EXPLAINER: Future of Israeli-Palestinian Peace and Analysis of Post-Gaza Ceasefire Prospects

In early January, as the conflict in Gaza completed its 15th month, it had acquired the characteristics of a pogrom–sustained violence by Israeli armed forces on defenceless Palestinian civilians that has killed nearly 47,000 persons, most of them women and children. Almost all the physical infrastructure in Gaza had been demolished, while medical personnel and facilities and media persons had been deliberately targeted. A UN official described it as “an entire society now a graveyard”.

Although Israeli firepower had destroyed the top leadership of Hamas and Hezbollah and large numbers of their foot soldiers and had little to fear from its neighbours, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to halt the attacks, possibly fearing that the cessation of conflict could reopen the dossiers of criminal conduct on his part.

However, in January, as the Donald Trump administration neared its entry into the White House, Netanyahu came under fresh pressure: Trump himself announced that he wanted the issue of Israeli hostages settled before he became US President. His insistence on a settlement coincided with the outgoing Joe Biden administration’s last-minute efforts.

Thus, in an unprecedented development, officials of the two administrations worked together to obtain a ceasefire. Trump sent his Special Envoy for the Middle East, Steven Witkoff, who met the Arab mediators from Qatar and Egypt, and then conveyed to Netanyahu on January 10 that Trump wanted a ceasefire-for-hostages deal to end the war in Gaza before his inauguration.

This personal intervention of Trump’s envoy broke Netanyahu’s resistance, enabling the Qatari Prime Minister to announce on January 15 that a ceasefire had been agreed to in Gaza and would come into effect on January 19. This, in three phases over 42 days, will involve the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners and increased humanitarian assistance to the beleaguered people in Gaza in the first phase, total Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in the second phase, and the beginning of reconstruction in the devastated enclave in the third phase.

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It should be noted that this is not a peace agreement, but a temporary truce. The Gaza conflict is only the latest phase in the Israeli-Palestinian armed encounters that go back to the first Intifada in 1987, followed by recurring confrontations in 2000, 2008, 2014, and 2018, culminating in the recent conflict from October 2023.

The broad pattern defining these confrontations has been the same: Palestinian resistance to occupation and harsh Israeli attacks, with the Israeli reprisals inflicting disproportionate death and destruction on the Palestinians. Thus, in the 2014 encounter, there were 70 Israeli casualties as against 2,000 Palestinians. In the latest confrontation, nearly 50,000 Palestinians have paid with their lives for the 1,200 Israelis killed in October 2023.

Why is the Israel-Palestine dispute imbued with so much animosity and the cause of so much bloodshed?

Historical background

Palestine, the territory broadly between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean Sea, has had an uninterrupted history from the late Bronze Age to modern times, a period of about 3,200 years. The residents of these lands–the Palestinians–are, as the Palestinian writer and historian Nur Masalaha notes, “the indigenous people of Palestine and their local roots are deeply embedded in the soil of Palestine”.

These people, Masalaha points out, have had “a multi-faith and multicultural heritage and a multilayered identity” rooted in their history. This pluralist identity imbued the people with religious pluralism that accommodated diverse faiths that arose in these lands; they were thus one people who were affiliated with different faiths–Judaism, Christianity, and Islam–without losing their shared identity as Palestinians.

Given this background, it is important to note the three later developments that are at the root of the present-day divide:

1. The shaping of the Jewish identity as a racial/ethnic identity took place only in the 19th century as a result of theories that prevailed in Europe at that time; thus, the Jews were ahistorically and deliberately detached from the heritage they shared with the Christian and Muslim Palestinians and a fake Jew-Arab binary was created.
2. The movement of Jews from Europe to Palestine as part of the efforts of the Zionist movement was a settler-colonial project and was in line with similar projects rooted in European colonialism at that time that ignored the rights of indigenous people, in fact even ignored their very existence. Thus, the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann viewed the Palestinian residents as “some hundred thousand niggers and for those there is no value”.
3. This project was realised in Palestine through the “ethnic-cleansing” of the indigenous people of Palestine–a process that included not just their physical expulsion and expropriation of their properties, but also the steady erasure of their very historic presence and identity through changing names of places.

The messianic impulse

Divisions in Palestine have been further exacerbated by bringing faith into the territorial and historical discourse. This has been done by Jewish settlers reading the Old Testament texts as historical documents that support privileging the presence and historic claims of the Jewish community over other communities to Palestine, now renamed, without historical foundation, as the “Land of Israel”.

Flowing from this, the Zionist movement linked the secular Jewish aspiration for land with the religious identity of its votaries on the basis that just as religion defined the identity of the Jewish people, it would therefore also define the national identity on the Jewish people in their state. The French scholar Alain Dieckhoff notes that the leaders of the Zionist movement’s religious strand believed that “the hand of divine providence [had] enabled the oppressed Jews to return to the Promised Land”.

This view became particularly resonant in Israel after its victory in the 1967 Six-Day War which the settler community viewed as divine providence. Thus, the land was now anointed by the “divine presence” and could not be shared with those who represented the “other side”, the “forces of evil, defilement and moral corruption”, since the latter would at some point regain control of this sacred land. Based on this perception, the Israeli scholar Uriel Tal notes, religious figures in the country asserted three immutable positions:

1. the Jewish people are a distinct and unique people; they are chosen by God and constitute a religious nation,
2. the Land of Israel has been divinely endowed to the Jewish people who control it and live on it with divine sanction, and
3. this sacred land cannot be shared with non-Jews; in respect of the latter, the Jews have divine approval to implement three options: extermination, expulsion or enslavement.

The “Land of Israel” is not just the present state of Israel and the three occupied territories–the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. Its rabbis and political extremists have drawn from the faith’s early texts and commentaries to include Jordan, the Golan Heights, and Jabal Druze in Syria in “Greater Israel”. Some rabbis have been even more ambitious and include Lebanon, the Sinai, Syria, parts of Iraq, and even Kuwait. The map circulated by the Israeli Foreign Ministry in January this year reflected this view.

For the present, the principal focus of successive Israeli governments has been to integrate East Jerusalem, occupied in 1967, with West Jerusalem and declare it Israel’s united and eternal capital, and to expand Jewish settlements on the West Bank. There is an old proposal from the right-wing Likud Party to annex the West Bank and declare Jordan a Palestinian state. The ongoing war in Gaza has also encouraged Israel’s right-wing ruling coalition to resurrect claims on Gaza–calling for the expulsion of the 2.3 million Palestinians to the Sinai in Egypt and settling Jews in the enclave.

Ideas for peace

The messianic strand in Israel’s Zionist tradition is now at the heart of Netanyahu’s government formed in December 2022. It includes some Ministers who belong to the far right, who have long been associated with racist and xenophobic hostility to Arabs in general and are supporters of Israel’s aggressive settlement policies in the West Bank and now in Gaza. Netanyahu can stay in power only with their support and has no choice but to implement their agenda. In the context of the ongoing conflicts, this means “total war” until “total victory” has been achieved.

Over the last decade, commentators have seen little prospect of reviving a peace process. In 2016, Seth Anziska and Tareq Baconi had pointed out that Israel was committed to a “permanent hegemony over the ‘Greater Land of Israel’” and had viewed with concern “a marked increase in incidents of racism and religious intolerance towards non-Jewish citizens”. Eight years later, Nathan Brown wrote that “the prospect of negotiating a settlement between Israel and the Palestinian national movement has evaporated”.

Despite these grim assessments, there has been no dearth of peace proposals. One idea is that the approach to peace should be based on placing human rights at the heart of the approach in order to appeal to the US’ upholding of a “rules-based international order” and thus obtaining American support for a peace process. This would include highlighting Israel’s rights’ abuses and its steady emergence as an apartheid state. Another approach has been to base the peace process on the religious values and cultural heritage that were historically shared by Israelis and Palestinians, which include “the religious centrality of Abraham” and “the inviolability of Jerusalem”.

These proposals do not take account of the view of Jews as God’s unique “Chosen people” and their exclusive entitlement to the “Land of Israel”. Nor do the proposals note that the “rules-based international order” is largely rhetorical and has rarely been implemented in practice, even as the American political establishment is totally incapable of applying any of these norms to Israel.

The same obstacles come in the way of implementing the oft-touted “two-state” and “one-state” solutions: while the first calls for two sovereign entities–one Israeli, the other Palestinian—being located side by side, the other envisages a single state, with all citizens enjoying equal rights; such a state could be one nation that takes no cognisance of ethnic or religious identities, or a  “bi-national” state, with the Jewish and Muslim communities living separately in one democratic constitutional entity. The messianic view ensures that these ideas are stillborn.

Ceasefire and after

As noted above, the ceasefire agreement in Gaza was the result of the US’ outgoing and incoming administrations working together in what has been described as an unprecedented, highly constructive, and fruitful partnership. But what made Netanyahu change his mind about the deal that Biden placed before him in May 2024 was the fact that Trump was now going to be in the White House–Netanyahu could not play the Republican card with a Republican President as he had done so successfully with the Democrat Presidents Barack Obama and Biden. This seven-month delay on Netanyahu’s part caused 10,000 Palestinian deaths.

