Australia/Israel Review

When Hamas released the first three Israeli hostages – Romi Gonen, Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher – on January 19, it certainly made a major spectacle of its handover to the Red Cross at a ceremony in Gaza city. Videos and photos showed serried ranks of masked, uniformed Hamas fighters, weapons in hand – apparently thousands of them – surrounding the three women in what appeared to be a relatively intact Gaza square. If that wasn’t intimidating enough, the Hamas fighters appeared to be holding back hundreds of civilian Palestinians intent on harming the hostages. 

The picture above is an example of what the world saw. 

In the photos and videos, Hamas certainly looked powerful and triumphant, ready to exhibit its supposed “victory” over Israel to the Arab and Muslim world.

Indeed, there was a lot of commentary, both in Israel and internationally, that despite Israeli efforts over the last 15 months, Hamas did not look very defeated in these images. Some suggested that perhaps Israeli army claims about having destroyed almost all of Hamas’ organised battalions were exaggerated. 

But have a look at the two aerial photos below of the same scene.

These photos make it clear it was effectively all Hollywood-style camera tricks. There were actually only a few hundred people, and even fewer Hamas fighters – probably only a few dozen. And what looked like a vast crowd filling a huge square was actually a small number of people deliberately confined into a small area to make it look much bigger – and filmed against the backdrop of a few intact buildings when there was actually empty devastation on the other side. 

The lesson of these images is that Hamas is waging a highly sophisticated war of propaganda and public relations as much as one with guns, rockets, IEDs and bullets. Moreover, it is worth recalling that virtually all media reporting, imagery and video that has been coming out of Gaza during this war – except from Israeli sources – has been the product of local Palestinian journalists who are operating under the authority and scrutiny of Hamas as it wages this propaganda war. 

Contrary to the cliche that “The camera doesn’t lie,” imagery absolutely can be made to distort and mislead – as the photos above show. Yet many journalists and news outlets continue to treat material coming out of Gaza as something approaching gospel – even while being highly sceptical of Israeli claims. Is it any wonder Hamas has had such a “good war”, propaganda-wise, even while losing comprehensively, militarily? 

“Daylight” 

I want to call attention to a vitally important quote from then-US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in an interview with the New York Times (Jan. 4):

[W]henever there has been public daylight between the United States and Israel and the perception that pressure was growing on Israel, we’ve seen it: Hamas has pulled back from agreeing to a cease-fire and the release of hostages. And so there are times when what we say in private to Israel where we have a disagreement is one thing, and what we’re doing or saying in public may be another. But that’s in no small measure because with this daylight, the prospects of getting the hostage and cease-fire deal over the finish line become more distant.

There are a lot of people in Australia who need to hear this. Why? Because it illustrates the bizarre blind spot of the many sincere but misguided people who insist that the key to achieving Israeli-Palestinian peace is greater pressure on Israel. 

I am not talking here about the haters for whom everything Israel does is obviously evil. I am talking about those who are willing to recognise, at least in principle, that both sides have legitimate claims, sincerely want a two-state resolution and are perhaps impatient that it hasn’t happened yet. 

Too many of them imagine that pressure on Israel would create concessions and changes in policy in Jerusalem, break the deadlock and finally bring peace. 

But here’s the thing: pressure on Israel can indeed sometimes lead to concessions and changes in policy in Jerusalem. But as Blinken makes clear – and too many people are too blind to see – it also has effects on the Palestinian side as well. And the major effect it has is to make them dig in their heels, viewing history as going their way, and demand more.

US President Obama famously made “daylight” with Israel a core of his Middle East policy, as he announced in 2009. Without it, “Israel just sits on the sidelines, and that erodes our credibility with the Arab states,” he said.

Yet this claim was absurd given the recent history at the time. The Bush Administration (prior to Obama) had not sought any such “daylight”, and Israel absolutely did not “sit on the sidelines.” It unilaterally withdrew from both Gaza and part of the West Bank in 2005 under Ariel Sharon, and then in 2007-08, participated in the Annapolis peace process under PM Ehud Olmert, offering the most generous and comprehensive two-state peace deal to the Palestinians that has ever been seriously proposed. 

The Palestinians walked away, with Mahmoud Abbas later saying he rejected the deal “out of hand”. 

Would “daylight” have made Abbas more likely to say yes? No, of course not – it would have made him even more likely to hold out for more. 

All too many advocates of daylight or one-sided pressure seem not to believe the Palestinians have any agency at all. They are seen simply as passive victims, and thus there is no need to worry about how they will respond to various incentive structures such as one-sided pressure on Israel. 

But this worldview not only infantilises Palestinians, it actually harms them. As Blinken notes regarding the ceasefire, it makes creating the conditions for a two-state peace – and genuine democratic self-determination with an end to destructive bloodshed – vastly harder to achieve.