Ceasefire: Damned if we do and damned if we don’t

Military and Middle East expert Andrew Fox ended his most recent article by saying that Israel is damned if our leaders accept a ceasefire now and damned if they do not.

Damned in the eyes of the world, damned in the eyes of the Israeli population, and, may I add, damned in our leaders’ own nightmares.

Perhaps one thing confusing the issue is that, within Israel, the ceasefire deal morphed from what was originally called a hostage deal — with no expectation that the war would be anything but temporarily suspended as it was for the November deal. That is no longer true because certain army leaders have publicly declared that absolute victory is impossible and so the call among a loud minority of the population is for a ceasefire now.

While some Israelis think Bibi is prolonging the war to protect his political career and stay out of jail (I do not believe this), our leaders — all of them — cannot help but be faced with nightmarish replays of all the ways in which they contributed, over the years, to bring us to Oct 7th, what they have done since then that has us put us into the headlock in which we now find ourselves, and what they are doing now in response to this. And whether or not they are honest enough, introspective enough, history will do the analysis for them as academic articles will examine the moves made by each and every one of them, from left to right. And that includes the moves made by media pundits and the demonstrators out in the streets on each side of this multifaceted issue. Nobody will be exempt from the pages of scholarly articles and PhD theses or from the platforms at international conferences, and more.

The question for the future is: who will be damned more and who will be damned less?

But we are living it now. The decision has to be made now. And, as Fox stated in his second-last sentence in the article: “Is the cost of continuing now greater than the costs of resolution now?”

One month ago, I wrote up a cost-cost exercise with a leftwing friend that explored this very issue. In comparing the costs of ending versus continuing the war, we constructed the following table:

I think this pretty well parallels Fox’s expert analysis.

Basing his opinion of the deal proposed in June, Fox says that were Israel to accept it, she would be accepting that the huge human and economic costs of the war (for both Gaza and Israel), and the damage to Israel’s international reputation would have been, perhaps, for naught. The cost of ceasefire-now! would mean that the goals of the war: “to restore deterrence, free the hostages, dismantle Hamas, and gain long term security for Israel” would not have been achieved.

The benefit Fox finds for ending the war, that can be stated as a cost of continuing it, is that Israel will not be able to avoid having to come up with a “day-after plan.” Fox suggests that a deal now would allow Israel “to sidestep the burden of finding an alternative governance solution in Gaza, as well as any reconstruction efforts.” As if that is a good thing. I do not agree and “the day after” will be the subject of a future article.

For now, I want to bring into the discussion the words of prolific social issues writer Phyllis Chesler. Most recently, she wrote:

The entire world has propagated the filthiest lies against Israel and is now condemning the small nation for daring to fight back. Enough!

…Israel must be victorious in order for the 2020 Abraham Accords between Israel and the Sunni Arab states to succeed. And succeed they must.

In other words, the cost of ceasefire-now! would be, not only loss of deterrence against our enemies, but also loss of our status as a formidable ally in face of formidable foes. If we accept defeat in Gaza, if we cannot help ourselves, why should anyone think partnership with us will help them against Iran?

Damned if we do and damned if we don’t? Yes. As long as we do not damn ourselves into oblivion, I do not care who else damns us.