Where do leaders go after declaring war? Nowhere good.
For Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, Israel’s on-again, off-again prime minister for the past 16 years, declaring war is the only choice after Hamas launched deadly attacks by air, land, and sea on Israel early Saturday morning. The death toll is dramatic, with hundreds reported dead and many more injured.
They have watched as their violent rhetoric becomes reality, but have failed the people they claim to represent and protect.
We don’t know the longterm consequences of this historic escalation, but we can be certain Bibi will make Palestinian civilians even outside of Gaza pay a heavy price. We can be even more certain that this war, however short lived, should mean the end for the leaders on all sides of this conflict. They have watched as their violent rhetoric becomes reality, but have failed the people they claim to represent and protect. Too many of these "leaders" seem locked in a death spiral without a plan.
Over the years, Bibi maintained power by aligning with war-hawks, taking stands against Palestinian statehood, and effectively telling Israelis only hard-line policies would keep them secure.
Hamas’ political arguments are similarly harsh; aligning with the region’s bad actors like Hezbollah and Iran, refusing to recognize the existence of the state of Israel, and telling Palestinians in the blockaded Gaza Strip that aggression is the only path for survival.
This war will likely be their undoing. Journalist Noga Tarnopolsky put her finger on it immediately: There is no way leadership on either side survives. It’s a foregone conclusion that Hamas leaders will be hunted down in retaliation for this assault on Israeli towns. But Netanyahu, who built himself up as a pro-security protector of the state, may also find it hard to spin his government's security failures and the tragic loss of Israeli lives.
Which leaves us today with a situation multiple United States presidents have delayed for decades — wishful thinking in lieu of active policy has led to war.
The reason this region is collectively called a powder keg isn’t simply because of the amount of military equipment and ammunition that has been stockpiled and deployed. The threat of volatile personalities and long-held resentments has loomed over the population ominously for decades. U.S. presidents from Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama did not mess with “the status quo,” trying (and mostly failing) to negotiate between parties who inherently reject each other’s identities, while holding to the boundaries of the West Bank and keeping Jerusalem as an international city. Until all parties agreed on all parts, a standard negotiating position, nothing was supposed to change. Israeli settlers weren’t supposed to move further and further into the West Bank. Hamas wasn’t supposed to collect more and more weapons and plan new acts of terrorism.
The idea that nothing would change absent a negotiated peace was a fiction people needed to comfort themselves; it’s a narrative that didn’t account for big forceful personalities. Change came when Netanyahu joined forces with former President Donald Trump, who formally recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moved the U.S. embassy there. The U.S. also turned a relatively blind eye to settlements expanding into Palestinian territory and increasing violence; The United Nations warned that 2022 was one of the deadliest years in recent history. Together, Netanyahu and Trump stirred the pot. Israeli and Palestinian political positions have hardened, as have most of their prominent leaders. And no one on the outside can see any way to bring about peace.
Hamas went on the offensive this weekend in dramatic, violent fashion. These surprise attacks, which include large-scale loss of civilian life and the kidnapping of innocents, will not further the dream of Palestinian and Israeli democracies co-existing side by side. When the dust settles over the bloody rubble, the only hope is that a new generation of leaders will come forward. Because the current ones had their chance — and squandered it in the most predictably awful way possible.