On the coronary heart of the dispute between President Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu over invading Rafah is a bigger disagreement about what Israel can fairly hope to perform in opposition to Hamas.
In right now’s e-newsletter, I’ll lay out the conflicting views of Biden and Netanyahu and summarize The Occasions’s newest protection of the conflict.
Israel’s view
To Netanyahu and his aides, the destruction of Hamas is an important aim. Israel’s navy has already made progress, having dismantled not less than 18 of Hamas’s 24 battalions for the reason that Oct. 7 assaults. However Hamas’s prime leaders and hundreds of fighters have survived, many evidently fleeing to tunnels underneath Rafah.
Permitting a cornered enemy to flee violates primary precepts of navy technique, Israeli officers imagine. “Ending the conflict with out clearing out Rafah is like sending a firefighter to extinguish 80 p.c of the hearth,” Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s conflict cupboard and Netanyahu’s chief political opponent, has informed U.S. officers. The Wall Avenue Journal editorial board, which tends to assist Netanyahu, has referred to as Rafah “the essential metropolis for the terrorist group’s future.”
Israeli officers additionally know that many Arab leaders despise Hamas, viewing it as a menace to their very own regimes. These leaders could be quietly blissful for Israel to crush the group. Some Palestinians are additionally indignant with Hamas (though public opinion in Gaza is tough to gauge).
As loud because the worldwide warnings a couple of Rafah invasion could also be, Israel’s leaders imagine {that a} profitable operation there would change the strategic equation — and that they might then be capable to negotiate from a place of energy with each Hamas’s remnants and Arab international locations.
America’s view
To Biden — and lots of leaders of different international locations — the destruction of Hamas is solely not a sensible aim. The group’s fighters are in deep, fortified tunnels that would take months if not years to eradicate, U.S. intelligence officers say. Even when Israel killed most remaining fighters, new ones would emerge.
Not solely would possibly the advantages of attempting to wipe out Hamas be small, however the prices appear giant, U.S. officers imagine. The hostages Hamas nonetheless holds — who’re probably being saved alongside the group’s leaders — may die. And the humanitarian toll in Rafah, the place many Gazan refugees have fled, could possibly be horrific. “Smashing into Rafah,” a Biden aide stated yesterday, “is not going to get to that sustainable and enduring defeat of Hamas.”
Already, Israel’s preliminary operation in Rafah has had prices. After Israeli forces took over one facet of a border crossing with Egypt, Egyptian officers quickly closed the crossing, stopping help from getting into, U.S. officers say. Egypt — which has lengthy blocked Gazans from getting into, partly out of concern of Hamas — worries {that a} battle for Rafah may result in an unstoppable stream of refugees.
An invasion may trigger rifts past Egypt, too. Saudi Arabia has beforehand signaled an curiosity in a diplomatic cope with Israel, which may solidify Israel’s place as a part of an anti-Iran alliance alongside Arab international locations and the U.S. However a surge in civilian deaths in Gaza may make it arduous for Saudi Arabia to justify any deal. (Thomas Friedman, the Occasions Opinion columnist, has argued that Israel should select between Rafah and Riyadh, the Saudi capital.)
Some reasonable Israeli officers agree with elements of this critique. “Fully toppling Hamas and bringing the hostages dwelling are two clashing objectives,” Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, a former Israeli navy intelligence chief, has stated. “We’ve already achieved crucial factor: dismantling Hamas as an organized military able to an Oct. 7 assault.”
A 3rd choice
Finally, the talk could also be much less binary than it generally appears. There’s a third choice, and it’s one which the Biden administration appears to favor, notes my colleague Julian Barnes, who covers intelligence.
On this situation, Israel would agree to finish main navy operations — accepting a “sustained calm,” as negotiators name it — and launch a whole lot of Palestinian prisoners. In trade, Hamas would return all hostages, in phases.
Israel may then pursue a diplomatic cope with Saudi Arabia, by which an Arab coalition would run Gaza, sidelining Hamas. And Israel would retain the fitting to conduct focused operations in opposition to prime Hamas officers, like Yahya Sinwar. U.S. officers doubt the knowledge of a full-scale invasion, however not the strategic worth of eliminating the Hamas leaders who deliberate Oct. 7.
Extra on the conflict
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Stop-fire negotiations hit a snag yesterday as members grew indignant over Israel’s incursion in Rafah. The C.I.A. director left Cairo, the place the talks have been going down, as did delegations from Israel and Hamas.
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Israel and Hamas appear to be engaged in “dead-cat diplomacy,” Peter Baker writes — with every in search of to make sure the opposite will get blamed in the event that they fail to succeed in a deal.
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Even when the U.S. halts weapon shipments to Israel, as Biden has threatened, Israeli officers say they’ve sufficient munitions to combat in Rafah.
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The World Well being Group warned that hospitals in southern Gaza had solely days’ price of gas left.
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Donald Trump accused Biden of abandoning Israel, saying “any Jewish particular person” who voted for Biden “needs to be ashamed.”
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American Muslim and Arab leaders say their communications with the White Home have largely damaged down. That might pose an issue for Biden’s re-election.
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