OPINION: For Israel and peace-seeking Arabs, the real war matters most. For Hamas, it’s all PR
Losing is victory in the Palestinian terror group's Orwellian world. The more suffering it can provoke the more Israel is perceived as overreacting
Von Clausewitz, the famous 18th-century Prussian general, said war was a continuation of politics by other means. In today’s hyperactive media world, war seems to be less about power politics than PR. On this front, it is hard to argue that Israel is winning the day.
The initial outrage over the brutal October 7 pogrom has been all but eclipsed by anger over Israel’s response. Hauled before both the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court amid charges of genocide and war crimes, universally condemned by the UN, aid agencies and human rights groups, Israel is once again a pariah state, that even its allies struggle to publicly defend.
On one level, no one should be surprised.
For Israel, winning the real war is really what counts. PR is secondary. For Hamas, this war was always only about PR. In those Orwellian terms, losing is victory, as the more suffering, the more victims, the more utter the devastation of Gaza, the more Israel is perceived as monstrously overreacting and the greater the pressure to suspend hostilities and agree a deal on humiliating terms.
It is a strategy that Israel could not allow to succeed.
In Orwellian terms, losing is victory, as the more suffering, the more victims, the more utter the devastation of Gaza, the more Israel is perceived as monstrously overreacting
Israel’s cadre of communicators may have been weakened by years of political meddling, but are by no means as incompetent as critics would have you believe. Sure, Israel’s supporters in the West would prefer them to project a more compassionate and less belligerent face to the world, focus more on winning hearts and minds and less on contextualising overwhelming force. But rightly or wrongly, their priorities have been to win on the battlefield, demoralise Hamas and its supporters and keep domestic public opinion on side.
The Israeli narrative, which is about being a strong military, technological and economic superpower, that knows how to look after itself, plays well among Western political, military and financial elites, who understand how vital is Israel’s contribution not just to Western security and anti-terrorism, but in sustaining Western leadership in key areas of technology, and human sciences on which our future prosperity depends.
But this and the hard realism of Israel’s distrust of international institutions, to look after its interests, not to mention a rather passe belief in the nation state, play badly among idealistic, leftist constituencies who confuse victimhood with virtue, and are borderline pacifist in any case.
We should also not forget how corrosive, decades of settlement expansion and indulgence of right-wing extremism has been to Israel’s relations not just with Western governments but also diaspora Jews.
You have to play with the cards you have.
War is unbelievably nasty and modern urban warfare against a ruthless enemy which wants you to kill as many of their civilians as possible, doubly so. Despite the horror and trauma of October 7, once civilian casualties started piling up, Israel’s determination to eliminate Hamas was never going to win it friends. Tactically, it would have been smarter to have given greater priority earlier to getting aid to Gazan civilians, and get the war over sooner.
Yet, I’m not convinced either would have done much to move the dial.
Public opinion is a complex beast, less malleable than people often believe. The campus protests and pro-Palestinian marches probably alienate as many as they convince.
Thousands of Britain’s ignored the pro-Palestinian posturing of Bambie Thug and Eric Saadie to give Israel’s Eurovision entry the top slot in the phone poll. Elections across Europe show right-wing parties, who back Israel and fret about extremists among Muslim minorities are gaining ground. Arab states have publicly criticised Israeli actions, but none who have established relations with the Jewish state have broken them off.
For all the noise of the BDS movement, businesses investing in Israel have all stayed put. The Saudi deal may be on the backburner for the moment. But the idea of a pan-Arab entity taking over Gaza once the war is over is not as fantastical as people think.
Public opinion is a complex beast, less malleable than people often believe. The campus protests and pro-Palestinian marches probably alienate as many as they convince.
Israel was warned that its objectives of eliminating Hamas as a political force were unrealistic, and the cost in Israeli as well as Palestinian lives would be horrendous. But Hamas is largely destroyed as a military force, and Israeli losses have been in the hundreds rather than the thousands once feared. Hamas’ ability to resupply from Egypt has been neutralised and as even the BBC has been forced to admit more and more Gazans are standing up to Hamas, even openly blaming Hamas not Israel for the destruction their brutality has unleashed.
Time and time again, the UN and US claimed that Israel’s plans for mass evacuations of Gazan were unworkable, and time and again have been proved wrong. Rafah was going to be the ultimate catastrophe but in the end was almost a non-event.
Had Israel listened to all the siren voices, we would not be where we are now.
Hamas may think that its weakness and lack of interest in protecting its own people from Israeli bombs is its strength. But the Arabs seeking peace with Israel are doing so not because Israel is weak but precisely because of Israel’s position as a formidable military and economic superpower. They need Israel to win.
As indeed do we.
• Andrew Garfield is a Member of the Board of Deputies and an independent communications advisor
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