The Daily - Israel’s Plan to Destroy Hamas

Episode Date: October 11, 2023

For years, Israel’s leaders believed that they could coexist with Hamas. After this weekend’s massacre, that belief is over.Steven Erlanger, a former Jerusalem bureau chief at The New York Times, explains what Israel’s plan to destroy Hamas will mean for Palestinians and Israelis.Guest: Steven Erlanger, the chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe for The New York Times.Background reading: The attack ended Israel’s hope that Hamas might come to embrace stability. Now senior Israeli officials say that Hamas must be crushed.Follow The Times’s latest updates on the Israel-Gaza war.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. For years, Israel's leaders believed that they could coexist with Hamas. After this weekend's massacre, that belief is over. Today, my colleague Stephen Erlanger on Israel's plan to destroy Hamas and what it will mean for Palestinians and Israelis. It's Wednesday, October 11th. Steve, we wanted to talk to you because you have been a longtime student of and journalist of the Middle East, Israel, and the Palestinian people. You know this story very well. And we want you to help make sense of Israel's pledge delivered over the past few days

to destroy Hamas over the attacks it carried out over the weekend. And I want to start by having you explain what had been Israel's relationship with Hamas before those attacks. Well, first, let's remember that Hamas is a Palestinian armed group. It was a branch of what Israel originally considered moderate Muslim brotherhood. Hamas began in the 80s as part of a kind of charity group. They did a lot of social aid. They had very well-educated people. They had doctors. But as time went on, Hamas, which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel, which on religious basis says Israel has no right to exist,

that all Israeli citizens are soldiers, that they're interlopers into holy Muslim lands, turned more and more toward violence. And Hamas then became more involved with the struggle of Palestinians against Israeli occupation. They buried some of the victims of a suicide bombing that destroyed a crowded bus in Tel Aviv. And in the 90s, became much more of a terrorist group. Hamas released a video of a young man it said had carried the bomb

onto the crowded number five bus in downtown tel aviv it set off a set of suicide bombings that really turned israel upside down the organization has claimed credit for numerous suicide bombings in the last two years including wednesday's bus blast in Jerusalem. It killed 17 Israelis. And marked in Israeli brains that Hamas was among the most dangerous of the armed Palestinian groups and perhaps the most reckless. Hamas now has specifically threatened our women and children. It is the first terrorist organization to do so.

We will do whatever it takes for them not to be able to carry out their activity. At the same time, the Israeli pullout from Gaza began today amid protest. Israeli soldiers went door to door handing out eviction notices to the first of 8,500 Jewish settlers living there. When Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, decided it no longer wanted to rule over the millions of Palestinians in Gaza. We will live in freedom. There will be no settlers, no army, no one to forbid us to move around as we wish. The Palestinian Authority had an election. It was Hamas supporters who were jamming the streets.

Which Hamas won. Hamas candidates won a huge victory, securing 76 seats to Fatah's 43 in the Palestinian Legislative Council. I remember that election really well, Steve. It was a stunning development for much of the West, especially for Israel. It was stunning to Israel and stunning to Washington. And it gave Hamas more credibility. But in Gaza, there was an effort to keep control by the West Bank authorities of Fatah, which is the current heart of the Palestinian Authority. And there was a war. There was a civil war inside Gaza,

which Hamas won in a very brutal fashion in 2007. And it has controlled Gaza ever since. But Israel, though it had an embargo on Hamas, so did the whole West. Israel realized it needed to talk to someone in control of Gaza. Hamas was that address. So like it or not, hating Hamas or not, Israel had business to discuss. Even though it had withdrawn from Gaza, Israel was controlling imports and exports. It was controlling the seacoast. Many people felt in any real legal terms the occupation continued. So Israel developed a policy in a way of tolerating Hamas, believing that in the long run the responsibilities of governing Gaza would moderate it.

Hmm. So to Israel, Hamas was not an ideal partner at all, but one that Israel could do business with and maintain a kind of status quo. In other words, a threat that could be managed. Yes, there were no illusions about Hamas, and there was violence. There have been lots of rocket fire back and forth. There have been terrorist attacks. Sometimes Hamas was responding to what it considered Israeli aggressions in the West Bank and elsewhere. Hamas has always been interested in trying to get Palestinian prisoners released from Israel, which is why it has taken hostages in the past to try to trade them. I mean, in the famous case, they kept an Israeli soldier for more than five

years while negotiating a massive prisoner release. And every once in a while, when things get too hot, Israel does a serious bombing campaign. And the Israelis would come in with troops to, as they put it ugly, cut the grass. And by that, they mean killing off parts of Hamas's leadership and its troops to keep calm for a little while longer. And day to day, despite any misgivings Israel has about Hamas, there is never anything resembling an attempt to dislodge it as the government, the representatives of Palestinians in Gaza.

Yes, that's true, because basically it would have meant reoccupying Gaza, going in with heavy ground forces, which Benjamin Netanyahu was always reluctant to do. It's not like he wasn't being pressured sometimes to deal with Hamas, but he understood how hard a war that was going to be, the number of civilian casualties it would inevitably create inside Gaza, and he always pulled back from it. But now that calculation has changed because of the horrors of what happened last weekend. The whole idea of somehow tolerating Hamas to manage Gaza has been exploded.

And Israel intends now to do what it was always reluctant to do since it withdrew from Gaza in 2005, which is to send in ground forces in a serious way to wipe out Hamas. I just want to pause on this because what Israel is saying it wants to do to Hamas, destroy this group that governs millions of people in Gaza, is a very big and historic pledge to make. And I want to understand why what happened over the weekend has brought Israel to that place it never was willing to go before. that never was willing to go before? That's really the right question, because as people are still uncovering bodies, there are more than a thousand Israeli dead,

and most of them aren't soldiers. Most of them are civilians. They're mothers and children, babies, some of them, killed in their homes. And their homes are in Israel proper. They're not in Gaza. And some Israelis say this is the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. And if that is true, what is the point of the state of Israel?

So after this attack, Israel concludes that the very idea of Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people requires action. It can no longer try to tolerate or manage this threat to its citizens. It must, it concludes, remove it. That is precisely right. Now, the implications of that are severe, but the country, which has been very divided politically over many issues, is united in feeling that this requires a massive military response. We'll be right back.

Steve, now that Israel has shifted its thinking and decided that it will not be managing Hamas as a threat, but is committed now to destroying Hamas, what do you understand that to mean exactly? And how logistically can that even be accomplished if Israel wants to do it? I think it can only be accomplished by a serious, coordinated, planned military attack involving artillery, air power, and infantry. And it's taking a few days to think through, to prepare, but Israel has called up 300,000 reservists. A huge, huge number of soldiers.

It's a huge number in a small country. It is gearing up for a sizable military operation, and it's going to be brutal. Right. I'm wondering, Steve, if you can describe what a major operation like this will look like on the ground, given the very nature of Gaza. Well, Gaza is a very, very tightly packed city. People talk about refugee camps, but these camps are buildings, they're structures. I mean, it's not like people living in tents. It's poor, but it's also got facilities. Israelis already cut off electricity as best it can. It's cut off water. It's sealed

the border. It will have to go in street by street with urban fighting, but I think that will be preceded by quite severe air attacks and artillery attacks. Already you have the sense that Israel's bombing of Gaza now is clearing pathways for the infantry. And of course, Hamas has planned for this retaliation. So Israel will have to deal with, I think, well-planned defenses, which will include IEDs, include booby traps. Many Hamas fighters wear civilian clothing. They can pop out of tunnels with an RPG. clothing. They can pop out of tunnels with an RPG. And this is going to make it very, very difficult for Israel to distinguish between normal civilian and fighter. And that's really the point. I mean, it's almost inevitable that Israeli strikes on Hamas targets will hit or wound civilians, and it's partly because Hamas deliberately lives among them and hides its munitions among them and in mosques and in hospitals. I've seen these things for myself, and I don't expect them to be any different this time. Israel in the past has also had this practice of warning buildings that it's

