Last week, Donald Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ announced that it has dropped its full ‘Gaza recovery plan’ in favour of a small pilot project that is unlikely to start before the end of the year.
The original grand proposal to reconstruct the entire Palestinian enclave, announced by the US president at the World Economic Forum in Davos back in January, involved an initial 100-day plan to significantly increase aid deliveries, repair water, electricity and sewage systems and rebuild hospitals and bakeries.
Scarcely any of that has happened, with Israel having maintained control of the whole territory. The pilot project as now envisaged comprises no more than a temporary camp for a very small part of the Palestinian population, coupled with an initial component of an International Stabilisation Force. That seems to be getting nowhere fast since even preparatory work for the temporary camp hasn’t started
Meanwhile, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have continued military operations in Gaza, with more than a thousand Palestinians killed since last October’s ceasefire started, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. In one IDF air strike this week, six members of a Palestinian family were killed, including four children.
The IDF has also systematically moved to take over more of the Gazan territory that was originally apportioned to Palestinians after the October pause in fighting. Its units now control more than 60% of the Gaza Strip and a buffer zone, a senior IDF officer reported last week, leaving more than two million Palestinians crowded into little more than 30% of what was already a very densely populated area.
There is now an assumption among Israeli political analysts that prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu is fixated on the general election due to be held on 27 October, and will seek to prevent any progress towards peace before then.
He and his allies believe ending the war would focus more attention on Netanyahu’s failure to prevent Hamas’s 7 October assault on Israel in 2023 and to defeat the group in the three years since, despite having destroyed most of Gaza, with the local health authority reporting at least 75,000 Palestinians killed during that time, and many more missing,
Netanyahu’s desire for the war to continue at least through to the end of October fits in with the Israeli expansion of its operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon and the threats to take further military action in Iran. The IDF is under sustained pressure, with many of its troops reservists, a strain made worse by increasing anti-Palestinian violence across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem – but needs must when an election has to be won.
In seeking that victory, Trump’s role in the United States is vital, and this is where US domestic opinion is becoming important, especially with the mid-term congressional elections barely three months away. Some 62% of Americans now have an unfavourable view of Israel, against just 32% who view it favourably, according to a poll from the Pew Research Center last month.
For decades, successive US presidents have maintained strong support for Israel, reinforced by a combination of domestic opinion, evangelical Christian activism, pro-Israel advocacy organisations, donor networks and bipartisan congressional backing. The fraying of that consensus, particularly among younger voters, is a serious concern for those around Trump as the mid-terms loom.
The rhetoric coming from Trump himself suggests that continuing or even escalating war in Iran may be seen as a viable way to drive support for both Israel and his own administration, despite the conflict having already cost the US $37.5bn. This does much to explain the US’s recent nightly air attacks on Iranian infrastructure.
So, where are we now? The Netanyahu government needs the war to continue and be as extensive as possible, while Hamas and Hezbollah will continue their paramilitary actions but may be willing to negotiate, and the Houthis in Yemen are already acting to control Red Sea access through the Bab Al Mandab strait.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has come out of the conflict in a dominant position in Tehran, though still paying some deference to the theocracy. It can suppress domestic dissent and believes that it can outlast the US. Finally, Trump cannot afford to act in any way that even remotely suggests failure.
Among all the states involved, Israel has the greatest capacity to break open the impasse; the others will follow its lead, including Trump’s United States. This leaves peace unlikely. As far as it can be judged, what support there was for a two-state solution among Israeli Jews has decreased since the 7 October assault. The idea that Israel cannot survive in a state of permanent war and must seek a compromise is still a minority view among Israeli Jews, despite the genocidal implications in Gaza.
As The Economist puts it, the Israeli election now “seems likely to be a choice between an ultranationalist and religious coalition that insists that only hardline militarism can secure the Jewish state’s future, and a gaggle of opposition parties offering an alternative vision that they have yet to fully define.”
At some time soon, Israel will face such a climate of international antagonism that boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) actions will leave it with no alternative but to negotiate, but that time has not yet come.
