Opinion: In a Middle East reboot, Palestinians must choose: Singapore or Somalia?

17/12/2023

Israel is focused on destroying the ability of Iran’s proxy Hamas to control Gaza and to use it as a base for attacks — a reasonable goal with relatively broad global support. But it projects determination to do so at overwhelming collateral cost to civilians in Gaza while offering Palestinians no political horizon.

As President Biden warned this week, this strategy does not enjoy similar support. It is sapping the international legitimacy that Israel needs for its prolonged Gaza operation. It is devastating to Israel’s brand, which an export-focused nation needs to keep intact. It may soon beget real friction with the U.S. and serious pressure to end a justifiable war against Hamas terrorists.

If this causes fighting to end prematurely with Hamas still armed and in power, the impact will extend far beyond the unfortunate Gazan civilians who will continue to live under the boot of Iran’s evil terrorist proxy. It would also serve as proof that it pays to participate in Iran’s terrorism. This would in turn impede efforts to establish a U.S.-led alliance between moderate Sunni nations, the West and Israel. Indeed, it is reasonable to assume that the Oct. 7 massacre was precisely aimed at derailing progress toward such a deal.

The hope of Iran is to put the region onto another track: all-out war between Israel and Iran’s goonish proxies, ranging geographically from Hezbollah in Lebanon to the Houthis in Yemen, who in recent days have been impeding the maritime trade. They hope an Israeli overreaction will cause the suspension of peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan, and perhaps also the Gulf. A renewal of Israel’s occupation of Gaza, for example, could lead to an uprising in the strip and also the West Bank. In a perfect world from the Iranians’ perspective, it would cause a resumption of Islamist terrorism in the West.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has his own calculations. A criminal defendant on trial for bribery, he has spent the past year seeking unlimited powers for his hard-right government in a misbranded “judicial reform.” In the wake of the cataclysmic breakdown of Oct. 7, a majority of Israelis are howling for his ouster.

Netanyahu’s interest is a prolonged war that might restore some luster to his discredited brand. But that is not in the interest of Israel, whose economy would suffer and whose relations with the West would collapse. Nor is it in the interest of the Palestinians, the Middle East or the world, although it would be in the interest of Iran.

What is actually needed is to offer the Palestinians and the world a reasonable vision of the future. There must be a clearly articulated vision for Palestinian self-rule in Gaza and most of the West Bank once Hamas is gone and the 141 remaining hostages have been released. An independent but demilitarized Palestinian Authority should be backed, reformed, restructured and rejuvenated in preparation for its gradual return to Gaza.

To that end, Israel should offer to invest enormous capital and energy to provide assistance and make restitution. It should invite countries in the Middle East and around the world to chip in. The long-term plans should include, taking account of reasonable security considerations, plans for an airport, a harbor, and a tunnel between the West Bank and Gaza.

It would be helpful if President Biden were to put such a vision on the table, combined with an immediate Israeli-Saudi framework for a peace treaty as a further sweetener for all sides, under which the Saudis would help lead Gaza’s reconstruction.

Some will argue that this is the wrong time to concede an inch to the Palestinians, Israel has just suffered one of history’s extraordinary terrorist outrages. But that would miss the central reality of the conflict. Between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, 15 million people live, roughly equally divided between Jews and Arabs. No matter what happens, the long-term choice remains either a disastrous binational state or a negotiated partition.

Since partition is the only way forward in the long term, anything that gets in the way of partition — including Israeli settlements — should be disincentivized and punished by the world community.

And on the other side, the Arab world must join the West in completely isolating and delegitimizing Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Salafi terrorists. The idea that jihadism contributes to Palestinian welfare in any way must be removed from civilized discourse. That begins with maximal pressure on Qatar to stop its double game of supporting the terrorists while pretending to be a normative country.

The Israeli nationalist and messianic right and the Palestinian jihadist rejectionists share the common goal of scuttling partition. But where they diverge is in their respective delusion. Each thinks their own side will dominate. Thus do Netanyahu and Hamas feed off one another. They share one important characteristic: both must go.

Once they are gone, the Palestinians should be given clear indications that they have the option of being Israel’s peacefully co-existing neighbor, and that Israel will help turn their country into a version of Singapore. The choice is between that, and their current trajectory, which instead leads to a Palestinian version of Somalia.

Dan Perry is the former Cairo-based Middle East editor and London-based Europe/Africa editor of The Associated Press. Gilead Sher, former chief of staff of to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, chairs Sapir Academic college, situated two miles from Gaza border.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.