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https://warontherocks.com/2023/07/building-a-better-ceasefire-for-gaza/

BUILDING A BETTER CEASEFIRE FOR GAZA
JONATHAN LINCOLN JULY 12, 2023
COMMENTARYAbbas_Netanyahu

In 2005, after 38 years on the ground, Israel withdrew its settlers and
soldiers from Gaza in a move that many hoped would usher in a new era
for this small strip of Palestinian territory along the Mediterranean
Sea and possibly for Israeli-Palestinian peace. For a variety of
reasons, including missteps on both sides and attacks by Hamas and other
factions against Israel, Gaza descended into chaos. Two years later,
Hamas, an armed Palestinian group formally known as the Islamic
Resistance Movement and considered a terrorist organization by Israel,
the United States, and others, seized control and expelled the
Palestinian Authority’s security forces, who had controlled Gaza since
the Israeli withdrawal. The legacy of these two critical events is that
Gaza today is among the more physically, politically, and economically
isolated places on earth in addition to being among the most violent
flashpoints between Israel and the Palestinians.

But as much as Gaza represents some of the worst suffering of the
conflict, current political circumstances are actually ripe for
concluding what could be a game-changing, long-term ceasefire between
Israel and the de facto authority in Gaza, Hamas, supported by the
United States. These circumstances have emerged only now, as the Biden
administration has come to recognize that the pursuit of a peace process
is not currently feasible. Further, due to its recent push for
Israeli-Saudi normalization and the unprecedented collusion between
Israel and Hamas, there is an immediate and unique opportunity for the
United States to assert its leadership to more effectively reduce
tensions and violence in Gaza and the West Bank, help the Palestinian
Authority prepare for the post–President Mahmoud Abbas era, push Israel
to curtail provocations in Jerusalem and settlement expansion in the
West Bank, and advance the Abraham Accords, in turn thwarting Iranian
meddling on the ground.

BECOME A MEMBER

The good news is that there is a foundation to build on. For the past
five years, Israel and Hamas have engaged in an informal understanding,
mediated by Egypt, the United Nations, Qatar, and others, that has had
some success. The bad news is that the scope of the mediation is
limited. Without significant support from the international community
and leadership from the United States, it is unlikely to live up to its
potential and progress beyond periods of quiet, followed by violent
escalations. While pursuing such a long-term ceasefire may carry certain
risks, this is by no means a gambit or a shot in the dark. The
alternative is not a managed status quo, but an inevitable slide toward
a full system collapse in Gaza with increasingly violent and destructive
confrontations that could easily extend beyond Israel and Palestine.

Why Now?

Negotiations for a two-state solution have long faltered under the
weight of violence, political assassination, terrorism, settlement
expansion, and deep internal political divisions. For the first time
since 1993, the United States, at present, is not actively pursuing a
peace process between Israel and Palestine.

Today, Israel has its most right-wing government ever, and its domestic
judicial reform agenda has provoked the largest protests in the
country’s history. It has adopted policies akin to annexation of parts
of the occupied West Bank, and some of its members have stoked tensions
in East Jerusalem and in particular at the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount.
The Palestinian national movement, for its part, is in disarray amidst
an ever-widening political divide. Hamas has been the de facto ruler of
Gaza since 2007, whereas the Palestinian Authority, confined to a series
of unconnected areas in the West Bank, is unable to exert much influence
over the proliferation of armed factions across the West Bank. There has
not been a Palestinian election since the ill-fated 2006 poll that Hamas
won. The untenable power-sharing arrangements that resulted led to the
2007 confrontation in Gaza.

At the same time, the international framework charged with managing and
guiding the peace process, known as the Quartet and consisting of the
United States, