October 7th and its Consequences

On October 7th, 2023, war once again broke out between Israel and Palestine. This time, Israel found itself on the receiving end of a coordinated surprise offensive initiated by Hamas. Hamas launched a series of rockets at Israel, while its militants breached the Israel-Gaza boarder and proceeded to carry out attacks on Israeli military bases and civilian centers. Hamas’ attack killed over 1,200 Israeli’s, overwhelmingly civilians, according to Israeli authorities.

Hamas claims that its attacks were in retaliation to a variety of Israeli crimes against Palestinians, such as the blockade of Gaza, settlements in the West Bank, the desecration of al-Aqsa Mosque, and the holding of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. The attacks, in turn, were aimed at putting an end to these crimes.

In response, after clearing out the Hamas forces in southern Israel, the IDF conducted extensive airstrikes in Gaza in addition to cutting off food, water, and electricity to the territory. Following this, Israel launched a ground invasion of Gaza. According to Palestinian authorities, over 14,300 Gazans, including 6,000 children, have been killed so far. In addition to the death toll, over 1.7 million Gazans (which amounts to over 70 percent of Gaza’s population) have been internally displaced according to the UN.

The Israeli offensive has lead to a serious humanitarian crisis in Gaza, as the healthcare system teeters on the brink of collapse and Gazans face severe shortages of food, water, fuel, and medical supplies. Indeed, the UN has even warned of an imminent threat of the spread of disease and starvation throughout the region as a consequence of the assault.

Israel claims that its offensive is in retaliation to Hamas’ attacks on October 7th. The stated military objective of the offensive is to end Hamas’ rule in Gaza by destroying its military and governmental capabilities to the point that they cannot recover.

Throughout the course of the conflict, both Israel and Hamas have been accused by UN experts of committing serious war crimes.

When attempting to provide an analysis of what’s transpired with Israel and Palestine since early October, there are a variety of questions to which one can turn their attention. One question that is of immediate interest is how one should morally evaluate the actions from both sides throughout the course of the recent hostilities. It is to this question which I will now turn, starting with Hamas’ attack against Israel on October 7th.

To say that Palestinians, including Hamas, have “legitimate grievances” against Israel would be an unconscionable understatement. For the past 56 years, Israel has subjected the people of Palestine to a harsh, brutal, and illegal military occupation, as well as a whole host of cognate crimes- illegal Israeli settlements, the blockade of Gaza, routine high tech massacres of the Gazan population (referred to in Israeli parlance as “mowing the lawn”), etc.

Thus, it seems undoubtable that armed resistance against Israel from the Palestinians qualifies as a case of self defense. It is not clear to me how one could go about denying that through their illegal occupation and all that has accompanied it, Israel has provided the Palestinians with just cause, or sufficient provocation, for military action against it.

At the same time, there is no doubt that the initiation of military aggression against Israel was bound to be counterproductive in terms of its consequences. As a result of the October 7th attacks, Palestinians and Israelis are further from a peaceful resolution to the conflict than they have ever been, tens of thousands of people have been killed, millions of people have been displaced, and so on. Moreover, these consequences were entirely predictable.

Of course, one could fairly point out that the Palestinians’ prospects for achieving a just resolution to the conflict through peace and diplomacy were already quite bleak prior to October 7th, and that prior attempts from the Palestinians, including Hamas, at doing so had been met with and subverted by Israeli violence and provocation. While I do accept these facts, it nonetheless seems to me that a strategy involving a continued push for peace and diplomacy would have been better in terms of its expected outcomes than the initiation of military force.

Finally, it casts further doubt on the legitimacy of an initiation of military aggression if the party who initiated it does not have legitimate authority derived from the popular consent of the people who they govern. Moreover, the extent to which Hamas legitimately represents the people of Gaza is very questionable, as borne out by recent polling, and by the manifest corruption of Hamas as an organization in many respects. However, it must also be noted that according to recent polling, most Palestinians, including most Gazans, supported Hamas’ attacks on October 7th.

As a result of considerations presented in the foregoing discussion, I would not go as far as to say that, on October 7th, it was right for Hamas to attack Israel. On the other hand, far be it from me to chastise Palestinians for not remaining saints given what they have been subjected to, and given what their attempts at moderation and diplomacy had gotten them thus far.

I have so far been attempting to address the question of whether or not Hamas had justification for waging war against Israel on October 7th. This is a notably different question from whether or not they were justified in how they carried out that war. In just war theory, this is known as the distinction between “Jus ad Bellum” and “Jus in Bello”. With regards to the latter question, it is undeniable at this point that grievous atrocities were committed by Hamas on October 7th- civilians were intentionally targeted and massacred, women were raped, etc. Needless to say, such crimes cannot be justified.

