Episode Notes:

Michael Koplow, chief policy officer at the Israel Policy Forum, joined the WarCast to discuss the latest from the War in Gaza. The conversation touched on Israel's latest operation in Khan Yunis and then zoomed out to talk about the very unsettled future of Gaza.

[:36] Latest from the operation in Gaza

[2:20] Tactical vs. strategic tensions

[5:20] Options for a multinational force

[9:38] Policy outcomes in tension

[13:14] U.S. pressure on Israeli politicians

[16:08] Israel kicking the can down the road

Episode Transcript

Aaron Stein: My name is Aaron Stein and I am the chief content officer at War on the Rocks. You are listening to The Warcast, the Members-only podcast for what you need to know now.

Hello and welcome to The Warcast, where we're joined again by Michael Koplow, chief policy officer at the Israel Policy Forum. This has become a weekly thing we're doing here, so it's good to see you again.

Michael Koplow: Good to see you as always.

Aaron Stein: How busy are you?

Michael Koplow: Very.

Aaron Stein: Well, I appreciate you taking out 15 to 20 minutes of your time here. Obviously, as we talked about at the back end of the last Warcast that we did is that the ceasefire, the hostage-prisoner swap expired and conflict has begun again. Where is the conflict now taking place and what is the trajectory of the ground offensive?

Michael Koplow: The conflict at the moment is in both northern Gaza and southern Gaza, and it's operating in different phases. In northern Gaza, Israel had made that the focus of its operation before the temporary ceasefire and hostage release. At the moment, it's operating mostly in Jabalia and Shejaiya, which are two neighborhoods inside of Northern Gaza that are considered to be Hamas strongholds.

These are places that Israel had not cleared out before the ceasefire, and so it's operating in those areas now. IDF folks say that they think they need another couple of weeks in northern Gaza before they've done whatever it is that they want to accomplish in northern Gaza.

In southern Gaza, this is where we've seen operations that did not exist before the ceasefire, because Israel really hadn't moved into southern Gaza yet. Here we've got a combination of airstrikes and a ground offensive. Here the focus is on Khan Yunis, which is the largest neighborhood in southern Gaza.

Also, the neighborhood, which is the home of Yahya Sinwar. Not that anybody expects him to actually be sitting in his house in Khan Yunis, but it does have symbolic value for that reason. And it's also Hamas's main stronghold in the south.

Aaron Stein: As we're watching this unfold, it appears to me that there's becoming a disconnect. Not just between the US and Israel about, but also within Israel itself. And this is the question I wanted to ask you is that there's the tactical clearing operations in the north. And then, there's the tactical, "We're going to take Khan Yunis, because of the strategic implications of the location and its importance for certain Hamas leaders."

But on the strategic, where is this going in terms of thinking beyond just the day-to-day fighting? And that's where I'm talking about that disconnect, where I still think Israelis are full behind this operation, but Israeli leaders are still clueless about what it is beyond defeating Hamas that this is leading up to.

Michael Koplow: I think that Israeli leaders view the military operation as doing two things. One is defeating Hamas, removing it as a military threat. The other is using the operation as a way of putting pressure on Hamas to release more hostages on terms that are broadly favorable or at least acceptable to Israel.

Here I think it's really important to understand just how big a deal the hostages are inside of Israel. I think that's something that, of course, intuitively will make sense to anybody who's watching this. But the atmosphere there really, from the early days post-October 7th, where the focus was on, "We need to remove Hamas," to now, where the focus really is on, "There are 138 hostages remaining in Gaza and everything must be done to get them out," is pretty incredible.

There was an interesting report either yesterday or the day before about Israel's ostensible plan to flood the tunnels with seawater. All sorts of reasons why that may be difficult or may not work. There are environmental concerns. There are concerns that because of geology and Gaza, where it's basically sand and soft limestone, you may end up creating a giant sinkhole underneath the entire place. All those concerns are there.

But the concern that really came to the fore was people saying, "How can you possibly do that? There are Israeli hostages in these tunnels." And so, even if it means that you wipe out Hamas entirely, you'll be killing 138 hostages who need to come home. I think that at the moment, the Israeli government in many ways is talking about the military operation and defending it as a means to secure the return of hostages.

But in terms of the longer picture and the day after, there are signs that the Israeli government is now willing to maybe start to entertain conversations. But I'm not sure there's been a real pivot yet to what happens when the military operation is over and what Gaza will ultimately look like.

