Hamas won’t do so either, because the slaughter of Palestinians helps its cause. That was why it killed all those Israelis in a particularly cruel way in the raid last October. It’s a standard “terrorist” strategy: Hamas knew that a massive Israeli over-reaction would win it more supporters all across the Arab world.
The political benefits of the ongoing carnage in the Gaza Strip continue to flow to the Islamist cause, so Hamas’s leaders have no desire for a long ceasefire. A short one to catch their breath, maybe — they have lost many thousands of fighters — but they are on a roll. Why stop now?
Israel is deeply divided. Many Israelis want to stop the war and free the hundred remaining Israeli hostages, but just as many want the war to continue until Hamas is “destroyed” (a near-impossibility). And 15-20 percent of Israelis on the nationalist and religious extreme right just want to expel all the Palestinians.
That minority have a hugely disproportionate effect on Israeli policy because they are an essential element in Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s coalition government. Their openly declared goal is to create an ethnically cleansed all-Jewish Israel. This would require a much bigger and bloodier war, and they foolishly believe that events in Gaza are creating an opportunity to fight and win such a war.
They are out of their minds. The glory days of easy, assured Israeli military victories are past. The last time Israel fought Hezbollah in Lebanon it ended in a draw, and the present war in Gaza is also likely to end in a draw.
However, the leading crazies in Netanyahu’s coalition, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, remain in power because without them the coalition would collapse. Netanyahu would then be back in court and probably facing jail time for corruption, so he does what they want.
That leaves only the US free to seek a ceasefire, and President Joe Biden urgently needs one. His current policy is shredding America’s already damaged status as a force for order in the world. He is also alienating the youth vote at home that he will need in the November election.
He does have the necessary tools to make Israel stop. Sanctioning Israel has always seemed unthinkable in Washington because it would mean bringing down the Israeli government, but the time may be coming when saving Israel from itself is the least bad alternative.
Biden’s executive order a month ago imposing financial sanctions on four extremist Israeli settlers creates a precedent for sanctions up to and including the defunding of the entire illegal settlement enterprise.
If the United States cut off military aid to Israel or applied serious economic sanctions, Netanyahu’s government would collapse almost instantly. Sanctioning Israel goes against all Biden’s political and personal instincts, but the events and people around him are now pushing him towards that action.
