For Israel, a cease-fire means death

Pressure is mounting on Israel to agree to a cease-fire in Gaza. In capitals and campuses across America and much of the world, hundreds of thousands are demonstrating for an immediate halt to the fighting in Gaza.

The painful photos coming out of the battle zone, together with mounting civilian casualties, further fuel the protestors’ demands. In addition to preventing further bloodshed, a cease-fire would allow for mediation to free the hostages — so the reasoning goes. Palestinian refugees can then be repatriated, and the process of rebuilding can begin.

Rejecting these arguments is not easy for Israelis. Though responsibility for civilian casualties rests with the Hamas terrorists who use their own population as human shields, Israelis can sympathize with the Palestinians’ pain. We, too, are sustaining daily losses and the uprooting of 250,000 of our citizens from their homes. We want nothing more than to see an end to this war.

But for Israel, accepting a cease-fire means victory for Hamas. For Israel, a cease-fire means death.

Which is precisely why Hamas wants one. If imposed, a cease-fire would enable the terrorists to get away with mass murder. It would empower them to replenish their rocket arsenal and repair whatever damage Israel has so far wrought to their military infrastructure. As in the past, much of the international aid channeled into Gaza would be siphoned off by Hamas to augment its ability to kill Jews.

A cease-fire would empower Hamas to declare a triumph for its jihadist aberration of Islam and to prepare for the next, even more barbarous, round. The October 7 onslaught “was just the first time,” declared Hamas political leader  Ghazi Hamad. “There will be a second, a third, and a fourth. We are ready to pay the price. We are proud to sacrifice martyrs.”

A cease-fire, by contrast, would mortally tie Israel’s hands. With Hamas resurgent on Israel’s southern border and an emboldened Hezbollah to the north, the towns and communities evacuated from these areas would never be able to return. Tourism and foreign investment would vanish, and many Israelis would choose to raise their children elsewhere.

But along with forfeiting our internal security, Israel would lose its regional deterrence. Iran could strike us with impunity, confident that any attempt to defend ourselves would swiftly be curtailed by a cease-fire. The Israel Defense Forces may be the most powerful army in the Middle East, but without the legitimacy and maneuverability to use it, Israel is fatally exposed.

President Biden understands this and, together with Israel, has withstood the rising pressure for a cease-fire. He knows that a cease-fire means not only defeat for Israel but also for a United States facing many of the same Iranian and terrorist threats.

But growing criticism of the president’s policy within his party as well as from allied Middle East leaders necessitates some flexibility. This, Biden believes, can be gained through the humanitarian pauses recommended by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken during his recent visit to the region. Such pauses, Blinken explained, would help Israel “minimize civilian deaths while still achieving its objectives of finding and finishing Hamas.”

Though Blinken reiterated America’s opposition to a cease-fire, his proposal for humanitarian pauses was still rejected by Israel. “Israel refuses a temporary cease-fire that does not include the release of our hostages,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained. 

The government’s position reflects that of the vast majority of Israelis who regard giving aid to Gaza as weakening the little leverage they have to secure the hostages’ freedom. Israelis also know that, even with the most draconian inspections, a portion of any aid shipment into Gaza will be appropriated by Hamas and that, by hiding among evacuating civilians, the terrorists will try to escape. Israelis do not want to slow their troops’ momentum or to provide Hamas with any opportunity to regroup. Humanitarian pauses, from Israel’s standpoint, will only strengthen Hamas and cost us more of our soldiers’ lives.

Nevertheless, the question of whether or not Israel can agree to humanitarian pauses is likely to become more critical in the coming days. Israel will increasingly have to rely on the U.S. to veto U.N. Security Council resolutions demanding an immediate cessation of hostilities.

Expending ammunition at an enormous rate, Israeli forces will soon have to call on America for resupply. By unequivocally upholding Israel’s right to defend itself and dispatching massive naval forces to deter Israel’s enemies and protect its skies, Biden has earned a significant amount of influence over Israeli decision-makers. “Help me,” he could reasonably say to them, “help you.”

Needed is a compromise formula that will enable the White House to claim that aid is indeed reaching the Palestinians while Israel preserves its leverage over Hamas and pursues its plan of battle. One such solution might be for strictly limiting the length of the pauses and to locations far from the front. Shorter pauses designed solely to allow Palestinians to evacuate combat zones could also be considered. In all cases, Israel would have the ability to inspect the aid going into Gaza and, to the greatest degree possible, ensure that none of it reaches Hamas.

Regardless of whether a compromise on the pauses is possible, Israel and the United States must remain united in opposing a cease-fire. Difficult though it will be maintaining that front as the war in Gaza progresses, neither country can allow Hamas to win nor to permit Israel’s security to be permanently and perhaps fatally impaired. A cease-fire may mean an end to this round of bloodshed — but it guarantees even bloodier conflicts ahead.

Michael Oren, formerly Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Knesset Member, and Deputy Minister in Charge of Diplomacy, is the author of the Substack “Clarity.”