By Carl Bildt
STOCKHOLM – With the death of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who planned the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the Gaza war, an Israeli military triumph seems closer than ever. But could victory actually threaten Israel’s long-term future?
In the 12 months since Hamas’s attack, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has increasingly sought to bring all of Israel’s military might to bear against his country’s enemies in the region. The top leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah have been eliminated, and Israeli intelligence and military forces have demonstrated that they can strike anywhere – from government guest houses in Tehran and hidden bunkers in Beirut to the rubble of Gaza.
There is no denying that Israel has severely degraded Hamas and Hezbollah – two components of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” – or that it will continue to do so as long as its military campaign persists. But it remains to be seen how far the confrontation with Iran will go. Following the Iranian missile barrage against Israel earlier this month, a major Israeli strike against the Islamic Republic looks certain, and a strong Iranian response thereafter is probably unavoidable. Netanyahu historically has reserved his strongest rhetoric for Iran, even calling openly for regime change; he is almost certainly prepared to deploy Israel’s military and covert assets in pursuit of that objective.
In strictly military terms, Israel has chalked up one success after another since being caught off guard by the Hamas attack, the deadliest day in the country’s history. While obliterating Hamas’s leadership, military infrastructure, and rank-and-file fighters, it has reduced Gaza to a dystopian hellscape. Similarly, in trying to neutralize Hezbollah, Israel has displaced one-quarter of the Lebanese population, forcing hundreds of thousands to seek protection in Syria – another ravaged country, devastated by more than a decade of war.
But will military victory lead to long-term peace? Although the Israeli Air Force’s jets and drones have complete dominance of the skies, and although the United States continuously restocks its arsenal of heavy bombs, Israel is not necessarily more secure today than it was a year ago.
It is worth remembering that today’s security threat to Israel emanates from its spectacular victory in the 1967 Six-Day War. In the process of fending off a sweeping assault by multiple Arab armies, Israel occupied large swaths of Arab and Palestinian territory, including Gaza (formerly controlled by Egypt) and the West Bank (formerly part of Jordan).
Since then, there has undoubtedly been some progress toward peace, with Israeli-Egyptian and Israeli-Jordanian agreements effectively eliminating the conventional military threat to Israel. But notwithstanding the temporary success of the Oslo Accords in 1993, the threats stemming from Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank have remained. Although Arab countries promised “peace for land” (an end to hostilities if Israel withdrew its troops from the occupied territories), the political process had already stalled and begun to deteriorate long before Oct. 7, 2023.
In his own condemnation of the events of Oct. 7, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres noted that “the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum,” since “the Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.” This statement met with harsh criticism in Israel. But the facts are what they are. The threat that materialized so brutally on Oct. 7 had its roots in Israel’s decades-long failure to manage the victory of 1967, not least the occupation of the West Bank and millions of Palestinians.
Will history repeat itself? Can Israel turn its latest military successes into a political process for peace, or will it end up with another situation that threatens Israeli citizens over the long term?
One often hears talk of “the day after” the last shot has been fired in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon. It’s a phrase that vastly understates the challenge at hand. Only if these areas can achieve self-sustaining stability for years to come will it be possible for everyone in the region to live in peace and security. The dilemma for Israel is that the greater the military victory, the more difficult the road to peace and security becomes. The legacy of 1967 makes that clear.
For many Israelis, the temptation now is to press forward militarily: to pulverize what remains of Gaza, to dismantle the status quo in Lebanon, and to push Iran toward regime change. But these achievements may not be conducive to a lasting peace. As Netanyahu relishes his own Six-Day War moment, the rest of Israel should pause to reflect on the history of the past 60 years. Victory does not always bring peace, especially in the Middle East.
Carl Bildt is a former prime minister and foreign minister of Sweden. This article was distributed by Project Syndicate.
