How Will the War End?

Weighing up the possibilities

It’s been said that “it’s easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism” and we’ve now reached the stage where it’s easier to imagine an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than an end to the war in Gaza, which has continued to defy predictions about its duration and resolution. To understand why requires setting aside the moral arguments that dominate public discourse and instead examining the structural problems that keep both sides fighting, in the hope of understanding how it will eventually end.

Pressuring Hamas

Long before there was such a thing as international law, the act of surrender was the best way to protect a civilian population from the degradation of war. Put simply, by surrendering the losing side was able to spare its own people further suffering. Failing to honor a surrender, meanwhile, was an outrageous violation of norms, which is why the Crusader massacre of the Jews and Muslims of Jerusalem following the city’s surrender is remembered as an appalling violation. As I wrote in my comparison with Japan, though, the problem with Hamas is that surrender isn’t part of their vocabulary. Even worse, they are quite happy to sacrifice the people of Gaza for their cause. When asked “did you expect the price of what happened on October 7 to be this high?” Hamas spokesperson Osama Abu Zuhri answered:

Did you know that the number of babies born in Gaza during this battle equals the number of people killed? No less than 50,000 children have been born.

So if we were to measure the outcome of this battle in material terms, we would never have entered it. We don’t have weapons like America. We don’t have the same training. But Muslims are multiplying, many times over, because of what’s happening in Gaza. This isn’t about 100 homes or 1,000 martyrs. This is something far bigger. Gaza has given a lesson to the occupation, to the Muslim world, and to the whole world. The consequences are enormous. Homes can be rebuilt, and martyrs—God willing—will be replaced many times over.

In other words, the suffering of civilians won’t make Hamas surrender because they believe it fertilizes the Palestinian cause (you can read more about this issue on the ‘Alaa from Gaza’ Substack).

What about the recent protests against Hamas inside Gaza? These are difficult for outsiders to judge, but based on what informed observers have suggested, while there is genuine opposition to Hamas, it hasn’t translated into a serious threat to its rule. One shouldn’t expect this to change, given that the civilian population is engaged in a daily struggle for survival.

If Hamas cannot be pressured into surrender through civilian suffering or internal opposition, this leaves Israel with only military options to achieve its stated goals. Yesterday, the IDF said that, as part of Operation Gideon’s Chariots, it aims to occupy 75% of the Gaza Strip within two months, while pushing Gaza’s population into three small zones: the Mawasi area in the southern strip, a strip of land in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah and Nuseirat (one of the few places in Gaza to escape major fighting, probably because of the presence of Israeli hostages in the area), and the center of Gaza City. This would mean Gaza’s population of two million being pushed into an area amounting to just 25% of the entire Strip. According to the plan, the IDF would capture the rest of Gaza, clear it of Hamas infrastructure, and hold it for the foreseeable future. Currently, the military holds about 40% of the Strip’s territory.

Israel is now moving away from eliminating as many key Hamas figures as possible and shifting towards a more territorial approach to the conflict, having finally realized that it’s hard to win a war if you don’t conquer the enemy’s territory. What, though, are the chances that it will be successful? First, we should take the army’s ambitions with a pinch of salt. Throughout the war, similar promises have been made. On 11 February 2024, for example, Netanyahu said: “Victory is within reach. We’re going to do it. We’re going to get the remaining Hamas terrorist battalions and Rafah, which is the last bastion, but we’re going to do it.” Israel subsequently conquered Rafah, but this didn’t secure victory. This is because Hamas didn’t surrender (see above) and Israel did not articulate a credible, implementable post-war plan, meaning that military achievements continued to be squandered. Even if Gideon’s Chariots is successful, and even if it manages to stave off further humanitarian disaster, it would still probably result in a new and costly occupation that would have little if any international support and would lead to further domestic unrest. In short, this would mark a new phase of the war rather than its end.

What about outside pressure on Hamas? This issue is rather opaque and concerns the relationship between the leadership abroad and the few who survive within Gaza, as well as the organization’s relationship with Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey. Throughout the war, though, there’s been a startling lack of leverage on Hamas (partially due to the problems described above), and there’s little reason to think this will change in the future. In summary, then, there’s little chance that anything can be done to cause Hamas to formally surrender, or to accept terms that would – at a minimum – require its disarmament and the exile of its leaders.

