Oslo, Taba, Camp David, Annapolis and now Charm El Sheik are words that make the heart rate quicken in unrepentant believers in a diplomatic solution to the conflict between Jews and Arabs regarding the partition of Mandatory Palestine.
Are we on the threshold of a different Middle East, of a future New Gaza, of a consolidated regional peace, of an integration of technologies and investments under an “Abrahamic” tent, of the final becoming of the two States?
I – The “Before”
Let’s go in parts. It is important to remember where we were before the “7th of October”, which did not happen “in a vacuum” to remember the courageous words (but perhaps not in the ‘timing‘ ideal) by António Guterres. Remembering what happened in the last two years conditions what will come next.
On the eve of the Hamas incursion, remembering the “razes” in the history of the Arab tribes, Israel considered that it had achieved a “status quo” in dealing with the Palestinian issue, a basic level of conflict and criticism from third parties that would tend, in their opinion, to remain that way for a long time. Negotiations with the Palestinians had been interrupted for many years, especially because Israel would not have an interlocutor on the other side, they said. The security situation seemed under control, accepting that there would be periodic exacerbations of tension requiring measures military (in response to rockets fired by Gaza, for example) but without significantly changing the stance of mere security management, which would ensure a certain tranquility, within a framework of “routine” repression.
The United States had stopped being truly involved in the ‘Middle East Peace Process’ dossier, there was a perception that the issue was toxic for those in the White House as it required an expenditure of political capital that seemed wasteful given the lack of return in results. The Quartet was over, the back-and-forth diplomacy no longer merited commitment or resources. The “business as usual” among commercial and technological sharing partners with Israel, particularly among Europeans.
The paradigm that was being defined on the horizon was that of the Abraham Accords, a vision of normalizing relations between Arab and Muslim countries with Israel through a grandiose vision of regional economic integration in which the reference to the Palestinians was very timid (although there was specific attention in Jared Kushner’s plan, for example, with industrial parks with workers from Gaza in projects and investments).
The regional geopolitical framework had, so to speak, been fixed. Lebanon with a well-armed Hezbollah, Syrian instability as a given, the threat of uranium enrichment centrifuges in Iran, the internal war in Yemen. There was perhaps a new piece of information. The emergence of the financial power of some Arab States in the Gulf, whose influence already went well beyond the price of fossil fuels on international markets.
On the eve of October 7th, Saudi Arabia was in “transactional” mode in its relationship with Washington, willing to embark on the path from the Abrahamic framework to normalization with Israel if the counterpart provided by the United States was sufficiently attractive (in terms of commitments in the area of security, in particular). An agreement to that effect seemed imminent.
II – Between 10/8/23 and 10/13/25
It is worth revisiting what happened when “status quo” was brutally broken on October 7. Immediately, the IDF’s military retaliatory response was unleashed (posing from the beginning the terrible dilemma of operational effectiveness being perhaps incompatible with the preservation of the lives of the hostages and their return and release). There was a “period of grace” on the part of Western governments whose line they repeated on every occasion was “Israel’s right to defend itself”. The enormous Domestic impact in Israel and internationally of the hostage issue turned out to be dominant.
There followed, with the continuation of the continued bombing of Gaza, with terrible intensity and the resulting destruction, the phase in which the lack of proportionality of the IDF response began to become evident, leading, as an important geopolitical consequence, for many in the Global South to speak of “double standards, double standards” and to make embarrassing comparisons for Westerners about wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
Furthermore, it became clear that we were witnessing war crimes, if not worse, and all the controversy began about whether we were facing a real risk of genocide. (South Africa’s role in the complaint to the International Criminal Court of Justice represents an unprecedented role for a mainstay of the Global South).
The next phase in the conflict was when we went from warnings about the risks of regional expansion or generalization of the conflict to a concrete situation of military actions on different fronts, going beyond the “mere” destruction of Hamas’ military capacity and the elimination of its main leaders. The IDF destroyed Hezbollah’s military capacity and achieved the decapitation of its organization, significantly weakened the Iranian nuclear program, accumulated strategic advantages in Syria (with the IDF now permanently installed on the highest point of Mount Hermon) and dealt with similar tactics with the Houthi threat.
