By Daniel Byman and Alexander Palmer
Netanyahu Has Nothing but Bad Options
As thousands of rockets rain down on Israel, lighting up the skyline of Tel Aviv and other cities, the country’s current priority is to defend its towns and military bases against Hamas’s sudden and devastating attacks from the Gaza Strip. Israel will try to root out the militants, prevent more infiltrators, and silence the rockets and mortars bombarding its people.
Given the scale of Hamas’s attacks and Israel’s surprise, none of these tasks will be easy. And even if Israel succeeds, it faces difficult choices on what to do next to ensure that Hamas is weakened and that such an attack does not recur. Israeli leaders need to reestablish deterrence against Hamas and other adversaries while preventing the spread of violence to the West Bank, protecting the country’s recent diplomatic gains, and managing an ongoing hostage situation.
THE GAZA DILEMMA
Perhaps the biggest question is what to do about the Gaza Strip. Since Hamas seized power in this Palestinian exclave in 2007, Israel has avoided large-scale, sustained ground operations there, despite calls by Israeli politicians for action during past crises. Indeed, in 2018, Israel’s defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, resigned in protest when Israel negotiated a truce with Hamas. Israeli military leaders, however, rightly pointed out that trying to uproot Hamas from the Gaza Strip would be difficult. Hamas has deep ties there, running hospitals, mosques, schools, and youth groups, as well as the police…
