Why a ceasefire with a potent Hezbollah, but not with a weak, hostage-holding Hamas?
In Gaza, Netanyahu was not prepared even for a first phase of a deal, during which 20-30 living hostages could have been freed, claiming that if the IDF left it would never be able to resume fighting
David Horovitz is the founding editor of The Times of Israel. He is the author of "Still Life with Bombers" (2004) and "A Little Too Close to God" (2000), and co-author of "Shalom Friend: The Life and Legacy of Yitzhak Rabin" (1996). He previously edited The Jerusalem Post (2004-2011) and The Jerusalem Report (1998-2004).
This Editor’s Note was sent out earlier Wednesday in ToI’s weekly update email to members of the Times of Israel Community. To receive these Editor’s Notes as they’re released, join the ToI Community here.
These are the very first few hours of the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire.
As I write, the intended timeline looks like it’s being overtaken by events: Lebanese are returning to some of the areas close to the border where the IDF is still deployed — unsurprisingly, because the IDF withdrawal was not expected to begin immediately, and the Lebanese Army that is supposed to take over responsibility was not readied to immediately deploy in its stead. As I write, Israel is warning that Hezbollah members are among the returning villagers, and the IDF has resorted to the firing of warning shots in the air to disperse them.
By the time you read this, or not long after, things may have calmed down. Perhaps the deal will hold, the lives of soldiers and civilians will be saved, Hezbollah will ultimately be disarmed, Hamas will prove more forthcoming on terms for a hostage deal, and even the US hope of a process toward Israeli-Saudi normalization will be vindicated. May it be Your will.
Perhaps, too, however, matters will deteriorate further, and the ceasefire will collapse. After all, at its core, it is built on an extremely fragile, even absurd concept: Israel and Lebanon have committed to a series of terms that are intended to be binding on a much-degraded but still highly potent terrorist group, Hezbollah, that retains tens of thousands of drones, rockets and missiles and the capability to launch them.
It is the Lebanese Army that is primarily supposed to ensure that Hezbollah withdraws from southern Lebanon, that it is separated from its weapons, and that it is prevented from rearming, but the Lebanese Army has proven entirely unwilling and unable to do so in the 18 years since it was required to do exactly this under UN Security Council Resolution 1701.
This, then, is a ceasefire deal that holds only for as long as Hezbollah — not a signatory and not remotely threatened by the prime authority charged with implementation — chooses to observe it.
In pushing the deal, Netanyahu went against the broad will of his own supporters, and he himself acknowledged on Tuesday night that it does not meet the designated goal of the war — enabling the secure return of 60,000 displaced residents of Israel’s north. He is being bitterly criticized by northern local council heads, who are directly responsible for the lives of those residents and who recognize that Hezbollah cannot be completely destroyed — that would require conquering all of Lebanon — but nonetheless argue that the IDF campaign has been ended prematurely, on terms they fear will prove untenable for their communities.
Netanyahu on Tuesday night set out three reasons why he had sought this ceasefire at this juncture: because the imperative to tackle would-be nuclear Iran is now his primary concern; because IDF troops need a break and fresh weapons supplies; and because taking Hezbollah out of the war isolates Hamas and could help advance the return of the hostages in Gaza.
But those three reasons, while cogent, do not adequately answer the great big question at the heart of this deal, at this time, on this war front: Why the ceasefire with Hezbollah, when, for the six months since an optimistic Joe Biden presented a Gaza ceasefire deal to the world containing Netanyahu’s own terms, the premier has steadfastly refused to advance such a deal and indeed hardened his terms?
In Gaza, after all, by the prime minister’s own telling, Hamas no longer functions as an organized military force. In Gaza, as with Lebanon, there could and doubtless would have been a US “side letter” guaranteeing Israel’s right to resume fighting if the ceasefire was breached. And in Gaza, there are 101 hostages — many of them dead, the rest at greater risk of dying with every passing week.
On the Gaza front, Netanyahu was adamant that if the IDF left, it would never be allowed, internationally, to resume fighting — and yet he secured precisely that US-guaranteed provision with regards to Hezbollah.
On the Gaza front, indeed, he was not prepared even to agree to a 42-day first stage of a deal, during which perhaps 20 or 30 living hostages could have been released.
Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox coalition partners may well believe the Lebanon ceasefire will alleviate some of the public pressure for their young male constituents to share the burden of military service, since the IDF might be under less strain if the withdrawal from southern Lebanon proves viable. The prime minister may think so, too.
He may also be unprepared — psychologically and in terms of restoring his credibility and Israel’s deterrence — to stop battering Hamas because it was Hamas that invaded and slaughtered on October 7, Hamas that rampaged through southern Israel on the worst day for Jews since the Holocaust, Hamas that monstrously exploited the failed assessments, misguided policies and absent basic precautions under his leadership.
But why did the far-right component of the coalition go along with the Hezbollah ceasefire, with Religious Zionism’s leader Bezalel Smotrich voting in favor and Itamar Ben Gvir of Otzma Yehudit casting the lone security cabinet vote against but notably eschewing his customary threats to bolt the government?
Regarding Gaza, of course, the far-right coalition parties have very different long-term ambitions from those that relate to Lebanon. Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism want Israel to permanently reoccupy the Strip, and resume Jewish settlement there, as does a sizable component of Netanyahu’s own Likud. Smotrich publicly asserted this week that half of Gaza’s populace could be “encouraged” to leave in the next two years.
That may not be Netanyahu’s endgame, but it is certainly the goal of coalition extremists he has consistently indulged to date. In the medium term, that would bring more than two million deeply hostile Palestinians under Israeli rule, a permanently debilitating Israeli responsibility, economic burden and security danger.
But before we get to any of that, where does the prioritizing, right now, of a fragile ceasefire with a relatively potent Hezbollah, and the insistent forgoing of a ceasefire with a much-weakened Hamas, leave the hostages?
