The horrifying October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas militants has left the world aghast. The murder of Israelis (and Americans, French, Russians, Ukrainians, and citizens of 19 other countries) has led to intense international anger as Israel’s response in Gaza takes shape. The tragedy has been compounded by fears of rising anti-Semitism and anti-Palestinian violence in the United States and elsewhere. What happens next is now the focus of international media and policymakers alike: a massive aerial bombardment of the Gaza Strip, possible mass evacuation of the northern area propelled by an Israeli ultimatum, and the promise of a major ground invasion to come.
Amid the current rhetoric involving vengeance and destruction, virtually nothing has been said by any of the parties, whether Israel, Hamas, the Palestinian Authority (PA), or even the United States, about what should happen diplomatically after the rubble has settled, the dead have been buried, and the international community has begun struggling with the humanitarian consequences of the conflict, which may include a million or more internally displaced Palestinians, as well as untold casualties.
The horrors of the Hamas attack in southern Israel, and the devastating Israeli response, have only exposed the short-sighted hollowness of the Trump-Biden strategy, which has centered on ignoring the Palestinian dimension in favor of expanding the Abraham Accords, which the Biden administration has decided is the key to lasting regional peace. But Washington’s failure, of both imagination and policy, is not the only one here: Israel appears to have assumed that it could manage Hamas through an unstated modus vivendi, allowing the organization full sway in Gaza, with occasional reprisals for relatively small-scale attacks on Israel. “Shrinking the conflict” became the unspoken mantra of successive Israeli governments. That did not work either.
Hamas seems not to have thought beyond the objective of short-term chaos, a tactical triumph now supplanted by the need to simply survive what comes next.
Then there is the question of Hamas’s endgame, if there is one. Is it stopping a possible Saudi-Israeli rapprochement? Undermining the PA and seizing the reins of Palestinian politics? Or simply puncturing Israel’s sense of invulnerability, letting blood be spilled for blood? None of this is clear. What is clear is that the group seems not to have thought beyond the objective of short-term chaos, a tactical triumph now supplanted, most likely, by the need to simply survive what comes next.
Past cataclysms have given birth to major efforts to effect a final status settlement between Israel and Palestine aimed at preventing further instability and bloodshed. The goal of a two-state solution remains the bedrock of US policy, if only rhetorically. But to what path will the conflict of October 2023 lead?
What the Parties Want
Israel’s immediate goal is fairly clear: revenge, with a touch of strategy, namely the destruction of Hamas. With Israel’s government still in the grip of extremist right-wing politicians, albeit tempered by a days-old unity government, its further goals are a mystery, if indeed it has any. The practical result of Israel’s anticipated Gaza campaign is a humanitarian disaster, as Gazans will most likely be left to their own devices, with international aid organizations attempting to put the pieces back together. Israel would appear to seek short-term quiet before the next round of its own internal controversies, content to exact vengeance and let consequences take care of themselves.
The American goal may be even less specific than that: to support Israel at all costs and threaten possible intervention if other powers (such as Iran and Hezbollah) decide to become more involved. The Biden administration may hope to return to business as usual as quickly as possible, e.g., attempting to facilitate an Israel-Saudi Arabia rapprochement as part of the Abraham Accords, with some additional funding for the Palestinians thrown in. This approach may now be doomed, and in any case is unlikely to work, inasmuch as the current disaster has laid bare the impracticality of ignoring the fundamentals of the Palestine-Israel conflict.
If Hamas itself has no goal beyond stripping Israel of its sense of security, and of horrifying the world with its repulsive barbarism and violence, it has succeeded. Again, at the moment, its own survival may be paramount. Still, there is a context here, much of which has been unhelpfully obscured by international media coverage centering on Hamas atrocities and Israeli reactions to the extent that it has tended to dehumanize the Palestinians and obscure the realities of their historical plight.
The Biden administration may hope to return to business as usual as quickly as possible and facilitate an Israel-Saudi Arabia rapprochement.
But that plight is the context for the Hamas attacks and the spike in the violence in the Holy Land over the decades, and particularly the last two years. Hamas’s actions in southern Israel took advantage of worsening conditions in the region to lend an aura of justification to the massacre. Rising violence against Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem, the seating of an extremist right-wing Israeli government that speaks the language of apartheid and expulsion, and the increase in threats to the religious status quo on the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount by Israeli extremists abetted by government officials have all contributed to a crisis that has led to the worst loss of Palestinian lives since the United Nations started keeping such statistics in 2006. The policies of successive Israeli governments and their Western backers, particularly the United States, have served to discredit non-violent alternatives among Palestinians and empower the most intransigent among them. Above all, Palestinians’ sense of grievance comes from a hundred years of displacement and numerous failed or insincere attempts at redressing Palestinian dreams for a future in which they can freely govern themselves.
The Hamas operation murderously abused these dreams. But the question remains: what will happen, after Israel’s Gaza operation is over, to end this conflict once and for all? In a press conference with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah last year, President Biden acknowledged Palestinian suffering but said that, “The ground is not ripe at this moment to restart negotiations.” If the present moment teaches anything, it is that Biden’s stance is no longer viable. There must be a new effort. What could it look like?
Where to Go from Here?
It is highly unlikely that Israel will succeed in totally eliminating Hamas as an organized group or an intellectual force. Still, one can assume that the organization may be badly damaged and rendered supine for a period, thus affording a brief window of opportunity before the politics of hate and revenge once again stake center stage. The immediate concern will be to reestablish some form of governance and public services in the shattered Gaza Strip. If Israel chooses a period of reoccupation, that period should be short and give way to a massive UN peacekeeping presence focused on civil order, the repatriation of refugees, and rebuilding basic services and housing. UN independent experts have outlined reasonable initial steps, including the swift release of hostages, that could serve as a starting point. That may be the easy part.
It is highly unlikely that Israel will succeed in totally eliminating Hamas as an organized group or an intellectual force.
Much harder is establishing a new political order in the area. Paralyzed and dysfunctional though it may be, the Palestinian Authority must be made to take a leading role in Gaza’s political reconstruction. True, it is widely regarded as corrupt and ineffectual, and has not held elections since 2006—indeed, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s sell-by date has long since passed. On the other hand, Hamas, which has not held elections since then either (and seized full power in a 2007 putsch), has even less of a claim on popular legitimacy than Abbas’s ruling Fatah party. There are many solid Palestinian technocrats who could be empowered by international authorities and tapped for prominent roles, including current Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh and former PM Salam Fayyad. PA control is not perfect, but it is a start.
Revitalize the Palestinian Economy
The next step needs to be economic revival. The wealthy states of the Arab Gulf, as well as the EU, must be persuaded to provide aid on a massive scale not only for physical rebuilding efforts but also for revitalizing the Palestinian economy in both the West Bank and Gaza. And in doing so, the international community should not make the same mistake it did in the early 1990s, funneling aid to the territories while urging, but not enforcing, “transparency and accountability” on the PA (then headed by Yasser Arafat), trusting the PA to disburse funds equitably and strategically. That proved a disaster, perpetuating the inherent corruption of the PLO and failing to transform the Palestinian economy. This time, there must be an international receivership, perhaps jointly staffed by the IMF and the World Bank, to ensure aid is effective and used as intended. Appointing an experienced former US diplomat to spearhead efforts to address Gaza’s humanitarian needs is useful, but far from the overall effort needed.
New economic supports will also require an end to Israel’s economic blockade of Gaza. Security arrangements will need to be worked out to enable the export of Gazan products. Arrangements for the passage of day laborers from Gaza to Israel will, understandably, take more time. But the free flow of goods from Gaza and the West Bank must be prioritized.
The Hard Part: A Political Solution
The international community must also avoid another crucial mistake made following the return of Arafat to Gaza in 1994: assuming that economic advancement is a meaningful substitute for Palestinian self-determination. There must be a political horizon if this conflict is to come to an end.
This is critical. Past wars have led to massive diplomatic efforts to achieve a lasting political solution, and this should be no different. After all, like past conflicts, this war has shattered existing assumptions of the status quo; after the October War of 1973, the way was opened for Anwar Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem in 1977 and the eventual signing of the Camp David Accords.
The United States should put its considerable diplomatic weight behind a major move forward. This is of course the opposite of where the administration wants to be, given its longing for a reorientation of US policy toward the Indo-Pacific and its understandable reluctance to spend political capital in Congress and internationally on what has often proved a thankless quest. But this is one of those times where the thankless cannot be avoided.
Such an effort must center on serious negotiations convened by Washington to effect a final settlement, preferably in accord with relevant UN Security Council resolutions and measured plans that have been put forward by regional powers, such as the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002. The administration’s strong preference, reaffirmed this weekend by President Joe Biden, would be a two-state solution. Details of such an approach were mapped out in great clarity by the Clinton administration (the so-called “Clinton Parameters” of 2000); all parties are under no illusions about what it looks like. These parameters have been vastly complicated by the Israeli government’s settlement enterprise over the last 22 years, and they would no doubt require readjustment. In any case, the most difficult issues, such as the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their ancestral homes in Israel, and the future of Jerusalem, cannot be put off until the end—the fatal flaw in previous negotiating processes. They happen to be the most immediate issues, and need to be dealt with upfront.
Meanwhile, new elections should be held in Palestine to empower its political leadership as final status negotiations approach. But they should be implemented by a substantial, professional, and independent Palestinian election authority and monitored robustly by international observers. Most important, no party that denies the right of Israel to exist or espouses violence as a tool should be allowed to participate.
The US Role
Previous negotiating rounds offer important lessons as well as useful starting points, but any new negotiations must not be bound by them. The administration should be prepared to put forward its own plan as the basis for negotiation, something successive administrations have resisted. Any such plan should be based on what the US honestly sees as a reasonable way forward, not on what Israel will accept. In other words, no pre-negotiation of the terms with either party, although the elements of an independent American plan might reflect their viewpoints as expressed to US leaders and diplomats.
Previous negotiating rounds offer important lessons as well as useful starting points, but any new negotiations must not be bound by them.
It may well become clear that a two state-solution is no longer viable. Indeed, serious scholars have argued that while this approach “made sense as an alternative future in the years around the 1993 Oslo accords, when there were constituencies for compromise on both the Israeli and the Palestinian sides and when tangible if fleeting progress was made toward building the institutions of a hypothetical Palestinian state,” the entrenchment of Israel’s occupation and the degradation of Palestinian institutions have led to a “one-state reality.” The United States should be open to the possibility of a one-state solution as the diplomatic endgame, in which Palestinians have equal political and civic rights within a unitary state. Either approach—a US plan as the basis of negotiations or American backing for a single state in Israel/Palestine— would break every shibboleth the so-called “peace process” has known to date, and would prove mind-bendingly controversial. But just such an approach may be required by the present moment.
None of this promises success, or an easy path forward. But decades of ignoring the root causes of conflict, or hoping some effortless alternative will present itself, are now over. Sometimes the only way forward is right through the middle, hard as that may be.
The views expressed in this publication are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Arab Center Washington DC, its staff, or its Board of Directors.
Featured image credit: Shutterstock/Anas Mohammed
