On the same mistakes - Tareq Baconi in NYRB:
‘In recent weeks pressure has mounted on Netanyahu’s government to accept a deal: from a Democratic US administration gearing up for elections, from Israel’s own military establishment and center-right politicians, from the hostages’ families, and from international bodies like the United Nations General Assembly. Before Haniyeh’s assassination, even members of Israel’s top military brass—including the defense minister, the army’s chief of staff, and the directors of the Mossad and Shin Bet—had called on Netanyahu to reach a deal with Hamas because, among other factors, they consider it the only way to secure the remaining captives’ release.’
(…)
‘In 2003, for instance, at the height of the second intifada, Israel assassinated Ismail Abu Shanab, a senior Hamas political figure who had been instrumental in negotiating the group’s commitment to a cease-fire. In the following days there were two more assassination attempts against Hamas leaders. After that the talks predictably unraveled and the violence of the second intifada ground on for two more years, during which Israel assassinated two of Hamas’s founders: its spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and his successor, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi.
And yet the movement was not extinguished. The second intifada ended when Israel unilaterally disengaged from the Gaza Strip in 2005 and the US pushed for democratic elections within the occupied territories, in line with George W. Bush’s agenda of “democratization.” Up until then Hamas had boycotted elections, claiming that the Palestinian Authority, a product of the Oslo Accords, was an illegitimate body intended to facilitate Israel’s domination of Palestinian territory. But when this round of elections took place, in 2006, Hamas participated. Its rationale was that the second intifada had put a decisive end to the Oslo era, with its endless negotiations toward a two-state solution. The illusion that Israel was interested in ceding control over the occupied territories or that the Palestinian Authority could be the embryo of a future state had been shattered. Now, from Hamas’s perspective, the PA could be recast as something quite different: a vehicle for reinvigorating the Palestinian liberation struggle.’
(…)
‘All evidence suggests that these recent assassinations are at best a pyrrhic victory. Israel may keep claiming that, in Haniyeh’s absence, it will corner Hamas into a cease-fire, that a peace can be forced onto Gaza, and that its actions are deterring Iran and Hezbollah. But this rings hollow. Israel has never looked weaker, more divided, or more erratic, and alongside its American ally it has made a mockery of international governance and the rules of war. Netanyahu and Biden both seem poised to make the same mistake as their predecessors: to believe that Israel can kill its way to peace.’
Read the article here.
Read Ronen Bergman’s excellent book Rise and Kill First.
Yes, a pyrrhic victory.
And after the atrocities of World War II some lasting peace, as least in Western Europa, at least for the time being, was achieved.
Maybe the atrocities are not yet big enough.
Kill your way to peace is an outdated concept. Machiavelli believed that it was possible, but those were the days.
Not any longer.
The question whether the two-state-solution is still feasible is not part of this article. But political Messianism and the endless war go well together.