interest in Gaza, frankly, for a long time because it’s behind the fence and its interests have been much more in the struggles in the West Bank rather than with Gaza and towards the way that it silenced Gaza. So nobody’s got an idea really about politically how this ends. So you may just end up with a period of bombing and then some sort of mediated ceasefire. All the Israelis decide, the public opinion demands at least that they make some show of force within Gaza. But that’s very perilous for Israel, and they’ve done it before and it hasn’t always gone well.

Gideon Rachman
So just to unpack some of what you said there. I mean, you said that there is no prospect of replacing Hamas, which is interesting because a lot of the commentary, some of it in America, some in Israel, has said obviously now it’s no longer acceptable for Hamas to run Gaza. Some say it’s no longer acceptable for Hamas to exist. But what you’re saying is they don’t really have an alternative, that occupation is just impossible.

Lawrence Freedman
These movements are too deeply rooted to be taken out in this way. I mean, I can understand why they’d rather have somebody else. Although, you know, in the past Hamas suited them because it was rejectionist, so it wasn’t putting demands on them for a two-state solution.

Gideon Rachman
Yes. ’Cause Hamas refuses to recognise Israel, doesn’t it?

Lawrence Freedman
And the issue with Hamas isn’t an occupation. It’s a blockade. So I think what do you replace it with? I mean, you’ve got to have some government in Gaza. Somebody’s gotta take decisions. Hamas pushed Fatah out in 2007 so the obvious alternative isn’t there and this wouldn’t be very propitious circumstances to go back. So the difficulty is that however much you may like there to be a different regime, it’s not hard to understand why that would be considered desirable. They have absolutely no means of making it happen. You know, maybe internal things in Gaza may make a difference, but not I would have thought at the moment anyway. So I think this is the dilemma. And actually, if you look at some of the things the Israeli spokesmen have been saying, especially on the military side, they’re much more cautious about what they claim they can achieve.

Gideon Rachman
So that suggests to me that fairly soon, frustration and anger will set in on the Israeli side and recriminations. And obviously, this has been an extraordinary security lapse. You know, it’s been a while, but I’ve been down to that Gaza border and the Israelis were very proud of their, you know, their fence, their intelligence that, you know, even tunnels they would discover. And the very fact that the Gazans were tunnelling suggested it was impregnable, and yet it was extraordinary lapse of security. Do we yet have an understanding what happened?

Lawrence Freedman
I think so. I think we can put it together a bit now. First, they sort of deliberately lulled the Israelis into a sense of complacency. For a long time now, the Israelis believed — and the Gazans encouraged this — that the leadership was interested in sorting out the economy a bit, letting more Gazans work in Israel. 15,000 had been allowed to do so recently. Qatar was providing them with some money. When Islamic Jihad earlier in the year set off some rockets, Hamas took their side. So I think that was quite an important part of it.

Secondly, you have the fact this Israeli government is preoccupied with the West Bank and Jerusalem and diverted an awful lot of security resource there. And that’s gonna be one of the main issues of any inquiries, as to whether they just thinned out the defences facing Gaza too much. And they had a plan and the plan was a massive barrage of rockets early in the morning, about six in the morning. And then they tunnelled, but they tunnelled right up to the fence, not underneath the fence. And as soon as they reached the fence they went through, knocked out the sensors with their guns and took over not particularly well-manned border crossings and border posts.

If they’d stopped there, this would have been already a blow to Israel and one much harder to deal with because they could have taken some hostages back into Gaza. They could have made this more of a military thing and then made demands for the Palestinians held in Israeli prisons to be released in exchange and so on. And that may have been what they thought they were gonna do, but because their fighters then went on the rampage and had time to do so and caused so much carnage, it just transformed the nature of the operation. So how much they thought they wanted to do that and thought they were going to do that, I have no idea. But the fact that they did it transformed the whole character of what they did. So it turned something which would have been an embarrassment for Israel into something that actually has put Hamas on the strategic back foot. Israel’s doing stuff that would have been denounced internationally in past sort of similar episodes, but people sort of understand, yeah, well, look what these guys did. This is what happens when they get through the fence. No wonder they want a fence. I mean, this is the problem Hamas has created for itself.

Gideon Rachman
Yeah. Do you think, I mean, you refer to the international support for Israel, and it is quite striking, I mean, to see the Berlaymont in Brussels lit up in the colours of Israel; the Brandenburg Gate, you know, Downing Street and so on. I wonder how long it’ll last though, because if Israel really creates a lot of civilian casualties in Gaza, is accused of acting disproportionately, isn’t it quite likely that all the old divisions within the west about this will open up quite quickly?

