The Decibel - A ‘balance of terror’: The geopolitics of the Israel-Hamas war

Episode Date: November 3, 2023

Israeli tanks and troops that entered Gaza on Friday are now focusing on encircling Gaza City – the population hub of the northern part of the strip. This comes after Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement on Saturday that Israel had entered a “long and difficult” new stage of the war. He stopped short of calling this new phase an all-out invasion, but airstrikes have escalated along with an advancing ground incursion.This strategy could have further implications for the region, and Israel’s allies in the West – including Canada – will be looking to figure out their parts in this ongoing war.Thomas Juneau is on the show to help us understand this next phase of the war and what it could mean geopolitically. He’s an associate professor at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs whose research focuses on the Middle East as well as Canadian foreign and defence policy.Questions? Comments? Ideas? E-mail us at [e-mail]

As the second stage of Israel's war against Hamas progresses, troops and tanks are moving further into Gaza, working to encircle Gaza City. Airstrikes also continue, and this week several have hit refugee camps. Meanwhile, further south in the Strip, small groups of foreign nationals and badly injured Palestinians were allowed into Egypt from Gaza. And still, there are over 200 Israeli hostages being held captive. Throughout all of this, there are constant concerns that the war could escalate into a broader conflict. Thomas Juno is an associate professor at the University of Ottawa's Graduate School of

Public and International Affairs. His research focuses on the Middle East as well as Canadian foreign and defence policy. Thomas is on the show to help us understand how this conflict could grow into something bigger and what role Canada has to play in all this. I'm Maena Karaman-Wilms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Thomas, thank you so much for being here today. Thank you. So the Israel-Hamas war is now in its second stage, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. What do we know about Israel's goal with this escalation? So that's the million dollar question. Officially, Israel's goal is to destroy

Hamas, to defeat it politically and militarily. The problem is that even those who agree with that goal, in many cases, at least objective or independent observers, are at best skeptical that it's feasible. Hamas is an idea. It's a political movement. So you can't eliminate that physically in many cases. And even on the physical side, Hamas is deeply entrenched in the Gaza Strip. It has hundreds of kilometers of tunnels in which it has weapons caches. It has easily 30,000 fighters. And in addition to that, there are significant elements of Hamas that are not

in the Gaza Strip. So Israel cannot destroy them in the current operation. There are elements of Hamas in the West Bank, the other occupied Palestinian territory. But there are also elements of Hamas in Lebanon, where they work with Hezbollah, and in Turkey and in Qatar. So the objective of defeating Hamas, if you define that as eliminating it, is probably not realistic. So then the whole question has to become, and it's difficult to talk about it now, but it has to become, what do we do? Once the current phase of the war, the next phase of the war is over, Hamas will be weakened. It might even be seriously weakened, but it will still exist. So what happens then?

And when you start asking these questions, these are really difficult to think about. And I imagine there's a lot of questions too about what happens with Gaza, with that territory, right? This is a territory that's, you know, there's a lot of destruction happening there. Probably there's going to be questions about who is in charge and what happens next. Exactly. And there are no answers to that. And there are no easy answers to that. You know, it's easy to criticize Israel for not coming up with a plan, but it's really not obvious what that plan realistically could be.

You know, the Gaza Strip is about the size of the island of Montreal. That's always a comparison that I find is useful for Canadians to make, to understand how small it is. But there's 2.4 million people in there. And Hamas, it has a military wing that was responsible for the attack on October 7th. But it also has a political wing that has been for, you know, a bit more than 15 years, the government in the Gaza Strip. So there will still be a lot of people in Gaza who provides the services who, you know, those services, to be clear,

were extremely weak and crumbling before the current phase of the war. But they were there. Hospitals, schools, infrastructure, sewers and so on. It is not clear because right now the only other political entity in the Gaza Strip is Islamic Jihad, which is even worse than Hamas in terms of its extremism. And it doesn't have a political wing. Some people are suggesting the Palestinian Authority, which sort of governs the West Bank. That doesn't work. I mean, the Palestinian Authority is viewed as illegitimate by a majority of Palestinians. It is spectacularly corrupt, fragmented, really not very competent.