Aaron Stein: There's been a lot of talk about ... And we'll come back to Netanyahu in his role in the hostages in a second, but there's been a lot of talk about a multinational air force. There's also been ... I know you're far more plugged in than I am, but it comes particularly out of US officials, is that Israelis are a bit frantic searching for that day-after solution.

You're smiling, but perhaps you can correct me if I'm wrong there. And so, it will create necessarily a mechanism for some uncouth choices that the Israeli government will have to face, like accepting in a foreign set of troops. Perhaps, the Turks, they're the only ones who are offering to put any in.

Is this where you see this going? I do not. But again, you follow this a lot closer. It's that they're just being backed into a corner, where the goalposts are shifting and they're going to have to accept outcomes that they didn't want to on October 8th.

Michael Koplow: The first outcome that they're almost certainly going to have to accept, which so far they've been publicly unwilling to countenance in any way, shape, or form, is the eventual return of the Palestinian authority to Gaza. And that's the longer term. That's not immediately when the fighting is over, but pretty much everybody who isn't the Israeli government at this point agrees that is the best option. Even if it's objectively not a very good one.

When I say everybody, I mean the United States. I mean states in the region. I mean pretty much every external actor, and in addition, lots of folks inside of the Israeli security establishment. It's really Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Israeli government who have effectively made it verboten to talk about the Palestinian authority.

But that's a pill that I think everybody who's not the Israeli government accepts that they're going to eventually have to swallow. When we turn to more interim steps ... And this is where we get to the question of a multinational force. So if you don't have a multinational force, what are you left with?

You're left with either the IDF occupying Gaza permanently, which is something that nobody wants to see, including the Israeli government. Or you're left with perhaps widespread anarchy and chaos, where Israel kind of sits outside and says, "Whatever happens inside of here is not our problem." And I don't think that's feasible either.

There are hopes that the PA Security Forces could go in. While again, in the long term, I think that's what should happen and has to happen ... In the immediate term, the PA Security Forces, there are 31,000 of them and they've got their hands full in the West Bank. They're in no position at all, even if they wanted to, to enter Gaza right now and stabilize things.

That has to mean a force that is comprised of something else. Maybe that means a force of other states in the region. You can envision a scenario in which under the right set of circumstances, Egyptians, Jordanians, Turks, somebody may be willing to contribute to some sort of multinational force. Particularly, if it's under the auspices of the United Nations. You can maybe see a scenario where other countries not from the region contribute to a UN force.

There's certainly a world in which, and this is what I would argue is the best one, you basically have two forces. You have a smaller homegrown Palestinian force that does very limited things such as control the border crossings. And in the meantime, alongside it, you have some sort of peacekeeping force made up hopefully of other states in the region, and you've got an Israeli buffer zone inside of Gaza, which is almost certainly going to happen whether the US likes it or not.

All of these operate somewhat in tandem until you can get to a point where Gaza is stabilized, and then down the road, the PA moves back in. But if there's no outside intervention here, if there's no multinational force involved, then I'm really not sure what's left. I think that the task here is to figure out under what conditions some sort of outside force is possible. Because otherwise, you really are left with the absolute worst possible options on the menu, and everybody should be looking to avoid those.

Aaron Stein: I find this to be intention, and I don't actually fault the Israelis for being intentioned. I think it's entirely reasonable. In one of our previous conversations, you said the people in the south, where October 7th was perpetrated, that's where it was perpetrated, want a buffer zone. And that buffer zone requires an occupation.

But on the other side, you have all Israelis, for very understandable reasons, saying, "We don't want to occupy Gaza." Those two things are intention. And then, the third thing is that smart people like yourself and others say, "We have to plan for the worst-case scenario, which is to bring in a multinational force, whoever it is."

That's also intention with those first two things. All three are completely intention. And I know you know that, but unpack that a little bit for how the government beyond Netanyahu's, I'm going to say it, incompetence, can grapple with this.

Michael Koplow: So a few things. The worst case is not an international force. The worst case is anything other than an international force. The worst case is a full Israeli occupation of Gaza. There's a debate as to what's the worst scenario ... A complete and total Israeli occupation of Gaza? Or Hamas stays in power and continues to run the place?

I would argue that the first is actually the worst. Other people argue the second, but in any event, those two are the worst. Whichever one. One is 1-A and one is 1-B. Trying to figure out how you avoid those is important. In terms of the tension between occupation and buffer zone, when Israelis talk about not wanting to reoccupy Gaza, they're not at this point saying that there should be not one Israeli inside of Gaza.