about to bomb by sending a piece of lead down onto the roof. Now Israel is saying it no longer has the time to do that. It doesn't have the aircraft to do that. It's warning civilians that buildings may be bombed without warning, and already from airstrikes, there are hundreds of Palestinians dead and thousands displaced. Those numbers are only bound to go up considerably. Hamas, in contrast, has said when Israel does that, it will publicly execute some of the 150 or so Israeli hostages that it has. The other dilemma for Israel is if they're going to go into Gaza in a big way, in some ways, it means they're willing to sacrifice these hostages. They'll try to save them if they can.

They're trying to find out where they are. But they've been split up. They've been moved around. They've been put into basements. It's going to be very hard to fight Hamas and worry about the hostages all at the same time. Does that lead you to believe that Israel will or will not show some level of restraint, given that Israeli hostages will be in this theoretical war zone? It's a very good question, and I'm not sure the answer. Israel has always taken Israeli lives incredibly seriously. I mean, it was willing to trade thousands of prisoners for one Israeli soldier. And to have 150 civilians inside Gaza creates an enormous moral dilemma and an enormous strategic dilemma. But I think force protection has to be the main and crucial thing. And they're going to save the people they can save,

but I don't think, given this war, they can worry overly much about any individual hostage. Hmm. I want to understand, back to the goal of this offensive, destroying Hamas, what the chances are that Israel really can actually wipe out Hamas. That's its stated goal. What does that really even look like? Does that mean capturing or killing the most senior leaders of the organization? It has been the elected government, so does it mean removing all of Hamas's officials from every level of government?

How should we understand that? Well, they took power over Gaza. They installed themselves, right? I mean, it's not like this is some wonderfully democratically elected government that is suddenly about to fall. Once they took over, they ran a pretty tough government. They set out after their enemies. They mistreated them. They run the place pretty strongly.

So it's very hard to get a really good sense of public opinion. The last major Palestinian poll there was in 2021, and 20-30% of people favored Hamas, then I'm sure now it's much less. And also Gazans now are really terrified of what's going to happen after this great Hamas victory, so-called. They're waiting for Israel's retaliation, and they are terrified. But Israel, I don't think, can destroy Hamas, in my own personal opinion. I believe Hamas's leaders, and particularly its military leaders, are probably no longer in Gaza. Really? Yeah, because they can control the battle from outside, their lives are obviously very valuable, and Israel has tried to kill them in the past. So they may be in very sophisticated bunkers way underground. It's possible. They may

be in tunnels way underground. That's quite possible. They may have slipped into Egypt. That's possible too. So it's going to be very hard to destroy the Hamas leadership, but Israel will try to dismantle the power structure, the military structure of Hamas. But the big question everyone has is, well, what happens the next day? Did the Israelis stay? How long did they stay? And also, one shouldn't rule out that there will be uprisings among other Palestinians, both inside Israel, inside the West Bank. Israel could find that its efforts in Gaza produce much more anger and resistance than it necessarily expects.

Right. That is a question I think has to be on everyone's mind. If Israel succeeds in any way in dismantling Hamas, what will replace it? And will Israel attempt to influence what replaces it? And thus won't whatever government that becomes be very suspicious to Palestinians living in Gaza? Won't it be seen as a puppet government of Israel and not legitimate? And doesn't that therefore make this entire mission potentially a slow motion backfiring on Israel? If, in fact, the Israelis get that far, right? I mean, part of their problem is they can kill a lot of Hamas soldiers. They can destroy a lot of equipment and arms. They can go house to house.