And the idea that it could ride back into Gaza on the back of Israeli tanks would basically kill whatever's left of its credibility. Because it would have Israel's support, essentially, is why you're saying that? Exactly. I mean, and the resentment against Israel in the Gaza Strip is extremely high. And we may agree or disagree with whichever side. That's the reality. That's the fact. So somebody like the Palestinian Authority ruled by Fatah, the traditional Palestinian party for national liberation, they're not viewed favorably at all in the Gaza Strip. So it's not clear what happens after. So this is, I mean, there's so many unknowns here, if we're talking about the future. Let's even just talk about what's happening at this moment. I mean,

do we know, Thomas, do we have any sense of the kind of warfare that's been involved at this stage, the kind of things that are actually happening on the ground in Gaza? That's difficult to answer precisely because there is a very limited international media presence in the Gaza Strip. The one thing that we can say, though, is that in the days after the October 7th attack, the consensus seemed to be Israel will invade. A, it will invade soon. And B, it will invade on a fairly large scale. And that is not what happened. A, it took almost three weeks to get to something happening beyond the airstrikes. And B, it is an invasion, right? But there's no clear definition of what is and what is not an invasion.

It's ground incursions on a large scale. Yeah, now who stopped short of calling it an invasion, right? They've been using other terms. And that's important. Israeli forces, special forces, infantry and others, tanks, bulldozers, they're going in. Some of them are actually staying overnight. That does seem clear by now, but it's not the large scale, semi-permanent presence that a lot of people foresaw maybe two weeks ago. The question then is to ask, well, why? And why, as you said, is Netanyahu not calling it an invasion? There's a lot of reasons for that.

An actual invasion would be really difficult, right? Like a permanent presence. Israeli troops would be sitting ducks in the Gaza Strip, which remains heavily militarized. You know, Hamas is still there. They have access to tunnels, booby traps, and so on. So it would be extremely difficult. And just the fact that Netanyahu is not calling it an invasion is relevant because Hezbollah and Iran and other Iran-backed groups have said, it's a bit more ambiguous than it

sounds, but they have said that an invasion might be a red line for them. So not calling it an invasion and doing it on a maybe slightly smaller scale than some had anticipated might also be a way to try to avoid provocation on that side. This is really interesting here. So semantics in this form actually might have a fairly important role here in who is being provoked or not provoked by this action. Well, semantics always matter a lot in politics. So whether we're talking about warfare in the Gaza Strip or in general, so yes, as a general rule, I wouldn't push that argument too far in the sense that Iran and Hezbollah and the other groups that Iran backs in the region, they can see for themselves and they can certainly see beyond the words that Netanyahu uses. That being said, part of the dynamic here that is really interesting, but complicated and volatile is yes, on one side, you have Israel.

On the other side, you have Hamas and the other groups that Iran backs in the region like Hezbollah. Israel and Hamas are at war. Nobody, I think, and I might be wrong, but nobody, I think, wants an escalation to a regional all-out war. Israel certainly doesn't want it. It wants to focus on destroying Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah, I think, does not want an escalation with Israel. Because if that happens, Israel has been very clear, and there's every reason to believe it when it says that, that in the case of all-out war with Hezbollah, Israel will basically destroy Lebanon. Lebanon is a failing, almost failed state. And if that escalation happens,

Lebanon will not recover for years and possibly decades. And Hezbollah would have to manage that, right? Hezbollah participates in the governance of Lebanon. So there's a kind of a balance of terror that is very fragile between Israel and Lebanon and Hezbollah, sorry. So they want to avoid all out war and they know that. And there's kind of tacit rules of the game between the two sides. So not calling it an

invasion on Netanyahu's side has to be seen as part of that dynamic. I also want to ask you, because Iran backs Hamas, Hezbollah, as well as Houthi militia in Yemen, who've started launching attacks on Israel we've seen in recent days, how might this affect the conflict? So Iran supports the Houthis. And in the last couple of weeks, the Houthis three times targeted Israel through the Red Sea, right? More or less straight up north. They targeted Israel with missiles and drones. They were all intercepted. And from a military perspective, the threat that that poses to Israel is actually limited because one or two missiles and drones, maybe half a dozen, Israel can intercept that.

There are defenses which are extremely sophisticated. That being said, the political message that this sends is a big deal. It is very significant. This is a way of Iran and its allies, Houthis, Hamas, Hezbollah, telling Israel, you know we can reach you. We can hit you from the Gaza Strip, from the West Bank, from Lebanon with Hezbollah, from Syria with a number of militias that Iran backs that now are actually very well stocked in weapons and missiles. And now we are telling you, you suspected it, but now we are telling you and now you know that we can also reach you from the south. The message here is in a scenario of all out war, we can hit you from everywhere, from the south, from the east, and from the north. And then the risk for Israel becomes its air defenses becoming

saturated, becoming overwhelmed by missiles and drones, short range, long range coming from basically every direction except the west, where it whereas the Mediterranean Sea, that for Israel is extremely worrying. So the message to Israel here is do not escalate, because the damage to you would be really significant, which is, of course, a message that Israel also sends to Hezbollah and others by saying the exact reverse or mirror image, same thing. So there is this balance of terror here, which is fragile, and it's volatile, and it's extremely worrying. But if there is hope that there won't be an escalation, it is through this mutual deterrence. We'll be right back. There is, of course, a really desperate situation within Gaza currently, right? There's a humanitarian crisis happening. There have been calls for a ceasefire because of that. But Netanyahu has clearly said he would not agree to a ceasefire. As an analyst, Thomas, watching this, what does his and civil society activists may call for one. And there is a valid debate as to whether that's the right response to what Hamas did.

Fair enough. In practice, there will not be a ceasefire. I absolutely do not see Israeli domestic politics at this point and for the foreseeable future moving in that direction. You know, there's a lot of debate in Israel right now. Criticism of Netanyahu is extremely strong from multiple sectors of society right now, from the left, from the center, and even from parts of the right, for a lot of mistakes that they believe certainly much less debate on the need to smash Hamas, to be a bit blunt. From the center, from significant portions of the left and obviously on the right in Israel, there is no ceasefire. Because a ceasefire would mean giving the victory to Hamas and allowing the status quo, which allowed the attack of October 7th, to continue. So domestically, there is a lot of pressure on Netanyahu for a lot of things.

There might be international pressure at some point. Even when that international pressure mounts, the time that it will take to actually have an impact and change Israeli actions, there will be a lag. Canada has also commented on the situation. Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Jolie, she's not gone so far as to call a ceasefire, but she's instead called for a humanitarian truce. What is the difference, Thomas? We've talked about semantics before, but when we're talking about ceasefire versus

humanitarian truce, what's the difference? I understand that for a lot of people who read this in the media, it might be semantics, but in practice, there's a huge difference. A ceasefire means the war stops. It doesn't even mean political negotiations to arrive at some kind of settlement, of broader settlement, but it means we stop fighting. A humanitarian pause is completely different. It is very clear that the fighting continues. It is not a ceasefire. It means that there is physical and political space for humanitarian assistance, in this case, convoys of trucks coming into Gaza from Egypt, not from Israel, and that there's an agreement to allow these convoys to get in, i.e. we're not going to shoot at them as they get in.

So it is very narrow as an arrangement. And it does have to be agreed by Hamas and Israel through mediation by Qatar and Egypt in most cases. But for now, Canada and others are only asking for that. And when I say others, that includes the U.S., right? They are also asking for more humanitarian aid. What did you think of what Julie had to say on this? She spoke earlier this week. Should she push further and have Canada exert more pressure in calling for something like a truce? If Canada comes out tomorrow morning for whatever reason and says, we ask for a ceasefire, it has very precisely zero impact on the situation on the ground. So we may want to do-

Just because we're such a small player in all of this? We have no influence at this point, right? I mean, the U.S. barely has influence on Israel's conduct right now. So the idea that a much smaller country like Canada would have even a tiny bit of influence on Israel's calculus is fantasy at this point. We can very well decide as a country that we want to ask for a ceasefire because we believe that it is morally right, fair, as long as we recognize that it will not have any impact. The government also has to make a very domestic political calculus too. And there clearly are also equities to balance at that level. All right. So Canada might not have much influence here, but of course, Canada is an ally of the U.S. And as you said, the U.S. does have

