While the Israeli air raid on Hamas leaders in Doha failed in its aim of assassinating them, it was brilliantly successful in a more important respect: ending the war
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| The Federalist Papers |
"Sometimes the received wisdom is correct. But sometimes it is dangerously wrong – and the received wisdom over the Gaza deal is one of those times.
"According to most analysis doing the rounds, all that really happened was that President Trump decided that enough was enough after Israel’s failed attempt to assassinate Hamas leaders in Doha last month, and told Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to the same deal that has effectively been on the table for over a year.
"It's no wonder that this is the take: it fits perfectly with other received wisdom that because Netanyahu had to keep Smotrich and Ben-Gvir in his coalition to save his own political skin, he needlessly prolonged the war and the ‘genocide’.
"It's all very convenient, since this version of events also brings together many of the threads that form the basis of so much of the hostility towards Israel. It is indeed correct that Netanyahu has strived to keep his coalition together. But it does not follow that this meant he kept the war going for longer than was necessary. Convenient it may be: it’s also wrong.
"I have spent the past few days speaking to military and political sources in Israel and elsewhere and a very different picture emerges – one which makes far more sense than the version of events which has taken hold. Central to all of it is that while the Israeli air raid on Hamas leaders in Doha failed in its aim of assassinating them, it was brilliantly successful in a more important respect: ending the war. Far from being the final straw that turned Trump against Netanyahu, the air raid was the moment the corner was turned towards peace.
"First, the Israeli bombing showed Hamas’ leadership that there is nowhere where they can be truly safe from either the IDF or the Mossad. Qatar has long been Hamas’ refuge, where its leaders can live in luxury with their billions, safe in the knowledge that the US ally, with its US airbases and role as mediator and honest broker in the region, is off limits. The air raid destroyed that safety cushion for Hamas leaders.
"But even more significantly, it put the fear of God into the Qataris themselves. They immediately went running to Trump for protection. Which put the Qataris exactly where they needed to be. You can have your guarantee of US protection, Trump responded, on one condition: you deliver up Hamas.
"The Qataris are nothing if not realists. They were not going to risk their own security, and US wrath, for a denuded Hamas, so they had no hesitation in doing this. Hamas may still exist. It may still have weapons. It may still have terrorists. But it is as close to being wiped out (for now) as is realistic – all the more so since the IDF entered its last significant enclave in Gaza City, a move which was opposed by almost all those purveyors of the received wisdom."...More... More links on this here
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