The talking point of the week for opponents of Israel is that it should accept a ceasefire with Hamas in order to pursue a political solution, rather than a military one. That is the theme even of the U.N. ceasefire resolution proposed by Russia (that noted opponent of armed conflict) and supported by China, which was voted down in the Security Council earlier this week due to united opposition by the U.S., Britain, France, and Japan.
Leave aside the morally appalling suggestion that Hamas should be able to instigate an enormous massacre of Israelis and then instantly beg for a ceasefire, like a guy who sucker punches someone in a bar and then instantly asks to stop the fight before his target gets off the floor. If a stable, long-term political solution to Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians — even just with Gaza, which is ruled separately from the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank — was genuinely possible, I would grit my teeth and support it notwithstanding the very real, natural, and just desire of Israel to punish the atrocities, if only to deter their repetition by anyone. So, I think, would most Israelis, whatever their reservations about doing so.
But the whole premise of a political solution is folly. Israel’s current quarrel is with Hamas, the governing authority of Gaza and the perpetrator of October 7. Some would argue that Hamas is only a visible manifestation of a deeper sense of Palestinian grievance due to the absence of a sovereign Palestinian state. Sometimes, this argument is made in defense and justification for the Palestinian sense of grievance. Sometimes, as with Andy McCarthy’s column this morning, it is made as a warning that hatred of Israel and its people run deeper than Hamas and provides the sea in which a group such as Hamas is able to swim. While I don’t quarrel with that general observation, the immediate reality is that, first, Hamas runs Gaza, and second, Hamas has no interest in negotiating a solution with Israel. The avowed goal of Hamas is a Palestinian state “from the river to the sea,” i.e., incorporating all of what is now Israel. It has never offered terms that would leave anything of Israel standing. It did not, as we should recall, make any political demand for negotiation before October 7. It has expressed no remorse for what it did, nor even the slightest indication that it would not do the same again in the future, or worse. Its spokespeople and allies continue to call for the destruction of Israel. Whether or not it is possible to reach a diplomatically negotiated political solution of the Palestinian issues (either generally or specific to Gaza), the first precondition for negotiation is that Hamas must be removed from power. That, under current conditions, can only be done by force — a use of force that is richly justified under the circumstances.
Would a new government in Gaza negotiate? Much depends upon who runs it, whether it is unified again with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority, and whether it is accountable to the Palestinian people (in theory a good thing, in practice likely to elevate a regime with the same goals as Hamas). But none of the people calling for a ceasefire and negotiations are addressing the real-world reality of the attitude of Hamas towards negotiations. And most of them know that, which is why it is a bad-faith demand made by Putin, Xi, and others no more serious about humanitarian concerns than they are.