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from: palmbeachpost.com

After Israel-Hamas ceasefire, what next?

By Robert G. Rabil and Luis Fleischman

With Israel’s government accepting an Egyptian ceasefire plan to end the Hamas-Israel conflagration, the question now is what should be done to prevent a future similar deadly scenario.

No doubt, humanitarian relief should be delivered. And peace negotiations shepherded by the U.S. should resume. But, in a climate where animus complements grievances and mistrust between the two populations, what Israelis and Palestinians need today is a mechanism to integrate Palestinian Israelis into Israel better, phase out frictional interactions in the West Bank, and ensure a better security regime in Gaza.

Such a step can be done by involving Arab countries and enhancing and expanding the Abraham Accords to more Arab countries.

A change is sorely needed. This major outbreak was the fourth since Hamas, a designated terrorist organization by the U.S. and the E.U. among other nations, took over the Gaza Strip in 2007.

The Israel-Palestinian peace negotiations have been deadlocked for years, and the Palestinian National Authority has declined Israel’s peace initiatives without providing alternatives.

Complicating matters more, the Palestinian leadership, under Mahmoud Abbas, has been racked by corruption, inertia, and inability to make peace with Israel. A disappointed Israeli nation has elected and re-elected Benjamin Netanyahu.

But the Netanyahu government has moved to the far right of Israel’s politics, pegging his political survival to promoting settlements in the West Bank. This policy has created a political and an empathy gap, deepened and made it hard to abridge by extremism. No wonder the conflict that began in Jerusalem spilled over quickly into Israel’s Arab areas and the West Bank, whereupon Hamas tried to hijack the Palestinian people and the Palestinian narrative by initiating this recent round of fighting.

It’s time to break the cycle. Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz has called for a political strategy to bolster Israel’s deterrence. And the United Nations Security Council, while stressing “the immediate need for humanitarian aid for Palestinian civilians,” has emphasized the importance of achieving a “comprehensive peace” whereby Israel and Palestine would live side by side in peace.

That’s easier said than done. But here are some ways forward:

Inside Israel: A spectrum of Israeli leaders has echoed the call by activists to deepen co-existence between Palestinian Israelis and Israelis by better integrating the former in Israel’s political system. It’s a promising development.

Days before the conflagration, centrist leader Yair Lapid, charged with forging a government, held talks with Mansour Abbas, a Palestinian Israeli politician, about entering a coalition government. Not pursued before, this trend is a good policy.

Mansour Abbas, for his part, seemed to have given up the anti-Zionist rhetoric of the dominant Arab Israeli parties in favor of a more pragmatist policy aimed at increasing resources and improving services for the Arab citizens of Israel. It makes sense to think that Hamas’ aggression was also intended to disrupt this new development.

The West Bank and Gaza: Jordan, and Egypt, in collaboration with Israel and Palestinians, could be involved in supervising the territories until Palestinian self-determination is secured. Jordan has an intimate relationship with the Palestinians, and despite a bitter disposition between King Abdullah of Jordan and Netanyahu, Jordan and Israel have maintained excellent intelligence cooperation. The past structural American-Jordanian-Israeli intelligence cooperation in training Palestinian police could be reactivated in the West Bank with Jordanian troops acting as a buffer between Palestinians and Israelis.

By the same token, since Egyptian intelligence has a strong relationship with Hamas, Egyptian troops could play an active role in securing peace in Gaza and reducing the power of Hamas while at the same time opening up Gaza to the outside world.

The Arab Gulf: These oil-rich nations’ economic and political involvement can enhance the prospects of Palestinian prosperity. The intervention of those countries could bolster the waning influence of Palestinian authority. However, Israel and the Palestinian Authority must also live up to their commitments and refrain from pursuing provocative actions.

At the same time, Israel should regulate settlement activities and enable Palestinian construction and property purchases in areas that may eventually be part of a Palestinian entity. Palestinians should curb their incendiary public rhetoric and their anti-Israel indoctrination in the education system.

A quiet Palestinian-Israeli border and mutual gestures could rebuild the confidence in peace and co-existence that Oslo promised and failed to deliver.

Surely there will be doubts about Jordanian and Egyptian playing an active security role in the Palestinian territories. However, absent such a role, and if history is a witness, the prospect of future instability is plausible. Furthermore, Arab Gulf states and the European Union may withdraw their financial support for Gaza reconstruction and Palestinian prosperity should the prospects of peace remain unpredictable.

E.U.’s foreign policy chief, Joseph Borrell, was very clear about it: “The E.U. cannot be expected to finance yet again the rebuilding of Gaza without a meaningful prospect of actually solving the underlying conflict.

*Robert G. Rabil is professor of political science at Florida Atlantic University. He is the author of Embattled Neighbors: Syria, Israel and Lebanon (2003); Syria, United States and the War on Terror in the Middle East (2006); Religion, National Identity and Confessional Politics in Lebanon: The Challenge of Islamism (2011); Salafism in Lebanon: From Apoliticism to Transnational Jihadism (2014); The Syrian Refugee Crisis in Lebanon: The Double Tragedy of Refugees and Impacted Host Communities (2016); and most recently White Heart (2018). The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of FAU. He can be reached @robertgrabil.