So dominant was Netanyahu, and so great the agitation over his increasingly outrageous behavior, that all other issues including peace were pushed aside over the past two years’ four election campaigns.
In all those races Netanyahu failed to win a majority but the parties arrayed against him – that appear to finally be forming a government – include nationalists who long opposed the peace process. One of them, Bennett, despite having only 6% of the vote, is slated to helm the new government for two years before a planned rotation with centrist Yair Lapid.
Paralysis on the Palestinian issue suits most Jewish Israelis just fine, because so many people have been lulled by the relative absence of terrorism into thinking the situation with the Palestinians is sustainable. That is a shame, because the Palestinian issue is not going anywhere, and there is no escaping the fundamental demographic fact that the Holy Land has 15 million people equally divided between Jews and non-Jews.
There is almost no serious player in Israeli politics who does not realize that if Israel fails to separate from the West Bank and its 3 million Palestinians, the result will be a non-Jewish state. If studied carefully, putting aside rhetoric and preconceived notions about left and right, the disagreements are actually about three questions:
Might the autonomy setup constitute separation already?
Right-wingers agitated hysterically against the formation of the Palestinian Authority in the 1990s, so it is ironic that today the autonomy arrangement provides them with plausible deniability on the occupation. But sadly, the occupation remains essentially in place. The disconnected autonomy zones that Likud so opposed and today clings to have mostly municipal-type powers. Israel controls movement between the autonomy zones, entry and exit from the West Bank as a whole, construction in most of the territory, and ultimate legal authority and security everywhere, its forces entering the autonomy zones at will when a troublemaker needs arresting. It looks and quacks like occupation and makes the Palestinian Authority appear as collaborators. At least based on his comments and proposed policies to date, Bennett does not understand this.
If separation requires more action, is this urgent?
Some politicians, including Lapid, understand it but think Israel has time and should not be rushed. Lapid feels that despite the unfairness to the Palestinians and disgrace to the Jews, the occupation can be left in place as Israel heals internal rifts. I assess he will find, as foreign minister in the initial period, that reality is otherwise. The status quo feeds an increasing clamor for citizenship for the West Bank Palestinians in a single state (with Gaza perhaps to follow); the phrase “equality for peace” gathers momentum around the world, and The Economist argued this week that this path – implying the end of Zionism – is the way to go. There is some hope for buying time if the new government stops all settlement activity beyond the separation barrier, but natural population growth will continue, complicating the problem by the day. Israel, an island nation dependent on exports and attached to the Eurovision song festival and Eurobasket tournament, cannot ignore the world. It will soon be too late.
IS THE current setup not the least bad option?
There are Israelis who understand the occupation is unwise and see it will soon be irreversible but consider it the least bad option. The Gaza conundrum has contributed to this since Hamas fires rockets from there; this feeds fear a pullout from the West Bank will enable Hamas to seize that strategic territory as well. The shorthand for this, among even centrist Israelis, is “rockets on Kfar Saba.” That’s reasonable, yet they should reflect upon the fact that the result is a state in which 40% of the population (5 million Arabs) are non-Jews and a quarter (the West Bank Palestinians) lack the right to vote. Global acceptance that Israel is a democracy will collapse and many Israelis will flee. Essentially, Hamas taking over the West Bank is a danger; demographic suicide inherent in the current policies is a certainty and is more bad, not less bad.
Still, it seems unlikely the Bennett-Lapid government can reach a final peace agreement with the Palestinians, who have rejected far-reaching offers by genuinely left-wing arguments. The Palestinians’ minimal requirements for a final peace as insisted on to date – on Jerusalem, the descendants of refugees and possibly even on the map – cannot be met by any Israeli government.
Something has to give, and perhaps that thing will be the insistence on a final settlement which requires an “end of conflict” declaration. The Palestinians’ legacy terms are impossible for Israel, which is allergic to security risks; the declaration is excruciating for the current generation of Palestinians, invested as they are in a maximalism deriving from a pathological victim complex.
We should not rule out a partial settlement, though. It is conceivable for the Bennett-Lapid government to take the following course:
• Offer to expand the autonomy zones such that the many islands of territory become three or four, encompassing perhaps 60% of the West Bank with bridges or tunnels between them eliminating the role of Israeli checkpoints.
• Recognize this new map as a Palestinian state on condition that it not have an army beyond the current order of battle for a period.
• Offer shared custodianship and guaranteed access – based on security checks involving a third party – to the holy sites in Jerusalem.
• Offer Gaza a generous reconstruction and aid package conditioned on Hamas returning the strip to the Palestinian Authority. In return, agree to Hamas’ long-standing offer of a hudna (an interlude of quiet in a protracted conflict) establishing non-belligerency for decades.
In exchange Israel could demand the right to expand construction without limits in some of the existing settlements, which could offer a face-saving element for the right-wing component of the new government. The Palestinians might agree, after the departure of Mahmoud Abbas, who is moderate but intellectually rigid.
Impossible? I wouldn’t be so sure, because Bennett and fellow right-wing coalition members Gideon Sa’ar and Avigdor Liberman are not blind to reality.
If you want a proposal that would really challenge the government, consider what Israel truly needs to start fixing what ails it so epically: electoral reform whereby elections have a winner, and Lapid would not need to so farcically buy off Bennett.
The writer is the former Cairo-based Middle East editor and London-based Europe/Africa editor of the Associated Press. He is also the managing partner of the New York-based communications firm Thunder11. Follow him on Twitter: @perry_dan.