When the fighting ends

Five weeks into the war, the devastating images of Israeli bombing attacks in Gaza have replaced the horrific scenes from the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7.

What happens when fighting stops? Is there a way to turn the current catastrophe into something constructive? To be clear, this is not a kumbaya moment.

Israel has discovered that, as a matter of policy, it cannot ignore 6 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Moreover, tacit encouragement of Hamas by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to weaken the Palestinian Authority was a policy absurd on its face.

Conversely, Palestinians need to internalize from the current conflict that 9 million Israelis are not going away either.

The only way forward is ultimately a two-state solution. In the aftermath of the current fighting, however, moving to two states will be a stretch for both sides for the foreseeable future.

Since the 1993 Oslo Accords, multiple opportunities to move forward have been wasted — from 1993-2008 mostly by Palestinians, and from 2009 to present by Israel, whose policy has been to ignore the Palestinian issue.

At the 2000 Camp David Summit, Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered a Palestinian state in the West Bank with East Jerusalem as its capital. But Yasser Arafat simply could not bring himself to say yes — and instead unleashed the Second Intifada — in which more than 4,000 Palestinians and 1,500 Israelis died. (A similar offer was made by Ehud Olmert in 2008).

On the Israeli side, all discussions of a two-state solution have been effectively shelved since Netanyahu returned to power in 2009. Israel has built up roads and settlements in the West Bank to such an extent that Netanyahu even conjured up the bizarre concept that, rather than territorial continuity in the West Bank for Palestinians, there would be “transportational continuity.”

Netanyahu’s policy of ignoring the Palestinian issue, and the idea that creation of a series of West Bank Bantustans would be acceptable, demonstrates that his only concern was reelection, not actual governing or creating a viable future.

I have three difficult suggestions for the day after fighting ends:

1. A mostly Pan-Arab peacekeeping force made up of Abraham Accord countries, plus Saudi Arabia, Qatar and perhaps one or two European or Asian countries with peacekeeping experience, should be brought in when the fighting ceases. The peacekeeping force would require Egypt to keep open the Rafah Crossing, the only crossing between Gaza and Egypt, and the forces would have to ensure no weapons or contraband come in. Israel would maintain control over its Gaza border crossings, but the peacekeeping force at Rafah would enable Gazans access to the outside world and export markets and for goods and humanitarian aid to be brought in.

2. Reconstruction supervised by the international force. Massive reconstruction of Gaza will be required. Money for reconstruction must go to actually building infrastructure for the people of Gaza — not to Hamas. Gaza desperately needs a functional economy. Prior to the war, unemployment was estimated to be at 50 percent. In September, just a few weeks before October 7, Israel had opened the Gaza crossing to 18,000 workers to work in Israel daily, mostly in agriculture and construction. These jobs paid far more than jobs in Gaza. In the aftermath of October 7, Israel will not allow Gazan workers back in. But reconstruction requirements and agriculture should be able to provide the required jobs.

3. Curbing of Israeli settlers. One of the mostly underreported consequences of the current war is that leading members of Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition and their settler followers have seized upon the chaos to run rampant and chase Palestinians out of their orchards, homes and villages in the West Bank. Violence has escalated as a result. Over 150 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since October 7, at least 10 directly by settlers. Israel spends twice as much on settlers than citizens in the rest of Israel — even during this time of war, West Bank settlers are better served by the government than the rest of the country. Given Israel’s economic needs in the aftermath of the war, that will have to stop — including settlement construction.

The above is not easy and perhaps even unlikely. It will rely heavily on the Gulf states for funding, at a time when they are spending huge sums in diversifying their economies. It will also require a change in the Israeli government — which does appears likely. 

If we don’t reach for long-term solutions in the aftermath of the recent cataclysmic events, we will reprise the current conflict in a few years.

Jonathan D. Strum is an international lawyer and businessman based in Washington D.C. and the Middle East. From 1991 to 2005, he was an Adjunct Professor of International Law at Georgetown University Law Center.