Mudguard

Israel has been very clear about their goals in Rafah, their goals of "destroying Hamas", and that they plan to occupy Gaza indefinitely. With respect to Rafah, they claim that there are some remaining battalions that they want to dismantle. I should add though that I think it will be very difficult to declare victory, at least complete victory, without recovering all the hostages. Almost every time Netanyahu gives a speech it's about how they are going to achieve a great victory. Personally, I think it's laughable to call what they've done a victory, but it's obviously a part of his propaganda strategy. Dismantling the Rafah battalions, at least to an extent that they will declare the battalions dismantled, won't take more than a couple months, if they can operate freely in Rafah (bulk of civilians evacuated). It shouldn't be any different than what they've done in Gaza City and Khan Younis. It's clear that Netanyahu desperately wants to declare some sort of victory as soon as possible. He just can't stop talking about it, and he needs a political win. But I also agree that Netanyahu would like for the conflict, whether its with Hamas, Hezbollah, or some other party, to extend past 2026. Maybe he'll claim victory over the Hamas army/organized fighting force/whatever it's called, like how Bush prematurely declared victory on an aircraft carrier, and shift the narrative to rescuing the remaining hostages and hunting down Sinwar and other leaders still in Gaza during the indefinite occupation phase of his strategy. The resistance in Gaza post "victory" is likely to be very active, and maybe that'll be enough conflict for Netanyahu.

I agree that "defeated" is a fuzzy term. But it's clear that Israel is going to only "victory" after it goes into Rafah and conducts an operation there. I think that it would be difficult to declare victory if they don't kill or capture Sinwar.

Sinwar and other military leaders are still in Gaza. Also, if Hamas is functionally defeated in Gaza and rendered an underground resistance movement, it's not going to matter that much to Israel that a handful of political leaders have survived and are located outside of Gaza. If Israel really wants, they can then assassinate those leaders too. It's clear that they have no qualms about doing so.

This was never going to be a quick war, with the extensive tunnel systems, all the hostages, and the ability of Hamas terrorists to just put on civilian clothes and blend right back in with the civilian population. I agree that there will be a resistance in Gaza, whether it's residual Hamas members or a new organization, but the resistance isn't going to be the party in power in Gaza, at least not while Israel occupies Gaza. Yeah, the terrible Oct. 7th attack by Hamas, and the brutal response by Israel, just perpetuates the cycle of violence for at least several more generations. It's hard for me to see a good outcome from this. It seems like all the likely outcomes range from bad to worse.

OK. Do you think that Israel can defeat Hamas so that Hamas is no longer a power in Gaza? Just want to make sure this isn't a matter of semantics. To me, destroy and defeat are the same in this context.

I don't think Israel can actually eliminate every single member of Hamas. But I think they can functionally eliminate Hamas as a power in Gaza, and that they can eventually eliminate Sinwar and the other leadership that remains in Gaza. It's clear that Israel's goal is to destroy Hamas as a group functionally, and not literally every single member. Do you think Israel can functionally destroy Hamas? As for the negotiations, I think a short term deal for some, but not all, of the hostages is possible. Also, Israel has incentives to go through the motions with the negotiations, even if they know that it's ultimately pointless, in order to appease internal groups that are demanding that they do everything possible to get back the hostages. It's going to take a while to recover the hostages by force, so they are going to have to keep participating in these negotiations, while continually blaming Hamas for being unreasonable for rejecting their proposals, in order to keep these groups at bay.

To be clear, I don't support what Israel is doing in Gaza, but this is currently where I see things heading. Israel and Netanyahu in particular have every incentive to destroy Hamas, regardless of the cost to the Palestinian people. The only thing that would change this is if Israel agrees to a permanent ceasefire, which I don't see happening. Netanyahu's coalition would collapse if he tried going down that route, and there has been no indication that they are even willing to consider a permanent ceasefire.

What false premise? That Israel is going to destroy Hamas, which is their stated goal?

That's why Israel needs to occupy Gaza indefinitely, to continually suppress these new Hamas replacement groups. Israel is well aware of this. They have meaningless leverage, which is functionally no leverage. Hamas is facing an existential threat, and any meaningful leverage needs address that. Something that ensures the survival of the group, otherwise what is the point? Which is why I can't see Hamas accepting the current proposal. Why would they agree to a proposal that leads to their destruction?

The proposal will lead to the destruction of Hamas as an organization. Under the current proposal on the table now, the Hamas leadership currently outside of Gaza will live on, but be in charge of nothing. Israel's stated goal is to destroy Hamas, which they will be able to complete much more easily once they have all the hostages back. It will be trivial to flood all the tunnels, which they have already telegraphed that they want to do. After that, it will just be a matter of time for them to functionally eliminate Hamas from Gaza. They will have to essentially occupy Gaza indefinitely afterwards, which is something else they've stated that they will do. Sure, of course the US needs to work through Egypt and Qatar, because we don't have a direct line of communication with Hamas. But I don't think either Egypt or Qatar has meaningful leverage that they can apply to Hamas to force them to accept the current agreement that is being proposed.

Yeah, I edited my post to address that. If Israel's proposal included a term that allowed leadership to exit Gaza safely in return for the hostages, that would be something, although everything I've read suggests Sinwar has no interest in leaving and would prefer to be become a martyr. But if that's not in the proposal, it's meaningless if they move their HQ to Egypt if Israel just destroys Hamas after they get all their hostages back.

What leverage does Egypt and Qatar have that they are applying on Hamas? ETA: I don't see a new HQ as meaningful leverage when the proposed agreement leads to their destruction.

Yeah, I would have preferred that we never stopped funding to begin with, but I can understand the reasoning behind a temporary pause. There should have been a demand for Israel to provide evidence for their broader allegations in an expedited manner, with failure to do so triggering an automatic restoration of funding. If they gave Israel a couple weeks or maybe a month to do that, I don't think the pause would have hurt operations, since UNRWA had money in the bank and couple operate for a while on their reserves. But it's been many months now.

Yeah, I disagree with the US refusal to restore funding to the UNRWA at this point. I can understand a temporary pause given the initial allegation and report. I think there was credible evidence provided on a small number of UNRWA workers, maybe roughly 10 workers. But Israel has failed to provide any evidence to support their claim that more than a thousand UNRWA employees were Hamas. It's been months now, so it's well past time to dismiss that allegation and restore funding. Many countries have restored funding. I'm not sure why the US is still refusing. I hope it's not to use as leverage in negotiations, because that would mean that we are deliberately contributing to the starvation of Palestinian civilians in an effort to apply leverage to Hamas, something I would find morally abhorrent.

I don't think the US has much leverage on Hamas. What leverage does the US have? We could restore funding to the UNRWA I suppose, but I don't really see much else that we can use as leverage. And withholding funding to the UNRWA to use as leverage would be morally questionable, so I hope we aren't doing that. From Hamas' point of view, there is little reason to agree to a temporary ceasefire in return for all the hostages. Once they return all the hostages, Israel will have free reign to flood all the tunnels, and really go after Hamas without any restraints. Maybe there could be an agreement for some of the hostages, but not all unless there is a permanent ceasefire. Otherwise, they would be agreeing to their own destruction, which makes zero sense. Since this last proposal doesn't include a permanent ceasefire, I don't think Hamas will agree to the terms. They'll just reiterate the same demands for a permanent ceasefire that they have repeated for months now.