By Rohith Sai Narayan Stambamkadi – Founder, Director of the Indian Forum for Public Diplomacy (IFPD)
The Operation Swords of Iron, Israel’s policy response to a barrage of attacks by Hamas on 07/10 has marked a significant advancement on Friday, November 03, as an armoured incursion through the centre of Gaza strategically isolated northern Gaza with the rest of its territory.
As the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) make advancements into Gaza at the cost of severe civilian casualties, it is imperative to assess the rational and strategic underpinnings of Israel’s policy to understand long term implications of the current conflict.
Substantive issues of the war do not suffice to explain the decision-making framework and political calculations that frame policies. If Israel has opted to invade Gaza, even considering the potential for civilian casualties amidst international backlash, a crucial analysis requires evaluating Israel’s ‘rational’ considerations of war and its potential long-term implications.
The Strategic failure of Mowing the Lawn
Conventionally, Israel has pursued ‘Mowing the Lawn’ strategy for the last decade and half in Gaza. Similar to mowing the lawn to cut down overgrown grass, the strategy encompassed periodic military operations in Gaza, intended to trim back Hamas’s capabilities and thwart terrorist infrastructure that might pose threat to Israel.
While degrading terrorist capabilities from time to time is seen as a pragmatic approach, the cyclical nature of these military actions coupled with periodic civilian casualties failed to address long-term stability. While the strategy helped Israel to disrupt immediate or short-term threats, it failed to deter future aggression as witnessed through Hamas rocket attacks on 7/10.
First strike Advantage as Israel’s new policy challenge
The overwhelming barrage of rockets fired by Hamas came as a new challenge for Israel. The Iron Dome Air Defense systems were insufficient to deal with the number of missiles fired, as less than a thousand interceptors were on the field on the day of attack. Hamas attacks illustrate that even the best air defense systems can be overwhelmed, if they are outmatched by the number of threats they have to encounter.
This poses a new challenge to Israel’s policy. Hamas has gained an ongoing capability to strike Israel when the latter is unprepared. Through a ‘first-strike advantage’ Hamas has caught Israel off-guard, inflicting severe costs and civilian losses for Israel.
Rational Overreaction to Terrorism and the problems of Hydra Effect
Rationally, addressing the first strike advantage problem requires preventing Hamas from acquiring these capabilities in the future. Since Israel’s conventional mowing of the lawn did not seem to work, a full-scale invasion might seem to be a rational and long-term strategic solution. Instead of mowing the lawn, Israel now wants to uproot each blade of grass from its roots by invading Gaza, in an attempt to wipe off Hamas’s existence. Nevertheless, this might constitute ‘rational overreaction’ and the potential costs for Israel might outweigh the perceived benefits in the long term, as the seeds might persist, and grass might grow back.
In recent times, Hamas has failed to mobilise support and has experienced declining popularity. Improving Israel-Arab relations have also contributed to the perception that the Palestinian cause is facing significant hurdles. In this context, Hamas’s attacks against Israel can be seen as a preventive attack to forestall Israel’s developing relations with the Arabs, and an attempt to regain its popularity by aligning its cause with civilian sympathies.
Terrorist groups receive pervasive incentives by provoking their opponents into deploying massive counter measures, as it helps them mobilise greater share of recruitments and resources. The ‘strategy of provocation’ is based on a simple rationale – if you can bait your opponent into an onerous response, especially when the latent civilian sympathies align with your cause, you can end up more powerful than where you have started. As quoted by former MI-6 chief Alex Younger, Hamas was ‘laying a trap’ and goading for Israel to invade, as disproportionate response by Israel might lead to civilian casualties and help Hamas garner its lost support.
This argument can be supported by Hamas’s practice of using humanitarian sites as covers and civilians as human shields. Many of Hamas’s offensives are launched from the vicinity of humanitarian aid camps, and much of the terrorist infrastructure are built under hospitals, schools, and civilian infrastructure, so that the prospect of civilian casualties could deter Israel from setting targets. By deliberately positioning its own civilians in harm’s way, terrorist groups provoke an onerous response from their opponents and easily shift the blame of civilian casualties towards the attacker to mobilise support.
