How Israel Is Paving the Path for Peace in the Middle East
Many blame Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for Israel's handling of this war. The reality is that most people do not understand how peace in the Middle East is actually achieved.
Please consider supporting our mission to help everyone better understand and become smarter about the Jewish world. A gift of any amount helps keep our platform free of advertising and accessible to all.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
Sources close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have said that the firing of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant “is not a matter of if, but when.”
Netanyahu had planned to get rid of Gallant when he returned from his visit to the United States at the end of June, but the dismissal was held up by Hezbollah’s deadly attack on northern Israel that killed 12 children about two weeks ago, as well as the assassinations last week of two terror chiefs, one from Hezbollah and the other from Hamas.
After firing and replacing Gallant, the Israeli prime minister also plans to dismiss IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, as well as the head of the Shin Bet (Israel’s Security Agency), Ronen Bar, to ensure that the Israelis’ handling of the hostage-for-ceasefire negotiations is more “pro-Israel” (that is, more in favor of the State of Israel’s best interests).
Israeli Hebrew-language media reported that a discussion last week between Netanyahu reportedly reached raucous tones, and those present defined it as a “screaming meeting.” All the heads of the defense establishment said at the meeting that Netanyahu’s demands would stall the hostage-for-ceasefire deal.
At this point, according to the report, Netanyahu banged on the table and railed into the heads of the security establishment, saying: “You are slackers. You don’t know how to conduct tough negotiations. You are weak, you are putting words in my mouth. Instead of pressuring the Prime Minister, pressure Sinwar” — referring to Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar.
In the very same meeting, Netanyahu tried to explain to those present that he was still waiting for a letter of commitment from the Americans, that this was a letter he wanted to present to the Israeli public. It is basically about giving a guarantee to Israel that the Jewish state has no obligation to stop the war forever, under any circumstances.
Since Netanyahu intends to demand, among other things, the disarmament of Hamas and the removal of its leadership as a condition for the second part of the deal, the negotiations are not expected to go well.
Reportedly, the Americans “just said” that the letter would be sent after the deal was signed, not before the money was counted.
Netanyahu has also been on the receiving end of mounting pressure from the United States, which again this week stressed the importance of quickly resolving the Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal amid reports of tensions between Netanyahu and U.S. President Joe Biden on the issue.
Late last week during their phone conversation, Biden apparently told Netanyahu to “stop bullshitting me” after Netanyahu informed Biden that Israel was moving forward with negotiations on a hostage-for-ceasefire deal and would soon send a delegation to resume talks.
The issue in all of this, at least from my viewpoint, is that there is no negotiating with a jihadist (i.e. death cult) terrorist organization and its jihadist state backers in Iran and Qatar — and the sample size in plentiful. Hamas has violated multiple ceasefires since rising to power in Gaza in 2006, including one in this current war.
And Hezbollah, on Israel’s northern in Lebanon, almost immediately walked all over United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which was passed in 2006 and instructed Hezbollah to move its forces several kilometers north of the Israeli border. Hezbollah proceeded to mass on the border.
Thus, negotiating with terrorists is only an invitation for more terrorism, which you would think countries like the U.S. know after some 20 years of recent wars in the region.
But America does not really have skin in the game in this Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah war — and I don’t want to hear about the handful of American hostages in Gazan captivity. If the U.S. actually cared about these hostages, they would have found a way to get them out of the Strip long, long ago.
The natural rebuttal to me “defending” Netanyahu’s hardball stance in the hostage-for-ceasefire deal is that he is acting from a place of personal interests. If Netanyahu acquiesces to a vague, open-for-interpretation hostage-for-ceasefire deal, the chances of Hamas remaining in governing and military power in Gaza are high, and Netanyahu looks like a fool in front of the Israeli public.
Almost immediately thereafter, enough Israelis would demand an early parliamentary election, and Netanyahu’s Likud part would likely emerge as a loser. Hence, Netanyahu’s haters contend that he refuses to make a deal with Hamas out of fear of these possibilities.
I believe some of this is most definitely true, but there is a second side to our coin: Every single person involved in the hostage-for-ceasefire deal negotiations, both directly and indirectly, is acting from a place of personal interests.
The heads of Israel’s security establishments all know they will be out of work when this war inevitably ends, so they want to at least save face by rescuing as many of the remaining hostages as possible — and I would certainly do the same if I was in their shoes.
Biden and his administration want to get a deal done for political expediency points that they can sell to American voters in time for November’s presidential election.
And Israeli politicians, both in Netanyahu’s coalition as well as in the Opposition, want a deal to come to fruition because they all want a better chance of improving their political careers during the next parliamentary election.
None of these people — not Israel’s security establishment, not other Israeli politicians, not Biden and his administration, and perhaps not even Netanyahu — are putting their own personal interests aside and thinking, and most importantly acting, according to the State of Israel’s best interests.
I cannot really blame Biden and administration for this, since he is of course an American politician, not an Israeli one. But if you are an American, let’s not pretend like Biden is doing what is in the State of Israel’s best interests. Those who argue this are, plain and simple, being intellectually dishonest or duped into thinking that Biden actually cares about Israel (or any other country not named America).
So, what is in the State of Israel’s best interests?
