There is a scene in the American classic The Godfather when the Corleone family’s Don Corleone reveals to his family and the audience that the man behind the war against his family is actually rival mafia family head Don Barzini. Barzini had previously been seen in the film as a mediator between several warring families. Corleone says, “I wasn’t sure until this day…it was Barzini all along.” This scene might teach us something about the current war in Gaza.
On March 6, Hamas claimed to have agreed to a hostage and ceasefire deal with Israel. Hamas had been rejecting deals for months, so it came as a surprise. Israel had launched an operation in Rafah on May 6 after asking residents to evacuate eastern Rafah. Was it the pressure of the operation that led to Hamas accepting a deal? It turns out the “deal” was different than the one Israel had been privy to. Instead, according to a report at Axios, there was a kind of bait and switch where Hamas had held talks with the US, Qatar, and Egypt and agreed to a different deal that is much worse for Israel than the previous ones Israel had agreed to. Axios reported that Israeli officials felt they had been “played” by the US and the mediators in Doha and Cairo.
This is the Don Barzini reveal, seven months into this war in Gaza. Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 and massacred 1,000 people and killed 250. However, Hamas did not do this in a vacuum. Hamas carried out its unprecedented attack, massacring more Jews than at any time since the Holocaust, because it believed it had cover to do this. Hamas is hosted by Qatar, a major non-NATO ally of the US.
Hamas has been hosted in Qatar since 2012, and reports say that Washington asked Doha to host Hamas. On October 7, Hamas leaders who live in Qatar gathered for a photo-op celebrating the attack. They didn’t feel they need to run and hide. They knew that they were not just safe in Doha but that being hosted by a Western ally gave them protection and cover.
Hamas has been jetting around the region since October 7. Rather than being isolated due to this massive attack, it has gained influence. Turkey’s leader hosted Hamas leaders in April. Turkey is a NATO member. Hamas has also sent officials to Moscow. Hamas has received backing from many countries since the attack. This means that Israel has faced an uphill battle in Gaza.
To return to the Godfather analogy. The problems for the Corleone family begin in the film when they are invited to meet with a narcotics dealer named Virgil Sollozo at a meeting hosted by the Tattaglia family. This leads to an assassination attempt on Don Corleone and sets the family on a collision course with a war with the other mafia families. What matters for our purposes is that Hamas in our story is more akin to Sollozo than it is to more powerful families. Hamas is backed by Iran. It is hosted and backed by Qatar and Turkey. Hamas has friends in high places. Israel’s challenge is not just to defeat Hamas.
Gaza war not a traditional war
Seven months into the Gaza war, Israel continues to face challenges in its war on Hamas. This is because this is not a simple traditional war. Hamas is a terrorist group, but Hamas is also much more than that. Hamas has controlled Gaza since 2007, and before that, it operated both as a kind of mafia and a religious terrorist gang. Hamas’s control of Gaza should be seen through the lens of a mafia controlling Gaza. The Hamas control of Gaza has many elements of a cartel, like how the Medellin cartel once wreaked havoc in Colombia.
Once we understand the challenges faced in defeating Hamas, both in Gaza and due to its backers in the region and its powerful backers around the world, then we can begin to free ourselves from some of the simplistic thinking that has underpinned this war. Defeating Hamas is not just about defeating its military capabilities. Hamas has already returned to control most of Gaza. It has done this before after every round it fought. This is because it disperses its fighters, hides its weapons, and waits for the day after. It knows Israel will likely leave. Hamas will reconstitute itself quickly, as it has done in the past. Israeli assessments of the damage to Hamas after previous wars have always been an overestimate. Hamas always returns more powerful and faster than people think it will.
This time, Hamas likely has larger goals that are being pushed by those behind Hamas. What this means is that Hamas leadership in Doha and Hamas backers in Ankara, Moscow, and Tehran have plans for Hamas. Here, again, it’s worth going back to that scene in The Godfather when the heads of the mafia families meet, and Don Corleone finally realizes that it was “Barzini all along” that has been behind this war. The war that Hamas launched on October 7 was not just launched by Hamas in Gaza.
This is obvious from the fact that the Hamas leadership in Doha was not surprised by the attack. They didn’t run and make frantic phone calls to their hosts saying “we didn’t do this, we had no idea.” Their hosts didn’t call their allies in the West and say, “Hamas has betrayed us, we hosted them, but they have carried out this terrible attack.” In fact, if you go back to October 7, there is no evidence that anyone linked to Hamas was surprised by this attack. Moscow didn’t make frantic calls. Tehran didn’t. Ankara didn’t.
Back on October 6, Israel was being sold a story that portrayed Hamas as “deterred.” After October 7 we have been told that it is almost impossible to defeat Hamas because of how strong it is and we are told that defeating most of its 24 battalions is enough of a “win” in Gaza. The two narratives don’t make sense. If Hamas was deterred and not capable of doing much damage to Israel, then how is it also so powerful that it is almost impossible to defeat? And, if Hamas was actually known to be very powerful, with 24 battalions of fighters and 30,000 terrorists, then why was the border left almost undefended against a genocidal terrorist group?
Clearly, the answer to that question is that Israel had trusted Hamas because Hamas was filtered through a kind of Don Barzini character. After Hamas had lied about being deterred and carried out a huge massacre, it continued to rely on its hosts and backers abroad during the war on Israel. For instance, Israel was told in December to transition to a lower-intensity war in Gaza. In February, Israel was told it should do a ceasefire for Ramadan. Then Israel was told to postpone a Rafah offensive.
At each stage, Hamas got the breathing space it needed and was able to Shanghai the hostage talks. We now know Israel was likely being “played” the whole time with a kind of bait and switch. The macabre talks have been prolonged by Hamas, which continues to not turn over a list of living hostages. Hamas has said it wants to release one hostage for each day of a ceasefire so it can parade them to get applause in the region.
Now, it wants up to a week of ceasefire for each hostage. Hamas’ goal and the goal of its backers is to use the hostage deal and an end to the war to takeover the West Bank, in the long run. It’s fair to say now that it was Barzini all along. Barzini is the powers that stand behind Hamas and is influencing this war from the start to keep Hamas in power in Gaza and bring it to power in the West Bank.