A smarter way to proceed in Gaza: hold off and reengage Riyadh

The Oct. 7 Hamas massacre has inspired two new tidbits of conventional wisdom: first, that Israel will now launch a ground invasion of Gaza to remove Hamas from power, and second that the U.S.-brokered peace deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia is for the moment off the table. 

Both of these assumptions should be reexamined.

A better path forward may be to fast-track such a peace deal and even expand it. The shrewdest answer to the savagery of Hamas — to an unprovoked assault which was almost certainly green-lighted by Iran — would be to make peace and thwart the Iranians’ efforts to sabotage Israeli-Arab conciliation.

Such an alternative strategy cannot happen if Israel marches into Gaza with guns blazing and tanks rumbling, causing massive civilian casualties precisely in accordance with its enemies’ nihilistic plan.

Israel is being driven to action by the scale of Hamas’s savagery on Oct. 7. In the wake of this outrage, there is a broad consensus in Israel, an otherwise divided society, that Hamas can no longer be tolerated as ruler of Gaza “contained” there and constricted in its freedom of action to the occasional rounds of rockets that Iron Dome interceptors can mostly handle.

Previously, Israel has refrained from total ground incursions against Hamas for fear of the human cost. The group is fully entrenched in the civilian infrastructure in Gaza, with command and control, operations and logistics and even launchers nestled among the homes and warrens of the shanties and towns. Key commanders locate themselves under the main hospital, daring Israel to target it. They are clearly willing to die and to take many thousands of Gazan civilians with them, in addition to a maximal number of Israeli soldiers. (That Hamas desires Palestinian civilian casualties is just one of many things its clueless supporters on progressive U.S. campuses do not understand.)

In the wake of Oct. 7, Israel risks committing a classic fallacy. Something must be done, the argument goes; a full-scale ground invasion is something; therefore a full-scale ground invasion must be done.

The Israeli bombardment of recent days seems to be the predicted softening of the ground ahead of such an incursion. But nothing about the dangers that prevented it before has changed. Indeed, Hamas is trying to prevent civilians from leaving the area, intimidating them with orders to stay home, blocking roads and even taking away car keys. The group is clearly preparing for its awaited Armegeddon.

An invasion thus still promises, now as before, to be a bloodbath. And even if it succeeds in removing Hamas from power, Israel will be, at least in the short term, saddled with an occupation that will involve uprisings and snipers, tending to an angry population whose homes have been destroyed, and with constant global pressure.

Israel’s economy will be hammered and attention riveted on Gaza at the expense of other fronts no less dangerous, such as the West Bank and Iran-backed Hezbollah north of the Lebanese border. Not only will Saudi Arabia not join the Abraham Accords, but Israel’s existing peace deals, with Egypt, Jordan, the UAE and Bahrain will be endangered because the barely-legitimate leaders in those countries will fear the reaction on the Arab street, which is rarely as potent as when it’s angry at Israel.

There is also a very decent chance that the 200-odd hostages, many of them foreign citizens, will be killed in the fighting or executed by their abductors.

So what to do? A better strategy would be to leave Hamas wondering when revenge will come. Meanwhile, take the more urgent course of bringomg Saudi Arabia to the table, front and center.

As of mid-September, a peace deal seemed imminent, with even Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of the kingdom, confirming it. He wants a security umbrella from the U.S., and he appeared ready to normalize relations with Israel without conditioning that on movement toward a two-state solution.

Saudi Arabia is far from a democracy, but its rulers also have some respect for public opinion. The mooted normalization deal will be set aside for years if the nightmare scenario occurs in Gaza — a gift by all concerned to the Iranians.

The Israelis, meanwhile, need a very large carrot to calm public opinion, which is clamoring for change (and in some cases for revenge) on the Gaza front. A fast-tracked Saudi deal could be that carrot.

If Israel puts off a ground invasion and instead focuses on a rapid prisoner exchange to return the hostages, there will be risks. Some of the thousands of prisoners it will have to release are genuinely dangerous terrorists. In fact, one of the terrorists released in a 2011 deal, in exchange for a single Israeli soldier, resulted in the release of the mastermind of Oct. 7, Yehiya Sinwar.

But if Saudi Arabia agrees to a peace deal with Israel, establishing full diplomatic and economic relations as well as free travel in both directions, as had been planned, the risks might still be worth it. The Saudis’ incentive to join in would be their desired security collaboration with the U.S. at Iran’s expense. They may also be able to take credit for averting a bloodbath in Gaza, as would Kuwait, Qatar, and anyone else who can be induced to enter talks with Israel on a similar deal.

From there, Israel would strive to initiate talks with its Sunni peace partners and the Palestinian Authority on resolving the Gaza crisis. The goal would be to raise an aid fund to rebuild and assist Gaza for years, but on the condition that Hamas hands it back to the Palestinian Authority. That, ideally combined with a cutoff of Qatari funds for Hamas, would put pressure back on the group, where it belongs.

Israel will always retain the option of invading into Gaza in the future. But when it happens, that will be a gift to Hamas, not a punishment. A ruthless pursuit of peace, on the other hand, would be punishment, and it might also build a better future for the region.

Dan Perry is the former Cairo-based Middle East editor and London-based Europe/Africa editor of the Associated Press. The author of two books about Israel, he also chaired the Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem.