It started with the TikTok of Palestinian youth, and escalated to an unprecedented exchange of fire between Hamas and Israel. This is not a classic war, because while the leaders take care to be protected and guarded, the residents of Gaza and Israel are the frontlines. The fire is directed at them, the mutual destruction is enormous, and neither side can overpower the other: Israel is too strong, and Gaza too poor and weak. This is an asymmetrical war in the fullest sense of the word and that is why it is so hallucinatory.

What is most delusional about it, however, is that both sides refuse to acknowledge reality. Israel is deluding itself that the Palestinians can be ignored or eliminated, while Hamas is deluding itself that Israel can be eliminated through rocket fire and active resistance. Benjamin Netanyahu and Ismail Haniyeh have been playing this game for many years, even though the harsh reality hits them in the face again and again. The high, bloody price is quickly forgotten and the two leaders return to their hallucinatory lives, until the next round.

Israel was busy forming a government, after four rounds of elections yielded identical results. The Palestinian question did not come up for discussion at all, and the argument was that there remains no more Left and no more Right. The debate is no longer about whether there should be a Palestinian state, since there are no partners to negotiate with, and also because the countries in the region have already made peace with Israel, confirming Netanyahu’s idea that the Occupation is not an obstacle to regional peace.

Moreover, Netanyahu’s U-turn concerning Israel’s Arab population, and his willingness to rely on the Islamic Movement to form a government, stemmed from his assessment that the Abraham Accords with the Gulf states, then with Sudan and Morocco, ushered in a new era, in which Israeli Arabs could finally cut the umbilical cord that binds them to their Palestinian brethren and concentrate on their civilian demands.

Netanyahu failed to form a government because he couldn’t connect extreme right-winger Itamar Ben Gvir with Islamic nationalist Mansour Abbas. Yair Lapid then got the mandate from the President, intending to form “a government of change.” As part of that mandate, Lapid and his partners sought to replace Netanyahu at all costs; they sought to form a broad government headed by Bennett, which would connect the right, center, left and the Arabs. Meretz members took great pains to explain that such a government is essential, and that the common interest among its diverse elements should prevail. According to them, agreement on a national budget , health care, transportation and the needs of Arab society constitute a solid basis for proper functioning of the future government. After a few days of warfare with Hamas, however, Bennett backed away from the “government of change,” taking it off the agenda.

On the other side of the separation wall, an equally important political drama took place. Abu Mazen announced parliamentary elections. Since 2006, no elections had been held in the Palestinian Authority because Abu Mazen refused to recognize the duly elected Hamas government headed by Haniyeh. At that time, Hamas responded with a military coup, removing the Palestinian Authority (PA) from Gaza. Since then, two entities have existed. The first, the PA in Ramallah, cooperates with Israel in matters of security, and the second is Hamas’ rival regime in Gaza, which has set itself the goal of freeing Gaza from the siege that Israel has enforced since Hamas abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2006.

The division between Hamas-Gaza and PA-West Bank suited Netanyahu well. The Palestinian people have been divided, weak, and lacking a clear representative, so Israel could claim that there is no partner for negotiations. Hamas has attempted to break the blockade of Gaza three times, and Israel has responded with three “rounds of war”: Pillar of Cloud, Cast Lead and Sturdy Cliff. Meanwhile, unemployment, poverty, the COVID-19 pandemic, and shortages of water and electricity have created an impossible situation in Gaza.

What shook up the status quo was Abu Mazen’s sudden announcement of parliamentary elections. His motives are unclear. It is possible that Biden’s election as President of the United States convinced him of the need to legitimize his rule. In any case, after the announcement, it soon became clear that Fatah was split among various factions and would be defeated at the ballot box. 

Without doubt, the elections would have enabled Hamas to return to the Palestinian parliament, take over Ramallah and bring about a “democratic” end to the siege of Gaza. Such a scenario became a strategic danger for Israel. A democratic takeover of the West Bank by Hamas would have rendered it a legitimate force in the arena.

Therefore, Israel Security Agency chief Nadav Argaman raced to Ramallah, warning Abu Mazen that elections would be suicide. Israel cleverly provided him a face-saving pretext for cancelling: it banned East Jerusalemites from voting in the elections. Abu Mazen duly accused the Israeli Occupation of voiding the elections, proclaiming that without the Palestinians of Jerusalem, elections would not take place.

This is where Jerusalem enters the picture. For Hamas, the coordination between Israel and Abu Mazen in cancelling the elections was a red flag, because it eliminated the last hope of ending the siege. Hamas took the position: if the elections are not held because of Jerusalem, we will liberate Jerusalem! As delusional as that may sound, this was the explicit goal voiced by Haniyeh in a long and detailed speech on Tuesday, May 11th.