This is where it gets tricky. After all, politics would not be politics without a little trickiness. From my vantage point, the State of Israel’s best interests are twofold:
Having someone not named Netanyahu lead the country after this war (I personally like Gideon Sa’ar and Naftali Bennett), and
Until then, playing hardball with Hamas and Hezbollah and continuing to decimate them until they bend to Israel’s will and agree to an Israel-friendly hostage-for-ceasefire deal
Why is this particularly tricky? Because Netanyahu is the only current Israeli politician who is truly capable of playing this hardball while fending off tremendous domestic and international opposition to doing what is, as a matter of fact, in the State of Israel’s best interests.
But much of the Western world, currently lead by Joe Biden and his Democratic Party, is having a hard time explaining to their people that Gazans are enduring suboptimal conditions because their leaders, who Gazans supposedly elected, decided to launch a war that they cannot win against Israel, while not building any defense and wartime mechanisms for everyday Gazans.
Blaming Israel and its current prime minister for this unfortunate reality is pure antisemitism because it is a double standard that would be perceived as delusional if applied to any other country. For example, no one with a half-working brain is holding Ukraine and its president responsible for whatever suffering Russians have been experiencing after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Many people point to the few hundred-thousand Israelis who have been protesting against Netanyahu and his coalition, as some sort of reason to agree that Netanyahu is bad for Israel, this war, the hostages, and so forth.
But I always remind these people that a few hundred-thousand Israelis, let’s even say a half-million of them to be generous, amounts to no more than five percent of Israel’s population.
In other words, the vast majority of Israelis — many of whom might be generally unenthusiastic about Netanyahu and his coalition — accept this reality for the time being: He is probably the best person to lead Israel during this Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah war that at times has directly involved the Middle East’s number-one destabilizer: the Islamic Republic of Iran.
It is true that, according to multiple reports, Netanyahu personally allowed Hamas to receive multi-million-dollar payments from Qatar as part of a strategy to prevent Palestinian statehood by empowering two diametrically opposed Palestinian factions: Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in the Palestinian West Bank.
In all my reading about this strategy, it is still unclear to me if this was to prevent Palestinian statehood knowing that a Palestinian state would represent an even larger, more pertinent existential threat to the State of Israel, or for other more nefarious political reasons.
Regardless, these payments from Qatar to Hamas started in 2018, well after Hamas broke another ceasefire in four years earlier, when their operatives kidnapped and killed three Israeli teenagers, leading to a far less severe Israeli incursion into Gaza known as Operation Protective Edge, which lasted just six-and-a-half weeks.
It was said that Israel, also led by the democratically elected Netanyahu back then, wanted to finish off Hamas as part of Operation Protective Edge, but the Israelis were held back by then-U.S. President Barack Obama, who imposed a ceasefire on Israel and even got behind Hamas’ right to exist and keep its arsenal intact.
The State of Israel and everyday Israelis deeply appreciate all that the United States has done for Israel, but someone needs to tell the Americans that America does not run Israel.
More specifically, it is not America’s job to tell Israel when and how to accept a ceasefire deal. It is up to Israeli leadership to create the conditions for what the Israelis deem an Israel-friendly ceasefire deal, and it is up to the Israeli public — and only them — to hold their leaders accountable if they do not like the deal.
The reality is that the Biden administration has been meddling in domestic Israeli politics to oust the democratically elected Netanyahu, or at least create the conditions for his removal, because Netanyahu is not cowering to Biden’s pressure to do what is, in fact, not in the State of Israel’s best interests.
America thinks they can have their way with Israel because of all the military aid that the U.S. provides to the Israelis, but that aid is not part of some freebee welfare program. Israel gives a heck a lot to the U.S. in return, such as technology, intelligence, and a staunch ally in the unpredictable, natural resource-heavy Middle East.
Plus, the increasing majority of this military aid is mandated to be spent by Israel in the U.S. which means more jobs for more Americans across U.S. defense industries.
I understand that certain U.S. politicians are well-intentioned in wanting a resolution to this war and perhaps a two-state solution — which is easy to do from a vast ocean away and with no real dog in the fight.
But the reality is: Whoever has wanted peaceful relations with Israel has 100-percent of the time had their wish granted.
For that to happen, however, the way this region works is pretty straightforward: Peace is made with the strong, never with the weak.
Excellent article. I agree with your assessment of Netanyahu and his desire to have leaders who will act in accordance with Israel's best interests. He is the best person for these times.
As for the USA, I think Awdhesh Singh pretty much summarizes our current and recent past national governance, "Leaders are usually a reflection of the people they lead. How can a leader be moral if his people are immoral?". We have a totalitarian liar on the one hand and a facile gaggle on the other. Both sides have lost any sense of morality (2.a person's standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do. "the corruption of public morals" - Definitions from Oxford Languages).
Peace/ceasefire with Hamas/Hezbollah? One only need look at the 1988 Covenant to understand Israel needs to annex both Gaza, Judea, Samaria, and the Golan. Israel never declared war on anyone and decisively won the wars that were perpetrated on it. Since when does the conqueror retreat to pre-war boundaries? Please check the map of Europe.
Am Yisrael Chai.
I love history and the teaching moments. During the American Civil War, upon the defeat of the Confederate forces at Fort Donelson, the Confederate General Simon Buckner asked the Union General Ulysses Grant for terms of surrender. His answer, "No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I intend to move immediately on your works." The rest, as they say, is history. Israel cannot agree to any kind of cease fire while any of her people are in the hands of the Hamastards. Prepare to move immediately upon their works.