The Western Illusion of Peace and Israel’s Reality

It seems that the word peace has become something of a buzzword, especially in the last few years and particularly after the atrocities of October 7. The world, led largely by its Western allies, calls for peace almost hourly. The real question is what peace actually means for Western society and what it means when a country like Israel, which is a democracy that shares Western values, is expected to conform to that definition. Israel does believe in many of those values. At the same time, Western pressure combined with the regional reality has proven to be a dangerous mix.

The Western idea of peace often follows what Johan Galtung called positive peace, which implies trust, empathy, and structural justice. These are worthy goals in places where both sides accept reciprocity and coexistence. Israel, the only democratic country in the Middle East, is nonetheless held to these same standards in an environment that does not reflect those assumptions.¹

By contrast, Galtung also described negative peace, which simply means the guns are silent. I argue that Israel must embrace this concept. Most attempts to achieve positive peace have failed, as seen through the Oslo Accords, the Camp David Summit, and the withdrawal from Gaza. If Israel wants to protect itself in the long term, it must prioritize security over appeasement.

It is important to define terms clearly. Western peace generally places reconciliation, mutual recognition, and liberal norms at the center. Eastern peace in much of the region is closer to stability through power. In practice, that means order, control, and the use of force to manage conflict rather than to resolve it through shared norms. Serious research notes that many authoritarian systems in the region view liberal conflict-resolution methods as not only ineffective but as threats to regime stability.² This difference underscores that Israel, despite its democratic nature, must understand peace in regional terms, not Western ones.

Zev Jabotinsky recognized this reality nearly a century ago. He warned that Israel could not proceed with its colonization without the protection of an iron wall, meaning power so strong that enemies could not breach it. Jabotinsky understood that agreement was not possible with those who refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist. His warning remains relevant.³

Since Israel’s establishment in 1948, history has repeated this lesson. The last three decades show the limits of goodwill. Between 1993 and 1995, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin sought compromise through the Oslo Accords, meeting with Yasser Arafat to reach mutual recognition between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. In doing so, Israel made major concessions, agreeing to withdraw from Gaza, Jericho, and parts of the West Bank, and allowing the Palestinian Authority to govern for an interim five-year period.⁴ The hope for peace soon collapsed as waves of terror followed, demonstrating that the goodwill of one side could not substitute for commitment on the other.

The same pattern appeared at the Camp David Summit in 2000. Ehud Barak, under United States mediation, offered sweeping concessions. These included a Palestinian state covering nearly all of Gaza and up to ninety-two percent of the West Bank, territorial swaps to compensate for the rest, and limited Palestinian control in parts of East Jerusalem, including sections of the Old City.⁵ Yasser Arafat rejected the proposal. Israeli journalist Zvi Yehezkeli later described asking Arafat in 2002 how he interprets Western peace, to which Arafat replied that he was not a partner to this rationale. Yehezkeli recalled that even when Barak offered to meet ninety-nine percent of Arafat’s demands, Arafat said the offer was “closer to zero percent” because he refused to yield on all his demands.⁶

Then came the Gaza Disengagement in 2005, led by Ariel Sharon. Israel evacuated roughly eight thousand people from twenty-one Israeli communities in Gaza and four in the West Bank.⁷ The move was unilateral, without Palestinian reciprocity, in the hope that ending Israel’s presence in Gaza would reduce conflict. Instead, within two years, Hamas seized control of Gaza and began launching large numbers of rockets into Israel.⁸ Rather than peace, Israel faced an entrenched terrorist entity on its border and repeated wars since.

The Palestinian stance on the Western idea of peace is explicit. The 1988 charter states in Article 13 that there is no solution for the Palestinian question except jihad and that so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences contradict the movement’s principles.⁹ That is not a framework compatible with Western ideals of reconciliation.

Israel must therefore define what peace means on its own terms. It must adapt to what peace means in its region while maintaining its democratic values. In the East, peace is not measured by empathy or mutual understanding but by the balance of power and the recognition of strength. Negative peace, where the guns are silent not because of reconciliation but because reality constrains aggression, fits this region far better than a Western vision of idealized coexistence. Believing in Western values while facing Eastern hostility is not sustainable.

In conclusion, Israel should move away from any perceived obligation to enact Western ideals of peace when those ideals do not match its environment. Real peace for Israel will not come from foreign expectations or symbolic gestures. It will come from security strong enough to make quiet possible and from a definition of peace that fits the region.

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Sources

1. Johan Galtung, “Violence, Peace, and Peace Research,” Journal of Peace Research 6, no. 3 (1969).
2. Sergey Sukhankin, “The Growing Appeal of Authoritarian Conflict Management,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, January 31, 2024, https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/01/no-people-no-problems-the-growing-appeal-of-authoritarian-conflict-management.
3. Ze’ev Jabotinsky, “The Iron Wall (We and the Arabs),” 1923.
4. “The Oslo Accords: 1993–1995,” Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archives, accessed 2025.
5. “Israeli–Palestinian Peacemaking: The Camp David Approach (2000),” Chatham House, 2018, https://www.chathamhouse.org/2018/07/israeli-palestinian-peacemaking/camp-david-approach-2000.
6. Zvi Yehezkeli, interview discussing his 2002 meeting with Yasser Arafat, Channel 13 News, Tel Aviv, Israel.
7. “Israeli Disengagement from the Gaza Strip,” The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2005, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/media/3329.
8. “The Palestinian Problem after the Gaza Disengagement,” Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), 2020, https://www.inss.org.il/publication/the-palestinian-problem/.
9. “The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas),” August 18, 1988, The Avalon Project, Yale Law School, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp.