How the U.S. can help Israel defeat Hamas

Hamas’s brutally conceived and executed attack on Israeli soil has already begun to upend the Middle East. Israel has quickly pivoted from a longstanding policy of leaving (and even maintaining) Hamas in power in a weakened state in Gaza to seeking to eliminate its leadership and effectively topple it from power.

Any talk of Israel-Saudi normalization and new regional arrangements has ceased for the foreseeable future, while Israel prepares for what may be weeks or even months of ground war in Gaza. The focus is rightly on ensuring that Hamas does not have the ability to replicate this maneuver in the future, and responding to the killing and abduction of over 1,000 Israelis, the overwhelming majority of them civilians.

Israel is also anticipating what may lie ahead — the opening of a second front on the Lebanese border, where Hezbollah holds sway. What left Israelis in such shock on Saturday was not that a coordinated cross-border assault with rockets and fighters could be launched, but that it came from Hamas rather than Hezbollah. Israeli security officials have long been concerned about Hezbollah carrying out that type of operation, and the IDF has been moving Iron Dome batteries and troops to the northern border in order to guard against this possibility. The unprecedented callup of 300,000 reserve troops is due to fears that Israel may find itself embroiled in simultaneous ground assaults in the north and the south.

The United States has a critical role to play in responding to what has already happened and to shape what happens next. President Biden announced during his address to the nation Tuesday that America is “surging additional military assistance, including ammunition and interceptors to replenish Iron Dome” to Israel, which will guarantee that it can respond to Hamas in Gaza without fears of exhausting necessary supplies.

America has also ensured that Israel has a large degree of diplomatic cover to downgrade Hamas’s capabilities, with an eye toward removing it from power. Biden’s statements have left no room for interpretation on American backing for a comprehensive Israeli military response, and the joint statement issued by the U.S., United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy was similarly unambiguous. Secretary of State Tony Blinken’s calls to other leaders in the region have been part of an effort to forestall or to soften the expected condemnations of IDF actions in Gaza, and while those criticisms are perhaps inevitable, this may give Israel the sort of buffer that it often lacks.

The U.S. can and should also play a part in securing the release of the hostages abducted by Hamas. America does not have direct leverage over Hamas, but the governments of Qatar and Turkey do, the result of years of supporting the group and hosting its non-Gaza based leadership. With Qatar designated last year by Biden as a major non-NATO ally and Turkey a fellow NATO state, the U.S. should press both to intervene with Hamas to release hostages on humanitarian grounds.

In the longer term, once the current crisis has been resolved, America must demand that both Turkey and Qatar cease their material and diplomatic support of Hamas immediately or face U.S. sanctions. While Qatar in particular has proven to be a useful interlocutor between Hamas and Israel in the past, the status quo ante cannot be restored in the wake of Saturday’s atrocities.

Perhaps more important than assisting Israel in its response is deterring Iran and its proxies from any further actions targeting Israel. Moving the USS Gerald Ford carrier strike group to the Eastern Mediterranean was a critical and necessary component in communicating to Hezbollah, in the most obvious way possible, that starting a war with Israel will risk tripping American involvement. The more that this deployment is backed up with frequent warnings about the consequences of an attack on Israel from Lebanon or Syria, the better. Sending a second carrier strike group will send an even starker message to Iran that the U.S. and Israel are jointly prepared to widen a potential response into Iran proper and not make do with Iranian proxies solely.

Another way that the U.S. can establish stronger deterrence against Hezbollah is by urging Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other America partners that have provided reconstruction assistance to Lebanon in the past to make it clear to Hezbollah that no future assistance will be coming if it opens up a Lebanese front against Israel. Lebanon’s dire economic situation has been presumed to have acted as a check on Hezbollah, as it does not want to risk the state collapsing entirely. Other states in the region should eliminate any ambiguity about what the consequences will be if Hezbollah initiates hostilities that are met with a crippling Israeli response.

Michael Koplow is the chief policy officer of Israel Policy Forum.