Hamas’ pretext for war is, as usual, the al-Aqsa Mosque, which been a political card for competing Islamist factions since 1996. In that year, the followers of Sheikh Raed Salah, the leader of Israel’s northern Islamic faction, coined the slogan “Al-Aqsa is in danger” as a way of goading Israel’s southern Islamic movement, which had split from the northern branch because the latter refused to participate in Knesset elections. Today, al-Aqsa has become a card for Hamas to strike at the Palestinian Authority and challenge Israel. The goal was and is to end the siege and allow Hamas to control the entire Palestinian arena, meaning the West Bank and Gaza, without restraint.

Hamas is going the same way the Muslim Brotherhood went in Egypt, when it rode the wave of the Arab Spring to come to power, while turning its back on the young people who overthrew the Mubarak regime. It was also the way of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood when, with the help of Qatar and Turkey, it overrode the Syrian revolution initiated by young Syrian democrats, instead suppressing democracy. The result is known. Assad is still in power and millions of Syrians have become refugees. Now Ismail Haniyeh “responds” to the call of Jerusalem’s young people and of the Arabs in Israel. Gaza, he says, cannot remain indifferent to the attack on al-Aqsa. The barrage of missiles on Jerusalem was intended to establish Hamas as the sole factor who determines, decides and speaks on behalf of Jerusalem and the al-Aqsa Mosque.

Despite all this, the end of Hamas will not be different from that of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Syria, Sudan and all other countries where they have tried to impose their rule. The fate of the Israeli Right and its partners from the Center and the Left will not be different either. Five million Palestinians are not transparent. The violence of young Arabs in Israel, 40% of whom do not study or work, will not remain confined to Arab cities and villages. It erupts whenever frustration mixes with national religious feelings.

It is time to take seriously the fate of the Palestinians. Negotiations with Abu Mazen, who has lost credibility with his people, are not a solution, nor are “understandings” with Hamas. Both organizations have proved incapable of running a state and a society, and they do not respect civil or human rights. The solution can only emerge from new democratic forces in the West Bank and Gaza, a few of whom have already adopted slogans such as “Let live!” and “You’ve gone too far!” Such voices, which understand that the problem is not only Israel, but also the corrupt and fundamentalist leaderships that are suffocating them, can be partners for a shared Israeli-Palestinian future.

On the Israeli side, the parties that make up the current Knesset have proven without exception how detached they are from reality. Two cardinal questions were not present in the last four elections. The first is the fate of the Palestinians and the future of the Occupation. The second is the climate crisis. The first will determine the fate of Israeli society and the second the fate of humanity.

The old paradigm of “two states” was buried by the Oslo Accords, while the fight for civil and climatic justice requires the construction of a joint alternative civil movement. It should be based on Israeli and Palestinian environmental and human rights organizations, which can connect these two issues for a just, egalitarian and democratic society including Israelis and Palestinians. It may be difficult today to imagine such a future, but the reality in Israel and throughout the world will eventually force a change.

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In an exhausting two-hour speech before the PLO Central Council on January 14, 2018, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen) provided the morning papers with many headlines. Abbas laid into Trump saying Yehreb Beitak, a common insult which translates as “may your house be demolished.”  Many Israeli commentators see this as a clear sign that the Palestinian leader has “lost his marbles,” or in other words, “broken the rules”. Abbas said “no” to the “deal of the century” that Trump has been talking about since he met Netanyahu at the White House a year ago, but Abbas did not explain why he refused. He only stressed that Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is for him a casus belli, and he will not accept any American role in the Mideast peace process.

Trump’s “deal of the century” was passed on to Mahmoud Abbas by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman (MBS), as reported by the New York Times on December 4, 2017. According to the newspaper, MBS urged Abbas to accept the Jerusalem suburb of Abu Dis as the capital of the future Palestinian state, and to agree to a territorial compromise according to which most settlements will remain intact. The Palestinians would receive a mini-state with limited sovereignty and no territorial contiguity. The meeting between MBS and Abbas took place two weeks after a special visit by President Trump’s senior advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Kushner handed over to the Saudis a plan prepared by three Orthodox Jewish envoys: Kushner, Ambassador David Friedman, and Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s chief Israeli-Palestinian negotiator. The three adopted the worldview of gambling magnate and Las Vegas billionaire Sheldon Adelson, one of Trump’s main sponsors and owner of the freebie newspaper Israel Today. He is noted for his absolute support of Netanyahu.

