Why Israel Can‘t Just “Stop” the War in Gaza

What Douthat, Galston, and Linker are missing

Gaza as seen in an image from a recent social media post of the Israel Defense Forces.

Over the past week three columnists have written a version of a similar argument, arguing that Israel’s war in Gaza is futile and that Israel should stop it.

Ross Douthat in the New York Times, July 26, “How Israel’s War Became Unjust”: “right now, if I were predicting an endgame for the struggle, it would involve Israel finally stepping back in exhaustion, cordoning off the Gaza Strip again, watching bloody power struggles play out in an isolated Gaza and accepting that some kind of terrorist threat will be harbored there for years to come. If that’s the outcome, then fighting on for another year to end up there is an unjust waste of life.”

William Galston in the Wall Street Journal, July 29, “Hamas Will Never Surrender,” “Rather than wait for an unconditional surrender from Hamas that will never come, Mr. Netanyahu should declare victory and accept a cease-fire that returns all the remaining hostages and withdraws the IDF from Gaza.”

Damon Linker in his “Notes from the Middleground” Substack, July 31, “Still Stuck in Gaza,” “Israel keeps saying it intends to eliminate Hamas, and yet continually fails to achieve this aim, and yet continues to kill residents of Gaza in its efforts to do so. …If Israel cannot eliminate Hamas from Gaza without committing acts that would rival the worst deeds in human history, it must stop pursuing that goal and figure out an alternative endgame….No conflict in the world inspires despair quite like the Israel-Palestinian conflict.”

This is mainly an Israeli decision—they are the ones fighting in Gaza, they are the ones whose hostages are being held by Hamas, and they are the ones whose security would be put at risk by leaving a Hamas state in power in Gaza. It’s a decision that affects America too, to the extent that we are helping arm and supply Israel, some Americans were killed and kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, 2023 and in earlier attacks, and America has interests in a peaceful, prosperous, and secure Middle East that is not threatened by extremist Islamist terrorists.

So in explaining the case for continuing the war, I do it with a lot of humility—it’s not me or my kids fighting in Gaza. If the majority of Israelis decide democratically, without a lot of external pressure, that a retreat is the best move there, I’d understand that decision.

With that important caveat, it seems to me that the “stop the war” now argument sketched by Douthat, Galston, and Linker is flawed in several significant ways. Here are some of them:

They depend on an unrealistic fantasy about Hamas and the hostages. Galston’s suggestion of “a cease-fire that returns all the remaining hostages” is not something that Hamas or whoever else is holding the hostages (Palestinian Islamic Jihad also had some) is offering. President Trump has said as much recently, explaining that Hamas knows that those last hostages are the only things protecting them. Even suppose that Israel could be convinced to grant the Hamas terrorists some sort of security guarantee that in exchange for surrendering all the hostages the Hamas terrorists are allowed to stay in Gaza with impunity and rearm indefinitely. What then would prevent the Hamas Gazans, or some other terrorist group in the West Bank or Europe or America, from repeating the kidnapping stunt with some new set of victims?

They ignore recent history. Israel has ended conflicts with Hamas that left Hamas in power in Gaza several times previously. That resulted in the attack of October 7, 2023. Israel does not want to repeat its previous mistakes and leave itself vulnerable to another October 7, 2023-style terrorist attack.

They overlook Hamas’s real goals and motivation. The idea that the Hamas terrorists would be satisfied with control of Gaza is delusional. They want to conquer Jerusalem and wipe all of Israel off the map. They had control of Gaza on October 6, 2023, and instead of being content with that, they went on offense. Why does anyone think Hamas would do anything differently if left in control of Gaza again?

Linker is particularly naive on this point, writing, “Israel will never be safe so long as people in the neighborhood wish its destruction and are willing to act on that impulse—and so long as Palestinian suffering persists, there will be plenty of people around who fit that description.” The idea that the wish for Israel’s destruction is dependent on or caused by “Palestinian suffering” ignores that there are Islamist terrorists such as the September 11 attack perpetrators who came from wealthy backgrounds. Hamas’s wealthy backers in Turkey don’t particularly care about “Palestinian suffering.” They want to restore the Ottoman Empire’s control of Jerusalem. These are religious and ideological motivations, not rational responses to “Palestinian suffering.”

They fail to appreciate Israel’s regional objectives. Leaving Hamas in military and governmental control of Gaza would set back Israel’s hope of expanding regional peace agreements. Israel’s neighbors respect success and power, not weakness. They themselves fear being undermined by Hamas-style extremist groups. Why would Saudi Arabia join the Abraham Accords or make peace with Israel and risk becoming Hamas’s next target?

They underestimate Israel’s ability to win. It’s not as if Israel had been fighting full-force in Gaza for the past two years and failed to achieve its objectives. There have been two ceasefires, a war in Lebanon, a war with Iran, and a partial arms embargo by the Biden administration during those two years. There’s been a change in Israeli defense ministers and in chiefs of staff. Israel may have some high-tech or low-tech capabilities that it has not yet brought to bear. If it succeeds in wresting the aid operations away from Hamas and the U.N. and making them successful, that may help in reducing Hamas’s ability to pay fighters. Yes, Israelis are tired, but Hamas is also tired. If the U.S. helps by extraditing and arresting Hamas’s overseas leaders, a Hamas surrender and an Israeli total victory could come even quicker.

They understate the danger to Israel and to the world of a Hamasistan with sovereignty. France, Britain, and Canada say they will recognize a Palestinian state. If Hamas-controlled Gaza is part of that state, with an army, an air force, and control over its own borders, it’d pose a real threat to Israeli security. Missiles and drones from Gaza could again threaten Israeli cities and military installations. Would anyone move back to the towns and kibbutzim that were victimized on October 7, 2023 if there is a Hamas state in Gaza? Would the embassies of a Palestinian state worldwide become bases for exporting Hamas terrorism?

They also don’t explain what would happen next in Hamas-dominated Gaza. The conceit that it’d be safer for Israelis and more humane for Palestinians if the war stops avoids really confronting what would happen next. Would international aid money flow to Hamas to “rebuild” Gaza, including the underground terror tunnels and missile factories, with funds personally enriching Hamas leaders? Palestinians would again be subjugated to Hamas’s corrupt extremism. Israeli soldiers would still be at risk from Hamas, only now deployed at the border against a newly rearmed Hamas.

I started out by saying I have some humility about the situation because it’s not me or my kids fighting in Gaza. But it’s also not Douthat or Galston or Linker who’d be living in Israel within attack range of Hamas-controlled Gaza, or patrolling its borders. So there’s a need for humility all around. It’s certainly not an optimal situation. But Israel has already tried pretending it can fence off Gaza under Hamas control and ignore it. That approach contributed to October 7, 2023. Israelis are determined not to allow it to happen again.

American journalists may delude themselves that Israel can surrender Gaza the way the U.S. abandoned Afghanistan under President Biden. But Gaza is a lot closer to Israel than Afghanistan is to the U.S. And, even so, the American voters punished Biden and the Democrats for the chaotic exit from Kabul. The Israeli voters would doubtless do the same to any Israeli government that lost a war in Gaza by leaving the hostages there and Hamas in power. No matter what the spin, “stop” for Israel now would be “lose.” That is why Israelis, at least for now, are willing to fight on, nevermind the newspapermen sniping at them from the rear.

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