A man, a plan, Amman

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Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid has a plan for the day after the war. It involves Egypt. Okay, the plan has some holes. Firstly, Egypt has not agreed to it and is not likely to agree. Also, Lapid presented it to Trump, saying it did not clash with Trump’s own plan; but clearly Trump’s grand plan – clearing out Gaza and taking it over – and Lapid’s don’t even overlap.

But hey, it’s a plan – one with some merit, for all of its problems. It is a plan that thinks about solutions that might be acceptable to Israel and Egypt, that takes 2 million Gazans into consideration, that somehow takes Hamas out of the picture and rewards Gaza for developing a peaceful democracy (taught to them by a military dictatorship, I’ll add). His plan, to hand Gaza over to Egypt for an interim period while Egyptian debt is forgiven and oil money rebuilds an above-ground, demilitarized Gaza, is a departure from anything else that has yet been proposed. Call it the Gaza Spring solution.

The real value of Lapid’s plan is that it exists. Bibi has, over the past 16 months, refused to even discuss the day after the war. And we are at a tipping point: He can either agree to end the war and get all the hostages back, or he can go back to fighting a war he cannot win on his own terms without a great deal of bloodshed. He is trying to waffle by extending the “first stage,” of the hostage-prisoner exchange, that is, bringing back the hostages in a trickle while holding the possibility of further warfare over the heads of Hamas. But soon, as the pool of hostages shrinks, he will either have to give up on them or agree to a long-term ceasefire. Unfortunately, his apparent king, D. the Don Trump, has given him the green light to take the IDF back into Gaza, if he so pleases.

Another plan exists in some parts of our government, and it involves Israelis resettling Gaza. That fits in just fine with Trump’s plan, which calls for clearing out Gaza through “voluntary” resettlement and turning the place over to the US. Just for that reason, I’m happy to have an alternate plan – one that at least has the trappings of reason, rather than blind conquest and occupation.

Egypt has already signaled it won’t accept Lapid’s plan; they have said no to Gaza since Sadat signed the peace treaty with Israel in 1979. But they can definitely be part of the solution, as they have been, time and again, up till now. Jordan, another suggested destination for evacuated Gazans under Trump’s plan, has been doing its best ostrich imitation for the past year or so. But the sight of King Abdullah blinking and stuttering as he realized Trump was serious was too much even for the Jordanian public. I think he muttered “no,” but Trump already knows Jordan is the weak link in the region, and he is nothing if not a bully.

I’m happy to have an alternate plan – one that at least has the trappings of reason, rather than blind conquest and occupation.

Lapid’s plan emerged all at once from a vacuum, and it is one proffered by an opposition leader who has no real power to push it forward.

Maybe the real value of him standing up in public and announcing he has a plan is just this: We need to make it possible to talk about ending the war, about solutions and peace, about a realistic plan for Gazans, about the partners in our region who will help us create that peace and enforce it. It comes at a time when the most horrendous acts of Hamas members have come to light, when Yocheved Lifshitz, who buried her husband, Oded, on Tuesday said: We helped them out and tried to make peace, and they kidnapped us and killed us. It is hard to think about peace on the day that Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas are laid to rest, an entire nation mourning them.

They are a reminder that now is not the time for either trust or complacency, but also that it is time to talk about ending the war. We need to end it because hostages are being tortured while we play footsie with the negotiating team. We need to end it because even if we march back in to take the newly-identified targets, we are fighting a war of diminishing returns. It is only by providing Gaza with an alternative government – one that will set up the new temporary housing, reestablish hospitals and distribute humanitarian aid – can we truly defeat Hamas. We need to plan an end to the war because Israel is already fighting a never-ending war in the West Bank. We don’t need another one in Gaza.

We need to end the war because it is time to start healing. That includes bringing all of the hostages home, burying all our dead, setting up an independent commission to investigate Oct. 7 and negotiating peace plans that can enable us to rebuild (without occupying Lebanon, Syria or Gaza).

Lapid’s peace plan may not be workable, but it is a reminder that such a plan is possible. Don’t let them tell you otherwise.