Challenge and Challengers for Peace

The story of the Netanyahu and Hamas ‘alliance’ is well known. So is the fact, that both of them have a shared and continuing interest in keeping the war in Gaza going. We have seen and much of the world by now knows that whenever some sort of final deal seems imminent one or the other and often both of these enemies find a way of scotching a deal. The reasons for this are so transparent, and I myself have mentioned them so many times before, that I am reluctant to mention them again lest you stop reading this, by thinking “what else is new?” But to make my next point, I must say it again: Both sides understand that the only thing that keeps them in power is this war. Without it, each will have to face the verdict of their own people who have and continue to suffer death and destruction, and that verdict will be guilty. While both Netanyahu and Hamas claim they continue to fight for the sake of their people and their future, the ongoing reality belies this lip service to that cause and demonstrates the opposite. If they truly cared about their people and acted selflessly, they would have made a peace deal and relinquished their power, accepted their responsibility for this misery and allowed someone else to take over the leadership of their people and allow the beginning of the rehabilitation that both sides in the combat need, and let the new leadership turn attention to the many other needs that have been neglected in the course of this useless period of hatred and conflict.

So, what would it take to scare them into peace, in the hopes that by doing so their chances of remaining in power would be better, (not that it would be since they must both leave). The answer seems obvious to me: only a serious challenger to their leadership who advocates an end to the war and towards whom a majority of the people are ready to turn would move them toward the desperate try to use peace to hold on. This challenger would have be one who has persuaded their people that what they desire is possible but only with this alternative leadership.

But here’s the problem: at present there is no one on either side of the Israeli-Palestinian divide who offers that alternative that seems electable. Both Hamas and Netanyahu have over their many years in power and with their tacit alliance gradually shredded and worn down all the alternatives. This strategy is of course a well-trod path over which so-called elected leaders who have been in power too long over time manage to flatten the shoots of any alternative political movements. Among Palestinians no meaningful elections have occurred in decades (either in Gaza or the West Bank), and among Israelis, Netanyahu has in the lifetime of most Israelis been head of the government for all but the years of 2021-2.

In the absence of a viable political challenger on both the Israeli and Palestinian side who has managed to demonstrate an ability to inspire the confidence of the people, there seems but one path to creating the conditions in which an alternative to Netanyahu and Hamas could emerge. It would require, however, vision and statecraft by the greater state powers on whom both the Israelis and Palestinians are dependent and whom they trust. Such ‘great powers’ would have to cultivate and encourage these indigenous leaders and thereby help raise their profile in such a way as to persuade Israelis and Palestinians that with these people at the helm, not only would their lives improve but that these ‘great powers’ would back them. Yet at the same time, their support would have to steer clear of making these alternative leaders appear as their puppets or quislings. Only by carefully and wisely navigating the extremely narrow space between encouragement of indigenous political leaders and those who are artificially created as trojan horses who would replace Israeli and Palestinian sovereignty could this possibly work.

Who would these ‘great powers’ be? For Israel, only the United States has the stature and the history of its support for Israel to be such an ally. Yet the Americans also have a history of failures in such efforts. Their support for the Shah in Iran, Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani in Afghanistan, and a series of unsuccessful leaders in Iraq following the fall of Saddam Hussein do not bode well for their playing that role in Israel. Moreover, the current American administration hardly has either the vision or the statecraft abilities to navigate the narrow space for encouraging an alternative leader, to say nothing of Donald Trump’s inclination or discipline to handle such a delicate task.

As for the ‘great powers’ on the Palestinians side, we have already seen the destructive role played by the Iranian government who used Hamas as its proxies in its war on Israel. Moreover, Iran’s status as a ‘great power’ which could bring about peace is unlikely as long as the Islamist Mullahs are in control. Saudi Arabia, the emirates, and the other Muslim states who have joined the Abraham Accords are certainly not bastions of democracy, and while they could assemble a leadership team for Gaza, their ability to find indigenous Palestinians with national support, like Marwan Barghouti, who continues to be held in an Israeli prison is questionable at best.

All this is not to say that if the Americans invited some Israeli opposition figures to a meeting with the President, as was done by former President Biden, this might not be enough to rattle Netanyahu to finally sign a peace agreement. It could happen if Trump truly wanted the war to end – a questionable hypothesis. Nor might a Saudi and Gulf states invitation to a leader like Salam Fayyad, a former Prime Minister of Palestine rattle the Hamas leadership to sign too. Both Netanyahu and Hamas fear most the thought of alternative challengers to their power.

For this to happen all the stars would have to be aligned perfectly. Could it happen?  Maybe. Will it happen? I sure hope so. Am I counting on it? Alas, no. For the sake of our hostages, for the sake of stopping the slaughter in Gaza, for the sake of Israel’s future, I pray it does.