Pressuring Israel

In the diplomatic realm there has been significantly more pressure on Israel to end the war, but there’s little reason to think that these efforts will be any more successful. Let’s examine each in turn. On May 19, the leaders of Britain, France, and Canada issued a joint statement condemning Israel’s “egregious actions” in Gaza, warning that concrete action could follow if it did not stop its military offensive. What could this concrete action entail? First, the recognition of Palestinian statehood. Whatever one’s views on this, clearly this threat will not force Israel to stop the war. Nor would an arms embargo. France has already stopped selling arms to Israel and the UK and Canada together provide less than one percent of the annual value of Israel’s military imports. Germany accounted for 30% of Israel’s arms imports between 2019 and 2023, but it’s highly unlikely that it would join an arms embargo; the same obviously applies to the United States, which provides 70-80% of Israel’s military imports.

What about trade? The EU accounts for almost 30% of Israeli exports, so a trade suspension would obviously have a big impact on Israel’s economy. The EU has said that it will review its trade association deal with Israel. But a complete suspension of the trade agreement would require unanimity, making it next to impossible. A partial suspension, however, would only require 55% of member states to vote in favor. This might lead to something like a suspension of the Horizon 2020 program (which ironically would probably mostly hurt the more anti-war Israelis) but would certainly be insufficient to force Israel to stop the war. In short, despite calls for sanctions from the Spanish prime minister, there’s little the EU can do to force Israel to end the war if it doesn’t want to. The same can’t be said for the United States, but despite all the talk about increased domestic support for the Palestinians, serious measures against Israel would be highly unpopular. And while it seems that Trump would prefer the war to end, he isn’t willing to put any real pressure on Israel, presumably for the same reason.

Finally, there are the global protests against Israel. While these have probably had an impact on government policy in Europe and other places, they have next to no impact on Israelis themselves, other than perhaps to make us even more implacable. The main reason for this is that the organizers of these protests are committed to the violent destruction of the Jewish state, reflected in their behavior towards Israel-supporting Jews on campuses and other places in the public sphere (symbolized by last week’s murders at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington D.C.). Even if there are some good-intentioned people involved who simply want to alleviate the suffering of Gazans, this message is drowned out by the violent calls for Israel’s destruction which now reflect mainstream Islamic and left-wing (and even sometimes right-wing) thinking. Furthermore, the broader context of Jewish history, in which the norm has been for non-Jews to accuse Jews of some crime or another, also needs to be understood, not to mention the events of October 7 and the failure of protesters to lay even part of the blame for the current situation on Hamas, while sometimes even celebrating their murderous invasion. Thus, the protests will not end the war.

The internal Israeli situation remains the arena that is most likely to shift the dial. Clearly the current makeup of the Israeli government, specifically the dominance of far-right figures, is the main reason the war has continued for so long. Due to the government’s abandonment of the hostages and its openly expansionist rhetoric, there is less support for the war than before. Reservists are reluctant to report for duty, especially against the backdrop of the failure to enlist the Haredim, while internally the country remains divided over the conduct of Netanyahu’s government and the perceived threat to democratic institutions. Anti-war protests increasingly highlight the suffering of Gaza’s civilians, although this is still a relatively small phenomenon. So while there is no chance of an anti-war faction coming to power, the changing political scene has a reasonable chance of eventually altering the war’s trajectory. The key date is 27 October 2026, when the next elections are due to be held. While the odds are against Netanyahu winning, one can never rule him out, and it’s unclear what any potential successor would do about Gaza. At this stage, Naftali Bennett is the most likely victor (although this is far from inevitable); while in many regards more hawkish than Netanyahu it’s unlikely that he could form a coalition without the support of parties who would seek an end to the war, possibly along the lines of Lapid’s plan. Of all the possibilities described above, then, this remains the most likely area of change.

Finally, there’s the possibility of black swans or other unexpected incidents. So far in this war we’ve had events like the pager attack or Trump’s ‘Gaza Riviera’ plan, things that were impossible to predict in advance but had a major impact on the course of events. The longer the war continues, the greater the chance of more events like this. In the meantime, the war continues. From the beginning, the structural problem has been that Hamas started the war but refuses to end it despite the massive losses. At the same time, unlike in Vietnam, it has been unable to inflict sufficient casualties on Israeli forces to turn public opinion decisively against the war. Israel, for its part, remains committed to its goal of removing Hamas in power but is unable to deliver the decisive blow. The “international community,” meanwhile, watches on in horror but simply doesn’t have the tools necessary to end the fighting. Thus, the war continues. As Yair Wallach notes in a recent article in Prospect, in Israel’s wars of 1967, 1973, 1982, and 2006, a Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire played a key role in ending the fighting and usually came within days or weeks of the start of hostilities. Now we are nearly eighteen months in, and there is little reason to think such a resolution is forthcoming. One day, though, the circumstances I’ve described above will change, even if it’s impossible to know how.