More generally, for the past four months, some ministers in the Israeli government and their many supporters have viewed the brutal Hamas attack on Israel as an opportunity to advance the Greater Israel agenda of settlement expansion and Palestinian dispossession. Successful movements, like the Israeli right, kick into high gear for those unexpected moments when dramatic political and territorial change is suddenly possible.

From a Greater Israel perspective, there are at least four potential transformational aspects of this Israeli military barrage.

First, Israel is making Gaza uninhabitable. Almost 2 million Palestinians have been displaced from their homes. The cultural, educational, food, health care, and road systems – all essential for basic life – have been severely damaged. Perhaps 50 to 60% of structures in Gaza have been damaged and destroyed, including about 65,000 residential units. Thus, the damage already done could influence the post-war distribution of land and people even without further Israeli policy decisions.

Second, Israel could block or drag out Palestinian return to certain parts of Gaza. For example, in mid-December, an Israeli media outlet reported the IDF would maintain “a considerable military presence” in northern Gaza even after the intense warfighting ended. The report did also note that that could be coupled with a gradual process to allow back some Palestinians. On January 22, a Hamas attack killed tens of Israeli soldiers as they prepared to demolish buildings to clear a future buffer zone.

Third, Israel could press Palestinians to leave Gaza altogether and resettle elsewhere such as Egypt or in Arab Gulf countries. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for “voluntary emigration.” On X (formerly twitter), National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir endorsed, “the migration of hundreds of thousands from Gaza.” Some have pointed to a leaked proposal from Israel’s Ministry of Intelligence that would send Palestinians to Egypt’s Sinai. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has publicly distanced himself from the idea but privately indicated support in a Likud meeting: “Our problem is [finding] countries that are willing to absorb Gazans, and we are working on it.” Relatedly, there was a report of Israeli government talks with the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a possible destination.

Democracy Now! Video: “Israeli Cabinet Members Join Event Calling for Ethnic Cleansing & Resettlement of Gaza ”

In a November 19 op-ed, the Israeli Minister of Intelligence, Gila Gamliel, openly advocated for Palestinian resettlement outside Gaza specifically in the context of this opportune moment, writing, ”Albert Einstein was quoted as saying: ‘In the midst of every crisis, lies great opportunity.’”

Fourth, there are the Israelis mentioned earlier who are calling for re-establishing Israeli civilian settlements in Gaza. Ben-Gvir called the return of Jewish settlement in Gaza “an important thing.” A coalition of 11 Israeli organizations met to rally public support for the idea and lobby political leaders. In a mid-November poll, 44% of Israeli respondents supported Israeli settlement renewal in Gaza while 39% opposed.

Taken together, these steps would solidify Israeli control over additional territory and reduce the number of Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories. All these measures are fully consistent with the ultimate Greater Israel objective: there should only be one state, a Jewish one, on all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

And the current Israeli effort is not only in Gaza. Since October 7, the IDF and Israeli settlers have killed about 370 Palestinians in the West Bank, including in battles between the IDF and Palestinian militants. Israeli settlers continue to attack and force out Palestinian civilians, thus seizing more land for Israeli Jews. According to B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, since early October Israeli settlers drove out just over 1000 Palestinians, ending the presence of 16 Arab villages. In East Jerusalem, the pace of the Jerusalem Municipality demolishing Palestinian homes, already higher in 2023 than 2022, has moved even faster since October 7.

In other words, Israel is not just defending itself from the Hamas attack. It could be trying to re-make the status quo to favor further Israeli demographic and territorial growth at the expense of Palestinians. Yes, Israel’s motivations for its military policy include factors such as self-defense, restoring deterrence, “destroying” Hamas, the emotional desire for revenge, and trying to forcibly turn the Palestinian public in Gaza against Hamas. But all that said, an important element in some Israeli thinking is the continuing desire to re-shape the balance of land and people in support of the maximalist Greater Israel approach.

As noted already, Israel’s prime minister has publicly rejected some of these ideas, perhaps particularly in the face of the genocide case before the International Court of Justice. The United States government, too, has expressed strong opposition, but Israel can disregard US rhetoric as long as the flow of US arms and provision of diplomatic cover continue. At a minimum, though, the Greater Israel ideas will be better developed for when the next opportunity arises.

One danger is that because members of the Israeli government, with some public support, advocate these ideas, the changes could come to fruition in whole or in part despite supposed top-level Israeli and US opposition. We have already seen the concrete impact in the West Bank. Or, if parts of Gaza already are uninhabitable for months or years due to the Israeli bombardment, that could have a similar effect on demography and territorial control.

Moreover, governments do not always act uniformly, meaning factions could push non-consensual policies. Netanyahu might view some horse trading as the price for staying in power. A drawn-out war that facilitates fundamental territorial and demographic change also extends his term in office. With ongoing war, he avoids being held accountable either for his pre-existing corruption charges or for Israel’s massive military-security failure on October 7 and his policy choices that led up to it. If at some point staying in office means allowing the Greater Israel agenda to drive the bus, he might well allow it.

The United States is already struggling to restrain Israel and that is in an environment where US officials publicly emphasize the defensive nature of Israeli policy. Were the United States to fully face up to the expansionist aspects of current Israeli policy, it might recognize that harder-edged pressure is the only way to block Israeli expansion.

Hamas and the Likud-led Israeli government, citing their respective nationalisms, are locked in a death struggle for control of the Holy Land. They each draw upon an internationally-recognized national right to self-determination but to the total exclusion of the other. Neither has ever legally recognized that the other people have standing.

Israel’s nationalist-religious right is implementing a vision of a Jewish state, with no ethnonational equality and no territorial room for a State of Palestine alongside Israel. In addition to formal indications like the 2018 Nation State Law, ministers and other elites have made a number of relevant statements both before and after the Hamas attack on October 7. For example, this past August, Israel’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, said, “My right, and my wife’s and my children’s rights, to get around on the roads in Judea and Samaria, is more important than the right to movement for Arabs.” He envisions a clear, permanent hierarchy where Israeli Jews have rights and most Palestinians do not.

Unlike the State of Israel, Hamas lacks the control of the territory in Gaza, Israel, and the West Bank, but the nationalist-religious vision it has sketched out has no room for a Jewish State of Israel. Even in 2017, when Hamas released modified ideas, it still stated, “Its goal is to liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist project.” In this Hamas vision, Israel and its people have no standing or legitimacy: “The expulsion and banishment of the Palestinian people from their land and the establishment of the Zionist entity therein do not annul the right of the Palestinian people to their entire land and do not entrench any rights therein for the usurping Zionist entity.” That Hamas leaders have sometimes talked of negotiations and a long-term ceasefire will do little to assuage their critics.

Blasts continue in Gaza after ceasefire deal agreed

In short, neither the most powerful Israeli political coalition nor Gaza’s most powerful Palestinian movement are making any room for the other. Thus, it seems highly unlikely the conflict will suddenly take a turn away from conflict and toward conflict resolution or negotiations as long as they remain the top powers.

Rather, confrontational events from 2014, 2021, and now 2023 – three battles between Hamas and the Israel Defense Forces – show us the myriad ways the violence could spin further and further out of control. Consider these four elements:

First, Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023, showed that it is not deterred by or fearful of Israeli military force, Israel’s primary strategy for containing Hamas. Moreover, we have been reminded that Hamas, like many non-state armed groups, will constantly be innovating, looking for unexpected vulnerabilities. Suicide bombings seemed catastrophic at the time but compare the Israeli death toll and psychological impact from the entire second intifada to that one day in October 2023.  

Second, all the Israeli military campaigns against Palestinians in Gaza, including 2014, 2021 and right now, show that Israel has an unimpeded military capability to realize the genocidal rhetoric that we have heard from some Israeli political leaders. Israel could decide to flatten Gaza anytime, and Palestinians could not stop them. At a minimum, it could try to use bombing to drive the entire Gaza population through the Rafah crossing and into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

Embed from Getty Images
SDEROT, ISRAEL – NOVEMBER 22: In this photograph taken near the Israeli border with the Gaza Strip, a plume of smoke rises over Beit Hanoun in Northern Gaza after an Israeli air strike on November 22, 2023 in Sederot, Israel. The starting time of a four-day truce between Israel and Hamas that would entail a pause in fighting and the release of around 50 hostages still had not been announced as of Wednesday morning. Air strikes appeared to have continued in Gaza in the hours following news of the deal. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Third, in 2021, we saw widespread fighting between Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel. Such fighting was reminiscent of 1947-48 and foreshadows a civil war. Some people forget that even before Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948, and then fought with several neighboring Arab states, Zionists and Palestinians already were skirmishing in the Holy Land; the 1948 war had already begun. Today, if we add the ongoing violent settler rampages in the West Bank – attacking Palestinians as the Israelis seek to drive them from their homes – and the operation of Palestinian militant cells in Jenin or Nablus, one can quickly imagine fighting in the streets and a large-scale, deadly struggle amidst intermixed or nearby Arab and Jewish communities.

Fourth, we are tottering on the edge of a regional war. Hezbollah, itself well-armed, and Israel, with its advanced military and nuclear weapons, are at a low boil. The US Navy moved two carrier groups to the region. Iranian allies have attacked US forces, for example in Iraq; the US has bombed Syria at least three times in recent weeks. Houthi militants from Yemen have fired at Israel. Israel continues to bomb Syria to destroy arms.

Every one of our worst fears is plausible, even as they have not all fully played out: inter-communal fighting, terrorism, regional war, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. They may not all happen now, but we have a much better sense of what they would look like. The warning lights are flashing, and such catastrophic violence could occur the next time or the time after that.

One can hope that external mediators or grassroots movements for change can divert the political actors from these terrible scenarios. The need is urgent. But barring such a change in direction, the possibility of tremendous additional suffering lies straight ahead of us.

Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is reliant on military force and coercion. That means direct Israeli military and police actions to repress, arrest, and combat Palestinians. They are often the personnel who enforce Israel’s anti-democratic rule. But it also means their role in protecting Israel’s settlements in the West Bank and the settlers who live in them and traverse the region.

That means, as has happened under Trump, that when the United States stops using the word occupation and treats pre-1967 Israel and the West Bank as one in the same, it is accepting the idea that makes that possible, the forceful Israeli repression of Palestinian political life. Extending US-Israeli academic agreements to an Israeli university in the West Bank or embracing Israeli rule of Jerusalem, whether through an embassy move or a slight change in passport rules, is doing the same.

The Sword is Not Enough: Arabs, Israelis, and the limits of military force, by Jeremy Pressman (University of Manchester Press, 2020.) $26. [Click here].

Netanyahu’s long reign as Israel’s prime minister has been predicated on this very idea. In late October, as he visited a large military exercise in Israel’s north, Netanyahu once again echoed this common theme: “Whoever attacks us will meet firepower and a steel fist that will destroy any enemy.”

But this is nothing new, whether for Netanyahu, Israel, or several of the Arab actors in the Arab-Israeli conflict. As I document in my new book, The sword is not enough: Arabs, Israelis, and the limits of military force, two constellations of ideas have vied for attention, but there has been a clear winner.

The dominant idea is that the threat and use of military force is the best way to achieve fundamental goals like independence, territorial integrity, security, and survival. We see this in commitments to armed struggle, deterrence, and war. At the same time, negotiations and mutual concessions are a mistake and will be seen as a weakness or appeasement.

In contrast to the reliance on military force, a secondary general idea exists that reverses the relationship. Often, negotiations and mutual concessions are best way to achieve fundamental goals. A reliance on military force backfires, often leading to greater insecurity.

Of course, the first idea is plausible and has some historical support. We see a preference for military force in everything from Jabotinsky’s Iron Wall to the original PLO and Hamas Charters. But it has resulted in three major shortcomings.

First, Peace cannot be forced; only negotiations can cement a peace agreement. Egypt and Israel negotiated successfully. Israel and Syria, in 1999-2000, did not and a peace treaty never came despite their non-belligerent relationship at the time.

Second, a militant, aggressive approach often backfires on security grounds. It worsens one’s own security situation, as happened when Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 or when the Palestinian national movement relied heavily on suicide bombings during the second intifada (2000-05).

Third, it also has meant missed diplomatic opportunities because everything is treated as a ruse and with suspicion. The Arab Peace Initiative (2002) and Israel’s Disengagement from Gaza (2005) could have been productive diplomatic moments. But the commitment to force obscured those possibilities.

That’s not to say that promoting the secondary idea that favors talking is easy. It gets drowned out in the cacophony of militant and diplomatic voices. It requires leadership and political risktaking. But as I demonstrate in the book’s short historical case studies, at important moments, it has been influential, whether we are talking about Camp David (1978) and the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty (1979) or the first Oslo agreement (1993).

But such an idea – especially mutual Israeli-Palestinian concessions – has been an anathema to Trump. In general, the Trump presidency demonstrated his tough-guy, art-of-the-deal approach had little success, whether we are talking about the nuclear question with Iran or the trade war with China.

In particular, the same held true for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Trump officials never came close, alienating the Palestinian side from the start. In the policy and rhetorical choices they made, they essentially were endorsing Israeli coercion and repression (What occupation? What Green line? What international legal problem with settlements? What contested status of Jerusalem?).

The Trump administration did successfully orchestrate the Bahraini-Israeli-Emirati agreements, and that did require negotiations. But they did so in way that further subverted the Palestinian national movement. In other words, they used diplomacy in one realm to further stymie the possibility of negotiations in another. One obvious result? Continued Israeli occupation, repression, and settlement growth in the West Bank, even if Israel held off of official annexation for now.

Military force may have a place in international affairs. But over-reliance on it leads to pernicious outcomes including missed diplomatic opportunities and national insecurity. Proponents of negotiations and the possibility of genuine, mutual concessions would do well to keep pushing for their alternate approach.