However, the first attempts were made at a “deal” that linked a ceasefire to the release of hostages (and the release of prisoners in Israeli prisons). I will not repeat here the vicissitudes of the efforts for a negotiated ceasefire and the impulse that represented Trump’s intervention from a certain point onwards. The last phase of these recent years was that of growing criticism in public opinion in many countries about the unacceptable degradation of living conditions in Gaza, which led to demonstrations, and protest actions, as a very clear visual and discursive translation (the tents and flags on university campuses, the flags of Palestine, the abundance of white and black checkered keffieh, the slogans of “Free Palestine”).
In the end, Israel’s international isolation became evident, putting it at risk of becoming a “Pariah State”, as South Africa had been, in the time of the Apartheid. Some Western countries understood that it was necessary to express their displeasure with the way Israel was dealing with Gaza. In the European Union, it was very difficult to reach a consensus on how to do this, particularly due to the “reasons of State” invoked by some, so it was actions by individual countries, in terms of the announced recognition of the State of Palestine and a redoubled fight for the Two-State solution that prevailed.
The overwhelming sense experienced by Israel of its own power and military and operational capabilities, with raids of its bombers in the capitals of Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Yemen will have brought the inevitable moment of “hubris” closer. The bombing in Doha was confirmation of this.
The American President decided, perhaps surprisingly, on a classic diplomatic effort: listening to the different proposals (from the negotiators of a ceasefire, from the Arab countries most directly involved in the issue, from some important Muslim actors-countries, from the ideas condensed in a Franco-Saudi project): sublimating the crucial points (annexation of the West Bank would not be allowed, forced displacement of populations in Gaza); and agree to some ideas that are after all “mainstream” (the indispensable role of the United Nations in the field supervision of the distribution of humanitarian aid; a political horizon for Palestinian aspirations, the non-decoupling of Gaza from the West Bank – and very firmly exerting the necessary pressure on the parties.
III – The “After”
We are now in the middle of the “Day After” the end of the War in Gaza, and the first phase, the easiest, with still possible accidents along the way, has been completed (ceasefire triad with partial repositioning of the IDF/ release of hostages and prisoners/ increase in humanitarian aid). In what situation are the actors mentioned at the beginning and what is the “mood“internationally? the Gulf States (including through their role as mediators) were considerably strengthened and their growing influence and “leverage” next to the White House.
The expansion of the Abram agreements is no longer purely transactional and is now conditioned on the satisfaction of, at the very least, the clarification of an explicit path that leads to the satisfaction of the political aspirations of the Palestinians (even if it is not necessary to wait for the ultimate objective). Saudi Arabia, however, achieved all the strategic objectives it sought in a quasi-alliance with the USA in President Trump’s successful “win-win” visit to Riyadh, last May.
Israel is witnessing a firmness and uncomfortable pressure from Washington that has not been seen since the days of George Bush’s Secretary of State, James Baker III, in the merciless efforts to convene the Madrid Conference. The regional map of the military capabilities of Israel and its neighbors has changed radically, and there is some truth in the description of the country as a “Super-Sparta” in terms of the sheer ability to project military power.
The list of unachieved objectives or failures of the Israeli prime minister is, however, somewhat extensive: Hamas was not completely destroyed and a ceasefire was negotiated; neither Islamic Jihad nor the PFLP were destroyed; the complete destruction of Iran’s uranium enrichment program was not achieved (and Iran’s ballistics program is still standing); efforts to achieve “regime change” in Iran have failed; the Houthis’ ability to affect maritime traffic remains; the project for a Riviera in a Gaza emptied of population was completely scrapped; the Israeli hostages were not released by force but effectively through negotiation; and the Israeli settlers (those who dreamed of annexing “Judea and Samaria” or who were willing to recolonize Gaza) achieved nothing.
Without forgetting the evidence of the practically systematic destruction of urban agglomerations and the arrest warrant against Netanyahu issued by the International Criminal Court. It is now clear that a return to “status quo ante” will not be possible, that mere economic development and regional economic integration will not be sufficient to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian issue, which is above all political, which is why it is urgent to finalize the division of Palestine after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire (that is, the partition of Mandatory Palestine with a State for the Jews and a State for the Arabs to which the International Community has committed itself, including through resolutions of the Nations United)
IV- The practical difficulties evident in implementing the complex steps that follow in the implementation of the entire “Twenty-Point Plan” cannot be ignored.
Doubts persist about the progression of settlement expansion in the West Bank. Legitimate concerns are recognized about the timetable for overcoming the political minority granted to the Palestinian Authority (with international supervision of governance that precisely recalls the Mandate or “Trusteeship”).
But there is now a path to follow that will be drawn by walking.