Freed Palestinian rivals hold key to peace for Israel
He was tempted, it seems, by the idea that he could decapitate the terror group, establish once and for all Israel’s military dominance of the neighbourhood – and retain the backing of Donald Trump.
Instead, he was chewed out by the US President and forced to deliver a stilted, choking apology to the Qatari Prime Minister from the Oval Office. Since the massacre of Israelis two years ago, Netanyahu – not a natural war leader by any means – made it his mission to make his countrymen feel safe again by disabling as many enemies as he could. It turned out, though, that safety is not just about preventing bad things from happening, nor about a display of deterrent strength. It’s something more metaphysical: about feeling accompanied and calmed in this life.
Re-establishing the relationship with the White House has thus become for Netanyahu more than a bit of tidying up after a strategically poor judgment call. Israel has its hostages back, live, broken or dead; the ceasefire will be patchy, yet looks like holding for a while.
But what follows now hinges on the continuing political engagement of Trump in rallying eager-to-please Arab or Muslim states around the rebuilding of a demilitarised Gaza and in upholding, with military and intelligence support, the survival of the state of Israel. This, more than forever war and top-of-the-range fighter aircraft, is the essence of the country’s future security.
The most immediate demand on Trump’s attention derives from the quid pro quo of the hostage release: the freeing of many thousands of Palestinian prisoners. Among those who have been released, under this and the previous ceasefire, there are not just Hamas footsoldiers but also members of the rival Fatah group; the revolutionary leftist PFLP; secular nationalists; and the Iran-backed Palestine Islamic Jihad. Some have been in Israeli jails for years – that is, they were not connected with the October 7 atrocities but were sentenced for crimes such as organising suicide bombings.
Different threads of logic underpin the selection of freed convicts. Some will have been turned by the Shin Bet security service while in prison in the hope they become reliable informers. Others are expected to divide the Palestinians, reducing the chances of a coherent post-Hamas leadership. A few are being sent into exile, to Turkey or Egypt, where they will be watched and perhaps steered by the security services there.
The long stint in Israeli prisons will have radicalised many, if only because murderers get to rub shoulders with, and uncritically admire, jailed extremist scholars and conspiracists. Israel certainly regrets including Yahya Sinwar as part of a huge 2011 prisoner swap for the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Sinwar had been banged up for murdering Palestinians he suspected of being Israeli informers; he later went on to mastermind the October 7 attack.
The US understands better than most how prisons can be turned into jihadist academies. The American detention centre in Iraq, Camp Bucca, held many leaders of al-Qa’ida as well as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the future leader of Islamic State.
One of his disciples was Ahmed al-Sharaa, who was encouraged to establish in his Syrian homeland the ISIS-affiliated Nusra Front. Sharaa shifted Nusra’s allegiance to al-Qaeda, broke with them too, formed a new radical group, the HTS – with quiet assistance from Turkey’s security service – and ended up ousting president Bashar al-Assad of Syria. Trump now describes Sharaa as a “young, attractive, tough guy”.
Is it possible, then, to transcend the hothouse of jihadism and present oneself as part of a solution in the intricate puzzle of the Middle East?
Israel is certainly in no mind to upgrade the status of one of its jailhouse celebrities, Marwan Barghouti, the one-time guiding light of the murderous al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades who is frequently touted as Palestine’s leader-in-waiting: the Nelson Mandela of the West Bank.
He has served more than 23 years – plenty of time to learn fluent Hebrew – and the calculation is that prison is where he should stay. The Netanyahu coalition does not want to see an articulate and charismatic leader at the helm of an independent Palestinian state, nor does it want Trump to be beguiled by another reformed jihadist.
Barghouti’s fate could become a source of tension between Trump and Netanyahu. Trump says he wants his 20-point peace plan to transform Gaza into a “deradicalised terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbours”. But how to achieve that?
Hamas, out of the tunnels, has been parading in clean, neatly pressed uniforms, defiantly armed, presenting itself to Gazans as a champion of order. Under the cover of the ceasefire it eliminates potential rivals such as members of the Doghmush clan, accusing them of collaborating with Israel. This will soon become a broader turf war, well before a temporary administration is up and running.
Worthy think-tankers have come up with ideas for deradicalising the Strip, mimicking the denazification of West Germany after 1945 to create a leadership attractive to foreign investors, alongside the dismantling of Hamas institutions, educational reforms that ditch the kill-the-Jews curriculum, and giving the young a reason to stay in the neighbourhood.
Trump and Netanyahu may see this as pointless do-goodery but it’s only the beginning of what’s needed to make Israelis feel safe again.
The Times
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