Two weeks after Mahmoud Abbas’s fateful visit to Saudi Arabia on December 6, 2017, Trump declared his recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The US State Department tried to mollify the impression, perhaps to curb angry reactions in the occupied territories and in the Arab world, by pointing out that the Trump declaration did not define the borders of the city, which are still subject to negotiation between the sides. Throughout that period, Mahmoud Abbas was subjected to heavy pressure to get him to say “yes” to the American proposal that had Saudi Arabia’s blessing, but to no avail. When Trump returned from his vacation this year, he turned to Twitter, and in a series of 14 tweets on various topics, he wrote in a clear, although disjointed manner: “We pay the Palestinians HUNDRED OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect. They don’t even want to negotiate… We have taken Jerusalem, the toughest part of the negotiation, off the table, but Israel, for that, would have had to pay more. But with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?”

Mahmoud Abbas’s reaction in the speech to the Central Council, “May your house be demolished,” expressed frustration. But it is only declarative, and the impression is that Abbas convened the Council so that he could vent his frustration and, in effect, thwart any practical decision. His frustration stems not only from Trump’s actions. His main problem is the Arab world – the Saudis, Egyptians, and Jordanians – who are fed up with the Palestinian question and want to remove it from the table in order to deal with the real strategic threat—which is Iran, not the Israeli occupation.

Mahmoud Abbas has additional troubles. He is facing an Arab front that is pressuring him to surrender, and he is also isolated at home. Despite his entreaties, Hamas declined to participate in the Central Council meeting, which overshadowed all efforts to close ranks and show solidarity on the Jerusalem issue. Moreover, attempts to reach a position paper acceptable to all factions of the PLO, especially those that do not include Hamas, have failed. Abbas is not interested in reaching any decision that would formally annul the Oslo Accords. The significance of such a move would be the dismantling of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which is a creation of the Oslo Accords. Abbas also wants to continue the security coordination with Israel, which is sacred to him. While he declares that Israel ceases to be committed to the Oslo Accords, he remains committed to them.

What is Abbas willing to do? He is prepared to continue the popular nonviolent resistance and send young Palestinians to demonstrate and be killed (in small numbers) in clashes with IDF soldiers. Of course, he is willing to continue negotiations with Hamas until the latter disarms and recognizes the PA’s authority in Gaza. He is determined to fight terrorism and continue a dialogue with the Israeli peace camp. On the political level, the plan is to work with hundreds of different international institutions in order to gain recognition of Palestine as a state. For Mahmoud Abbas, the PA is already a governing body of a state – without its own currency, without borders, without sovereignty – in fact a virtual state that exists by inertia.

But in response to Trump’s threats to stop aid to the Palestinians, a “senior Palestinian official” told the London-based newspaper Al-Hayat in a moment of impressive honesty: “The dismantling of the Palestinian Authority is not in an Israeli or American interest. In the event that the PA collapses, it will be Israel that will have to provide the services as an occupying power. Now the Palestinian Authority is receiving aid from Arab countries and the rest of the world in order to finance these services and if it collapses, Israel will face these problems alone. The dismantling of the PA will strengthen the aspiration for a one-state solution, and that is something no Israeli government wants.”

The current arrangement, the existence of a PA that provides services and security, that settles for a virtual state, and that is ready to keep the solution on the back burner indefinitely, plays into the hands of the Israeli Right. The Right can continue humming the tune, No partner. It is also great for the Israeli Left, which can continue humming the opposite tune, There is a partner. The consensus is that a one-state solution would be bad for all sides: Fatah in Ramallah, Hamas in Gaza, the Right in Jerusalem and the Left in Tel Aviv.

In his fiery speech, Mahmoud Abbas expressed anger at the Jews and Israel. According to him, “Colonialism created Israel to perform a certain function. It is a colonial project that has nothing to do with Judaism, but rather used the Jews as a tool under the slogan of the Promised Land.” On these things the Israeli Right will celebrate, saying: “We told you! The man is an anti-Semite.” And the Left, for its part, will weep over the fact that the Partner once again rips off the mask of being both “Jewish and democratic.” In the meantime, this ugly Occupation, which erodes every enlightened part of the Jews-only democracy, and preserves a military dictatorship in the occupied territories, will continue unabated.

An interesting point to be noted is that in his speech of anger toward Trump, Mahmoud Abbas found it necessary to confess that the Arab Spring is no more than a Winter that has brought disorder to the Middle East. Thus, Abbas joins many in the Arab world and certainly, in Israel as well. The reason is simple: the Arab Spring expressed young people’s desire for democracy and social justice. In light of the despair that prevails on the Palestinian street, the overwhelming majority of young Palestinians between the ages of 18 and 25 do not believe in a Palestinian state, and aspire to one state. This is the generation of the future. Like their brothers in the Arab world, young Palestinians understand very well the nature of the Palestinian Authority, which is like other Arab regimes they aim to overthrow. Netanyahu supports demonstrations in Iran, Mahmoud Abbas does not. Like all the Arab dictators, Abbas knows that what happens in Tehran may repeat itself in the West Bank.

* Translated from the Hebrew by Robert Goldman

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