The MirYam Institute

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It’s time to change the rules of the game with Hamas

By David Hacham

Operation Guardian of the Walls reached its ninth day on Tuesday, and pressure on Israel to enter into a truce in the near future is growing.

 Past operations have shown that it takes days for ceasefire agreements to be implemented.

The IDF is firm in its position that the operation will continue for a few more days at least, in order to complete its objectives, unlike Hamas which appears keen to reach a truce. Hamas has sustained major strikes on its infrastructure and combat capabilities, as has Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The broad range of precise IAF strikes and eliminations of senior terrorists is pushing Hamas to become highly interested in a truce at this stage. Hamas is suffering from low morale, symbolic blows, and the elimination of expert knowledge on military terrorist experience.

Meanwhile, commentary in Israel from senior representatives of the government and a number of former military officers have promoted the idea that the IDF’s objective is to create ‘a few years of quiet.’

This fits into the longer-term trend that has seen Israel end operations and enable Hamas to threaten it again in a short amount of time, which usually amounts to months or a few years.

Yet the time has come for Israel to consider new options that will prevent another military campaign, and which can break the cycle of escalations that follow one another every number of years.

The formula in place between Israel and Hamas in the past 15 years has followed the same pattern. During each IDF operation to subdue Gazan rocket fire on Israel – Operation Cast Lead in 2008, Pillar of Defense 2012, Protective Edge in 2014, and other smaller flare ups in recent years, military strikes rain down on Hamas and other terror organizations.

After the rounds are over, Hamas and other terror organizations rehabilitate themselves, and prepare for the next round.

Then, after a while, it all begins anew.

Israel also frequently avoided escalations in Gaza due its desire to retain optimal levels of readiness for its more threatening fronts with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and focus on its disruption of Iranian military entrenchment in Syria.

Israel must disrupt this repetitive Gaza cycle, which is going nowhere, by first ensuring that preventing a re-arming of Hamas and the rebuilding of its military capabilities be denied as part of any post-conflict arrangement. This can be done by recruiting the international community, with an emphasis on the U.S., in the event that Hamas continues to act as the regime in Gaza.

Neutralizing Hamas’s military capabilities should be followed up by an internationally-backed arrangement to promote a civilian effort to rehabilitate Gaza and economically develop it.  

Israel must not be intoxicated by its military achievements, but rather focus on the mission of preventing Hamas from rebuilding, and its repositioning as a terror organization that threatens Israeli security.

This requires new Israeli policy for the Palestinian arena.

Since Hamas’s takeover of Gaza in 2007, Israel has worked to keep the Gaza calm as much as possible, and learned to accept the Hamas regime. It avoided any act to return Abbas and the Palestinian Authority to Gaza.

It allowed the continuous flow of goods and trade to Gaza, and ongoing Qatari financial aid that now amounts to billions of dollars for the Hamas regime.

Some of those funds clearly leaked to the military wing of Hamas.

The arrangement described above never held up for very long, collapsing each time after a round of fighting, and then resuming. To aim to return to this failed model would be a major miss by Israel and highly dangerous.  

After the guns go quiet, and mediators obtain a new ceasefire, Israel should invest maximum effort to reach a situation in which the rules of the game will change.

In addition to setting up mechanisms to prevent Hamas from re-arming, it is time for Jerusalem to stop its acceptance of Hamas’s existence as a ruling regime in Gaza at the cost of a major weakening of the Palestinian Authority.

This pattern has led the PA to be pushed into the corner, and it has led to the blocking of every initiative designed to restart diplomatic talks between Israel and the PA.

It is clear that PA President Mahmoud Abbas represents only one part of the Palestinian system, and he cannot negotiate with Israel as a lame duck, partial representative.

His current weakness makes Abbas look like a puppet, and Fatah, which runs the PA, is seeing serious internal cracks in the stability of its rule in the West Bank.

Reversing this trend will certainly serve Israel’s security interest.

In addition, Israel must make it clear that it will not tolerate any attempt by Hamas to connect Gaza to future events in Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

Vitally, Israel cannot forget its obligation to secure the release of two of its civilians and the bodies of two of its soldiers being held by Hamas as bargaining chips. Basic Israeli and IDF moral codes mean that no one must be left behind.

When the dust settles, Israel will need to hold itself to account over the question of how such a terrorist monster was allowed to rear its head in Gaza. 

Part of the answer lies in the blind eye Israeli authorities turned, for decades, to Palestinian Islamist forces, including the 1979 Israeli recognition of the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Al Mujama al-Islami group. This group fought Fatah and other secular PLO organizations in the 1980s, setting the foundation for the establishment of Hamas in 1987 a few days after the eruption of the First Intifada.

Subsequent mistakes led to Hamas getting stronger in the Palestinian territories, particularly in Gaza, such the decision in 1992 to expel 415 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic operatives to Lebanon following the kidnap and murder of a Border Policeman – only for Israel to allow them to return to the territories a year later, equipped with training, radical ideology and new political clout.

In 2005, the disengagement from Gaza was conducted in a unilateral manner, without an agreement with the PA, which then ruled the Strip, exhibiting Israel’s short sightedness. This set the stage for Hamas’s takeover in 2007. The decision to allow Hamas to compete in the 2006 elections to the Palestinian parliament in east Jerusalem, under U.S. and international pressure, was another strategic error that benefited Hamas. Hamas went on to win a majority in those elections, paving the way for the 2007 coup.

Looking ahead, it is vital for Israel to now learn the appropriate lessons from the past, and act differently in the present and future.


David Hacham served for 30 years in IDF intelligence, is a former Commander of Coordination of Govt. Activities in the Territories (COGAT) and was advisor for Arab Affairs to seven Israeli Ministers of Defense. Read full bio here.