With talk of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire-hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas in the news, JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin is asking whether the proposed agreement will allow the terrorists to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
Israel’s two main goals of the post-Oct. 7 war—freedom for the hostages and the eradication of the terror group in the Gaza Strip—are still mutually exclusive. He says it remains to be seen whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can insist on the sort of tough terms that will ensure that the Jewish state’s security is not compromised by an agreement that lets terrorists survive the war they started with the murder of 1,200 people, hostage-taking and unspeakable atrocities.
He is joined by Israeli military analyst Elliot Chodoff, who says that after 22 months of fighting, the Israel Defense Forces are exhausted and ready for a break in the fighting against Hamas to rest and refit its units.
Chodoff says that although the terrorist group is not wiped out, the Israeli military has “smashed” its military formations and capability. What is left are guerrilla forces that harass Israeli soldiers and are what he calls the “thug” level, in which operatives of the Islamist group intimidate the Gaza population. Those thugs will likely prevent the creation of a planned “humanitarian city” in the southern sector of the Strip, as well as any hope of realizing President Donald Trump’s idea of turning the area into a resort.
He argues that the key question to be asked about a proposed ceasefire is not so much whether Hamas still exists after it is signed, but whether the terms of the deal are rigorously enforced by the IDF. If it is done in the same manner as the current situation in Lebanon, where Hezbollah violations are severely punished rather than being ignored, then the result won’t be bad for the Jewish state as long as it also means the release of all the hostages.
As for claims that Netanyahu needlessly prolonged the war, Chodoff notes that Hamas is much weaker than it was in early 2024, when the Biden administration was pushing for a ceasefire. That would have also precluded airstrikes on Hezbollah in Lebanon and on Iranian nuclear targets that have tilted the region’s strategic balance in Jerusalem’s favor.
The analyst asserts that while the IDF made terrible mistakes that enabled the Oct. 7 attacks to happen, since then their performance has been solid. As for the intelligence failures that enabled the disaster, Chodoff says the difference between the disastrous underestimation of Hamas’s intentions and the brilliant work done in attacking Hezbollah and Iran is one between analysis and operational success.
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