Lawrence Freedman
Yeah. I think that there’s three problems for Israel in this situation. The first is after a while people will be asking, what’s the point? You bombed hundreds of targets. What difference are the extra strikes making? And if they go in, it’ll look different. But again, you’re gonna get more and more international demands for mediation, negotiation, whatever.

Second, the hostages. And there’s a lot of different nationalities there, not just Israelis by any means. And, you know, one wonders how good the intelligence is as to where they’re being held, under what conditions, what risks they’re being put under with the bombardment. Some Hamas people have said that they may execute some if this continues. That’s an issue.

Third, they really want to avoid Hizbollah joining in. I mean, there’s been warning shots in both directions on Israel’s border with Lebanon. They can manage Hamas. They can manage Hizbollah by themselves. But together, there’s real difficulty.

So it’s not impossible for Israel just to say, we’ve caused tremendous damage to Hamas infrastructure. We trust they’ve now learned their lesson. We’re gonna rebuild the fence. And if you’re expecting much from us, tough. If you want this siege lifted, you better have the hostages back. If you want the electricity restored, water (inaudible) restored and so on. And that, of course, is humanitarian issue all by itself. So that is one option for Israel. Whether it would satisfy public opinion, I have no idea. But I think whatever happens now, the Israeli government has got too many questions to answer for it to survive.

Gideon Rachman
I’m interested in the issue of Israeli society, Israeli government, because obviously this attack was preceded by unprecedented divisions in Israeli society, accusations that Netanyahu was undermining Israeli democracy, his coalition with the far right and so on. We’ve seen an effort at unity now, although it’s not even clear they’ll get a National Unity government because of the presence of these far-right parties. But how do you expect this inquest to play out? And do you think in the end Israeli society will come together, or actually this will widen the splits?

Lawrence Freedman
There’s a lot of anger at the moment. I mean, there’s a lot of anger, obviously, with Hamas, but a lot of anger at the government, especially in southern Israel, where they feel they were left unprotected. And though I think the right will try and argue that the exaggerated responses, they would put it to the judicial reforms divided society, meant the reserves weren’t in the best condition and so on. The fact is that these divisions, plus allowing the settlers to push things in Jerusalem, to push things in the West Bank, aggravated the security situation there, requiring the police and army to protect them. These things are well known and are being actively discussed now. Now, after past debacles, being caught up in the October war with the way that the 1982 invasion of Lebanon was handled and the siege of Beirut, both of which led to commissions of inquiry, both of which led, in fact, to the ending of the careers of the prime ministers of the time.

Gideon Rachman
That was Golda Meir and Sharon.

Lawrence Freedman
Well, he was Menachem Begin. Essentially, I mean, Sharon was heavily criticised for what happened in ’82, but as we know, he bounced back 18 years later. So that’s likely what will happen again. And these were judicial-led, which would be quite interesting (laughter) in the current circumstances as well. So I think that would probably be how it’s handled. But, you know, within Mossad and Shin Bet and the intelligence agencies, I mean, there must already be how did we let this happen question going on because it’s obviously a mega failure. And it’s the sort of evidence coming through that though nobody knew exactly what was being planned there were warnings, certainly what the Egyptians say from them, possibly from the Americans. The tensions were rising and something could happen, not that anybody predicted exactly how.

Gideon Rachman
Almost as a kind of side angle but you sat on these inquiries. You did the official history of the Falklands war, you did the inquiry into the Iraq war. How do you go about doing these kinds of things? And don’t you need a sort of social consensus that Israel currently lacks to actually have an agreed version of what happened?

Lawrence Freedman
Well, it depends how you go about it. I mean, you take evidence, you ground it as much as possible in documents and in testimony. It doesn’t have to be with everybody under oath. But you do need trust in the people doing the inquiry, and that’s the main thing. And they need to be pretty hard-hitting with the result. But, you know, as with our Iraqi inquiry, the conclusions weren’t really that much of a surprise. And I think the diagnosis of what’s gone wrong is probably pretty widespread within Israeli society. The far right isn’t that popular, and so they bear some responsibility, shouldn’t bear a lot of responsibility for the intelligence failure just because they were a diversion. So we’ll see. I think this will destabilise the political system sufficiently for there to be yet another election. Once the dust settles a bit, I find it very hard to see how Netanyahu can keep this going and pursue the judicial reforms and so on as if nothing had happened.

Gideon Rachman
Yeah. Back to the here and now. I mean, obviously, beyond the question of what Israel can do in Hamas, what Hamas’s goals are, everybody is concerned about the prospects of a wider regional war. There have been some stories disputed that Iran was working quite closely with Hamas. What do you think of the risk of that, this broader war?

