Benjamin Netanyahu Stands Between Israel and Peace | Opinion

Israel is right about Hamas and Hezbollah. Nothing justifies the existence of these Iran-backed criminal organizations, their aggression against Israel or the damage they’ve done to Arabs. But here’s a memo to President-elect Donald Trump and his choice for secretary of state, Marco Rubio: Israel is one thing and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu another: A shameless schemer who’s messing with everyone.
A weekend poll showed 69 percent of Israelis favoring a deal with Hamas to return the remaining 101 hostages in exchange for an end to the Gaza war, with 20 percent opposed. A majority believed Netanyahu’s political needs were blocking it. The argument for ignoring them—and not saving the lives of the hostages and countless Gazans—is that Hamas cannot be allowed to retain control of the territory.
That seems like a decent argument: Hamas has stated consistently that it will repeat the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre as many times as it can, and it runs a brutal and murderous dictatorship. They should not be allowed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in the cataclysmic war they sparked.
But why exactly is Hamas in a position to retain power over the smoldering ruins of the Gaza Strip—where some 40,000 people (perhaps half militants) are believed to have been killed—should Israel pull out? Why is there no alternative to Israeli occupation or Hamas?
The reason is Netanyahu.
There’s one plausible replacement for Hamas in Gaza, and that’s the Palestinian Authority established in the peace process of the 1990s, which is based in the West Bank and runs the autonomy zones there, having been kicked out of Gaza by Hamas in a 2007 civil war.
The PA is far from perfect: It’s corrupt, its leader Mahmoud Abbas hasn’t held an election in almost two decades, it refused reasonable offers for Palestinian independence on about 97 percent of the territories Palestinians seek, and it produces antisemitic textbooks. But it’s also committed to negotiations, has recognized Israel, and—as Israeli security will confirm—keeps the peace in the West Bank as best it can.
It is the least bad option, which is not something human beings are wired to embrace, but which they sometimes must.
President Joe Biden, who describes himself as a Zionist, has dangled an exit plan for Israel that should be very attractive:
· Once Hamas is sufficiently degraded—and Israel’s outgoing and incoming defense ministers have both suggested it already is—the PA, improved and rejuvenated, retakes Gaza and receives logistical, financial and security assistance from the Sunni Arab countries, the West and perhaps even Israel.
· Saudi Arabia normalizes relations with Israel, joining the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and the other Sunni nations of the 2020 Abraham Accords.
· To give the Saudis cover, Israel reenters talks on an independent Palestinian state.
· The West—through NATO or some other mechanism—joins Israel and the Abraham Accords nations in creating a joint security alliance arrayed against the aggressions of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
This would be a tremendous boon for the region, the world and Israel—but Netanyahu has brushed it off and refused all discussions about the “day after” Hamas. The war drags on, Israel’s has suffered about 2,000 killed, and it approaches pariah status in the world.
Why is Netanyahu so mulishly obstinate?
Well, for one thing, Netanyahu wanted a Trump return to the White House, figuring the twice-impeached convicted felon—and president-elect—doesn’t care about humanitarian concerns that Biden’s been pesky about. The continuing nightmare contributed to the Democrats’ Nov. 5 wipeout by breaking up their coalition: progressives and Muslims feel Biden supported Israel too much; many Jews are angry that Biden supported Israel too little.
Next up, the PA. Rather than work to reform it as an alternative to Hamas, Netanyahu has dispatched his lackeys to any available TV news panel to demonize and compare it to Hamas, which is absurd. That’s because Netanyahu’s government is dependent on far-right parties that want a permanent Israel occupation of Gaza. They also want to settle Gaza with Jews and on the fringe actually dream of a Palestinian exodus.
Israel cannot afford to control Gaza. The costs of rebuilding and taking care of its 2.2 million Palestinians are untenable—not to mention the security costs and demographic implications. But the ultras care nothing about practicalities, and they’re threatening to bolt if Netanyahu agrees to end the war—never mind restarting talks on a Palestinian state.
That latter issue bears examination, because the danger to Israel of going beyond autonomy schemes to a real pullout from the West Bank is indeed huge. It’s too close to Israel’s cities, unlike Gaza, and Israel must prevent its falling to jihadis no matter what.
Moreover, the case for a Palestinian state is not as strong as many outsiders believe. You will find no reference to a Palestinian people before the establishment of Israel and there was never a Palestine that was Arab; the term “Palestinians” before 1948 mostly referred to the Jews of the territories (most but not all of whom hail from 19th and 20th century migrations to their ancestral homeland). The territory’s Arabs were not culturally or ethnically different from neighboring Sunnis in Lebanon or Syria, a few miles away. Arab loyalties at the time were generally connected to tribe or town. And many of today’s Palestinians moved to the British controlled area from the region.
Nonetheless, their shared fate and suffering has created a Palestinian ethos, and Israel would any be wise to free itself of the West Bank and Gaza; if those territories were really incorporated the combined population of 15 million would have a small Arab majority.
Down that path lies the end of democratic Israel and the Zionist dream. It will eventually fall apart; it will be forced by the world to give the West Bank and Gaza Arabs the vote, and most of the Jews will flee what will become another poor and unhappy Arab state.
So it is Israel that needs a Palestinian state. The solution to security peril is for this Palestinian state to be demilitarized, with clear international guarantees.
But beyond all these reasons for Netanyahu to be obstinate is the one that truly has many Israelis’ blood aboil: He simply has an overpowering personal interest in the mayhem continuing so as to buy time after the Oct. 7 debacle, until people forget, or still bigger tragedies occur.
It was a fiasco that should not be politically survivable. Netanyahu had been warned by the security establishment that his outrageous 2023 drive to Putinize the country—by eliminating its independent judiciary and more—was creating a schism that invites attack, and he blew it off. Hamas then busted through an undefended border, since the military had been moved to the West Bank, where radical settlers—whose parties also control the government—were planning anti-Palestinian riots.
The country is howling for an inquiry commission—standard in Israel for even normal-level failures, never mind the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. Netanyahu says an inquiry must await the end of the war—incentivizing its continuation. It is just that simple, and just that outrageous.
Why does Netanyahu cling to power so fanatically?
One aspect is his trial for bribery, corruption, and breach of trust. The war has enabled him to machinate delays in his planned testimony, which promises to be devastating. This is an explicit violation of his promise to the Supreme Court—when it allowed his appointment despite the trial—that running the country would not affect his defense. Last week the court finally rejected his last request, and the testimony is planned for December.
The second reason is more operatic. In decades as a foreign correspondent, I haven’t seen a worse case anywhere of Louis XIV complex—the French king who believed that “l’etat c’est mois” (I am the state).
To understand the depravity, consider the recent days’ reports citing a “senior official” (in Israel, code for the premier) saying Israel would seek an end to its Lebanon campaign against Hezbollah by January—as a “gift” to Trump as he assumes office. The timing of ending a war in which people are being killed is, in Bibistan, the legitimate stuff of favors.
Trump loves gifts, but he is supposedly also a supporter of Israel. If so, he should do nothing to prolong the reign of Netanyahu, the most destructive leader the Jewish people have ever spawned.
Dan Perry is the former Cairo-based Middle East editor and London-based Europe/Africa editor of the Associated Press, the former Chairman of the Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem and the author of two books. Follow him at danperry.substack.com.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.