Israel Needs to Stop the Clocks to Survive

With a four-day ceasefire set to go into effect on Friday, time isn’t on Israel’s side in its war with Hamas. Further ceasefires mean the recovery of more hostages, but this will slow and eventually halt Israel’s ­effort to break Hamas’s control over Gaza. That would be a strategic defeat for Israel and the US.

Israel needs time to root out Hamas. Yet the longer the war goes on, the likelier it is to spiral into a regional conflict drawing in the US. Since October 17, Iranian-supplied militias have hit US forces in Iraq and Syria with more than 60 rocket attacks. If a rocket or drone kills American troops, the Biden administration will face a crisis of its own. It could either retaliate against Iran and risk unpredictable military, economic and electoral consequences, or retreat from the Middle East, abandoning Israel and ceding a crucial region in the US’s great-power struggle with China.

Former Israeli ambassador to Washington Michael Oren expects US and international pressure for ceasefires to grow exponentially in the coming weeks.

A ceasefire deprives Israel of military momentum and transfers the initiative to Hamas. Now that Israel has agreed to a short ceasefire, the Biden administration and its Qatari interlocutors will expect longer ceasefires. Hamas will ­remain armed and dangerous in Gaza and will use this ceasefire to regroup. The ceasefire’s terms allow Hamas to extend the truce by releasing 10 hostages a day. As the possibility of a permanent truce nears, and as Hamas starts to trade adult, male and military hostages, the group’s demands will rise. The US will pressure Israel to release hundreds of Palestinian terrorists.

The partial hostage release also increases pressure inside Israel for further ceasefires. Israeli society, and Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet, are already split by a real-life “Sophie’s choice”: Who is returned home, and who is left behind? The Israeli government insists its Gaza campaign will resume once the ceasefire lapses, but a combination of domestic and international pressures may prevent Israel from ­regaining military momentum. The US State Department is already refusing to endorse an Israeli move into southern Gaza, citing humanitarian concerns.

This ceasefire will embolden Iran and its proxies, none of whom are parties to the ceasefire deal. Hezbollah’s attacks from Lebanon have intensified in recent weeks, as has the pace of rocket attacks by Iranian-sponsored militias on US bases in Iraq and Syria. The Houthis of Yemen have hijacked a cargo ship in the Red Sea and launched ballistic missiles at Israel.

Restoring Israel’s deterrence is a matter of survival for the Jewish state. It’s also an asset that the US is defending by resupplying Israel and sending out two carrier strike groups to the region. Israelis now appreciate the indispensability of American support more than at any time since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

Oren hears several clocks ticking at once. A short ceasefire won’t slow any of them, and it will exacerbate some of their pressures. There is the “ammo clock”: the ­Israel Defence Forces needs to be resupplied consistently with US-made advanced munitions.

There is the “reservist clock”: ­Israel has mobilised an army equivalent to those of Britain and France combined; its young men and women, he says, form “the backbone of our hi-tech economy”.

There is the “economic clock”: foreign investment and tourism have collapsed, and Israel is burning money on the war.

There is the “humanitarian clock”: footage continues to show civilian casualties and more than a million displaced Gazans.

Israel needs to stop these clocks to survive. The Biden administration should create time and diplomatic space for Israel’s forces to break Hamas. That means preventing the terrorists from setting the timetable in the Gaza war, letting Israel strike Hezbollah as necessary, and re-establishing US deterrence against Iran-sponsored rocket attacks. It also means rethinking America’s Iran strategy.

Two other clocks are ticking: the countdown to Iran’s nuclear breakout and the countdown to the crunch moment when an Iranian missile takes American lives or hits a US Navy vessel. Time is tight for Israel, but the US is approaching a fateful moment too.

Dominic Green is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society