War in Gaza allows Netanyahu to sidestep a two-state solution

A common thread appears to unite most analysts on the reason the Lebanon-Israeli ceasefire agreement is not necessarily a prelude to a similar deal in Gaza.

The point of consensus is that Israel’s prime minister has set a goal of annihilating Hamas in Gaza, while no such aim was set in the conflict with Hezbollah combatants in Lebanon.

While, on the surface, this view holds some truth, the problem is much deeper and wider than the issue of Hamas and Gaza. After all, most Israeli and international military experts have argued that while you can militarily weaken a resistance movement such as Hamas, you cannot annihilate what in the end is an ideology rather than a set of military adversaries. In fact, the departing Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has said that Hamas cannot be totally defeated, and that this is a goal that is difficult, if not impossible, to militarily accomplish.

However, a longer-term problem that is less talked about might be the real reason behind the absence of any serious effort to end the Israeli war on Gaza. What might have begun as a campaign to restore a depleted deterrence has become a revenge war — one that has a political goal, but no clear sign of ending.

The Israeli prime minister has set a goal of annihilating Hamas

Daoud Kuttab

The political goal can be clearly seen in the refusal of the Israeli government to engage with the Palestinian leadership headed by President Mahmoud Abbas regarding the “day after” in Gaza. The Israeli government, which agreed to the conditions set by the 1993 Oslo Accord, has long forgotten about that agreement, with its military repeatedly entering areas legally under the security responsibility of the Ramallah-based government.

Ironically, while Israel has refused to engage with Abbas on the future facing Gaza, it continues to benefit from the Palestinian leader’s security crackdown on militants in the West Bank. Palestinian leaders say the clampdown is for the higher interest of the Palestinian people, ensuring that the West Bank is not engulfed in violence wreaked by Israeli military and settlers using Oct. 7 as an excuse.

Nevertheless, and regardless of the security cooperation that Israel enjoys from Abbas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu understands that any further legitimacy given to the Palestinian leader will force Israel to comply with global demands for negotiations to implement a two-state solution.

This rejection of the right of self-determination for the Palestinian people is not, as some would argue, the result of pressure from the Israeli leader’s far-right coalition partners, but is clearly Netanyahu’s personal ideology. So long as there is war and hostages in Gaza, his government can justify its endless military strikes without having to make a single political concession to Palestinians.

Israel benefits from the Palestinian leader’s security crackdown

Daoud Kuttab

However, once the war is over, there is no way that denying Palestinians a political future can be justified. In fact, any junior political or strategic analyst could argue that a ceasefire without a political roadmap is tantamount to a short-lived cessation of violence at best. US President Joe Biden’s comment to Abbas in Bethlehem in July 2022 that the time “is not ripe to restart Palestinian-Israeli talks” is often referred to as the one statement that further discouraged Palestinians regarding their political future, and may have been part of the frustration that brought about the cross-border Hamas attack one year later.

Public and private discussions over the past 14 months have centered on the need to end the war on Gaza with a hostage release and a durable ceasefire coupled with a parallel process of rebuilding the enclave and working to offer all Palestinians a political horizon, including an independent Palestinian state.

This goal, which the world agrees to as part of the two-state solution, is what encourages the Israeli prime minister to keep the war in Gaza going for as long as politically possible. It might also explain why Netanyahu favored Donald Trump over Kamala Harris, knowing that he can avoid a two-state solution with him, but would have a harder time had Harris become leader.

• Daoud Kuttab is an award-winning Palestinian journalist and former Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University. X: @daoudkuttab