Of course, Hamas aren’t the only ones whose conduct throughout the current “war” warrants moral admonishment. Indeed, we have ample evidence at this point that Israel has been, in its assault against the Palestinians, following a long employed strategy of inflicting highly disproportionate levels of destruction and violence upon Gaza and its people, including civilians, with the aim of maximizing its “deterrence capacity”. In other words, by acting as viciously as possible, Israel hopes beat the Palestinians into submitting to their will.

There is no doubt that the way in which Israel has carried out its war in Gaza since October 7th is morally inadmissible as well as illegal under international law regardless of whether or not Israel had a right to carry out such a war in the first place. Again, though, this is a notably different question from whether or not Israel had a right to initiate military force against Gaza at all. It is to that latter question which I will now turn.

While the justification for Hamas’ initiation of aggression does not quite hold up to scrutiny, Israel’s justification for its aggression is even weaker. After all, as previously discussed, Hamas’ attacks against Israel were themselves caused by Israel’s brutal, decades long occupation of Palestinian land, as well as all of the Israeli crimes which come with that occupation. It has long been understood that so long as the Israeli occupation persists, so too will Palestinian resistance to that occupation.

It is highly morally suspect, then, for Israel to appeal to a byproduct of its flagrant misconduct and brutality as justification for carrying out further brutality. Hamas’ resistance against Israel seemingly no more provides just cause for Israeli retaliation than a slave revolt provides just cause for violent retaliation on the part of the slave owners.1

Any claim that Israel does not have the right to attack Gaza in response to Palestinian aggression against Israel will inevitably be met with the question: “then how should they respond?” To refer back to my previous analogy, this is a bit like asking “how should slave owners respond to a slave revolt?” or to take a more recent example, “how should Russia respond to a Ukrainian offensive?” Of course, in both cases, the answer is that the oppressor should offer to sit down and peacefully facilitate an end to their oppression.

In the context with which this article is concerned, Israel should offer an immediate ceasefire with Hamas, and subsequently offer to relaunch the peace process and negotiate with Hamas a two state solution along the lines of the international consensus. This would be, I believe, not only in the interests of the Palestinians, but of the Israeli’s as well. The rest of this article will be concerned with defending these prescriptions.

While I do advocate for a ceasefire followed by negotiations to end the occupation, I will, going forward, frame the ceasefire as an independent policy. This is because real life politics unfortunately does not conform to my every desire, and I understand that in any realistic scenario in which a ceasefire is reached (a scenario which is itself improbable), it is highly unlikely that there will be any subsequent negotiations for a permanent resolution to the conflict. Therefore, I would like for my arguments in favor of a ceasefire to not depend on the assumption that such negotiations will occur.

Predictably, the rising death toll and ongoing humanitarian disaster in Gaza as a result of the brutal Israeli counter offensive has prompted many, myself included, to call for an immediate ceasefire. A resolution calling for a ceasefire passed in the UN general assembly and was promptly repudiated by Israel, while a similar resolution in the UN security council was vetoed by the US.

The motivation behind calls for a ceasefire should be obvious enough such as to not warrant any further explanation. However, as one would expect, various reasons have been concocted by sympathizers of the current Israeli offensive in order to demonstrate why a ceasefire, despite its prima facie humanitarian appeal, would in fact be counter productive.

The most common and predictable retort to calls for a ceasefire is that, if such an agreement is reached, Hamas will use this opportunity to restock, regroup, and launch another deadly offensive along the lines of October 7th, thus drawing out the current bloodbath even further. 

We must then, so the argument goes, allow Israel to unleash its full fury on Gaza in order to deter the chance of future terror attacks from Hamas. The more Israel is allowed to brutalize the terrorists in response to their atrocities, the less likely those terrorists will be to repeat those atrocities, and the less likely we will be to find ourselves in this scenario once more.

Many take this argument even further, suggesting that, in order to reduce the chance of future terror attacks, Israel must be allowed to continue their assault until Hamas is destroyed altogether. Indeed, as previously noted, “destroying Hamas” is the primary military objective of the current offensive, according to Israel itself.  

Needless to say, I do not find this line of argumentation persuasive.

Firstly, it is worth remembering that the success of the October 7th attack has been widely acknowledged to be a fluke, which required grievous mistakes on the part of Israel’s typically highly regarded military and intelligence services. Therefore, even if Hamas did decide to carry out further terror attacks down the road in violation of a ceasefire, the chances that they could pull off “another October 7th”, and thus, the chances that post ceasefire levels of violence and destruction would return to their current levels or higher are very low.

Thus, while there would likely eventually be some return to violence following a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, those who call for a ceasefire are generally under no illusion that a ceasefire alone would lead to permanent peace. Rather, the thought is that a ceasefire would pull us out of this particularly vicious round of violence, and allow for millions of displaced and suffering Gazans to receive the aid that they desperately need.

Putting aside the fact that an attack of the magnitude of October 7th was unlikely in the first place, and thus unlikely to be repeated, there is much that Israel could do in lieu of launching an all out assault on Gaza which would hinder the possibility of something like another October 7th attack even further. For instance, the fence around Gaza which was breached on October 7th is only 40 miles long. Thus, as Philippe Lemoine argues, Israel could plausibly eliminate the threat of another October 7th attack relatively easily by beefing up its security around the wall. Nothing about a ceasefire would prevent Israel from taking such measures.

Finally, what is the evidence that brutalizing Gaza has ever enhanced Israel’s security, or that it would in this case? Could it not be plausibly argued that in fact, by subjecting Palestinians to more horror, Israeli’s are thereby radicalizing large portions of the population even further against Israel, thus raising the likelihood of future terror attacks? Could it not also be plausibly argued that by further brutalizing the Palestinian population, Israeli’s thereby increase the risk of military action against Israel by surrounding Arab states, whose populations are very sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians?

Moreover, insofar as the mechanism through which Israel is supposed to deter terrorism with the current offensive is “wiping out Hamas”, I think such hopes are deluded. In order to kill enough members of Hamas to effectively destroy the organization in a place as densely populated as Gaza and in which military forces and civilians are intermingled to a significant degree, the IDF would have to carry out aggression on a scale which would result in catastrophically high civilian casualties. It’s doubtful that Israel would be allowed to carry on with such an offensive by the international community for long enough to accomplish the stated goal.

Indeed, even the US, Israel’s primary source of support, has already signaled that it will not allow Israel to continue its current offensive for much longer, despite Israeli claims that they would require far more time in order to destroy Hamas. At the same time, American congresspeople have begun to voice support for compelling Israel to scale back its ferocity.

Even if Israel were granted unlimited time by the US and the broader international community to destroy Hamas, it’s still highly questionable whether they would be able to. Indeed, it seems quite likely that Israel would run into fierce resistance if they tried this, and that after enough Israeli deaths, the country would lose its appetite for significant further aggression.

It is also not clear to me what “destroying Hamas” would even accomplish. Is it not obvious that, following the destruction of Hamas, some other radical group would simply rise up to take its place in resisting Israel’s occupation? The accepted Israeli doctrine seems to be that by using enough force and killing enough radicals, they can beat the Palestinians into submitting to their reign. Color me skeptical.

As previously conceded, despite being desirable for other reasons, a ceasefire alone would not produce a permanent peace. So long as Israel’s suffocating occupation against the Palestinians remains in place, Palestinians will continue to resist. Thus, the only permanent and sustainable way out of this conflict is for Israel to negotiate an end to the occupation with Hamas. I believe that what Israel should offer is a two state solution along the pre June 1967 boarders and a just resolution to the refugee crisis, as the international community has long recommended, and as the Palestinians have long requested, but I will not have more to say about that going forward.

Opponents of this idea will no doubt retort that Hamas does not desire peace and will accept nothing less than the complete destruction of Israel. The upshot of this is that Hamas is too radical of an organization to ever be negotiated with, and thus it is not worth attempting to negotiate with Hamas. Such claims, however, are seemingly not borne out by the historical record.

For instance, one might point out that the PLO, the moderate Palestinian party which currently rules over the West Bank, was originally a terrorist organization which engaged in frequent attacks against Israel and had as its explicit goal the complete destruction of Israel. However, by the mid 1970’s there were clear signs that the PLO was willing to moderate and abandon its more radical aspirations, and when it was eventually invited to the table to negotiate with Israel in the 90’s, it moderated significantly, to the point where it is now recognized by Israel as a legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.

Throughout its short history, Hamas has sent clear signals that it is willing to follow suit. Indeed, according to a study by a US government agency in 2009 titled Hamas: Ideological Rigidity and Political Flexibility, “Hamas has been carefully and consciously adjusting its political program for years and has sent repeated signals that it may be ready to begin a process of coexisting with Israel.”

