In his very first statement after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared: The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) “will immediately use all its strength to destroy Hamas’s capabilities. We will destroy them, and we will forcefully avenge this dark day that they have forced on the State of Israel and its citizens.”
In his very first statement after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared: The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) “will immediately use all its strength to destroy Hamas’s capabilities. We will destroy them, and we will forcefully avenge this dark day that they have forced on the State of Israel and its citizens.”
It was a statement that spawned a stream of commentary about the impossibility of destroying Hamas. The Israeli leader and his advisors clearly disagree. They proved that on July 13, when Israel struck Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif, under whose name the announcement of the Oct. 7 operation was published, and his deputy in Khan Younis, Rafaa Salameh. (Israeli officials confirmed their deaths this week.)
Then the Israelis apparently turned their sights on Ismail Haniyeh—the leader of Hamas’s Qatar-based political office—killing him on Wednesday with a bomb planted in the building in Tehran where he was staying. In between the killings of the two Hamas leaders, the Israelis laid waste to a portion of the Houthi-controlled port of Hodeida in Yemen and assassinated Fuad Shukr, a military advisor to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Unconfirmed reports indicate that a commander with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was assassinated in Syria not long after Haniyeh’s demise.
All this violence reinforces the Israeli endgame: victory. That is, at least, the Israeli theory, even if past assassinations of Hamas leaders have not brought the organization to its knees. Instead, an assassinated leader is replaced with someone else. Nevertheless, at a press conference after the hit on Deif and Salameh, Netanyahu emphasized that Hamas was cracking and weakening.
This was an affirmation of the official Israeli view that the best way to ensure the country’s security and bring hostages home is to defeat Hamas on the battlefield. Netanyahu has been clear about this, declaring over and over again during these long months of war—most recently in an address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress—that Israel would not give up its war aims. Instead of heeding the words of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, to bring an end to the war, the Israeli leadership is saying: “We want the war to end, too. But on our terms and timeline. Not yours.”
That is why a cease-fire was never imminent. In fact, the negotiations that dragged on all these months were a ruse. The Israelis had no intention of walking away from the fight with Hamas’s leadership intact, and for its part, Hamas—in the form of Yahya Sinwar, the group’s Gaza leader—believes it is winning the war by dragging Israel into a grinding conflict that has damaged Israel’s international reputation. The Americans got played. They were the only party to the talks who wanted a cease-fire. As for the Qataris, the outcome of the talks was less important than being the mediator and thus doing a service for the United States—always a win in the competitive world of intra-Gulf politics.
But the key question is, what happens next? Despite Netanyahu’s pugnacious televised statement to Israelis on Wednesday that anyone who threatens Israel will pay a heavy price, he is rolling the dice. The IDF could decapitate Hamas but may not actually improve Israel’s security situation. The cautionary tale is the U.S. assassination of Qassem Suleimani—the head of the IRGC’s Quds Force—who was killed in a drone strike near Baghdad International Airport in early 2020. Few lament his demise, but his death did significantly diminish the destructive reach of Iran’s “axis of resistance.”
It is possible that Israel’s spectacular assassinations and demonstrations of military prowess will intimidate its enemies, but it cannot know for sure. Reportedly, Israel’s military intelligence believed that Iran would not attack in response to the assassination of two top IRGC officers in Damascus in April. They were wrong. Surely, the Haniyeh killing—in the heart of Tehran after the inauguration of the new Iranian president—raises the stakes for Iran’s leaders, who would look fatally weak if they failed to respond to Israel in a significant manner.
In fact, there does not seem to be a way to avoid escalation. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, immediately vowed to avenge Haniyeh’s death and is believed to have already ordered a strike on Israel. Tehran’s response will almost certainly have to be big. But if Iran’s retaliation kills Israelis or damages critical Israeli infrastructure or military sites, Israel will feel compelled to respond in a way that exceeds the damage done to it. That is how the regional conflict already underway accelerates and intensifies.
The Israelis argue—as Netanyahu did in Washington—that the best way to bring the war to an end is for the United States and Israel to stand united against common threats. It is an applause line that masks a different reality. Despite all the talk of ironclad commitments and having Israel’s back, U.S. and Israeli leaders do not see the conflict the same way. For Israelis, it is existential. As a result, the Israeli government is willing to take risks to end the war in its favor (though many Israelis disagree with the government and support a cease-fire that would return hostages to their families).
U.S. officials, on the other hand, believe that a fight to the finish will do more harm than good, causing more civilian casualties, radicalizing yet more people in the region, and putting U.S. goals such as regional integration at risk. Thus they prefer to pursue diplomatic solutions aimed at de-escalation, even as all the incentives for the parties involved is to do the exact opposite.
The misalignment between the two countries’ threat perceptions highlights a tension in the U.S.-Israel security relationship (which does not formally obligate the United States to come to Israel’s defense): The Israelis want maximum maneuverability to pursue their military goals, and they want assurances that the cavalry will come if they get into trouble. Given what everyone knows about Hezbollah’s rockets and Iran’s missile forces, the Israelis may very well encounter trouble. This would include the unique capabilities of U.S. naval vessels in the Mediterranean that would supplement Israel’s own well-developed but only partially adequate air defense system.
This is not to suggest that the Israelis are intentionally trying to drag Washington into war, as some of Israel’s opponents suggest. Rather, it is to highlight how the informal nature of the security relationship—intertwined as it is with the highly emotional politics around U.S.-Israel ties—encourages Israelis to gamble and risk escalation. Netanyahu and his advisors know that for a whole host of political, historical, and moral reasons, a U.S. president will feel compelled to come to Israel’s assistance.
It is time for a change. Instead of cutting off aid, which is unlikely, it would be better to corral the Israelis. The best way to do that: a formal security pact. Such an agreement would outline in detail U.S. commitments and under what circumstances Israel could expect U.S. forces to come to the rescue.
Israelis have many reasons to want Hamas leaders dead and no doubt are gratified that there are fewer of them alive today than a month ago, but the risky assassination of Haniyeh threatens a regional escalation that could drag the United States into a war. It is in the interest of the United States to help ensure Israeli security—but not at the expense of its own.
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