Although Hamas is not directly participating in current ceasefire and hostage deal conversations, Hamas is still open to the implementation of Joe Biden’s ceasefire proposal that was announced in May of 2024, as Dave DeCamp writes in a recent Antiwar article. While unnamed Arab officials from Egypt and Qatar claim that a ceasefire deal will not happen without American pressure on Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu should already understand what is at stake. Israel may not exist in the future if Netanyahu doesn’t accept a ceasefire deal. Hamas has repeatedly expressed that it is open to a ceasefire deal. Indeed, Hamas agreed to a proposed deal that didn’t commit Israel to a permanent ceasefire, which was an earlier demand. Nevertheless, Netanyahu recently added new demands to the possibility of a ceasefire deal, which includes, according to DeCamp, “indefinite Israeli control of the Gaza-Egypt border and a screening mechanism for Palestinians returning to north Gaza.” If Netanyahu continues trotting down the path of rejectionism, the Zionist enterprise as a whole will collapse.
In addition to the shame that Israel faces from the international community due to the slaughter of over 40,000 Gazans, a regional war in the Middle East against Israel is on the verge of beginning. For instance, the Houthis claimed that they were “pleased to be in a direct confrontation” with Israel during July of 2024. Furthermore, Israel has been in direct conflict with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, and the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini, following the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh by an Israeli airstrike on Iranian soil, stated that Iran will take revenge.
Writing for Haaretz, Amos Harel notes that the Biden administration believes that Iran and Hezbollah’s delayed retaliation is due to the possibility of a ceasefire and hostage deal being reached. With the possibility of Hamas, the Hezbollah, the Houthis, and the Iranians jointly attacking if Israel doesn’t accept a hostage and ceasefire deal, Israel is on the verge of facing an existential threat. Furthermore, there is an influx of both the idea of Israeli emigration and actual Israeli emigration. Discussing the topic of Jewish emigration in a Haaretz article, Ofri Ilany writes that “Jews in Israel now feel existential insecurity in a way they haven’t felt in generations.” Since Israel is “marching down a recklessly bold path” and potentially causing a regional war in the Middle East, the “Zionist solution itself is being called into question.” The fate of Israel’s continued existence is at mercy of Netanyahu’s future decisions regarding ceasefire deals.
In a recent article on Antiwar, Ramzy Baroud writes that right-wing extremism in Israel “is only a natural evolution of the Zionist ideology,” and that Zionist ideology was “always predicated on ethnic hatred, a sense of racial supremacy and predictable violence.” While I slightly disagree with Baroud’s claim that Zionism is inherently linked to “ethnic hatred,” “racial supremacy,” and “predictable violence,” the bigger issue is that Baroud’s argument that right-wing extremism is the logical conclusion of Zionist ideology doesn’t explicitly mention the crucial problem underlying contemporary Zionism. Indeed, the crucial problem with contemporary Zionist ideology is not simply that it lends itself to the far-right, but rather that it is predicated on a strategy that has been used for decades with bipartisan approval: the “iron wall.” Oppression is usually perpetrated through bipartisan approval, not by a particular political party.
According to historian Avi Shlaim, the Zionist movement adopted the strategy of the iron wall during the 1920’s, which dealt with the Arabs by “relying on military power in order to achieve its political ends.” While the iron wall was originally formulated, according to Shlaim, as a “means to an end” through utilizing military strength to pacify Arab aggression in order to foment eventual negotiations, Shlaim explains that the idea of the iron wall has been transformed. Although writing in 2012, Shlaim astutely observes that Netanyahu’s version of the iron wall “did not see Jewish military power as a means to an end, but sometimes as a means to achieving security and sometimes as an end in itself.” Forget the word “sometimes,” Netanyahu currently equates the iron wall with perpetual brute force.
The contemporary idea of the iron wall drives the current genocide of Gazans, and it is what currently prevents Israel from accepting any sort of lasting ceasefire or hostage deal. If the strategy of the iron wall persists, Israel will continue to escalate conflict in the Middle East and may possibly face self-destruction. The perpetual brute force that characterizes the contemporary iron wall remains bolstered by American money. Unsurprisingly, the United States continues to escalate the conflict by sending billions of dollars in weapons to Israel while simultaneously “attempting” to procure peace through pushing a deal. However, the United States can’t secure peace if they approve of Israel restarting the genocide in Gaza (and thus reviving the iron wall) after the first stage of a possible ceasefire deal. The United States must stop funding the iron wall. Moreover, Israel’s own survival and prosperity depends on Netanyahu entirely relinquishing the iron wall and accepting a permanent ceasefire. While it is unknown what will occur after a permanent ceasefire is reached, there is a better chance for peace in the region and, consequently, Israel’s survival if the iron wall is discarded.
Richard McDaniel is an undergraduate political science student at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. A stern libertarian with a passion for defending free speech and understanding international relations, Richard is most invested in researching why a two-state settlement was never reached in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
