Israel faces challenging 'conundrum' over Gaza war rhetoric, specialists say
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00:00 13 Israeli women and children are being released today.
00:04 In addition to 12 Thai nationals, Thailand negotiated the release of their own nationals
00:11 directly with Iran.
00:14 We can now bring in Hussein Ibish, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute
00:19 in Washington.
00:21 Thank you very much for joining us here on France 24.
00:24 It appears that this truce, which went into effect at 7 a.m.
00:28 Real time appears to be holding.
00:30 Do you think there's enough to build on to hopefully extend it?
00:36 I do think it's possible.
00:39 The only difficulty is that once we're done with the full set of 50 hostages and 150 Palestinian
00:49 women and children being held by Israel, many of them being held without charge, by the
00:54 way, so they're arguably some of them hostages as well.
00:59 Once we're done with that, the stakes go up.
01:03 So even though this is a template for additional exchanges of hostages and prisoners and what
01:12 have you, involving extended truces or de facto ceasefires for a limited period of time,
01:22 that that could be replicated as you get into the other hostages held by Hamas, it becomes
01:31 harder because their value goes more.
01:34 The reason they're so eager to get rid of the women and children is they're low value
01:40 hostages.
01:42 And it's a bad look for them to be holding women and children.
01:45 When you get to things like the uniformed Israeli soldiers, and there are many of them
01:50 that they're holding, then they're going to want senior Hamas cadres released from Israeli
01:57 prisons in return.
01:58 And that's going to be very difficult, especially when Israel's stated war aim is the destruction
02:03 of Hamas.
02:04 And it would be a complete contradiction to let important Hamas people out of Israeli
02:10 prisons while you're trying to destroy Hamas.
02:12 Hussein, I just was wondering if you heard the interview my colleague on the ground in
02:16 Tel Aviv did with the brother of one of the hostages.
02:20 And he said, you know, just empty the prisons, empty the prisoners, let all the Palestinians
02:26 out if that's what needs to happen.
02:29 Given that there's this sentiment out on the streets, there is going to be this pressure
02:33 ramped up on the prime minister to do whatever it takes to bring the remaining 190 what have
02:39 you hostages home once this first batch of 50 is done.
02:43 What does he do?
02:45 I don't know.
02:48 Israel has put itself in an impossible situation by saying Hamas must be destroyed.
02:54 And even if that means Hamas must be destroyed as a ruling entity in Gaza, it's not really
03:02 an achievable goal unless Israel wants to reoccupy Gaza for a prolonged period of time.
03:09 That's what Hamas wants, because Hamas wants to launch a long term insurgency against Israeli
03:16 troops.
03:17 And that's important for them politically.
03:20 Now, if so, if Israel wants to shift this conflict, which they should, the only thing
03:26 that makes sense would be to make this a war to free the hostages rather than a war to
03:33 completely eradicate Hamas.
03:36 That would be very intelligent thing for Israel to do.
03:39 But it would mean really walking back a lot of rhetoric.
03:43 So I don't know if Netanyahu is ever going to be willing to be that sensible.
03:47 But Hussein, how long can Netanyahu last once this war is done?
03:55 His future is on the line because it seems that people want him out.
04:00 They wanted him out before this war broke out.
04:02 They will want him out even more once it's done.
04:04 Much more.
04:05 Much more.
04:06 So if he's no longer in the room, does that change the dynamics on the ground?
04:10 It would change everything.
04:11 If Netanyahu is out, then the new prime minister, whoever it is, would have great leeway to
04:20 restructure this as the war to free the hostages, which would make so much sense.
04:26 And it's hard.
04:28 But you're right, Netanyahu, I think, is done at the end of this, between the judicial coup
04:35 that he was trying before and now the failure on October 7th, the radical failure on October,
04:43 not just 7th, 8th and 9th of the Israeli security forces to get control of these villages in
04:49 southern Israel.
04:50 Yeah, he's done.
04:52 But here's his perspective right now.
04:54 He thinks the best way to stay out of prison is to stay in power.
04:58 And the best way to stay in power is to continue the war as long as possible.
05:04 Because it's going to be more difficult to get rid of him when the fighting is going
05:09 on.
05:10 So I think right now he's committed to kind of extending the conflict.
05:15 On the other hand, the public pressure may be too much.
05:17 I want to ask you, and also there's the international pressure as well, because from the Israelis'
05:25 perspective, they want to move this fight further to the south at one point, even though
05:29 they're telling people not to go back up north.
05:31 It seems that they want to take the fight down south, which is populated and the civilian
05:36 casualties will inevitably go higher.
05:41 The number of casualties will go higher.
05:42 We have over 13,000 people killed in Gaza today.
05:47 If those numbers go even higher, there are going to be more calls, louder calls for a
05:52 ceasefire.