Recent Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) investigations revealed the existence of Hamas’s armed training site only a kilometre from the UN facility in Gaza, a stark indicator of potential risk of civilian casualties. Similarly, following the IDF’s warning to the residents of Gaza to evacuate from the north, the IDF has released an image of a blockade by Hamas obstructing the passage of civilians into the south, complicating Israel’s response to set targets. Further, Hamas has managed to evoke international condemnation against Israel by alleging 500 Palestinian deaths due to a missile strike at the Al Ahli Hospital. OSINT investigations evidenced that the attack was indeed a mis-fired rocket launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and not a result of an Israeli air strike.
These incidents indicate that Hamas can simply shift the blame of casualties to Israel and any disproportionate exertion of force by Israel could lead to a ‘Hydra Effect’ – a phenomenon where eliminating one terrorist group often results in the emergence of new and decentralized factions. Before the war, studies indicate that Gaza’s leaders were deeply unpopular, but an Israeli crackdown could change that. While Israel’s current operations might deal a huge blow to Hamas, it could intensify Hamas’s recruitments and resources in the near-long term.
The rationale for war, credible commitment problem and long-term implications
Despite the possibility of a hydra effect, Israel’s policy option to invade Gaza is premised on certain key considerations. Halting the bombardment of Gaza to avoid civilian casualties may invoke more attacks from Hamas, and any pauses in the course of the operations can provide Hamas a tactical advantage to reposition its artillery and launch offensive from favourable positions.
On the other hand, multiplying Palestinian casualties due to Israeli strikes might provoke more attacks on Israel in the future and can lead to a hydra effect. Since Israel’s expectations in both cases incite enemy’s attacks, Israel’s option of a full-scale invasion of Gaza seems rational.
In his seminal article ‘Rationalist Explanations for War’ Prof. James D Fearon introduced ‘credible commitment’ as one of the primary causes of war. The theory asserts that if one party to the conflict can credibly demonstrate its commitment not to exploit a future opportune moment to decisively attack, the other party shall abstain from attacking.
Observing the current war from Fearon’s perspective, Hamas must not only agree to recognise Israel’s right to exist, but also credibly commit to continued inability to attack Israel. In short, Hamas must cease its first strike advantage capability and commit not to gain similar capabilities in the future. Since the credible commitment problem persisted throughout the course of the conflict over the past years, and Hamas has defected the ceasefire in several cases, demilitarisation of Palestine seemed insufficient for Israel, demanding some military presence, oversight or control. This included retention of strategically important corridors, zones and larger settlements.
Without addressing the credible commitment problem, the ‘two-state solution’ gives fragile hopes for peace. While Israel’s concessions within a two-state framework would be physical withdrawal from strategically vital positions, the key Palestinian concessions would only be verbal commitment to peace, which cannot be deemed credible.
From a rational perspective, the current war between Israel and Gaza is a direct consequence of Hama’s first-strike advantage and inability to demonstrate credible commitment. One cannot end a war without addressing the problem that started it. If the credible commitment problem is not fully addressed, the fundamental challenge of reconciling Palestinian sovereignty with Israeli security interests will be a distant possibility.
Author: Rohith Sai Narayan Stambamkadi – Founder and director of the Indian Forum for Public Diplomacy (IFPD), a student-driven think-tank that advocates civilian-led strategic studies in India. He is a graduate in Law from the Birla School of Law and his area of interests include conventional and sub-conventional warfare, greyzone wars, strategic dimensions of terrorism, China studies and Game Theory.
(The views expressed in this article belong only to the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of World Geostrategic Insights)
Image Credit: Israel Defense Forces/Reuters (Handout image released on Nov. 1, 2023: Armored vehicles of the Israel Defense Forces during ground operations on Gaza).