Hamas’ political leaders have on numerous occasions made clear their willingness to negotiate a peaceful settlement with Israel. For instance, in 2008 and 2009, then head of Hamas Khaled Mishal made repeated statements that Hamas was ready to accept a two state settlement along the lines of the international consensus2.

In one interview, Mishal states “Most Palestinian forces, including Hamas, accept a state… A state on, and not within, the 1967 borders. On the borders of 4 June 1967, including Jerusalem, [and] the right of return, with full sovereignty, and without settlements.” Repeating this message in another interview3, he says “the objective remains the constitution of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, the return of the Israeli’s to the pre-67 boarders and the right of return of our refugees”.

Hamas leadership also reportedly told Jimmy Carter in 2006 that Hamas would accept a peace agreement negotiated between the PLO and Israel, provided that it was approved via referendum by the Palestinian people or by a democratically elected Palestinian government.

More recently, in 2017, Hamas published a new political document which, once again, called for a two state solution along the pre June 1967 boarders. Commenting on this document, Mishal asserts that “Hamas considers the establishment of a Palestinian state, sovereign and complete, on the basis of the June 4, 1967, with Jerusalem as its capital and the provision for all the refugees to return to their homeland an agreeable form that has won a consensus among all the movement members”.

One might argue, however, that even if a two state solution were achieved between Israel and Hamas, Hamas would simply use its newfound sovereignty to start attacking Israel yet again. After all, so the story goes, Hamas is ideologically and irrevocably committed to the destruction of Israel and the creation of a Palestinian state across all of historic Palestine. Even if Hamas says it’s willing to accept a two state solution, then, it is doing so in bad faith.

Putting aside the prima facie unlikelihood of Hamas attempting to conquer or destroy Israel after achieving a two state solution given their obvious inability to ever realistically accomplish that goal and the inevitability that they will once again find themselves in a much worse position if they tried to4, I think that this objection also misunderstands how the process of political moderation works. Even if Hamas currently has ideological commitments beyond a two state solution, honest diplomacy and negotiation can engender a substantial political shift.

Of course, I am not the first to have acknowledged this point, nor the clear presence of more pragmatic elements within Hamas. Notably, former Mossad Chief Ephrain Levy stated in 20085 that

The Hamas leadership has recognized that its ideological goal is not attainable and will not be in the foreseeable future… they are ready and willing to see the establishment of a Palestinian state in the temporary boarders of 1967… They know that the moment a Palestinian state is established with their cooperation, they will have to adopt a path that could lead them far from their original ideological goals.

Touching on similar themes, Israeli historian and former foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami says:

I think they are much more pragmatic than is normally perceived. In the 1990s, they invented the concept of a temporary settlement with Israel. 1990s was the first time that Hamas spoke about a temporary settlement with Israel. In 2003, they declared unilaterally a truce, and the reason they declared the truce is this, that with Arafat, whose system of government was one of divide and rule, they were discarded from the political system. Mahmoud Abbas has integrated them into the political system, and this is what brought them to the truce. They are interested in politicizing themselves, in becoming a political entity. And we need to try and see ways where we can work with them…

Now, everybody says they need first to recognize the state of Israel and end terrorism. Believe me, I would like them to do so today, but they are not going to do that. They are eventually going to do that in the future, but only as part of a quid pro quo, just as the P.L.O. did it. The P.L.O, when Rabin came to negotiate with them, also didn't recognize the state of Israel, and they engaged in all kinds of nasty practices. And therefore, we need to be much more realistic and abandon worn-out cliches and see whether we can reach something with these people. I believe that a long-term interim agreement between Israel and Hamas, even if it is not directly negotiated between the parties, but through a third party, is feasible and possible.

Israel, in all likelihood, will not ease up on its current offensive anytime soon, nor will it pursue a peaceful resolution to the conflict, unless it is compelled to by external forces. In particular, in order for this nightmare to finally end, it is crucial that the US exert pressure on Israel to pursue the measures that I have been discussing.

Historically, the US has instead pursued a policy of supporting Israel’s every move without reservation, and the current conflict is no exception. Indeed, president Biden has recently reiterated that he does not support conditioning aid to Israel on Israeli’s agreeing to scale back their offensive in accordance with international law and the humanitarian needs of Gazans.

Nonetheless, readers of this blog who live in the US are in a unique position- that is, the position to influence one of the key players in this conflict. If Biden folds and agrees to relent on the people of Gaza, it will be because of pressure from the American public, and particularly from the left. In light of this, I would urge all of my American readers to call their congresspeople and push them to support a ceasefire. Moreover, if any of my readers feel compelled to, consider donating to the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund to help keep Palestinian children alive.