The Myth War and Its Second Anniversary
Two and a half million people, crammed into an area of 365 square kilometers, endured 730 days of hardships no human should have to bear. The world saw it in sound and image; replaying those scenes adds a daily layer of suffering on top of everything that came before. International organizations and civil-society groups have been publishing their grim tallies of what the “Myth War” wreaked — terrifying, unprecedented destruction in human history. That is the least one can say. Beyond the immediate carnage, the war produced catastrophic collapses in health systems, education, social fabric, mental health, behaviour and moral norms.
Some believed an opportunity had appeared to stop the bleeding — the so-called “Trump plan” — and to enter the third year without further devastation. Sadly, anyone who thinks this way misunderstands the nature of the conflict playing out on the ground. This is the culmination of decades-long struggles between projects and alliances; what the actors of the “Flood” did was to open a breach in an already-fractured mountain that then collapsed on everyone nearby. We can be certain they knew they were testing a highly dangerous experiment, but clearly they were not prepared for the full cascade of repercussions — the horrific human losses, the protracted bloodletting, the resilience of the opposing alliances, or even how the government of myths would interpret and respond to the events of that morning, October 7.
Given what has happened, we now face major geopolitical shifts with real effects on the ground. Treating these developments with cosmetic spin, score-settling and blame-shifting is wishful thinking. The truth is that a proposal was put before Arabs and Muslims in one form and, after Benjamin Netanyahu’s endorsement, emerged in another form which none of those first consulted openly rejected. By endorsing it in practice, they became part of it. Almost no influential global actor failed to support it. Anyone who thinks its core lines are changeable misunderstands both its meaning and likely outcomes. In plain terms, the plan — without denial — achieves the five declared war aims Netanyahu set out and extends to accomplish unannounced goals: the continuing appetite for killing, displacement and re-occupation of Gaza by force, while leaving open a sliver of hope that may or may not materialize; a sliver that Arabs, Muslims and their legitimate representatives see as the chief objective of the two years of effort.
Some will say Trump’s rapid presentation of what he portrayed as Hamas’s acceptance — even though he plainly knew it was not — was mere theatre. But the reality is that it was coordinated beforehand with Netanyahu and with mediators in Turkey, Qatar and Egypt. They are not so foolish as to think Hamas would wholly accept; the plan was crafted to create a window in which the one card Hamas still holds — the prisoners, alive or dead — could be stripped from its hand. The wording of the response attributed to Hamas was offered by the mediators to allow Trump his public triumph: claiming he had brought hostages home and closed a file that the military machine had failed to resolve. The mediators see it as a symbolic closure of a narrative Netanyahu has used for two years; Netanyahu sees it as freeing the military from the constraints that have limited its murderous expansion, and as a way of calming the domestic protests that have racked him.
Negotiations in Cairo may succeed or fail. The American and Israeli delegations intend to limit talks to the mechanics of executing the deal, while Hamas wants guarantees for the longest possible halt to the war so that returning to hostilities becomes impossible — whether by arguing over bodies buried in areas where locals no longer know the contours, or by claiming the deaths of those tasked with retrieving them. But in practice this attempt is likely to fail for several reasons: Trump will view it as stalling, Netanyahu will welcome any chance to delay, and mediators will pressure Hamas to avoid being held responsible for restarting the war and squandering an opportunity that might not return. That is the situation at the launch of the Trump plan. What happens if the first steps proceed, even partially — for example, transferring living hostages while postponing recovery of some unidentifiable bodies — is another question.
Netanyahu sketched his plan the night before last: what negotiation does not deliver the military will. He will not proceed to implement other provisions if the hostage exchange is not carried out in full and on schedule. This was reinforced by the shrill voices of the religious-right duo Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, who have conditioned their continued presence in government on resolving the hostage file and resuming the war if needed — the most likely and desired scenario for them after two years of deliberate delay.
Can the mediators compel Hamas to proceed to the plan’s second stage — surrendering weapons? If negotiations treat “weapons” as offensive versus defensive, or specify a preferred recipient for surrendered arms, or tie disarmament to a two-state outcome, then Netanyahu and his allies will cheer: the drums of war will march on. If Hamas accepts that framework, the consequences are predictable: the remainder of this year and beyond will witness even fiercer, unrestrained fighting than the past two years. The military campaign will move from Gaza’s north into its centre, the last pockets of Hamas’s military and civil capacity.
Hamas’s insistence that the post-hostage files are a national responsibility is partially accurate: reconstruction, governance committees, security arrangements, Israeli withdrawal — those are collective matters. But Hamas must remember that the second stage preceding them involves decisive questions only it can answer: the fate of all types of weapons, remaining resistance infrastructure like the tunnel network, and ending military and civil resistance structures. Israel will publicly demand that Hamas and allied factions disband voluntarily, a demand that in war-speak amounts to unconditional surrender. If they do not, the military machine will impose the outcome. Can an organization whose narrative is religiously framed and committed to perpetual victory, regardless of the scale of “sacrifice,” accept such steps? Almost certainly not.
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