But they can't prevent the idea of Palestinian resistance. They can't extinguish that. And I'm sure some group will come to replace Hamas. So no, I don't think you can kill the Palestinian idea. The problem is Gaza, as someone said to me, for Israel, it's like a one-word argument for the dangers of giving up control and trusting Palestinians to run their own affairs. And Gaza for Palestinians and Palestinian supporters is a one-word argument for Israeli brutality and patronization and colonization of another people. And that's a bridge that's very hard to get over. Steve, what you're getting at is what many see as the utter intractability of this situation

long term. And that makes me want to understand, based on your reporting, what this moment is supposed to solve for either side. I think it's fair to say that Hamas knew its attack inside Israel would elicit a very strong response, and it's now facing what could be its own demise. And Israel may end up with an even more aggressive group governing Gaza once Hamas is out of power, if that happens. So what's really going to have been accomplished here? Well, for Hamas, in a way, it was a way to remind the world the Palestinian problem still exists. Israel, as you know, has been negotiating with American help to have normalization with Saudi Arabia, to have a defense treaty between Saudi Arabia and the United States. And the Palestinians were

always kind of considered in the way of this. I mean, everyone made kind of lip service to, oh, we have to do something for the Palestinians, but they were very much put on the side. And I think part of what Hamas was doing was reminding the world that the idea of this kind of peace, at least, is a bloody mirage, and the Palestinian question cannot be ignored. is a bloody mirage, and the Palestinian question cannot be ignored. For Israel, what matters now is to show the Middle East that it is a ruthless, powerful military force that will never be attacked this way again. The whole point of these regional deals that Israel's been making with the Gulf, with the Saudis, comes from the Arab world's understanding that Israel is a fact of life in the Middle East. It's ineradicable, which was never really the judgment from 67 or 73.

And now the weakness Israel's displayed in its loss to Hamas undercuts that fact of inerratic ability, and Israelis feel they have to restore it, despite the cost to their own citizens. the cost to their own citizens. Each side is trying to show the world that the facts it represents will not go away. Hamas is proving to the world the Palestinian question exists. It cannot be shoved under the carpet or ignored forever. And Israel needs to show that it will stay a powerful state in the Middle East, that it is a fact of life, and that it will never be eliminated. And of course, in the middle of those two very powerful statements that both sides are making,

have been, and I presume will be, many dead civilians. There will be many dead civilians. Well, Steve, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thank you, Michael. On Tuesday night, Israel said it had re-established control of the towns attacked by Hamas, as the full scope of the assault came into greater relief. The death toll within Israel surpassed 1,000 people, and Israeli officials said they had recovered the bodies of 1,500 Palestinian assailants,

highlighting just how many fighters were involved in the attack. As Israel's counteroffensive intensified, the number of dead in Gaza reached at least 900 people. Finally, in Washington. You know, there are moments in this life, and I mean this literally, when the pure, unadulterated evil is unleashed on this world. People of Israel lived through one such moment this weekend. President Biden denounced Hamas as bloodthirsty terrorists and called the group's attack, quote, an act of sheer evil. So in this moment, we must be crystal clear. We stand with Israel. We stand with Israel.

We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. The Times reports that allies of former Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted last week, are trying to engineer a potential vote to reinstate him, an idea that McCarthy is open to. House Republicans are expected to select their next speaker as early as today. The two leading candidates are Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana

and Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, but it's unclear whether either of them has enough support. And on Tuesday, Representative George Santos, the embattled New York Republican, was charged with 10 more crimes, including stealing the identities and credit cards of donors to his campaign. In one case, Santos allegedly stole a donor's credit card number to transfer more than $11,000 to his own bank account. Santos now faces a total of 23 federal charges. Today's episode was produced by Carlos Prieto, Asta Chaturvedi, and Will Reed. It was edited by Patricia Willans and Lisa Chow.

Contains original music by Dan Powell, Mary Lozano, Diane Wong, and Pat McCusker, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderland. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.