Some of you are aware I have an opinion on the dreadful situation in Gaza that is not shared by the BBC or the Times. This fellow, French journo Brice Couturier, has set it out far better then I ever could, and coldly explains the absolute and utter horror of Gaza and its future. It’s chilling reading.
Israel cannot win this war, because it was not designed to be won.
Not because it is militarily outmatched, but because it is caught in an equation deliberately made insoluble. On October 7th, by massacring civilians and abducting hundreds of hostages, Hamas triggered a war with no bearable outcome. Israel was not only surprised. It was trapped.
It is important to understand: Hamas is not seeking victory, it seeks the destruction of Israel. They do not care if Gaza burns, as long as Israel bleeds. This is an eschatological strategy: lose everything, as long as the other falls with you. And their strategy relies on entanglement, on emotion, on manipulating Western consciences. Their strength is not military, it is dramaturgical.
And perhaps the most chilling thing is this: they have understood the West better than many Israeli strategists. Their real front is Western public opinion, not the IDF.
By taking hostages, they forbid peace. By hiding among civilians in the most densely populated territory in the world, they forbid war. Hamas has invented a geometry of the trap: Israel is locked in a war where every victory is a loss. In this asymmetrical, post-modern war, it is not reality that counts—it is the image of reality.
This trap could not work without the cooperation of Western democracies. By reversing the pressure—not on the hostage-takers, but on those trying to rescue them—they legitimize blackmail. By recognizing a Palestinian state unconditionally, they turn a terrorist strategy into political capital.
Let’s be clear: a ceasefire accompanied by the release of all hostages is a mirage—an illusion of Western projection. Hamas especially does not want an end: it wants the conflict to fester, for the hostages to rot underground, for the agony to last. The hostages are trophies, levers, spotlights trained on Gaza to keep the war going. They will not all be returned: that is precisely why they were taken.
So only a terrible alternative remains:
Either Israel persists—perhaps for years—occupies Gaza down to the last tunnel, at the cost of countless deaths, diplomatic disaster, and with no certainty of success.
Or it withdraws, quietly accepting that another October 7th is already in gestation.
It is no longer about winning, but about choosing the form of one’s defeat (or of a half-victory, say the optimists). Some claim, in Clausewitzian logic, that a war once begun must be carried through to the end, otherwise it will return—worse. Others believe that an incomplete victory is better than what they feel is a total disaster, losing the hostages.
I repeat: the most tragic part is that Hamas’s strategy has worked. And it works because we let it work. Hamas has understood: in a world governed by images, terrorism pays—provided it is well staged.
(Ed. note: Israel’s government has made the Sophie’s choice: it plans to conquer the last 25% of Gaza, intends to move civilians away before that to minimize casualties, this takeover even at the risk of losing the hostages because it cannnot let Hamas stay in power and because it has lost faith in world opinion).
Richard Curtis is one of the UK’s most successful screenwriters, producers and directora.