Peace Prospects between Israel, the Palestinians and the Middle East Countries

The ongoing Hamas-Israel conflict has lasted over 640 days, resulting in nearly 2,000 Israeli and an estimated 60,000 Palestinian casualties. To assess the prospects for peace we will examine the current goals of the main participants to the conflict.

Iran: Since seizing power in 1979, Iran’s Islamic Republic has focused on fulfilling its goal to destroy Israel. Along with arming itself, it has allocated well over $16 billion to proxies including Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis (Yemen), and other militias, all with the declared aim of destroying Israel. In addition, Iran has relentlessly worked to develop nuclear capacity, enriching uranium beyond energy needs, aiming for nuclear weapons.

Israel and the US hoped that their intense 12-day campaign targeting Iran’s ballistic missile arsenals, air defense systems, and nuclear facilities—including Fordow—would prompt Iran to abandon its destructive goals and instead redirect its resources toward improving the welfare of Iranians. However, publicly, Iran has doubled down on its declared aim of destroying Israel and has intensified its crackdown on opposition to its policies.

Hezbollah: Hezbollah, based in Lebanon and primarily composed of Shia Muslims, is one of Iran’s proxies. Since October 7, they launched over 10,000 rockets at Israel. Evidence discovered when their bases were overrun showed that they intended to carry out a massacre in northern Israel similar to Hamas’s attacks in the south. However, after the beeper strike on hundreds of Hezbollah members and the elimination of their leader Nasrallah, they were weakened enough to sign a ceasefire with Israel in November 2024. While they did not support Iran during its war with Israel, they continue to call for Israel’s destruction and are actively trying to rearm.

The Palestinian Authority and Hamas: The Palestinian Authority (PA), the governing Palestinian body of the West Bank, evolved from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), founded in 1964, long before Israel controlled the West Bank. Their goal was to destroying Israel and replace it with a Palestinian state. Under their present leader Abbas, they have renounced the use of terror but have failed to corral in terrorist actions within their jurisdiction. Furthermore, they continue to publicly treat Palestinian terrorists, (militants who deliberately targeted civilians), as heroes and martyrs and provide enough money financially to their families to incentivize future terror actions.

The Oslo Accords of the 1990s were landmark agreements between Israel and the PLO, aimed at establishing a framework to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While the reasons for their failure remain debated, accommodating Palestinian demands would have led to the dismemberment of Israel. Unfortunately, after the accords stalled, a wave of Palestinian terror against Israelis ensued, with over 1,000 Israelis murdered by 2005. Palestinian reliance on terror when their demands are unmet reflects a consistent pattern of behavior not only toward Israel but also in their conflicts with Lebanon and Jordan.

Who represents the Palestinian people and be accountable if an agreement is reached is unclear. Both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas vie for control of Palestinian leadership. Neither recognize each other. Even if the PA were to reach an agreement with Israel, Hamas has made it clear they would not abide by it, as they both reject the PA’s authority and oppose reconciliation with Israel. Having two competing Palestinian political entities complicates the peace process.

Despite their differences with Hamas, on October 7, 2023, Abbas issued a statement the next day that did not condemn the atrocities committed by Hamas, instead focusing solely on the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination. It was only in June of this year that Abbas finally condemned Hamas for the October 2023 massacre and the taking of civilian hostages. While this shift in tone is a welcome change, the fact that it was expressed more than a year and a half after the events highlights Palestinian ambivalence and even tolerance for violence against Israel. Some would say that his declaration is too little too late.

Israel: The October 7 Hamas attack and widespread global Pro-Palestinian support for it sparked a political upheval in Israel. Before, Israelis were roughly divided in half: the left supported reconciliation leading to a two-state solution, while the right distrusted Palestinian intentions. After October 7, this divide swerved to the right. Hamas’s deliberate barbaric brutality ended any remaining support from the left for reconciliation, with most seeing it as naive and dangerous. Even many on the right, already mistrustful, were caught off guard by the attack’s savage ferocity. With Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas refusing to abandon their goal of destroying Israel—despite Israel’s significant counterattacks— prospects for peace remain bleak.

There is a flip side to this analysis, both among Arab countries and within Israel. Egypt, the strongest Arab nation in the Middle East, has maintained a peace treaty with Israel since 1979. Although President Sadat was assassinated in 1981 by jihadist opponents of the treaty, the peace has endured. Successor President Mubarak continued to uphold and preserve the agreement. Jordan, another neighbor, has been at peace with Israel since 1994. While the Lebanese government officially opposes normalization, many Christian Lebanese support reconciliation with Israel. Furthermore, as Hezbollah weakens and poses less of an internal threat, it is reasonable to expect Lebanon to support closer ties with Israel. The Abraham accords of 2020 has already led to normalization or improved relations between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. Before October 7, there was even hope that Saudi Arabia might join the accords. Some speculate that the timing of the October 7 attack was, in part, intended to derail Saudi’s rapprochement with Israel.

Within Israel, Israeli Arabs, mostly Muslim, make up about 20% of Israel’s population. Unlike Gaza’s population, they have not been indoctrinated by extremist Islam and live, in contrast, in a free democratic environment with more rights than in any Arab and Muslim country. Their standard of living is also significantly higher, except compared to oil-rich regimes. These are some of the factors explaining why Israeli Arabs remained loyal Israelis and categorically did not support the Hamas assault. In addition, many feared that they would be treated as traitors should Hamas be victorious. Since October 7, as before that date, they have avoided terror, continue to work, and obey the law. Missile attacks by Hezbollah and Iran have also brought Jewish and Israeli Arab communities closer, as the missiles did not discriminate between Jews and Arabs.

It is important to state that the high level of functioning by Israeli Arabs clearly demonstrate that Jews and Arabs can coexist peacefully and that Palestinians can successfully find their place in a Western oriented society. The ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is not inevitable, but rather a result of ruthless dystopian Islamic fundamentalist negativism.

Support for a two-state solution is increasingly problematic for most Israelis today. Since Hamas took full control of Gaza in 2005, it has operated as a de facto Palestinian state. Despite significant funding from Arab nations and others—such as UNRWA financing schools and hospitals built by other countries including Israel—Hamas directed its resources to build the world’s largest and most sophisticated military tunnel system along with an extensive missile arsenal. The unwavering support of the Gaza population for Hamas’s policies against Israel is evident: their celebrations of the October 7 slaughter and involvement in hiding Israeli hostages demonstrate that Hamas’s indoctrination has succeeded in convincing many, perhaps all, Gazans to kill Jews even at the risk their lives to destroy Israel whenever the opportunity arises.

Even when compared to the horrible Nazi era, at least then many Christians risked their lives to save Jews, while not a single Gaza civilian has been documented doing so. It should be self evident, that with a regime bent on Israel’s destruction along with massive public support, why almost all Israelis presently oppose a two-state solution.

Absence of a two state solution doesn’t mean that Palestinians cannot control their own affairs.  Prime Minister Netanyahu himself, recently stated: “I think the Palestinians should have all the powers to govern themselves, but none of the powers to threaten us.” Given the context of post Oct 7, that sort of declaration is entirely reasonable.

In terms of what lies ahead for Gaza, it is obvious that if Hamas is allowed to either govern or bear arms, that another future round of fighting will be inevitable with all its associated implications. Like Iran, Hamas has refused abandon their destructive philosophy including refusal to release the Israeli hostages.

Pro-Palestinians who wish to end the fighting and help Gazans should put their disdain for Israel and Jews aside, and pressure Hamas to renege on the use of terror and control over the population.  The recent experience in Lebanon shows that, since Hezbollah has been weakened, Lebanon is beginning to recover. The same can happen in Gaza. Genuine reconciliation that improves the lives of Palestinians can happen only when Palestinians and their supporters remove calls for Israel’s destruction from their political agenda. The best way to benefit Gaza’s Palestinians is for Hamas to release the hostages, lay down their arms and refrain from participating further in the political process.