Biden plan addresses the real reasons for the Gaza war

We are now counting nine months since October 7. Israel finds itself at a historical low point, unable to achieve its goals: a long war with Hamas has yielded limited successes, with 125 hostages still held by Hamas and the organisation far from being destroyed even after about a third of its military operatives have been killed.

Hezbollah has turned northern Israel into a second front with no solution in the horizon; and the Houthis have effectively put a maritime blockade on Israel’s southern port of Eilat - both Hezbollah and the Houthis have made a ceasefire in Gaza a condition for halting their attacks.

Under those circumstances, last Friday President Biden expressed most clearly his position regarding the war in Gaza:  it must end now and a new approach to the multiple threats facing Israel should be adopted.

The Americans appear convinced that the Israeli call for a “complete victory” over Hamas and the physical destruction of this organisation are unattainable by military means, and the other fronts cannot be resolved without stopping the war in Gaza.

This situation requires a new definition of the Israeli war goals. In his speech President Biden offered an alternative perception of "victory” - denying Hamas and its allies what they hoped to achieve on October 7. 

Today there is broad consensus over Hamas’s goal when it stormed into southern Israel: the aim was not to destroy Israel, but to create a disturbance that would prevent a strategic political development – the US-sponsored Israeli-Saudi peace deal.