Do not manage the conflict, resolve it!

Israeli PM Naftali Bennett’s axiom that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is unsolvable, and that at best it can only be managed, has been accepted by his coalition’s eight factions, from Yamina through Meretz, and all the way to the United Arab List (UAL). Yet managing this conflict is a multifaceted process, conducted with multiple players. It sometimes seems that instead of Israel managing the conflict, the conflict is managing it.

The first layer is international, conducted vis-à-vis the United States, which is considered a strategic ally and without whose backing the entire management process becomes impossible. But over the years, Israel has found another partner in the form of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin became a regional player after coming to the rescue of his fellow dictator Bashar Assad, trampling for him the citizens of Syria in their cities and villages. The war between these two strategic rivals, between Biden and Putin, presents Israel with an unsolvable dilemma.

At the regional level, Israel, after tremendous effort and with the aid of Donald Trump, has found a way around the conflict. It has attached itself to a “Sunni” alliance that spans the entire Middle East, from Morocco, Sudan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and to the Emirates and Bahrain. The primary characteristic of these countries is their dictatorial and corrupt nature. It is no coincidence that in the bloody war taking place today in Ukraine over the future character of the world – between democracy and autocracy – Israel’s partners stand as one with Putin. Their prisons, those of el-Sisi, Mohammed V and Mohammed bin Salman, are full of opposition activists demanding democracy. Israeli prisons are full of Palestinian political activists. It seems that the choice between autocracy and democracy is no less difficult for Israel than the choice between being Jewish and being democratic.

The third layer is what we’ll call the Palestinian layer. It includes three parties with wholly conflicting interests. Israel is dealing with two partners, the Palestinian Authority based in Ramallah, and Hamas, which controls Gaza. The hatred between the PA and Hamas appears to outweigh their shared hatred of Israel, which imposes its sovereignty over both the West Bank and Gaza. Conflict management requires constant maintenance of the conflict between the West Bank and Gaza, thus preventing formation of a single Palestinian address, which would undermine Israel’s excuse that there is no partner to negotiate with. Against Hamas, Israel operates according to stick-and-carrot, easing restrictions and providing permits for Gazans working in Israel—as long as there is quiet. Against the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah there is no stick and no carrot, but instead an odd, symbiotic game. The Palestinian Authority is both a security partner and a political rival. It is essential for maintaining a quiet security situation, yet is simultaneously presented as a hostile authority that funds the families of terrorists, the same terrorists that the PA itself helps Israel to catch.

The “divide and rule” method, as old as occupation itself, is flawed when discussing the Palestinian reality. The separation between the West Bank and Gaza, between Fatah and Hamas, serves only to undermine the foundations of Israel’s sovereign governance, as the struggle between them takes place over Israel’s head and at its expense. When Hamas wants to hit Abu Mazen of the PA and expose his nakedness, it simply sends a group of young people to the al-Aqsa compound to fight with Israeli police, or it fires a rocket at Israel, setting the area alight despite the subsequent cost of death and destruction to Gaza. Divide-and-rule plus stick-and-carrot are ineffective for two entities that see the fate of their citizens as less important than the preservation of their own rule.

The fourth layer is already within the territory of Israel itself. It turns out that while Israel is trying to separate between Gaza and the West Bank, it is unable to separate the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories from its Arab citizens, because al-Aqsa manages to unite them. The inventor of the “al-Aqsa is in danger” conspiracy theory is an Israeli Arab citizen, the former mayor of Umm al-Fahm and head of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement, Sheikh Raed Salah. His theory was also born of conflict: that between the southern faction of the Islamic Movement, which decided to run in the Knesset elections, and the northern faction, which radicalised and denied the legitimacy of these elections. We have before us another conflict within a conflict, one which the Israeli government cannot resolve. The outlawing of the northern faction did not prevent the flare-up around Al-Aqsa, and exactly one year ago such riots spilled over into Arab cities and villages within Israeli territory.

There is also another layer to this conflict, fifth in number, and that is the violence in Arab society, which the Israeli government has decided to uproot. But it turns out that the violence in Arab society cannot be resolved in isolation from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict itself. On the contrary, there is a close link between the conflict and violence in Arab society. Not only because of the free flow of arms throughout Arab communities that was ignored by all Israeli governments, but also because the Israeli government’s attitude toward its Arab citizens is not so very different from its treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. The Nationality Law enacted by the previous government, and the Citizenship Law recently enacted by the current government, demote Arab citizens to second class citizens. Violence in Arab society is the result of discrimination, neglect, and a lack of Israeli will to create an egalitarian society in practice. This violence is not limited to criminal gangs,  but has become a phenomenon that dominates all areas of life. It begins at home, with violence against women and children, flows to schools, from there to conflicts between families, to expansion of the grey market, and reaches the control of gangs over Arab public space. The police alone cannot provide an answer, so the government’s diagnosis is wrong, and the remedy is inappropriate.

The sixth and final layer deals with contradictions within the government. The agreement between its factions to manage the conflict, instead of resolving it, does not prevent the conflict from seeping into the government itself. Although the government tries to ignore the conflict with the Palestinians, the conflict does not ignore the government. This is how we reached the point where coalition chairperson Idit Silman resigned from Yamina, leaving the government without a majority, while UAL froze its activities in the Knesset following recent al-Aqsa events. The agreement between the right and the left in the government to put aside the main question that determines the fate of the state, its character, and the peace of its citizens, transforms the “government of change” into one that continues on Netanyahu’s path, while hatred of Netanyahu is the glue that keeps the government together.

Israel’s deterioration towards an apartheid regime and its joining of the regional and global autocratic camp, as well as the failure of the fabricated regional peace to bring about internal peace between Palestinians and Israelis, between Jews and Arabs, necessitate a new political recalculation aimed at resolving the conflict. The solution can apparently no longer be sustained on the basis of two-states, as 55 years of occupation have created a reality that does not allow this. A revolutionary change is needed within Palestinian society, on the one hand, and Israeli society on the other. We may hope that the war in Ukraine, and the defeat of Putin and his autocratic partners, will allow the formation of a large democratic camp in the world, including Israeli and Palestinian societies. Democracy is the key word. Without it, the humanity of all global citizens will be eroded.

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