It was another late night on Thursday for news junkies on the east coast of North America as reports came in about Israel’s retaliatory raid against Iran during the evening. It was after one in the morning when we turned off the light for a restless night of sleep, but by then it seemed clear that Israel had struck a blow against Iran and that Iran has no appetite for continuing the contest.
Israel has shown that it can thwart a large Iranian attack with (almost) no damage, while a small Israeli attack cannot be stopped by Iran. The military advantage is now clear for all to see.
Image: Satellite photo of Isfahan showing the Air Base targeted by Israel and the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Centre — Source: Institute for Science and Int’l Security, AP
Israel respected Jordanian wishes and did not use their air space for the retaliatory strike. They did attack an Iranian radar installation in Syria, and the Israeli jets also overflew Syria on their way to Iran, but Israel has been fighting Iran in Syria for many years. The Syrians don’t control their territory. It’s the Russians who could try to stop Israel and Iran from flying over Syria. For their own reasons they don’t.
The Americans are talking up the possibility of a strategic alliance involving the Saudis, the Israelis and themselves, and they claim that the Saudis are very interested. The price for Israel (recognizing a Palestinian State) seems preposterous in the current moment, but the benefit of such an alliance was evident for all to see last Sunday morning.
Clearly, the Americans and Saudis will have to solve the thorny problem of Palestinian governance. This is not something Israel can do, and it is something the Palestinians themselves have failed to do since Hamas expelled the PA from Gaza in a violent uprising in 2006. What Israel requires before they can reasonably be expected to make any more concessions to the Palestinians is a framework that will guarantee that a future Palestinian Administration will be at peace with Israel.
I wrote about the issue of governance in a post-war Gaza in an earlier article:
The question of postwar governance in Gaza is still unresolved, partly due to disagreement between the American administration and the Israeli government. There does seem to be a lack of clarity in Israeli policy as well, due to the fact that Israel didn’t plan for a full scale war in Gaza and didn’t expect to have to fight one. That is one of the failures that will have to be addressed when the war is over.
Of course, the question of a Palestinian state is a much broader and more difficult question with much bigger implications and challenges for Israel. It is hard to imagine Benjamin Netanyahu as the Israeli leader who would preside over such a grand bargain. His political career as leader of Likud was launched in the 1990’s when he led the opposition to the Oslo agreement. Over the years since then he has paid lip service to the two state solution, but in practice has always led governments that contain parties that oppose it. This New York Times article from 2016 talks about this in more depth, notes Netanyahu’s 2009 statement in support of the two state solution, and also looks at the huge obstacles that have stood in the way of concluding a peace based on the formula.
All of the obstacles discussed in the article have only gotten more difficult in the 11 years since it was written. The October 7 invasion of Israel by Hamas represents the worst example of the threat to Israeli security represented by Palestinians who reject the whole two state formula. Israel can’t implement a two state solution with the Palestinians if most Palestinians reject the idea.
Even if Palestinians were open to territorial compromise, the issue of preserving Israeli security under a two state framework, will rest on whether future Palestine will have a government that is committed to peace with Israel on the one hand, and strong enough to resist foreign infiltration on the other. Such a government will have to be willing to police the behaviour of people within its borders who wish to attack Israel in a way that the PA has been unable or unwilling to do. It will have to defend its external borders, perhaps with Israeli help, against any foreign force (such as Iran) that opposes peace with Israel.
It’s hard to imagine such an arrangement without the involvement of friendly Arab regimes in the governance of future Palestine. Perhaps Palestine itself would eventually be part of the American led security framework that the Biden Administration is trying to bring about with the Saudis and other members of the regional air alliance that was so effective against the missile attack from Iran last Sunday.
It would be nice to know what exactly the Americans have in mind on Palestinian governance while they push Israel to make the grand bargain with the Saudis. They made a move to preserve Israeli leverage yesterday at the UN, when they vetoed a resolution that would have admitted Palestine to the UN as a full member.
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That piece you transcribed, was and excellent analysis of the situation. There must be willing parties, though, besides the Saudis. However, without the Saudis no deal would hold water, and I agree with the approach. Nothing beyond a total reform of governance of the Palestinians, in general, will bring peace. And it is in the direct interest of much more than some of the parties in the Middle East to defang Iran
I just can't imagine that negotiations are now possible for a Palestinian state, while Netanyahu is Prime Minister. Netanyahu is very much the Prime Minister of War, now, on the world stage. So Israel will need a Prime Minister who can be viewed as a Prime Minister of Peace. It will be even harder to find Palestinian leadership that wants to promote peace.