Lawrence Freedman
It’s a risk. Iran is the only country with connections with Hamas and Hizbollah. Iran facilitated what Hamas did because they helped them with the rockets and the weaponry and so on. I don’t think they ordered this. They may or may not have known what was going to happen. They prefer to keep Hizbollah in reserve as a deterrent against action being taken against them. So I think a wider war can be avoided. But the longer this goes on, there is a greater risk of it spilling over. On day one, there was an exchange in some disputed territory between Hizbollah and Israel, which I think both were using to show, you know, we’re here, don’t take anything for granted and what could happen at the border area. So I think they’re warily watching each other. I think it’d be pretty catastrophic for Israel to have to cope with Hizbollah as well as Hamas.

Gideon Rachman
Yes. I mean, presumably the Israelis I mean, for many years they’ve been hinting heavily, threatening that they would bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities. But actually, now, with this emergency on the last thing they need is to open a war with Iran.

Lawrence Freedman
Yeah, I don’t think they want a wider war. And, you know, Iran’s got its own issues, its own problems, its own divisions. I think the incentives are for everybody to avoid it. But as we know, you can’t always control events. I think there are other areas of escalation, right? They’re trying to close down the West Bank. There were problems that have developed in past episodes like this amongst the Israeli-Arab community as well. It’s not a stable situation, which is why if I was advising the Israeli government, I’d say declare you’ve done enough as soon as possible and then concentrate on getting the hostages out. And you’re helped to some extent in that it’s an international bunch of hostages. It’s one thing for the Hamas to unlock, you know, IDF types. It’s another thing for them to hold Israeli pensioners and kids, but also a variety of other nationalities.

Gideon Rachman
The other big thing that was happening diplomatically in the region was the sense that Israeli-Saudi normalisation was really quite close. Both Netanyahu and Mohammed bin Salman had said as much. Do you think that’s off for the time being?

Lawrence Freedman
I don’t think it’s off. I mean, the Americans have invested quite a lot in it. They’ve said that they don’t see any reason why it can’t continue. I don’t think there’s gonna be signing ceremonies at the moment. And it was quite interesting the extent to which a lot of the Gulf Arab states sort of distance themselves as far as possible from Hamas, which they wouldn’t have done so much in the past. You know, this is where I think the problems for Hamas came in — not with mounting the attack in the first place, but this year’s barbarism with which it was conducted. If you were gonna support Isis, you can’t support this.

Gideon Rachman
Just to finish. I mean, obviously, this is happening in a world that’s already incredibly troubled with the Ukraine war, with the US presidential election, kind of unprecedented nature of it. Let’s take those both: the Ukraine and the American situation. For Ukraine, do you think this is bad news in the sense that there’s only so many crises the west can handle at one time, or is it irrelevant to them?

Lawrence Freedman
So Zelenskyy played it quite well. I mean, given the fact that Israel hasn’t done very much for Ukraine, he was pretty quick in denouncing and in pretty vivid terms. Look, this is what the Russians do to us. We understand it when it’s done to you. You know, quite clever intervention. How this will work out, I’m not sure. But the Biden administration is now talking of bundling aid to Israel with aid to Ukraine, which, you know, has been put in doubt by the shenanigans within the House because of the divisions within the Republican party. And I think that tactic may work. I can never quite grasp fully the ins and outs of American legal processes as well as politics. But if that works, then actually, it’ll help Ukraine rather than harm it. I mean, you know, the war is going on. It hasn’t stopped the daily events in Ukraine. It takes international attention away. But I would have thought it’s probably not gonna make a vast amount of difference. The only real difference with all of these things is what effect it has on next year’s politics and the presidential elections. Too early to say.

Gideon Rachman
Yeah, although it does strike me that if it means Biden doesn’t get his claimed diplomatic victory, he can be accused of presiding over a descent into chaos in the Middle East, plus higher oil prices and therefore higher petrol prices. That’s probably not welcome.

Lawrence Freedman
Yeah, I think that’s true. I mean, there’s been attempt to blame him for what’s happened, which I think is pretty much of a stretch. And clearly, one of the advantages of the deal with the Saudis, although many people were nervous that Biden was setting himself up for another sort of fall in the way that a deal with the Saudis could soon get into trouble in Congress. But then you know, the prize there potentially was the Saudis agreeing to lower oil prices and so on. I think we just have to wait and see how a lot of this plays out. I don’t think it’s certain yet. But it’s a problem for Biden to the extent that although he can make a good case for what’s been achieved with Ukraine and is coming directly to the support of Israel, you know, it’s better if the world looks calm and stable rather than with these conflicts erupting everywhere.

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Gideon Rachman
That was Sir Lawrence Freedman ending this edition of the Rachman Review. Thanks very much for joining. I’ll be back again next week.

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