What they're saying is, "We demand a two to three-kilometer buffer zone that starts at the Mediterranean, runs along the northern border, and down the eastern border of Gaza." And that should basically be no man's land. Anybody who sets foot in it will be shot on site. Beyond that buffer zone, there should be no permanent Israeli presence inside of Gaza. That's what they mean by avoiding an occupation.

Now, just this week, the US has said a couple of times that its vision for post-War Gaza involves Gaza's borders not changing at all, and the territory of Gaza not being at all diminished. That of course means no buffer zone. I just don't see a world in which Israel agrees to that. And I think that ultimately my guess is that the US is going to capitulate on it and will come up with some legalistic arrangement where there's a buffer zone, but Israel agrees that it won't be permanent, but an actual end date isn't put on it.

You can argue that this is just a temporary arrangement, because there's no way Israelis are going to accept anything less. These things 100% are all intention and we're going to be in a world afterward, much like pre-October 7th, where Israel said, "We're not occupying Gaza", and other people said, "Yes, you are, because you control the borders."

Now that debate's going to be even more intense because Israel's going to say, "We're not occupying Gaza." People will say, "How can you say that? There's a buffer zone right inside of it." The semantics will be what the semantics are. And of course, everything is intention. I think the issue here, at least for me, isn't how to resolve the definitional or semantic tension. It's just how to get to a better place that everybody can at least live with.

Aaron Stein: I think, "Live," is the operative word there. We'd like to keep as many people alive as possible. I want to flip to Netanyahu. I know we're coming up against the end of the time. We said on the last podcast, "He's a dead man walking." He's still a dead man walking, you've maintained, it just takes a long time to oust Israeli prime ministers.

I am going to ask you to look forward here. The hostage issue remains the most salient one. A future government will have to grapple with the longer-term tail of this, which is you may have ... Not an unsupportive United States, but a United States that feels political pressures to be more forward-leaning on the Palestinian statehood issue.

Is this Madrid 1991 with George H. W. Bush being a little bit more oomph-y in terms of pushing the Israelis? Or is this something new entirely that the Israeli political leadership are going to have to deal with?

Michael Koplow: I think this is something new entirely, because Madrid happened on the heels of the First Intifada and on the heels of the Gulf War. That was very different than what you have now, which is Israelis reacting to an unprecedented security catastrophe. And so, I think that it's going to be much tougher to push them into some sort of wider arrangement or wider peace process that they are unwilling to enter into given what they've just faced.

The other factor here is that we're sitting here recording on December 6th, 2023. A year from now, there very well may be a President-elect Donald Trump. And if that's the case, whatever Israeli calculations are, US policy will of course be drastically different from whatever this administration comes up with. So I think that not just Netanyahu, but any future Israeli prime minister who comes after him is almost certainly going to be looking at the US political clock.

Even if they determine that a second term of President Biden may mean that Israel will have to take some actions that it may not necessarily want to take, anyone ... Whether it's Netanyahu, whether it's Gantz, whether it's Bennett, whether it's Lapid, anybody is going to want to buy as much time as possible to see what happens on election day here in 2024, because it will mean a very different US response as well.

I don't think the Israelis are going to be pushed this time the same way that you saw in Madrid and in Oslo. I think we're looking at years of real volatility in terms of US policy and Israeli policy, but I don't think it's quite so easy to look at that situation and say that's going to be replicated again this time around.

Aaron Stein: Okay. And I need 30 seconds. How does that then come into tension with a multinational force? Because ideally, it would be the US pushing them to accept things that they don't want.

Michael Koplow: Yes, and I think that it's really imperative for the US at the moment to get on top of this as quickly as possible, because of the US political clock. If you're the Biden administration and you want to get any movement on anything here, you've got to get it soon, before it's election season in earnest here in the United States.

For the Israelis, they're also going to have to make some quick decisions when the initial big phase of this military operation is over. Because at that point, they're going to have to decide themselves. What are they doing in Gaza? Are they withdrawing reservists? If they do withdraw reservists, who's going to come in and stabilize the thing?

Everybody here is going to be faced with some very quick and unpalatable choices, and it's just going to be a simple cost-benefit analysis. Which very unpleasant pill do you swallow among the vast menu of unpleasant pills?

Aaron Stein: Well, I'm not going to kick the can down the road any longer, probably like the Israelis will, on ending this podcast. We've already gone too long. Thanks, Mike, for joining me.

Michael Koplow: My pleasure. Thanks, Aaron.