05:53 And that pressure is going to have to weigh on him.
05:56 And it's going to have to be a factor, regardless of what the United States says.
06:00 Well, undoubtedly, the key is going to be the United States.
06:03 And the Americans have already indicated that the needle is moving.
06:08 So first they were demanding daily cease, you know, sort of a ceasefire.
06:15 Hourly pauses, yeah.
06:17 But they meant, originally they meant three to four days for aid to come in.
06:22 They got hourly pauses.
06:24 Then they used the hostage negotiations, which really, this is an American deal.
06:29 You have to understand it really was the United States negotiating with Hamas.
06:32 Is it American or Qatari?
06:34 No, it's American through Qatar.
06:37 So the Qataris are like the telephone, right?
06:41 And it's the Americans getting this deal and convincing Netanyahu didn't want to take the
06:47 deal.
06:48 Biden insisted on him taking it.
06:51 And he then went back and got the Qataris to tell Hamas they couldn't get more than
06:56 four days.
06:57 They wanted five days, six days.
06:59 They wanted much more supplies.
07:02 And eventually the Americans, through the Qataris, told Hamas, this is the most you're
07:07 going to get.
07:08 Take it.
07:09 And they told Netanyahu, you must take it.
07:11 You must take it.
07:12 We must get hostages out.
07:14 And you know, he had to acquiesce.
07:16 So Washington is moving the needle on pauses and truces.
07:21 And at some point the Americans are going to pull the plug and start demanding it.
07:25 Now, will the Israelis obey the Americans or bow to their pressure?
07:30 I don't know.
07:31 It's possible for Israel to continue, even in spite of American pressure and international
07:37 pressure.
07:38 But you're absolutely right.
07:40 We are, you know, the clock is ticking for the Israelis because this is not open ended.
07:45 They may think they can continue fighting for years and years until they kill every
07:50 single Hamas member.
07:51 But that's not the way it's going to be.
07:53 There comes a point where it becomes really damaging to American interests in the Arab
07:59 world.
08:00 And we're already at a point where the U.S. is paying a significant price, not with governments,
08:05 but with people in some Arab countries.
08:08 And it's going to get worse and worse.
08:10 And at a certain point, the U.S. is going to say, enough is enough.
08:14 But what do you make of Netanyahu going on, giving a press conference the other day and
08:18 basically admitting that he has Hamas's political leadership in his sights, the same leaders
08:25 who he's negotiating with right now?
08:28 Yeah, it's a real conundrum for Israel.
08:32 They have established a ridiculous war aim, which is that Hamas must be eradicated.
08:38 And it cannot be done because Hamas is a brand and not a group of people.
08:43 In addition, there are the Hamas political leaders, the diplomats, really, in Qatar.
08:49 Khaled Mishal, Ismail Haniyeh, Moussa Amou Marzouk, Ghazi Hamad, all in Qatar.
08:55 And the Qataris have not changed their policy or their rhetoric about Hamas one bit after
09:01 October 7th.
09:03 Apparently they don't really mind.
09:05 And so it's going to be, you know, there's not much Netanyahu can do about those people.
09:10 And they constitute senior, senior Hamas leaders.
09:14 So look, you know, he has to negotiate with these.
09:19 Eventually Israel is going to have to climb down from this Hamas must be eradicated rhetoric
09:24 because it just can't be done.
09:26 And it's a dumb war aim because it makes the war an impossible and self-defeating war.
09:32 How do you go, how do you, what do you do when Hamas fighters start blending in with
09:37 the civilian population in Gaza?
09:40 How do you differentiate one from the other?
09:42 Already happened.
09:43 You can't.
09:44 And that's why there's 13,000 people dead already in Gaza.
09:50 It's more than a 10 to 1 ratio.
09:52 And it's probably a very similar ratio of competence to civilians on both sides, except
09:59 that in Gaza, the number of children, the ratio of children is much higher because of
10:04 the demographics.
10:05 So Gaza is a much younger population demographically than Israel, more children.
10:11 So yeah, you can't.
10:13 And then in the end, in Palestine calling themselves Hamas means that Hamas exists.
10:19 So if Israel is insisting on a war to eradicate Hamas, it means they're going to be in Gaza
10:26 for the foreseeable future.
10:28 And that's what Hamas wants.
10:30 It really is the goal of Hamas to get them back in.
10:34 This was designed to suck them in.
10:35 Hamas has said clearly that they want a permanent state of war with Israel.
10:40 And they have said that if the October 7 attack had not resulted in this offensive, they would
10:47 have done it again and again and again until they got the Israeli response they were looking
10:51 for.
10:53 Fascinating discussion, Hussein.
10:55 Thank you very much for that.
10:56 That was Hussein Ibish speaking to us there.