some impact, at least in this ongoing situation. What has the U.S. strategy been with Israel? So one way that analysts are describing the American strategy here, which increasingly seems to be the case, is the bear hug strategy. It's the idea that you hug Israel warmly, strongly, closely, with the idea that the best way to exert some influence on Israel is to hug it so warmly and closely that if you want to influence them, you have to be close to them. What the US is trying to influence to achieve through that bear hug strategy appears to be to push Israel to exercise some restraint and to allow humanitarian pauses. We are seeing Israel exercising some restraint. That may seem very absurd to say,

given the destruction in the Gaza Strip. But the large scale, massive invasion that was anticipated two weeks ago is not quite at that scale. Now, the question is, is that the result of American pressure? Or is that solely the result of Israel's domestic calculus and American pressure? Yes, pushed in that direction, but did not actually have an impact. At this point, I'm not sure what the answer to that is. How would you characterize Canada's position here, Thomas? I mean, we talk about politically supporting Israel, but I guess really, where does our country stand here? Well, that's an interesting question. I mean, officially, Canada's position is that we support the two-state solution.

The problem that I have is at two levels. A, the two-state solution is on life support. It's really hard to see how an actual two-state solution comes to life, especially now in the current context. But with the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, with the corruption and incompetence of the Palestinian authority in the West Bank, with Hamas in Gaza, it's very difficult to see that happening. The other problem is that Canada's policy under the Harper government, but also under the Trudeau government, it hasn't significantly changed. We did not work in favor of the two-state solution. We express it as a preference, but our actions on the ground have supported Israel. We have supported the Palestinian

security forces in the West Bank, but these security forces de facto enforce the occupation on behalf of Israel in the West Bank. So we've actually worked against our stated policy preference of a two-state solution. I guess I do still want to ask you about Canada's role here, because it sounds like we don't have a big role to play, but how do we fit in? What can we do, or what should we be doing in this context? There are a lot of people calling in Canada for us to play a mediator or honest broker role in this conflict, as allegedly we did in the past. You're talking about Canada's role in peacekeeping missions, that kind of thing? Yeah, peacekeeping, Suez, and so on. That was far more pragmatic than idealistic when we did

that in the past. I think a lot of people misconceive that dimension. But looking strictly at the present now, the idea that Canada could play a mediatory role, an honest broker role in Gaza right now is complete fantasy. It is simply not going to happen. To be a mediatory role, an honest broker role in Gaza right now is complete fantasy. It is simply not going to happen. To be a mediator, you need to talk to both sides. You need to have relations, channels of communication with both sides. You need to have minimal trust, not especially high, but minimal trust. We have that with Israel. We don't have that with Hamas. We actually really don't have that with Hamas. Canada has listed Hamas as a terrorist entity. The result of that is that our diplomats cannot talk to Hamas, right? They cannot because it is

listed as a terrorist entity. That's how we function. That bars us from playing that role of mediator. Those who will be mediators in Gaza are Qatar and Egypt in particular, who really have those channels of communication with both Hamas and Israel, not us. So at this point, our interest in this is a getting Canadians out. We saw that in Israel. I hope we don't have to, but we might have to see that in Lebanon in the coming weeks or months. There have been a lot of indications that the government is working hard to prepare for that eventuality. If it happens, 50, 60,000 Lebanese Canadians out of Lebanon will be one of the most difficult, you know, evacuation operations, if not the most difficult our government will have ever done. It will be extremely difficult physically, but also politically.

We are still trying to get 300 to 400 people out of Gaza with very little success so far. That has to be extremely concerning. To me, that's the more immediate interest than any kind of myth or fantasy about mediation. So Thomas, I mean, it sounds like this conflict is going to drag on for a while, but when it is finally over, what is Canada's relationship with Israel going to look like? It's very difficult to say what shape that will take after the war, because we don't know how long the war will last. We don't know what will happen during that war. Clearly, you can expect as civilian casualties mount in Gaza, you can expect mounting pressure on the Canadian government, especially from the left flank of the

Liberal Party, but also civil society and the NDP to pressure the government to do something about that. But could it change? If there is one change that I can foresee, the most likely one is when there will be an election in Canada. According to every poll, it is very likely that the Conservatives will win. And if or the most likely change is we will be closer to Israel. And the conservatives, I have no doubt, will frame this, will justify this as saying we need to stand by our best friend in its time of need right now. Thomas, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. Thank you. That's it for today. I'm Maina Karaman-Wilms. Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin.

David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Angela Pachenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you next week.