Following the agreement, Netanyahu’s principal challenge is to retain the ultra-right members, led by the Ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, in his coalition; both have threatened to leave the administration in the event of a ceasefire. Netanyahu is reported to have assured them that war could still start after the first phase “if Hamas doesn’t live up to the terms”. He is also believed to have promised Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank and military control over humanitarian assistance in Gaza, thus ensuring Israeli presence in the enclave.

The situation in West Asia remains volatile: despite Netanyahu crowing that the “axis of resistance” has been annihilated, this is far from the truth. The American commentator Max Boot has pointed out that “Hamas is far from destroyed” and quotes former US Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying that “Hamas has recruited almost as many new militants as it has lost”. Again, the Houthis in Yemen and the pro-Iran militia in Iraq continue to attack Israel with missiles, while the new Syrian government of the former Jabhat al-Nusra commander, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, though anxious to project a moderate image, could turn its guns on Israel for the occupation of Syrian territory.

Finally, Iran, though much debilitated, will not be a supine foe before Israel. The foreign policy commentator Suzanne Maloney has titled her Brookings article “History warns against triumphalism” and warns that Iran has emerged from the ashes before. The international affairs analyst Ali Vaez has noted that Iran, threatened by Israeli attacks, would move its nuclear programme towards weaponisation. As of now, Iran is engaged in dialogue with the EU-3 (the UK, Germany, and France) and the International Atomic Energy Agency, while its reformist President, Masoud Pezeshkian, in his address at the UN General Assembly in 2024, offered an olive branch to the West when he said: “We have the opportunity… to enter a new era … [W]e are ready to engage with JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or the Iran nuclear deal] participants [and] if JCPOA commitments are implemented fully and in good faith, dialogue on other issues can follow.”

It would be foolhardy on Netanyahu’s part to assume that Trump could be his partner in a major military assault on Iran. Trump could, according to Israeli diplomatic sources in contact with the Trump team, seek “a new, improved and longer-term deal with Iran on its nuclear programme agreement with Iran, to replace the one he withdrew from in 2018,” largely under Netanyahu’s influence. Trump’s right-wing credentials and his well-known support for Israel and hostility towards Iran have placed him as a possible, albeit unlikely, peacemaker in West Asia.

Prospects for peace

Rather than support Netanyahu’s backing for renewed conflict, Israeli and Western commentators are insisting on a peace process in West Asia to address Palestinian aspirations. The Israeli commentator Shalom Lipner has noted that “Israel faces genuine peril” from regional instability and that “Israeli assumptions about Trump’s unwavering patronage appear naïve”. Affirming this view, the journalist Patrick Wintour noted in The Guardian that Trump has always been very reluctant to embroil the US in a war in West Asia. Wintour also pointed out that the death and destruction that Israel has wreaked upon Gaza has done “damage to Israel’s reputation [that] may last decades”.

This will only buttress the generational change in Americans’ attitude towards Israel. According to Jack Lew, a pro-Israel former US Ambassador to Israel, the new generation “doesn’t go back to the founding state or the Six-Day war or the Yom Kippur war, or to the Intifada even. It starts with this war, and you cannot ignore the impact of this war on future policymakers.” The American military historian Max Boot has warned that resumption of war would mean “sowing seeds of hatred on both sides that would be harvested for generations to come”.

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However, the pro-Israel former US diplomat and commentator Dennis Ross has called for the end to war, Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, and its administration by the Palestine Authority so that Arab states can actively help to restore security and the process of rehabilitation and reconstruction. This alone, he says, will encourage Saudi Arabia to initiate the process of normalisation of ties with Israel and, over time, facilitate Iran’s dialogue with the US on nuclear and other matters relating to regional security.

Similarly, the BBC commentator Jeremy Bowen reminds us that “irrevocable progress towards Palestinian independence” is the Saudi price for normalisation with Israel–a cherished item on the Trump agenda. He quotes Blinken’s remarks at his farewell address on January 14 when he had warned Israel that the Palestinians will not accept “being a non-people without national rights” and had insisted that the Israelis “abandon the myth that they can carry out de-facto annexation without cost and consequence to Israel’s democracy, to its standing, to its security”.

Obviously, a peace process seems to be a remote prospect as it would require fresh ideas and approaches that are not evident. The role of the peacemakers would be facilitated, however, by Israel recognising that it is not the eastern-most bastion of European civilisation, as the early Zionists had thought, but an integral part of West Asia, with its security and well-being deeply linked with good ties with its neighbours.

In the unpropitious environment prevailing at present, the words of the writer Toni Morrison are inspirational: “There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilisations heal themselves.”

Talmiz Ahmad is a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the UAE. He holds the Ram Sathe Chair for International Studies, Symbiosis International University, Pune. His book West Asia at War: Repression, Resistance and Great Power Games was published by HarperCollins in 2022.