Setting the narrative straight

I would like to start this piece by quoting myself in an article that I published on November 12, 2023 titled: A plan for the day after tomorrow

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/a-plan-for-the-day-after-tomorrow/

After this terrible war, there must be an “epiphany” on both sides that will make us look ahead, focused and sober, towards creating a new reality in which our energies will be invested in rebuilding our lives and communities based on the acceptance of the very simple principle (but probably very difficult to accept) that everyone who lives between the River and the Sea is entitled to the same right to the same rights. Until both sides recognize the legitimacy of the existence of the other side as a people with an equal right to live here in the common homeland – in the Land of Israel, in the Land of Palestine, the killing, terror, destruction, hatred and desire for revenge will not end.

Obviously, those who brought us to this point must go home. Neither the Israeli leadership nor the Palestinian leadership has the right to continue to lead us. They brought us, all of us to this point and they must go. We Israelis must get out of the delusion that we can rule over another people for fifty-six years and expect to have peace, or to imprison two million people in a closed, small and dense area like the Gaza Strip with abject poverty and with a very young population devoid of any hope for a better future and expect to have quiet. The Palestinians must get out of the illusion that the Jewish people have no connection to this land, that they are occupying foreigners whose existence as a people in this place is illegitimate. This is the meaning of having the same right for the same rights. This is the foundation on which we can build together instead of continuing to kill and destroy.

The day after tomorrow, when the war ends and Gaza will be completely occupied by Israel again. The extremist voices in Israel calling for resettlement in Gaza must be shut down immediately. The delusionary Israeli messianic voices calling for mass deportation of Palestinians in Gaza must be stopped even with the threat of arrest because mass deportation is clearly a war crime. There is no way that Egypt or Jordan will accept Palestinian refugees and any attempt by Israel to deport the Palestinian residents of Gaza towards the borders will end in the complete cancellation of the peace agreements between Israel and Egypt and Jordan and deep regional turmoil.

The plan for the day after tomorrow must be worked out today with all its complicated components. A lot of local, regional, and international agreements will be needed so that it will be possible to get out of the disasters we have experienced and bring us to a more promising future for both nations. In the first step there must be an unequivocal Israeli announcement that at the first possible moment Israel will withdraw from the Strip and redeploy on the border between Gaza and Israel and not in Gaza itself.

There are five essential elements for creating a situation in Gaza that together, in coordination and even in parallel, must occur in order to have a chance for stability, security, reconstruction and development in Gaza, and even a realistic renewed peace process.

The five components are:

1. Palestinian leadership heading the process of stabilization in Gaza while carrying out deep reforms in the Palestinian Authority, including democratic elections for the parliament that must win the legitimacy of the Palestinian people.

2. Stationing a multinational Arab force invited by the Palestinian government and led by the Palestinian security forces with a limited mandate of the United Nations Security Council.

3. International commitment to a peace process designed to bring about a two-state solution.

4. International mobilization for the financing and reconstruction of the Gaza Strip and accelerated economic development of the Palestinian state.

5. New leadership in Israel and Palestine

The basic premise of the entire plan proposed here is that Hamas as a military and governmental force no longer exists. The idea of Hamas and the public support for it will still exist and there is no military way to fight against this. Ideas and ideology need to be challenged with better ideas and ideology. The intention of the plan detailed here is to replace the ideas of resistance and the sanctity of death for Palestine with the possibility of living for Palestine and a well-founded hope that the future will bring independence, freedom and life with dignity.

The first and second components – the Palestinians and an Arab multinational force
Under Palestinian leadership on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, a multi-national Arab force will be sent to Gaza at the invitation of the Palestinians with a mandate from the UN Security Council for a period of one year with the possibility of renewal for two periods of six months. The role of this force will be to stabilize the territory at the same time that the Palestinian Authority takes government responsibility for the government offices of Gaza.

The international community must mobilize to promote the end of the Israeli occupation, to reconnect Gaza and the West Bank, to recognize the State of Palestine, to accept the State of Palestine as a full member of the United Nations. An international peace conference should be convened where it will be decided to establish a path for negotiations between the State of Israel and the State of Palestine in a regional framework, rather than Israeli-Palestinian bilateral negotiations. The negotiation framework will include the countries of the region: Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and more. The regional forum will help Israel and the Palestinians settle the border between them and determine a plan for border management. Regional agreements for stability, security, economic development, energy, water, climate treatment, etc. will be discussed and agreed on. The permanent regional forum will be established that will oversee the implementation of agreements an assist with dispute resolution in real time.

The fourth component – Gaza reconstruction and economic development
The US will lead a process of international recruitment for the construction and rehabilitation of Gaza and the economic development of the State of Palestine and regional cooperation. The ambition should be to mobilize all the countries of the world interested in stabilizing the Middle East region, including rival countries such as China, in order to ensure the existence of the Palestinian state in the shortest period of time. Chinese participation in Gaza is important because there is no country in the world that knows how to build infrastructure as quickly and efficiently as China.

The fifth element – new Israeli and Palestinian leadership
The Palestinian people and the Israeli people must choose new leaders because whoever brought us to today’s situation is not fit to continue leading. The new generation of leaders are unknown today but they will arise. It is important that the Palestinians have the opportunity to choose leaders who will be legitimate in the eyes of the people, therefore Israel must carefully consider the possibility of releasing Marwan Barghouti from prison to allow him to compete for leadership. Barghouthi still supports the two-states solution to the conflict and for the past twenty years consistently comes out on top in all Palestinian polls. Israeli officials should already open a dialogue with Marwan Barghouti in order to know how he can integrate into the rebuilding Gaza and the State of Palestine as a state living in peace with Israel. Likewise, there are other Palestinian leaders with abilities and connections to the Palestinian public who are living in exile who may want to return to their homeland and take part in the construction of their independent state.

Within Israel, the public’s shift to the right was a deliberate result of a political strategy that succeeded in maintaining the division between the two parts of Palestine while making moves that convinced the public that there is no partner for peace among the Palestinians. The Palestinian leadership cooperated, unintentionally, and Benjamin Netanyahu succeeded with very generous cooperation from the international community to erase the Palestinian issue from the global agenda. In all the rounds of elections in Israel, the only real existential issue facing Israel – the continued control over the Palestinian people, was not at all presented to the public when we went to elect our leaders. From the left to the extreme right, the issue of peace with the Palestinians, an end to the occupation, negotiations with the Palestinians, did not appear and there was almost no dispute about it among the many parties that competed to receive voter support. When there was no Palestinian partner in front of us, it was very easy not to talk about a future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and what seemed to be a very distant chance of peace.

After October 7th we cannot continue to ignore our control over another nation and delude ourselves that we can continue to deny independence and freedom to the Palestinian people. The nightmare we went through must lead us to what I call “the Belfast moment” the time when we (on both sides) stand up and say no more. The Israeli public and the Palestinian publics will be rightly suspicious of the idea of peace and the viability of the two-states solution. There is very little trust, if any at all between Israelis and Palestinians. Negotiations and possible agreements must be built on the assumption that the parties will breach their obligations (as was the case in the Oslo process).

Two new elements must be built into the infrastructure of any new political process: the end goal is two states for two peoples, in contrast to Oslo where there was no defined and agreed end-game, and a robust and stable third-party mechanism for monitoring and verifying the fulfillment of obligations by both parties. Clearly defined milestones must be determined before steps with risks are taken. The milestones are points that will allow the parties to wait before moving forward until the full fulfillment of previous obligations. After a failed peace process we must not make the same mistakes we did in the past, we must learn lessons from what failed. In general, future agreements must be much smarter and based on much more suspicion than ever before, thus the chance of success will be greater.

If after the disaster of October 7th we do not change direction towards the settlement of the conflict between us and the Palestinian people, it will be just another round, the hardest of all, but just another in the circle of blood that must come to an end.

Now back to today:

Our leaders, the so-called experts, to Arab affairs journalists, and other know-it-alls, all said that Hamas would never return all of the hostages – this was their insurance policy. They said that Hamas would never return the soldiers – especially not Hadar Golden. They said that Hamas would never agree to end the war until Israel withdrew completely from Gaza. They say that Hamas will never give up power. They say that Hamas will never agree to give up their weapons. They say that a new non-Hamas government in Gaza will be controlled by Hamas. Most of those people making these predictions and assessments have no idea, yet they are the people setting the narrative and responsible for framing Israeli public opinion. I said back in September 2024 that Hamas was prepared to make the same kind of deal that they made last month, but no one would listen. So thousands more were killed in Gaza, tens of living hostages were killed, about 100 Israeli soldiers were killed and the war went on for at least a year more than it should have.

They were wrong in the past, and in my opinion, they are wrong today.

First, and I have addressed this several times – Hamas has breached the agreement, without a doubt, but so has Israel – every day since the ceasefire began. Israeli breaches are substantive, yet almost no one in Israel reports on them. Yes, Israel has the right to continue to destroy terror infrastructure in the part of Gaza that Israel still controls. But no, Israel does not have the right to destroy all other non-military infrastructure and homes. Israel has allowed less than one-third of the agreed-on humanitarian aid into Gaza since the ceasefire began. This is why the United States is going to take over the issue of humanitarian aid that must enter Gaza. The US Command Center in Kiryat Gat is getting more pro-active and more nations from around the world are joining the ranks of those engaged in this work.

According to YNET of today https://www.ynetnews.com/article/sjaysuxewg “ US plans $500 million base near Gaza border to support cease-fire, Israeli sources say… the facility would be used by international forces operating in Gaza to help maintain the cease-fire and could accommodate several thousand soldiers.” The United States is not going to let the ball drop here and allow the war to resume, nor will the US allow Hamas to regroup and have control over Gaza. There is a United States “full court press” on Israel and on Hamas. The constant flow of US officials from President Trump down is on a Bibi-sitting mission to make sure that Israel does not do anything that would enable the war to re-start. They are doing the same thing on the Hamas side with constant attention and pressure on Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey to ensure Hamas compliance with the agreement.

The latest version of the UN Security Council Resolution has been circulated to the UNSC Members (I think it is version number 3 but I understand that many changes have been made to the original version). The 20-point plan of President Trump is now attached to the Resolution as an Annex and that is to ensure that the process will move forward to address the broader issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There are constant talks taking place and soon decision will be made on the constitution of the non-Hamas technocratic government in Gaza and as I understand with some kind of political, perhaps executive level of Palestinian governance to provide the political legitimacy of the new Gaza governing body. There will be international supervision of this process and of the process of reconstruction, but my understanding is that Gaza will be ruled by Gazans for the people of Gaza.

The process of decommissioning of Hamas weapons will also happen. I believe that what is happening with the talks about the 100-200 Hamas combatants inside of the tunnel on the side of Gaza that Israel controls may become the first step of decommissioning Hamas weapons. This does not mean that this will be the model – but it would become the first step.

When there is a new Palestinian governing body with a newly established Palestinian police-security force, and the ISF – the International Security Force is deployed and working in Gaza, the United States will ensure the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. That will most likely happen in stages, but will end up on the international border.

It is essential now that the United States and the international community focus a lot more attention on what is happening in the West Bank. While Trump has said that “annexation is off the table” there is fact a process of defacto annexation taking place. Settler violence supported by the Israeli army and the Israeli police is unhinged and could easily lead to the explosion of Palestinian violence in the West Bank that no one in their right mind wants. The United States must force Israel to release to the Palestinian Authority more than $2 billion in tax and customs money that Israel collects for the PA according to the 1995 Paris Protocol. The United States must also force the Israeli government to stop the settler violence against Palestinians, and their land and property. The US must force Israel to renew family and Red Cross visits to Palestinian prisoners who have been tortured by Ben Gvir’s Prison Authority over the last two years. Israel must be held to the standard of international law with regards to Palestinian prisoners.

Understanding that with the current government of Israel, a genuine peace process on the two states solution is not possible – the United States must adopt the policy of “do no harm” until the political realities in Israel and Palestine do enable talks on the two states solution. During this period, the United States can work with the regional partners to put into place the regional architecture for security and economic development that will ensure Israel’s security within the two-states solution, and Palestine’s freedom and the chance for economic prosperity and development for all countries of the region.