Virtual Media Briefing: Update on Hamas and the Gaza Conflict
CFR experts discussed developments in the Middle East and the implications of the death of the leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar.
LABOTT: Thanks very much. And thank you to all of you for joining today for the CFR media briefing. I feel like just a few weeks ago we were here talking about the—in advance of the October 7 one year anniversary, and there were so many developments to talk about. And now we have so many more. So and we have another really stellar panel to join us today. I’m going to have, you know, a conversation with the panelists for about a half hour. Then we’re going to open it up to questions from the audience. We particularly welcome members of—questions from members of the media. And just a reminder that this is on the record.
So let me introduce the panel right now.
Steven A. Cook is the Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies here at CFR, and also the author of a new book, which is excellent, if I could give a little plug for you, Steven.
COOK: Thank you.
LABOTT: The End of Ambition: America’s Past, Present, and Future in the Middle East. Hot off the presses.
Bruce Hoffman, the Shelby Cullom and Kathryn W. Davis senior fellow for counterterrorism and homeland security here at the Council on Foreign Relations.
And back in business here at CFR is Ed Husain, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
So let’s just jump right into it. Bruce, you know, we’ve said before, you know, Israel was trying to change the status quo here with not just the killing of Sinwar but, you know, with this—with this whole post-October 7th military campaign in Gaza. You know, there’s a lot of questions about now whether Israel would be seeking a truce with the killing of Sinwar’s death, but you say that’s not the right question. How does this change Israel’s strategy for a complete military victory over Hamas, if that’s even possible? And what might a post-Hamas Gaza look like? Does Hamas keep fighting under new leadership? Does this prolong the war? Set the scene for us where we’re going right now.
HOFFMAN: Right. Well, there’s been a lot of talk about ceasefires or truces, but ceasefires are generally entered into in warfare when there’s some sort of a stalemate and truces arise when both sides are exhausted. I mean, what’s clear is that in the past month the center of gravity in this war has shifted, whether it’s decisively or not, but it seems more decisively than ever in Israel’s favor.
A lot of the arguments that the Biden administration made about fears of expanding the war to the southern Gaza, the efforts to blunt an IDF offensive into Rafah, you know, were ignored for the reason that, exactly as you described, Elise, Israel—which I’m not sure was understood in Washington—that Israel was looking for a new status quo, not a return to the status quo ante, that would have given rise to, in the future, the sixth Gaza war. I mean, don’t forget, for the past decade and a half there’s been five wars fought between Israel and Hamas. So I think in this stage, and judging from what Prime Minister Netanyahu’s strategy has been, it’s to prevent that sixth war and to change the security dynamic.
This is an evanescent opportunity perhaps to do so. It is true that leadership decapitation in the past has not been a magic solution that has ended a terrorist campaign. But let’s face it, this is a very different terrorist campaign. It’s one—a counterterrorist campaign, I should say. Sorry. It’s one that has accounted, tragically, for so much civilian death, suffering, deprivation, certainly. But it’s also at least halved, if not more than halved, Hamas’ fighting capability.
The fact that Sinwar was killed above ground and not in the tunnels means that the IDF’s strategy of at least paring back that huge universe of tunnels has succeeded. By taking out the tunnels, the IDF is also systematically dismantling Hamas’ military capabilities, to make good on Prime Minister Netanyahu’s pledge that Hamas will never be able to stage another October 7 attack. And let’s roll this back. A year ago when Sinwar, Haniyeh, and others were promising, you know, waves of future Al-Aqsa Floods.
So for me, it’s, you know, does Israel now accept the calls for a ceasefire, when it has a very rare opportunity to defeat Hamas? Which is different from destroying it. As a political movement and an ideological, it will never be completely eliminated. But to defeat it and to ensure that it cannot, for the foreseeable future—I mean, everything in the Middle East is evanescent—for the foreseeable future pose a threat to Israel?
LABOTT: Well, I want to talk about, you know, kind of Israel’s strategy in a minute. But, Bruce, just quickly, and then I want to go to Ed on this, you know, given the importance of Sinwar in both the military and political capacities, you know, how challenging is it for Hamas to replace him? And does the organization kind of continue to remain unified under new leadership to continue the struggle?
HOFFMAN: Well, even if they do replace him—and his brother Mohammed is one of the leading contenders—given Israel’s success, and obviously the success has come from human intelligence as well as sophisticated technical technological means, I mean, how long—what’s his longevity like? It doesn’t—his actuarial table doesn’t look very good, compared to the other leaders of Hamas. And let me just add—finish on one point, so we can move on. You know, it’s often said there’s not a military solution to terrorism. That’s not true. There’s very rarely a military solution. That is entirely accurate. But if you were willing to kill tens of thousands of civilians, as Israel has been willing to, if you’re willing to decapitate almost the entirety of a terrorist organization, you could pretty much destroy it.
And there is precedence for that. In 2008, the Sri Lankan Armed Forces—completely oblivious to international outcries over humanitarian concerns over at least the 40,000 Tamils civilians that were believed to be killed—destroyed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam and killed its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, and the entire leadership. And that was a similarly international and entrenched terrorist group that has not arisen. I don’t foresee exactly the same scenario in Israel and Palestine or in Gaza, but Israel now is faced with this choice whether to push on with what Netanyahu, I’m sure, will see as an historic opportunity to deal a crushing blow to—or, at least to hope to deal a crushing blow to a terrorist group, or does he stop? From my perspective, I don’t see why he would stop. But I guess we’ll see about that.
LABOTT: OK, Ed, let’s pick up on that—on the kind of future of Hamas. Could someone like—you know, we talk about the brother. Could someone like Khaled Mashal steer Hamas away from the Iranian axis towards a more diplomatically inclined future? There’s been some talk about that. Or with Hamas, you know, kind of potentially weakened in Gaza, is there, like, a rebranding of Islamist movements in the—in the Palestinian territories as kind of new leadership emerges? Could the group splinter into more radical factions or even kind of inspire similar movements around the region?
HUSAIN: Thank you, Elise, for you—for your question. And thank you, everyone, for joining us this morning.
In the last two hours, Khalil al-Hayya has made a broadcast from Gaza for about six minutes, which has been repeatedly played on Al Jazeera out of Qatar, to explain Hamas’ next move. So we’ve already seen Hamas move toward someone inside Gaza as the voice, as the leader, as the spokesperson, rather than someone such as Khaled Meshal out of Doha in Qatar. Khaled Meshal may be respected in Iran and may be respected in Qatar, but he doesn’t enjoy popular command inside Gaza. And the Israelis want to be able to deal with someone inside Gaza, as will Israel, America, and our Arab allies on the day after the war.
It's worth bearing in mind that while we in the West want to put a lot of pressure on Israel to come to some kind of truce or ceasefire, Khalil al-Hayya this morning went out of his way—because, you know, it’s Friday prayers in the Middle East, millions are out praying; and it will be Shabbat, as most of our participants know, later today and over tomorrow. So his message is the following, that Hamas will not end the war. Hamas wants to see all Israeli soldiers withdraw from Gaza. Hamas will not release the hostages. And Hamas, as per its usual talking points, wants to have Jerusalem as its capital in a future Palestinian state.
Now, we may say, well, those are just talking points and we can ignore them. I’d caution against that kind of ignoring because the Western or the American insensitivity towards this had led to October 7. We don’t take them seriously when they say that they want to kill more Jewish people, they want to kill more Israelis, and they want to kill Arabs and Muslims who get in the way. So Hamas is very, very direct in what it wants. So I would—I would encourage us to think about how do we place even more pressure on Hamas and its paymaster, Iran, rather than a country—i.e., Israel in this case—facing an existential threat. And it’s not longer just me saying this anymore; we’ve had Hamas, after a whole year of being attacked, still wanting to continue. And we saw them lobbing rockets as late as October 7 of this year, never mind last year.
A couple of other points, if I may, Elise, before, you know, my friend and colleague Steven shares his latest thoughts.
The Hamas leadership now, trained under Yahya Sinwar, knows how much treasure, blood, and diplomatic capital Israel will put towards releasing the hostages. And we must not forget Yahya Sinwar was a product of this kind of exchange back in 2011 in order to get the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit released. I think Israel—
LABOTT: Right.
HUSAIN: So just over a thousand Palestinian terrorists, among whom Yahya Sinwar was the most senior. So they’ve seen how much Israel is prepared to sacrifice, so their demand, Khalil al-Hayya this morning said to release all Hamas or Palestinian prisoners. So that’s part of—part of what they want. And I think it’s important that we in Washington, D.C. also push back against Hamas demands.
Just two points and I’ll finish.
On October 7 of last year, Israel had very little respect in the eyes of its Arab allies and Arab enemies, because how could an advanced nation in the heart of the Middle East be forced to lose so much dignity, over 1,200 lives, terrorists killing, you know, 1,200 Israelis; but more to the point, taking so many hostages while Israel was asleep at the wheel. How was that possible that they could just come over on paragliders and tractors? So Israel had to over the last year reestablish its deterrence and its credibility in the eyes of its Arab allies, and now it's done that. To be able to go and eliminate a Hamas leader in the presidential compound in Iran was, I think, a hugely impressive move. The walkie talkie attacks, the pager attacks, and now removing Yahya Sinwar, that has allowed Israel to reestablish its credibility in the eyes of its Arab Muslim allies and enemies.
But remains is this—and this is my last point—is that all of this has been possible because of Iranian political-military cover for Hamas and Hezbollah and others to operate. And it would be a mistake, I think both on Israel’s part and our part in Washington, D.C., and broader Western alliance of Israel, is to hold Israel back at this stage. Israel has no option other than to secure its existence by eliminating threats from inside Iran. What those threats look like I don’t know, but I am confident that the Israeli prime minister will not hold back from attacking Iranian assets that pose a threat to Israel in the next fifteen, twenty, thirty years.
LABOTT: OK.
Steven, let’s pick up on that. You know, I think you are, along with Ed and Bruce, in agreement that Israel is not going to negotiate any form of a deal. Is the goal now complete eradication of Hamas influence in Gaza, though? And with this focus on military pressure, you know, how does Sinwar’s death impact the hostages? Could this—I would assume—certainly diminish their willingness to release hostages in favor of retaliatory actions, maybe, unfortunately, killing the remaining ones that are alive?
COOK: Yeah. Thanks, Elise. It’s a—it’s a pleasure to be with you all this morning.
And I’m glad you asked the question about the Israeli strategy here and the destruction of Hamas, and it provides me an opportunity to pick up on something both Bruce and Ed said, which is that in Washington we spend a lot of time interpreting what leaders say rather than taking at face value what they said. And I would say that from October 7 through today, Israeli leaders have been fairly consistent in what their goals have been, and we’ve sort of tried to complexify those things by saying this isn’t possible and so on, and the Biden administration trying to steer them in other directions, and they mean other things. And it’s the same thing with Hamas, that we are complexifying what—people are being absolutely upfront in what their intentions and their goals are.
Hamas’ intention by launching Operation Al-Aqsa Flood was the liberation of all of Palestine, and it was a step in that. And they achieved a number of goals.
The Israelis, on October 8, said we are going to change the rules of the game. We are not going to live like this any longer, and we will destroy Hamas as a threat to Israel.
And that’s why I’m in full agreement particularly with Bruce here about the fact that the Israelis aren’t going to stop. Their goal has been the destruction of Hamas. As Bruce pointed out, it’s not impossible to destroy a terrorist organization. Whether they can do it remains still an open question.
There’s also Israeli politics. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s right wing is—has complained—even though they’re part of the government, has complained over this year that the government wasn’t doing enough to actually defeat Hamas. And now, after killing Sinwar, they certainly will press Netanyahu to resist whatever pressure he gets from Washington to seek a truce or a ceasefire, to press the advantage, and to continue the fight. And as Ed pointed out, Khalil al-Hayya has said we welcome the continuation of the fight.
I think here’s the—here’s the problem that the Israelis are going to confront, is that an essentially leaderless Hamas—we have no idea who’s going to be the next leader of Hamas. It could be Khalil al-Hayya. It could be Sinwar’s brother. It could be Khaled Meshal. Who knows whether any of them have the political support internally in the organization in the same way that Sinwar did to actually lead Hamas from within Gaza or from without. It’s that the Israelis are going to confront an essentially leaderless organization and atomized cadres of Hamas fighters. That will—
LABOTT: Let me just—let me just pick up on that—on that point. Does another group—like, does PIJ or, you know, other groups gain more influence? Could we see the rise of new groups with similar ideologies now that Hamas is, like, you know, leaderless?
COOK: I defer to Bruce on the question of, you know, the viability of PIJ or some other groups emerging. All I’m saying is, is that the Israelis will continue to have to be in the Gaza Strip continuing to fight atomized cadres of Hamas fighters.
Their overall goal—once again, listening exactly to what they say—Ron Dermer said last December Israel’s goal is overall security control over Gaza. We need to be there because we hadn’t been there, at the time, in seventeen years. So the Israelis are going to stay. And there will be a continuing fight. The Israelis clearly have achieved part of their goal, which is rendering Hamas unable, at least in the short and medium term, to undertake another Al-Aqsa Flood-like operation. And they’re determined to make sure that that never happens again. So the outcome is maybe some sea change in Hamas, maybe some new group, maybe some—but more likely, we’re going to see a continuation of what we’ve seen so far, because the fight is still within the Israelis. And at least rhetorically, at the moment, Hamas isn’t giving it up.
LABOTT: OK, hold on for one second because I want to talk about the wider strategy. But, Bruce, what do you think of this idea of the future of Palestinian resistance? Would Hamas lose its grip on Gaza? Would other groups, such as Islamic Jihad, gain more influence? Could we see, you know, a kind of struggle there, particularly in Gaza but in the wider Palestinian territories, of groups seeking influence and kind of favor with Iran?
HOFFMAN: Well, none of them are Hamas. None of them had the financial power, had the political throw weight, or had the fighters they could mobilize. So Palestine Islamic Jihad isn’t the only faction there. And that, of course, is one of the enormously complicating factors for the hostages, is Hamas was not holding all of them. Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine is active there. Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine General Command. These are dinosaurs from the Cold War that have reemerged and saw opportunity when the fence was breached to sort of elbow themselves, in a very minor fashion, onto the limelight.
But I think this goes to the heart of what October 7 was about and how it impacted Israel. And it’s—there’s a parallel to 9/11—or, September 11, 2001. Prior to then, terrorism was seen as a tactical threat, as something that tragically killed people but did not have strategic or even existential implications. We woke up to the fact that—on September 11, that terrorists, at least have an intentionality of exerting some existential—you know, dealing a knockout blow to their enemies, if it was all within their realm. And as we saw in the United States, counterterrorism crossed the realm from being a tactical concern to being a strategic one. I would argue that’s the same thing that’s happened in in Israel.
So for their point of view, having to deal with the myriad of smaller, less capable, less well organized—and mostly apolitical. That was one of Hamas’ strengths, is that it was a political organization, also a social welfare organization. None of the other resistance—quote/unquote, “resistance factions” on the ground in Gaza have anything like those capabilities. So from Israel’s perspective, dealing with atomized terrorist groups, well, that was the way counterterrorism has been for, you know, forty or fifty years in Israel. Hamas was the one who emerged to pull everyone together and succeed on October 7.
Given that that capability has now been—at least indefinitely, or at least for the foreseeable future—taken away from Hamas, and therefore from the, quote/unquote, “resistance,” the resistance groups or terrorist groups in Gaza, that’s not an undesirable income—outcome, rather—from the Israeli point of view. And let’s be clear. And I think Steven can perhaps amplify this, because he was most recently in Israel. But, you know, polling has regularly shown two-thirds of Israelis—at least two-thirds—do not favor right now, a two-thirds solution. That’s somewhere in the vicinity of three-quarters of Israelis believe that a Palestinian state would create more terrorism, not less.
So how do we get to peace now, from the Israeli perspective? It’s ensuring, just as Ed, I think, very accurately described, that Israel’s deterrence capability is reestablished. That reassures the Israeli public. And that the security of Gaza is reassured—is assured to the Israeli public. And that is what from—I think, from the Netanyahu government’s perspective—will move us closer to peace, and another reason, I think, why they will be reluctant to stop right now.
LABOTT: Right. Steven, I want to pick up on what you were talking about, about the internal Israeli political dynamic. You know, obviously Netanyahu has gained support, whether it’s between killing Haniyah, killing Sinwar, all these, you know, attacks against Hezbollah and everybody. There are reports of divisions within the Israeli political and military leadership over, you know, how to handle the war as it relates to the kind of wider should now they go into Lebanon. But those kind of divisions seem to maybe be, you know, thinning as Israel is gaining more success and, as Ed said, more deterrence. How do you think these internal dynamics will shape this strategy going forward? And with ongoing tensions in Lebanon and Hezbollah’s involvement, does now attention turn more to a wider regional war involving Hezbollah and potentially Iran?
COOK: Four years later, I’m still muting myself. I think the tensions between the government and the IDF have diminished significantly. You know, we’re a long way from the days in which the IDF High Command was demanding a plan for Gaza—a political plan for the Gaza Strip, and Benny Gantz, who was part of the war cabinet, was giving Netanyahu deadlines to produce one, as was the minister of defense. Part of this has to do with the successes. The Israelis, though, have, essentially since mid-September when I was there, described their operations as turning the page on the Gaza Strip and focusing their attention on Lebanon—a conflict for which they had been—unlike in Gaza, a conflict in Lebanon is something that they had been preparing for, for the better part of the last twenty years.
So we’ll have to see how Lebanon unfolds and what’s next in Gaza. It’s clear that the IDF does not want to have a full-blown Israeli occupation of Gaza where they are protecting Israeli settlements. But they are fully prepared to remain on the Netzarim Corridor, this east-west axis that divides the Gaza strip into north and south sectors, perfectly prepared to stay on the Philadelphi Corridor, right up on the border with Egypt. The question is, and now here we’re getting into Israeli politics, is what Netanyahu’s partners on the right might think about the disposition of Gaza. And one can easily imagine, although while it seems easy to imagine this I don’t think this has really registered with the Biden administration.
One can easily imagine Israeli settlers dropping a double wide in the middle of what was an Israeli settlement in Gaza, and daring the idea of not to defend it. I mean, that’s the way settlements, in some cases, have been—have been established. So there may yet be friction between the political echelon and the security services over what to do with the Gaza Strip. But, by and large, until the killing of Sinwar, the focus had been over the last month on Lebanon. There was increased Israeli operations in Jabalia. There was all this talk of whether the Israeli government was implementing what’s called the General’s Plan, which is to lay siege of this area and to clear it out of civilians, and those who did not leave would be targets.
I think, you know, again, the killing of Sinwar has somewhat changed the—at least the conversation. But the Israelis will continue to press their advantage. And that’s in line with both what Netanyahu’s partners on the right want, and by and large the Israeli public wants. Because they are fully in agreement about changing the rules of the game since October 7. The problem is of course, what about the hostages? And that’s where the fight has been to prioritize victory, however defined, or returning the hostages? And but it really hasn’t been a fight about changing the rules of the game. I think everybody in Israel agrees. No two-state solution, no revitalized Palestinian Authority, and changing the way in which Israel establishes security for itself in both the south and the north.
LABOTT: Yeah. Ed, pick up on that, because, you know, Steven, you know, while talking about Israeli political dynamic, there’s also the kind of wider regional dynamic that you wrote a very interesting piece in Newsweek about. You know, talk about—we have this widespread destruction in Gaza, but we also have the Israelis now kind of establishing more deterrence. You have more success. You know, how does the region—is responding to all this? And how do you think they’re going to respond in the wake of Sinwar’s death? Does this shift regional opinion against Israel either way? Is there opening for Israel in its—you know, how does this affect the regional power dynamic with countries like Saudi Arabia, UAE balancing, you know, relations with Israel—and Jordan and, obviously, countries with significant Palestinian populations?
HUSAIN: Yeah. I think part of the answer is in your question, Elise. In the—in the kind of countries you just delineated in your list, I would just add Egypt, and I’ll explain in a moment why.
LABOTT: Yeah, of course. Sorry.
HUSAIN: And Steven is absolutely right that there is widespread disillusion in Israel across the right and the left on the viability of a two-state solution. And the pursuit of that dream, at least in the mindset of most Israelis, is exactly that; it’s a dream. It doesn’t look anywhere near being a reality in the next electoral cycle or beyond.
But at the same time, the Israelis yearn for, crave for more Abraham Accords-style agreements. And I think that’s where the cognitive dissonance lies right across Israel, because yes to more peace, yes to more recognition, yes more abilities for the Israeli population writ large to travel to Dubai, to travel to Abu Dhabi—I mean, it’s interesting that American aircraft are not flying into Israel, but from Dubai we have the Emirates and Etihad and others flying in. And Israelis and visitors to Israel are flying from—
LABOTT: Yeah. There is a kosher hotel in every—in every city in the UAE.
HUSAIN: Well, exactly. Exactly. And there’s a—you know, a minyan now available in both Dubai and Abu Dhabi. And there’s—I mean, there’s a lot going on in the Arabian Gulf.
LABOTT: Did you say a minyan?
HUSAIN: Yeah. I mean, for Friday night shul gatherings, Saturday morning prayers.
LABOTT: I didn’t know that.
HUSAIN: Yeah. I mean, in both Dubai and Abu Dhabi in ample numbers.
Now, that’s where Saudi Arabia wants to get to, and that’s where Israel wants to help Saudi Arabia. And I think to be more blunt, that’s where the current U.S. administration wants Saudi Arabia to get to, some kind of normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel backed by an American security guarantee to Saudi Arabia. But over the last eight, nine months, it’s been difficult to discern what the Saudi message is exactly.
I know this is on the record and perhaps I shouldn’t be saying this, but I will regardless.
LABOTT: Say it.
HUSAIN: Yeah, I will, because for the interests of regional peace I think it’s worth taking a hit on this. You know, Crown Prince Prime Minister Prince Mohammed bin Salman has in private said on more than three occasions to people who have been in the room that he’s not given in a huge way to what happens in Gaza or in the West Bank. He wants an American security guarantee that allows for Israeli-Saudi normalization. But at the same time, the Saudi Foreign Ministry has been toeing a different line, which is there must be some kind of Palestinian state. And I think they’re not as irreconcilable as they appear. I mean, some kind of Palestinian state, political horizon next ten years, could be in line with—I mean, Steven mentioned Ron Dermer, the minister for strategic affairs inside Israel, has basically been the brains trust on all of this. I mean, his three Ds, I think, give us great hope: demilitarize Gaza, deradicalize Gaza, and then work towards developing Gaza into something that’s much more akin to a peaceful ally. And I think if that’s the direction of travel, there may still be business to be done between the Saudis and the Israelis as per the Abaham Accords, as per the model set out by the United Arab Emirates. But so much of that depends as to what happens in this town here, in Washington, D.C., on November 5 and beyond.
LABOTT: Yeah.
OK, we’re going to go for about two more minutes and then we’re going to open it up to questions.
(Gives queuing instructions.)
Let’s keep it short so we can get as many questions in as we can. We particularly welcome questions from media for this media briefing. And a reminder: This is on the record.
Bruce, what about the long-term security of Gaza? Once, you know, the war in Gaza ends, you know—what Ed was saying—how can the international community ensure that there’s not a rise of Hamas or a similar militant group? What security measures, regional and international, could be implemented to prevent another iteration of the conflict?
HOFFMAN: That’s, I think, the most worrisome and unknown dimension of what’s going on today. And there’s a—there’s a profound sense of déjà vu in the sense that—at least that I know it—I don’t see a phase-four plan that Israel has. You know, phase one of warfare is intelligence and reconnaissance. Phase two is combat operations. Phase three is occupation and stabilization. And phase four is moving on, is really assuring a lasting peace. I mean, we’re still clueless about that. And that, I think, is absolutely vital. That has been a criticism by the administration of Israel’s counterterrorism strategy, is that, much like the U.S. experience over the past twenty years, it was great on kinetics and on the use of force but less good in envisioning a lasting, stable, and secure environment. And that’s going to be absolutely critical.
But we don’t know. I think Ed has shed some light on that, the interests of—especially of Gulf countries and of Saudi Arabia of coming in and helping and assisting. Once there’s a plan and once there’s—
LABOTT: Well, making it the new Dubai, right?
HOFFMAN: Well, this has always been the dream about Gaza. And having been there several times—(laughs)—it does have that potential. But there’s a—there was always a long way to go. And with 70 percent of the inhabitable structures there destroyed, there’s an even longer distance to go now. But that, of course, is the imperative, and that hasn’t been—
LABOTT: Well, I’m just going to point out that I spoke to an Arab diplomat—I won’t even, like, offend them by, like—or, I won’t even—one of the countries in the Gulf said, well, now that the Israelis kind of, you know, destroyed everything, it’s going to be easier to build it all up.
HOFFMAN: Once the threat—I mean, the key is eliminating the threat of terrorism. I’m talking about sporadic terrorism, the more tactical variant that has existed, which I think we’re almost there. But there has to be a plan to prevent, let’s say, the alphabet soup of terrorist groups that are still active in Gaza and the remnant of Hamas from engaging in this prolonged guerilla war or prolonged insurgency that would threaten to undermine any progress, whether it’s progress in security or progress in economic development.
And of course, look, the enemy of terrorists—the biggest enemies are always moderates, and always those who seek peace and stability. So there will be an incentive for resistance to whatever phase-four plan is eventually agreed upon and adopted, and that’s why it’s so critical to secure—that’s why the Israeli government will see as so critical to secure Gaza right now.
HUSAIN: But, Elise, if I may?
LABOTT: Yes.
HUSAIN: There’s another dichotomy, just exactly as Bruce highlights, is that there is an attitude in multiple Gulf Arab capitals that you break it, you own it. So Israel has responsibility for what happens in Gaza.
But at the same time, Gulf Arab capitals, especially both Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, have said that they are willing to be involved in some kind of development of Gaza, but that should not entail their own humiliation. In other words, they won’t be putting boots on the ground when Israel has counterterrorism capabilities—
LABOTT: Of course. Right.
HUSAIN: —that humiliates them. But they’ve all asked for some kind of U.S. onshore or offshore leadership.
COOK: This is—
HUSAIN: So, so much of this—Steven, go ahead. I don’t want to—
COOK: I’m sorry, Ed. I didn’t mean to interrupt.
LABOTT: Yeah. Go ahead, Steven.
COOK: But just to—not to belabor the point, but this is why these ideas of, you know, deradicalization, development, and whatever are—
HUSAIN: Demilitarization.
COOK: —are dreamlike, like the two-state solution. It is certainly the case everybody is interested in this, but no one is willing to go first. I’ve heard Saudis speak eloquently about a time-limited process towards the development of a state, and that if there’s a plan that they’ll come in. But they’re never willing to talk about what it is that they’re actually willing to do.
In addition, in a lot of these discussions—particularly the ones that come from the Israelis about, you know, what’s going to happen with Gaza—it is something that the Israelis dream up in their own offices and believe that this is an easily implementable plan when the Palestinians are also interested in justice, in statehood, and redressing grievances, especially after so many Palestinians have been—have been killed in this conflict. So the, you know, Gaza as Dubai being—is something that, you know, everybody—you know, people talk about at these moments of crisis, but we are—not just for the kind of practical reasons that Bruce pointed out that we’re so far away from them, but because we’re not actually addressing—it doesn’t actually address some of the critical issues that confront the Palestinian population—
LABOTT: Right. I want to get to that.
COOK: —and their desires, and their needs, or a map for self-determination.
LABOTT: And I want to get to that, and then I’d like Ed to weigh in too. So how—is it possible for the PA at this point to take a larger role in a post-Hamas Gaza, particularly with Hamas leadership kind of decimated? And what would need to happen for the PA to be a viable governing entity and for—in order for Israel to support it? And if that—is that even possible?
COOK: To be a viable governing entity, it would have to not be the PA. And for it to not be the PA, the Israelis wouldn’t support it, right?
Let’s go back to the dawn of the PA, where Yitzhak Rabin was very, very honest. He said they won’t have a supreme court. They’ll essentially be the contractor to the IDF in terms of security—which has undermined, along with massive corruption, the PA’s popularity and legitimacy among its own people.
Now, there are some polls—and how you poll in Gaza during wartime is questionable—but there are some polls that would suggest that Gazans would prefer the Palestinian Authority to Hamas. That’s not too far a leap to understand why. But nevertheless, the PA remains unacceptable to Israel even in its current form given the fact that the Israelis believe—and they’re not entirely wrong—that the PA has been leading in an effort to delegitimize Israel in the international community, has been a leading voice in trying to undermine the Jewish connection to the land. I mean, the PA is gathering diplomatic momentum to throw the Israelis out of the U.N. General Assembly in much the same way that apartheid South Africa was thrown out of the General Assembly in 1974. So, again, going back to what Bruce and I were discussing before and Ed knows well, two-thirds of Israelis are opposed to a revitalized Palestinian Authority administering the Gaza Strip for all of those reasons.
LABOTT: Ed, what do you think? Talk about the future of the PA.
And then we’re going to open it up. I think we have a question online.
What does the future of the Palestinian kind of governance look like in Gaza?
HUSAIN: The PA’s greatest enemy is not Israel; the PA’s greatest enemy is Hamas. The PA absolutely loathes the presence of Islamist organizations. And, yes, Elise, the factions within it, you know; Mahmoud Abbas’ son leading one faction, Hussein al-Sheikh leading another faction. But I think the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates put it best when he recently said that the PA is operating as Ali Baba and the forty thieves, you know? And it’s uncharacteristic of a—of a senior Arab diplomat to put it in those terms, but that was what was leaked out of a meeting that he had with other GCC leaders.
But I just want to say a couple of other things if I may, Elise, very quickly, and then we can open up. It’s to say that for Gaza to become Dubai, it needs its own Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid or Sheikh Zayed, and we haven’t seen that kind of humble, wealth-distributing—
LABOTT: That’s a good point.
HUSAIN: —kind, compassionate leadership. We just haven’t.
My old boss Tony Blair used to say that politics is part performance, part philosophy, and part delivery. On the part of the Palestinian leadership, we haven’t seen part delivery or a clear part philosophy; we’ve just seen performance, rocking up in Arab capitals and performing, from Yasser Arafat until now. So unless there’s—unless there are those significant changes in leadership—philosophy, performance, and delivery—we won’t see a Dubai in Gaza emerge without the—without the emergence of a Mohammed bin Rashid type figure and an entrepreneurial population that isn’t full of hatred and its own identity isn’t anti-Jewish; isn’t all about destroying Israel, but about building itself. And I think those are the bigger philosophical shifts that need to take place inside Gaza.
And the last point I wanted to make is this. And I think it’s really important for us to appreciate where Gaza is on the map and the significance of Egypt—you know, a hundred, a hundred and ten million people next door—while we’ve had, you know, entirely positive, by and large, comments in the—in the public discourse out of the Gulf Arab countries, we’ve had the total opposite out of Egypt. So just yesterday, the greatest religious figures inside Egypt—Ahmed Al-Tayeb at Al-Azhar—has been applauding the so-called martyrdom operations and the resistance culture. And I think we should be seriously concerned when you have leadership of a hundred and ten million people across the border from Gaza applauding the resistance, applauding a martyrdom culture, applauding suicide bombings, applauding jihad, and applauding the elimination of the state of Israel, and what that means for Israeli concerns about their own security and, therefore, Hamas feeling, and PIJ and other organizations, that they actually have support across the border, A, with Egypt, and then further along with Iran and elsewhere. So I just don’t think—I think we should be really worried about the direction of travel in the Middle East.
LABOTT: OK.
I think we have a question online. Please identify yourself and your affiliation.
OPERATOR: We’ll take our first question from Chase Winter.
Q: Thanks for doing this again.
I guess this question is for Steven, but can you kind of look at the U.S. kind of position here? You know, officials were saying, you know, they want to seize this opportunity for a ceasefire hostage deal, which, you know, has kind of been off the table anyways for the last several weeks. But it would seem that we’re kind of facing the same constraints as before, if not even more, right, given, you know, the ballistic missile attack from Iran, expanding—the war expanding in Lebanon, as well as, you know, just the uncertainties that you’ve talked about around Hamas. Can you kind of give me your viewpoint on, you know, is this sort of a perfunctory diplomatic effort just because you kind of have to try, but still going to have to face the same obstacles? I mean, what are you kind of seeing there?
COOK: Well, look, you know, when talking about the U.S.-Israel relationship over the course of this last year, people tend to kind of get a brain cramp about it. There is a difference between the two governments. The Biden administration wants deals. They want a ceasefire deal. They want a deal in Lebanon. They want, you know, some sort of deal with the Israelis about how to go after Iran. And the Israelis look at this in an entirely different way. They want to change the rules of the game. And the deals that the Biden administration has on offer are not changing the rules of the game. And there’s the rub. And that’s the source of friction and tension. I’m not suggesting that the Israelis are right here, but that’s the difference between the two governments that’s a real problem.
There was—had the Israelis not killed Yahya Sinwar, we’d likely be talking about the Blinken-Austin letter. And I think that that is a perfect example of the—where the two governments differ on these things. The Israelis want to win, and the United States wants a deal to reset the situation somewhere close to the status quo. So it’s not—we don’t really need to get too complex about it. There’s just two different views about what the end is of this conflict, and what it looks like.
LABOTT: OK, we have another question.
HOFFMAN: Can I just jump in for a second, Elise?
LABOTT: Yes, please, Bruce. Please.
HOFFMAN: I mean, just to add something to what Steven said, at the risk of stating the obvious. Nothing’s happening in the next three weeks.
COOK: (Laughs.)
HOFFMAN: I mean, with the election coming, there’s nothing—there’s nothing happening.
COOK: For three months.
HOFFMAN: Yeah. Well—
LABOTT: Well, if something happened—we’re going to get—I want to get to, you know, Hezbollah and Iran. But is something happening in the next three weeks—i.e., maybe an attack on Iran?
COOK: Well, no, I think—Bruce, you speak for yourself. I’m sorry.
HOFFMAN: No. Go on, Steven.
COOK: No, I was just going to say, nothing—this is an opportune time for both Israelis and their opponents to engage in whatever they’re going to do, because you have a lame duck president.
HOFFMAN: Right.
LABOTT: Bruce.
HOFFMAN: But also—I mean, look, the U.S. has been successful in restraining Israel in its—whatever its retaliatory plans for Iran were. That’s why the THAAD missiles and a hundred U.S. personnel are there. That was the quid pro quo for Israel going in a different direction, from not hitting Iran’s nuclear facilities, or not attacking Kharg Island or energy. So, I mean, Israel feels, all right, we’ve already—we’ve made that concession to the U.S. I think that’s probably the limits of Netanyahu patience.
LABOTT: OK. Let’s go to our next question.
OPERATOR: We’ll take our next question from Lyric Hughes Hale.
Q: Yes. Hi.
If we could go down one level further, we’ve been talking about U.S.-Israel relations. But what about within the Biden administration itself? Even if it’s a lame duck administration, within the State Department, Defense Department, are there two points of view about what should be done? Is there just—are we really acting in unanimity? When you say “the United States,” who is “the United States”? And also, what about this—the support—the broad-based support for an attack against Iran? That is something—Elise, I agree with you. That is my question. That is the question, in my view. Thank you.
LABOTT: Ed, you want to take a stab, and then maybe Steven will weigh in?
HUSAIN: No, I defer to Bruce, because Bruce delineated both the likelihood or otherwise on the Iran front. So Bruce should take that. But also, Bruce has got deep relations inside the defense establishment—(laughs)—so I think Bruce can speak to—
LABOTT: OK, Bruce, why don’t you start? And then we’ll go around.
HOFFMAN: Well, there’s the lame duck factor, but I’ll go out on a limb and say I don’t think the Biden administration right now has a lot of credibility with Israel because, of course, the Biden administration for months has been trying to negotiate some ceasefire with Hezbollah. That went absolutely nowhere. Has been trying to negotiate with Hamas. Admittedly there have been roadblocks from Netanyahu and his government, but also even more formidable ones from Sinwar. But the point being is that repeatedly the Biden administration told Israel not to go to south Gaza, not even to touch Rafah. And of course, the vice president was explicit. She said she had looked at the map and Israel shouldn’t go in.
Well, Sinwar wouldn’t be dead. Hamas wouldn’t be as weakened as it is if Israel had listened to U.S. advice. So that’s why I think right now they’ve taken the advice on Iran, because that’s even a bigger strategic issue with lots of regional implications. I’m not sure they’re going to listen to the U.S. They feel a lot of what the administration is saying is driven by the presidential election, about priorities, and about one state in particular that, whatever polls you read, says is absolutely critical for the pathway in the electoral college. So in that sense, nothing will happen. But also, I think Israel isn’t going to listen to the Biden administration that much right now.
And then finally, I think Israel has responded that in terms of what it’s going to do with Iran. I mean, the THAAD missiles and a hundred U.S. military personnel. That is enormously significant. Now, it does give the U.S. some leverage, but at the same time that was to restrain Israel from going, perhaps, to the extremes that more extreme members of Netanyahu’s government, and also people outside of government, wanted to pursue.
LABOTT: So, Steve, the feeling is if Harris wins, she’s obviously not going to want an attack on Iran. And if Trump wins, he probably won’t be that upset. So does Israel take this opportunity in the next three weeks? What happens?
COOK: Well, let me just—and let me apologize. When I’m—when I’m done answering these questions, I do have to run. Let me just underline something that Bruce said. The Israelis are no longer taking the advice of the United States, particularly when it comes to Gaza, across the board. And there’s a sense that—when I was in Israel, that everybody—that the United States has just been wrong on a variety of things. And that the United—that Israel need to stop taking advice from people who couldn’t get it done in, you know, Afghanistan and other places. That may be unfair, but that was their perspective on things.
And they point to—exactly to Rafah. And they point to the pressure that was applied on them after the World Central Kitchen accident that paused their operations for three weeks. And they argue that the conflict would have been over sooner, or they would have been gone from this place sooner, had it not been for this kind of unnecessary pressure from the Biden administration. Again, it may be unfair criticism, but there is—that is a view within Israel, and it is, I think, one that is more widely held than we might suspect. It goes beyond Prime Minister Netanyahu.
In terms of whether the Israelis are going to take the opportunity in the next three weeks or three months to hit Iran, I think it’s not—I think it’s obvious that they will. I’m not entirely sure that I agree with your characterization of the two candidates, Elise. Certainly, you know, the Democratic foreign policy community, the Democratic Party foreign policy community, has, you know, sought a better relationship with the—with the Iranians, through the JCPOA and other—and other agreements. And certainly President Trump, when he was in office, you know, his rhetoric was certainly bellicose when it came to—when it came to the Iranians. But at critical moments when he would been justified in hitting the Iranians and hitting the Iranians hard, he never did.
I’m thinking particularly of the summer of 2019 when the Iranians were taking oil tankers in the Gulf, mining the Gulf. They shot down an American surveillance drone operating in international airspace. And then the summer culminated in an attack on Saudi oil facilities. All of those things were things that could have led to, under the Carter doctrine and the Reagan corollary to the Carter doctrine, a robust American response. And the president said, they didn’t attack us. So I’m not quite convinced that President Trump would be so happy with an American—with an Israeli response that risked dragging the United States into a conflict.
To Lyric’s specific question of who’s in charge, is there a—there are differing views. But, of course, on Israel policy, the person in charge has been the president of the United States. There’s been too much—we understand too much about discussions within the administration, about people wanting to do things either slightly differently or more differently, and the president has been consistent in what he has—in controlling this policy.
I have to run. My apologies.
LABOTT: OK, bye. OK, bye.
COOK: Thank you very much. See you all. Thank you, Ed, and Bruce.
LABOTT: Thanks, Steven. Thanks so much for joining us. We’re just going to have one or two more questions. We have a question online, and then we’re going to wrap up. But first, before we take that last question, I’d like to ask the panelists about, you know, this kind of idea of a wider war, particularly with Hezbollah. Ed, you know, where do you see this going? With Hamas leadership being decimated, is this now—do we turn towards Hezbollah and Israel, you know, gets into a wider war with Hezbollah? Do they focus on Iran? What do you think happens now?
HUSAIN: If you’re sat in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv you have a real problem of almost 130,000 Israelis who are not at home in the northern part of Israel. It’s just inconceivable that any country in the world would let that happen, that you would move in excess of 100,000 of your population because they could be under rocket fire and other forms of attack from Hezbollah. So it’s just impossible for Israel to turn a blind eye to the threat that Hezbollah poses, one. Two, Hezbollah is much more heavily infiltrated by Israeli assets than we had previously understood. And therefore, it’s in a position of strength. Three, in Lebanon next door Hezbollah also has a significant opposition to it from Christians and Sunni Muslims. Four, what we have with Hezbollah is a regional isolation of it. So the Saudis and others are opposed to Hezbollah’s Shia pro-Iranian doctrine.
All of those factors are in Israel’s favor to further weaken not just—not just Hezbollah’s ability to threaten Israel, but also Hezbollah’s ability to rule over Lebanon. And I think it’s a much bigger aim. And it’s a much stronger attempt to weaken Hezbollah so it’s no longer in control of Lebanon that poses a threat to Israel in the next decade and beyond. I think we have to just understand that Bibi Netanyahu thinks in terms of 100-200,000-year cycles. And his father was, you know, a historian, wrote encyclopedias. And whenever you sit with Bibi, he recalls these big historical moments. And he, in his head, sees the protection of Israel, and, by extension the Jewish people, his primary focus in life now.
Yes, I understand the historical—the cynicism that, ah, yes, he’s also trying to avoid prison and corruption. But that doesn’t take away from his angst to secure Israel’s future from threats. And those threats include Hezbollah and Lebanon. So to that end, I think, yes, the attacks on Hezbollah will increase. And therefore, the control center of Hezbollah is in Tehran. So you can’t attack Hezbollah without expecting an Iranian response. So the risk there is very much alive and strong.
LABOTT: Right. Now—OK, Bruce, and then we’re going to take the last question. With Sinwar gone, does Iran kind of increase its support for Hezbollah and groups across the region, the Houthis, to compensate? You know, what happens there? And how does Hezbollah respond right now? And just kind of weave in Iran’s strategy into that.
HOFFMAN: Well, Hezbollah, and I would argue too, the Iranian security establishment has been knocked off balance. And, you know, Iran’s capabilities are very severely limited. I mean, as we can see, that they’re—you know, the card that—the cards that they had to play were the two missile attacks on Israel. And both of them were—nugatory may be a complimentary term in terms of their actual effects. I have to say too that President Trump’s decision four years ago to kill Qasem Soleimani, who was the preeminent leader of the IRGC, is looking pretty good in hindsight because that really did deprive Iran of its strategic center of gravity in orchestrating all of its proxies in the region.
So Israel—Hezbollah is an entirely different kettle of fish than Hamas. It’s much more formidable. It’s much better organized. It’s much more integrated into Lebanese society, which also means there’s also tremendous resentment of Hezbollah. Hezbollah is not going to be defeated or eliminated, but I think Israel’s goal there is to pare back Hezbollah’s capabilities so that the threat from Hezbollah is reduced for at least the indefinite future. And I think Iran is very limited in what they can do to defend its proxy, otherwise we would have seen more intervention over the past few weeks.
LABOTT: OK. We have time for one more quick question. If you could, you know, ask your question quickly. And I’m going to ask one of the panelists to answer it quickly, because we are at time.
OPERATOR: We’ll take our last question from Hussein Ibish.
LABOTT: Hi, Hussein.
Q: Thank you. Hi. Thank you very much.
I mean, I’ve been kind of suffering through this conversation because I think it’s sort of unrealistic in framing Israel’s quest for security in purely military terms. You know, what’s missing is the extremism of this Israeli government, which is, you know, really determined to annex the West Bank. They’re pretty open about it. The coalition agreement speaks of Jewish sovereignty and all of Eretz Yisrael—not Medinat Yisrael, but Eretz Yisrael. And the insecurity that Israel faces is inherent in its rule over many millions of disenfranchised people who have neither a state of their own nor any participation in state that rules them, which is Israel. And from this situation inevitably comes, you know, sort of extremist responses like October 7. It’s not only predictable. It was inevitable.
LABOTT: Yeah. Hussein, thank you for introducing that point. It’s very important.
Ed.
HUSAIN: I, with all respect, have to disagree with the premise of the question, because it overlooks cause and effect. If, both in Gaza and the West Bank, there was a willingness to recognize the right of Israel to exist without the increase in suicide bombings, without rockets flying, and we wouldn’t have had the need either for the wall or for, you know, Sharon’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, and then what happened consequently, in other words Hamas winning. So, yes, I agree that extreme reactions can be produced by occupation, but we have to ask ourselves why is there an occupation to start with? And on that front, there is a lot to do with the fact that, by and large—and I’m sorry to say this, and I don’t want to say but it’s the truth—that we collectively haven’t had the conversation in recognizing Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state in the heart of the Middle East.
Once that’s secure on both sides—in Gaza and West Bank—I don’t think you’ll have an Israel that wants to go out there and occupy and hold land. It’s only there because it sees a genuine security threat. And I think the Israelis say this often. If the PA or the Palestinians do more in combating extremism and terrorism, Israelis do less. If the Palestinians don’t do anything, i.e., the Palestinian leadership, it forces the Israelis to do more. So fix that equation, I think, and you will see Israeli withdrawal, because the Israelis, I don’t think, want to be an occupying force. But you keep threatening their right to exist, and you teach in your schools that the Jews are pigs and monkeys and have no right to be in the Middle East, I mean—and then you produce suicide bombers, and then you produce the PA and Mahmoud Abbas that questions the Holocaust. I mean, so if we can get into the extremism issue, but we have to accept this cause and this effect.
LABOTT: OK. Thanks, Ed. Look, we’re over time. We have to run. I want to thank all of our panelists. Steve Cook, Bruce Hoffman, Ed Husain. Check out CFR.org for more information on these developments. And just want to thank CFR and everybody for attending.
(END)
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