Israel's Strategic Cul-de-Sac

For generations now Israel has pursued a policy of divide and rule against the Palestinians, while (to use an euphemism) discouraging the development of popular, local democratic leaders in occupied territories. It has also failed to incorporate Israeli-Arab participation in coalition governments as a routine matter. Three significant (related) effects of this have been that, first, no Palestinian partner could ever deliver on any agreement and, second, radical factions always had an effective veto over any Israeli-Palestinian rapprochement. And, third, Zionism has come to be understood by its enemies and itself as a project that cannot allow Palestinian agency.

These effects have been visible since (and arguably caused) the collapse of the Oslo process from the very beginning. Since Israel has been too happy to assume it could, instead, pursue a process of normalization with Arab dictators who need American weapons and/or money (or both), all the while expanding ‘facts on the ground’ in the West Bank while leaving systematically ambiguous what its end-game is. Within Israel this has emboldened maximalists who pretend Palestinians away in word and deed, and it has created abject conditions in the Gaza strip and despair in the West Bank.

Unlike most Zionists, I view such ambiguity especially as a long-term strategic disaster, despite the undeniable tactical advantages it generates in the apparent short-term. For, contemporary Zionism (as represented by the State of Israel) has five structural and longstanding weaknesses: i) the failure to establish permanent borders for the state of Israel; (ii) the inability to settle what kind of political entity Israel should be so that it can end its near-permanent war-footing and settler occupation of hostile populations; (iii) (the perception of) Israel's dependence on America's political and military support, which ties Israel to America's strategic interests and electoral politics, while (iv) allowing a split between the interests of Zionism and American Jewry to develop; (v) Israel’s failure to provide Palestinians with positive incentives and symbolic declarations to come to peace with Israel. (Many of these are interrelated, of course.)

Regular readers know that I have repeated variants on the previous paragraph many times. With Syria and Iraq engulfed in disastrous civil war, and a wealthy growing economy, Israel has been complacently focusing on checking Iran’s influence in the Caucasus and pursuing the Shangri-la of Saudi Arabian peace.

After the disastrous intelligence failures of the past few days, we can add two broader strategic disasters: (vi) leading Israelis evidently came to believe their own myths about Palestinian irrelevance (including long-term truces repeatedly offered by Hamas); (vii) Israel has backed itself into a corner where it encourages ever more spectacular violence against it without any end in sight, and where attempts to reverse the cycle of repression will be felt and perceived as weakness. This is the cul-de-sac of the title of the present post.

Once the present war ends, Israel will have a vigorous investigation that will explore its intelligence failures and its remarkably slow initial response leaving parts of the Israeli South isolated and having to fend for themselves. It is also to be expected that before or during the next commission of inquiry into the events of the last week, Netanyahu’s era will come to an end. His long term policy — which always has relied on his sense that his interests and radical Palestinian factions are implicitly aligned against forces of moderation — has to be considered a disastrous failure; many hundreds of ordinary Israelis citizens have turned out to be at mortal risk of death and hostage-taking. (As I write the acknowledged number of deaths is 600.)

The only sensible policy is to reverse the cul-de-sac Israel has created for itself, that is, is to re-think its long term political strategy and, especially, its rejectionist approach toward cohabitation with Palestinians on equal terms. After the events of the last few days, it is hard to imagine any Israeli leader embracing anyone associated with Hamas in the near future. Nevertheless, after the present war Israeli governments have means to show that they are more serious about peace than they have been for a generation.

For example, Israeli governments can express an unambiguous commitment to compensation of individual Palestinian refugees (going back to 1948) with forthright admission that this is long overdue and to start paying out regardless of a final settlement. Justice demands it, and it is an important signal that Israel doesn’t think force is the only tool of statecraft it ever takes seriously and that it is willing to treat individual Palestinians with dignity. In addition, such a financial injection in the Palestinian (and Lebanese) economy will also provide much needed boost to local economic development, especially if Israel ends its disastrous policy of economic impoverishment of Palestinian territories.

Obviously, such gestures are not sufficient to kick-start a peace process. My view is that the next Israeli government ought to announce in word and deed that settlement with all Palestinians is its highest priority alongside the establishment of fixed borders; that it should announce both its vision for a final settlement and its vision for the intermediary steps that should get it there as part of its program, and act accordingly.

Undoubtedly with bullets flying and all sides committed to revenge and exacting a price on the other side, even imagining the possibility of a renewed peace settlement will be treated as naiveté, or worse (that is, treason). But it is realism to acknowledge a failed policy: that only to speak the language of force, while building walls and one-sided separation, is politically foolish when it lacks a commitment to a fair political settlement. It has, in fact, left the initiative to Hamas.

Even a decisive military victory over Hamas, which is no foregone conclusion, will be squandered if there are no political aims that include the flourishing and dignity of Palestinians. The real lesson of this week is that absent Palestinian buy-in, the safety of Jews in Israel turns out to be an illusion.