Opinion on the plan for Hamas in Gaza is readily available. Policy on this question needs to be informed by experts in the history and geopolitics of the region.
David Aliberti, military fellow with the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington DC, and Daniel Byman, senior fellow with the Transnational Threats Project at CSIS and a professor at Georgetown University, ask “What does destroying Hamas mean?”
As of December 5, Israeli officials estimated that more than 5,000 Hamas militants of a total military wing of around 30,000 have been killed.
While significant in terms of numbers lost, Hamas is far from defeated, let alone destroyed. French president Emmanuel Macron has asked if anyone believes it is possible to completely destroy Hamas, and that should Israel maintain this goal, the war will take 10 years. Moreover, according to Palestinian health officials, in the same period Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) has killed three times as many Palestinians, including as many children, as it has killed Hamas militants. This ratio is not promising for the success of the IDF’s primary objective.
What is nearly certain is the number of Palestinian casualties will continue to exceed the attrition of Hamas fighters by a large margin. This has already resulted in world opinion shifting against Israel, and in favor of Palestinians, despite Israel having been the victim of an unprecedented terrorist attack. It has also created tension with the Biden administration, Israel’s strongest—and most important—supporter. (Aliberti & Byman, 2023)
After the murder of 1,200 people, the Israeli government is up in arms, with the Israeli people demanding the Hamas threat be ended once and for all. But what might this mean in practice?
Israel has three broad options when it comes to destroying Hamas. The first is to try to kill or capture Hamas’s leadership and eliminate the broader support networks on which it draws. The second is to shatter Hamas’s hold on power by strengthening its rivals, allowing them to displace the group. The last approach is to try to counter Hamas’s ideology that promotes violent “resistance” to Israel. All are difficult to achieve, and each one has its own individual challenges. (Aliberti & Byman, 2023)
Eliminate Hamas Leadership
Make Alternative Groups Strong
Counter Hamas Ideology
The Middle East Policy Council mission is to provide policymakers and the public with credible, comprehensive information and analysis on political, economic, and cultural issues pertaining to U.S.-Middle East. Their goal is to foster more effective policy solutions to current and future challenges. Breaking Analysis on January 12th, 2024, asks “Is Israel Able to Eliminate Hamas?”
Experts assert that the full elimination of Hamas is a lofty goal; Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, recently argued that Hamas is “a brand, and as long as there are a group of living Palestinians who want to call themselves Hamas, Hamas still exists.” (Is Israel Able to Eliminate Hamas?, 2024)
Ibish in an interview with Matt Galloway on CBC The Current defined Hamas in this way.
this is a religiously millenarian group, that it is apocalyptic and that it believes that it's doing the will of God. And so all of this is divinely mandated and there's a kind of religious imperative here. So I think there is also an irrational belief on the part of Hamas that in the end, if they are sufficiently fervent that there will be some kind of divine aid as well. (Monday October 16, 2023 Full Transcript, 2023)
Sherifa Zuhur, the director of the Institute of Middle Eastern, Islamic and Strategic Studies, argues, Israel has squandered opportunity in order to “teach Hamas a lesson.”
She recounts suggestions made to the US and Israel prior to the 2008 war on their willingness to negotiate with Hamas, strengthening of moderates, administration of Jerusalem, and shifting strategy on the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, with the prescient argument that “locking up the Palestinians in their enclaves will only lead to future outbursts of popular resistance.”
Israel’s efforts to combat the group, including in 2008-9 and beyond, have utilized “overwhelming military force...to destroy infrastructure and inflict collective punishment” on the Palestinian population. This same accusation has been levied against Israel in the ongoing war.
Read “Gaza, Israel, Hamas and the Lost Calm of Operation Cast Lead” by Sherifa Zuhur in the special Gaza War issue of Middle East Policy. (Is Israel Able to Eliminate Hamas?, 2024)
The history of the relationship and conflict between Israel and Hamas in the 21st century has lacked strengthening of moderates, discussion of administration of Jerusalem, and shifting of strategy on the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. The United States support of Israel may help avoid a scenario with Hamas like the US experienced in the 10 years to finally track down and eliminate bin Laden. Then his second in command and successor Ayman al-Zawahiri, led al Qaeda for 11 more years, evading allied counterterrorism operations until July 31, 2022.
References
Aliberti, D., & Byman, D. (2023, December 15). What Does Destroying Hamas Mean? CSIS. Retrieved March 26, 2024, from https://www.csis.org/analysis/what-does-destroying-hamas-mean
Is Israel Able to Eliminate Hamas? (2024, January 12). Middle East Policy Council. Retrieved March 26, 2024, from https://mepc.org/commentary/israel-able-eliminate-hamas
Monday October 16, 2023 Full Transcript. (2023, October 16). CBC. Retrieved March 26, 2024, from https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/monday-october-16-2023-full-transcript-1.6998168
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