August 27, 2024

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Fundamental Differences Hinder Gaza Ceasefire Agreement

AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo

Many regional and global officials and experts are questioning why an agreement to end the conflict in Gaza has not been reached, to date, despite numerous rounds of talks between senior Israeli, U.S., Qatari, and Egyptian officials, and despite the fact that the U.S. exercises leverage over the Israeli government. The talks have included the participation, if indirectly, of members of Hamas’ Political Bureau. Senior U.S. officials, including President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who last week completed his ninth visit to the region since the October 7 Hamas attack, have repeatedly said “an agreement is near,” and that all that remains is to reach consensus on implementation of an agreed framework. Secretary Blinken claimed Israel had accepted U.S. “bridging proposals,” although Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu suggested he is still far from satisfied with the current outline of an agreement.

The failure to reach an agreement thus far has even prompted reports in regional media that the talks are close to collapse – assertions that have prompted strong U.S. official denials. At a press briefing on Friday, John Kirby, the director of strategic communications at the U.S. National Security Council, stated: “But things are moving forward. There’s been press reporting out there that, you know, they’re near collapse.  That is not accurate. There has been progress made. We need now for both sides to come together and work towards implementation.” U.S., Israeli, Qatari, and Egyptian mediators are continuing to meet in Cairo to try to advance the talks.

Talks have not been completed even though the families of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas escalate their campaign to compel the government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to compromise in order to bring their family members home. Israeli officials state that 109 Israelis remain missing in Gaza, of which as many as 40 are believed dead. Israeli families fear those still alive might not survive if the war continues much longer.

Lacking direct ties to any Hamas leaders or direct leverage over the group, U.S. officials have been pressing Netanyahu to accept an agreement that deviates little from the three-stage outline for a permanent end to the war that President Biden announced on May 31. Among the issues that appear to be standing in the way of a deal are Israeli demands to maintain permanent control of two key crossings into Gaza – the Netzarim and Philadelphi corridors, the latter of which is a narrow strip of land dividing Gaza from Egypt. According to Israel’s Channel 12 news, “unnamed senior officials” have told the organization that Gaza mediators have decided to set aside the Philadelphi corridor to focus on “other issues”.

Nevertheless, the Israeli demands for ongoing control of these corridors masks deeper disagreements holding up an accord. First and foremost, Israeli leaders argue they must continue to control the Philadelphi Corridor in order to ensure that Hamas can no longer receive weapons shipments from Iran and other suppliers. In the course of their offensive in southern Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have uncovered several large tunnels under the border separating Egypt from Gaza – discoveries that sparked recriminations that Egypt had not been as helpful as it portrayed in preventing weapons flows to Hamas.

More broadly, the Israeli demands for control of the key corridors - which some U.S. and regional officials say represent Israeli attempts to “move the goalposts” of the talks - reflect a more deep-seated distrust by Netanyahu and his key allies over the potential post-war arrangements to secure and govern Gaza. Although his security establishment has reportedly advised Netanyahu that Israel has accomplished its military objectives in Gaza and that military efforts will not produce a return of all of Israel’s remaining hostages, Netanyahu and hardline allies appear to believe they can still completely eliminate Hamas from the Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu and his close allies do not believe that U.S.-led plans to assemble a multilateral force to secure post-war Gaza, or to reinstate the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) as the governing body in Gaza, will succeed in keeping Hamas from a resurgence. In Netanyahu’s view, only the IDF’s ability to conduct periodic and repeated military interventions into Gaza will assure that Hamas cannot reconstitute its political and military infrastructure in the enclave. U.S. officials argue that several regional leaders are willing to contribute peacekeeping forces to Gaza, and the PA would, if reformed, constitute an accepted body that could replace Hamas authorities in Gaza. But regional cooperation to secure and govern Gaza depends on Israel’s acceptance of a roadmap to the establishment of a Palestinian state – an outcome Netanyahu, his hardline allies, and many Israelis oppose.

And, in the view of Israeli hardliners, only the permanent ouster of Hamas as the governing authority in Gaza and thorough dismantlement of its military infrastructure will thwart Iran’s plans to exert a stranglehold on Israel through empowerment of its “Axis of Resistance” partners. Hamas has been a key pillar of Iran’s “unity of fronts” strategy intended to intimidate and pressure Israel on all of its borders. The loss of Hamas as an effective member of the Axis, in the view of Israeli leaders, is crucial to setting back Iran’s strategy and weakening the Islamic Republic’s regional influence.

Many regional commentators attribute the lack of an agreement, to date, to what they assert is an unwillingness of U.S. leaders to exert all available leverage on the Israeli leadership to accept a settlement. According to many in and outside the region, the continued provision of U.S. weaponry and financial aid to Israel demonstrates that the United States is not sufficiently committed to ending the war. Yet, threatening to withhold U.S. support would not guarantee Netanyahu’s flexibility, and could trigger a backlash among many pro-Israel groups in the U.S.

President Biden and Vice President and Democratic nominee for President Kamala Harris assert they are intensively engaged to try to broker a resolution of the conflict. They and other U.S. officials note the urgent need to end the suffering of Gaza civilians caught in the crossfire, and insist that resolving the conflict is crucial to de-escalating the broader Iran-backed regional conflict involving Axis partners Lebanese Hezbollah, the Houthi movement in Yemen, and Iran-backed militias operating in Iraq and Syria. Over the weekend, the situation between Israel and Hezbollah escalated further, with Israel preemptively striking targets in Lebanon, claiming to have prevented a major Hezbollah attack. The region remains on edge as Hezbollah prepares to respond.

To try to accelerate progress in the talks, President Biden and Vice President Harris conducted a phone conversation with Prime Minister Netanyahu on August 21, in which they “stressed the urgency” of reaching a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal and reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to help defend Israel against "all threats from Iran, including its proxy terrorist groups Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis." Asked to describe the phone call, Kirby stated he “would characterize those as constructive conversations." U.S. leaders also perceive that a Gaza deal will cause Iran to stand down on its threatened retaliation for Israel’s killing of Hamas’ top leader, Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

Some skeptics of U.S. policy asserted the high-level U.S. pressure on Netanyahu is not only insufficient but based primarily on a perceived need by U.S. leaders to resolve the Gaza crisis prior to the November 5 U.S. presidential election. Conventional wisdom holds that a failure to end the fighting by then would set back Vice President Harris’ chances in the vote, although most observers conclude foreign policy issues will have only modest bearing on the outcome of the election.

At the same time, the looming U.S. election is adding complications to U.S. efforts to assuage Netanyahu’s concerns. The prime minister has been open with his hopes that former President Donald Trump will be elected again, on the assumption a second Trump administration would allow Israel maximum flexibility to pursue its policies in Gaza, Lebanon, and the broader region. The Trump administration was highly supportive of Netanyahu, and both Trump and Netanyahu believe Israel and the United States should pursue all necessary means to deter Iran and roll back its regional influence. It is possible that Netanyahu calculates there is no need for him to compromise now, before the outcome of the U.S. election is determined.