Is there an Alternate Pathway to Peace in Gaza?

Nearly 11 months since the war on Gaza started, Hamas’s defeat is elusive, but the catastrophe is very evident.

Since the October 7th attacks, many have been wondering about Israel’s objectives in this war. On October 28th, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu answered part of these questions in his Wall Street Journal opinion piece, published in December 2023, stating, “Hamas must be destroyed, Gaza must be demilitarized, and Palestinian society must be deradicalized.

Despite global pressure for a ceasefire, including massive protests around the world and on US college campuses, the Israeli objectives have not changed much. Netanyahu reiterated his intent to continue the war in Gaza: “I am not willing to end the war and leave Hamas as it is,” Netanyahu said in an interview with Israel’s Channel 14.

The critical question we need to be asking is: Are these objectives realistic? I would say no for three reasons. Firstly, Israel underestimates Hamas’s cross-border network. Hamas enjoys strong ties with other armed religious groups in the region, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria and the Houthis in Yemen. Hamas is also linked to a larger Muslim Brotherhood movement, which cuts across borders and represents one of the oldest and largest Islamist movements in the region.

Shifting Regional Dynamics

Hezbollah’s support for Bashar Al-Assad in the Syrian civil war adversely impacted the group’s credibility in the eyes of a big portion of the Arab public. Many Lebaneselebanese people saw the intervention as a departure from Hezbollah’s founding mission—to fight the Israeli occupation in Lebanon and other territories. The group is reemerging as a credible resistance movement, aiming to defend the people of Gaza by responding to Israeli bombardments with dozens of rockets fired into northern Israel. The same applies to the Houthis, a group that is negatively perceived as a proxy for Iran in Yemen. Now, the group is asserting itself as an important regional power. By targeting ships in the Strait of Hormuz linked to Israel or the US, the Houthis have re-established their cachet with many who support armed resistance in the Arab world.

Of note is Egypt’s shifting stance towards Hamas. Despite a previous decision by an Egyptian court to designate Hamas as a terrorist organization, Egypt’s previous foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, refrained from labeling Hamas as such in a recent interview with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). When asked whether the government of Egypt views Hamas as both a resistance movement and a terrorist group, Shoukry responded, “At this stage, it’s counterproductive to try to make these distinctions.” This statement signifies a significant change in Egypt’s public messaging concerning Hamas, possibly influenced by public opinion within Egypt

These swift transformations in the perceptions of the public and governments in the Middle East suggest that Hamas could gain resources in the region.

Leaders in the region have warned that the catastrophe in Gaza will empower radical groups. For example, Bahrain, a country that normalized its relationship with Israel by signing the Abraham Accords in 2020, expressed concerns. The Crown Prince and Prime Minister, addressing the Manama Dialogue Security Summit, argued that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the US invasion of Iraq created Al Qaeda and ISIS. “Think about what this will create in the age of social media. I think we will be looking at a far more difficult next 20 years,” he said.

Many view the actions of Arab leaders as limited and ineffective in defending the rights of the Palestinian people. Despite their calls for ceasefires and their issuance of condemnations, these efforts are perceived by many as simplistic and lacking substance compared to the measures taken during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, when Arab leaders used an oil embargo and diplomatic pressure to gain leverage in peace negotiations. Combined with the limited capacity of the Palestinian Authority, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, this scenario makes a militaristic response to the Israeli invasion seem like the only viable option for many Palestinians under occupation. The interventions by Arab leaders have fallen short of expectations, eroding public trust.

The Public Outrage: Social Media’s Role in Gaza’s Humanitarian Crisis

The ongoing catastrophe in Gaza, triggered by Israel’s sustained bombardment of one of the world’s most densely populated cities, has ignited widespread anger, particularly among Arabs and Muslims. Many express a willingness to send their country’s troops to fight alongside Hamas at massive protests across cities in the region. Disturbing images depicting civilian casualties and the devastation in Gaza circulate extensively on social media, prompting public expressions of solidarity with the resistance. There are numerous images circulated on social media depicting children in the region wearing Hamas uniforms indicating a strong sympathy with Hamas. Additionally, graffiti portraying Hamas spokesperson Abu Ubeida adorned the walls of various cities in the Middle East. This unprecedented expression of these protests in the region signifies a significant shift in public sentiment.

Social media has spurred mass protests across the region that succeeded in ousting several regimes, including those in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Sudan, and Libya. Now, more young people than ever in the region are using social media. While social media allows for real-time documentation and reporting of events, bringing international attention to humanitarian crises in Gaza that might otherwise go unreported, it also facilitates the sharing of unverified information and the spread of hate speech from both sides. Hamas has successfully used social media to communicate its messages to millions of people in the region and around the world.

Conclusion: An Alternative Pathway to Peace

The extensive Hamas network, including both armed and non-armed regional groups, shifting political stances in its Favor, and growing public support while reducing government opposition to Hamas—fueled by widespread outrage over the war’s impact—all indicate that Israel’s objective to destroy Hamas’s military and governing capabilities is impossible despite the violent strategy it has chosen. As the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza escalates, the desire for vengeance grows, leading to an increased willingness to join violent movements, and the cycle of violence continues.

An alternative is to open prospects for real peace through diplomatic deals. Israel should focus on hostage exchanges, an immediate ceasefire, and contribute to reparations that address the gravity of the situation and the victims in Gaza. It will be equally important to collaborate with Palestinians, Arabs, and the U.S. toward a long peace process that takes real action toward the creation of a free Palestinian state. This state would provide Palestinians with dignity and peace and ensure security and stability for both states. To achieve this, a series of dialogues could be held by the UN involving all relevant Palestinian factions, Israeli political parties, young people, and key international stakeholders. These discussions should address the root causes of the current situation and explore potential long-term solutions, including a framework for a two-state solution.

 

Written by, Khaled Emam

ـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ

Khaled Emam is a teaching assistant at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, a human rights lawyer, and an international human rights specialist. He currently serves as the Executive Director of Justice Call, a non-profit organization based in New York that focuses on empowering and protecting young people in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Prior to this role, Khaled served as Co-Chair of The United Nations Inter-Agency Network on Youth Development (UN IANYD) and Organizing Partner of the Major Group for Children & Youth (MGCY). During this time, he focused on fostering youth engagement and participation in the UN system and beyond.

Khaled spoke about human rights and global justice in several major events and forums, such as the UN High-Level Political Forum, the International Criminal Court (ICC), the World Forum on Freedom of Expression, and institutions including Stanford University, Shanghai Open University, Ohio State University, Groningen University, and Harvard University