'Hamas is claiming to have won a very great victory.' (Credit: Mahmud Hams/AFP/Getty)


February 4, 2025   4 mins

War is a terrible thing — but historically it did have the merit of conclusively ending conflict and bringing peace by exhausting the will or capacity to fight of one side or the other. That is how wars have always ended. As late as 1945, the Second World War ended with the complete occupation of Germany, and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, inaugurating a peace that still endures with those once very determined warrior nations.

Back then, war was obscured from public view. But now the entire world can watch the fighting, the killing and the destruction in colour, up close and in real time — though we are mainly shown dead women and children, rarely the fighters. And as a result, wars are interrupted, by ceasefires, demanded by distant Presidents and Popes and applauded by the world’s watchers as they wait for the antagonists to renounce their fight. But rather than renounce their fight, they pause to recover their strength for the next found of fighting.

We’ve seen this over and again, since the obliteration of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan: especially in the Middle East. Hamas is only the latest enemy of Israel to be constrained by a ceasefire, only to rearm and proclaim its intention of fighting again. And thus is the cycle of violence perpetuated for another generation.

Since the arrival of the UN Security Council on 24 October 1945, ceasefires, truces and armistices have interrupted wars across Africa and Asia before they could bring peace. Consider Korea, 72 years ago, when the war between North and the South was interrupted by an armistice signed by now long-dead generals. Since then, there have been deadly incidents now and then, but not one day of peace negotiations.

“Hamas, for its part, is claiming to have won a very great victory.’

For Israel, the first of many UN-imposed ceasefires arrived on 11 June, 1948. Both the Foreign Office and the State Department had totally opposed Israel’s May 15 declaration of independence, but were sure that the Arab armies, with their artillery, armoured vehicles and warplanes would soon solve their problem: by defeating the Jews who at first only had rifles. When, to their great surprise, the Jews began advancing, the UK and US quickly agreed to impose a UN truce. It did not last, and nor did a second truce, and the fighting only ended on March 10 a year later.

War would return with the start of the Sinai campaign on 29 October, 1956 that ended on  7 November, 1956, when Israel’s advance was suddenly halted by a US-Soviet agreement at teh UN Security Council to impose one more ceasefire. Then came the Six-Day War, in 1967, which did not last for seven because of another ceasefire imposed by the UN Security Council.

Once again, that would not end the fighting. In October 1973, Egypt and Syria launched what became known as the Yom Kippur War, against an Israeli enemy totally unprepared for their assault. No Security Council ceasefire arrived to stop them, even if things soon changed once Israel counterattacked. On each occasion — in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973 — Israel had much more combat strength than diplomatic leverage: the only thing that really matters on the world stage.

What of Israel’s most recent conflict? Hamas’s surprise attack on October 7 was followed by Israel’s counteroffensive. The ceasefire calls duly arrived — from the UN General Assembly, assorted EU voices, and (of course) the Pope.

A ceasefire so early in the fighting would have left Hamas victorious. But unlike previous occasions in Israeli history, the US President remained silent, allowing Israel to keep fighting, month after month, for a full year and beyond.

Yayha Al-Sinwar’s October massacre was made without any provisions to protect Gazan civilians from Israel’s counterattack, and came complete with planned and filmed atrocities to provoke a massive IDF response. From Sinwar’s perspective, the more Israel bombed Gaza the better. Because global public opinion would be aroused to support the Palestinians, he assumed politicians around the world would once again impose a ceasefire: long before Israel could seriously degrade Hamas’s infrastructure.

This time, though, the ceasefire did not come. Despite constant attacks from his domestic critics, Netanyahu mustered his very slim parliamentary majority to persevere in a war that continued to widen. First Hezbollah, with its 150,000 rockets and missiles, entered the fray. They were soon joined by the Houthis in Yemen, and by Iranian agents in the West Bank, and finally by Iran itself, which in two air attacks, bombarded Israel with some 320 ballistic missiles, each the size of a tanker truck, along with cruise missiles and drones.

Under continued criticism, not least from retired Israeli generals accusing him for waging a slow war of attrition while Israel was under worldwide attack (both literal and rhetorical) for killing “innocent civilians” — a term never used for Germans and Japanese burned in or out of their homes — the Israeli prime minister could offer no answer nor excuse. All Netanyahu could do was echo Churchill and keep buggering on.

This perseverance, this refusal to accept a ceasefire until Donald Trump imposed one just before his inauguration, finally paid off. Over 18 months of fighting, Israel wrecked Hezbollah and incapacitated Iran, ultimately causing the fall of the Assad regime in Syria. That, in turn, cut Iran’s supply lines to both Hezbollah and Hamas, making it impossible to rearm them for another round.

No longer able to charge Netanyahu with pursuing a pointless war — he had undeniably won a major victory against Israel’s enemies in Lebanon and Syria — his critics have instead criticised his refusal to stop the war to recover the hostages.

Hamas, for its part, is claiming to have won a very great victory. And while Israel will no longer need to worry about renewed Iranian funding for Hamas, pointless now that Nasrallah is dead and Assad in exile, the arrival of a ceasefire has prevented the final destruction of the group as a threat to the Jewish State. Wars, after all, are tragic indeed, but only their interruption by well-meaning outsiders also makes them futile.


Professor Edward Luttwak is a strategist and historian known for his works on grand strategy, geoeconomics, military history, and international relations.

ELuttwak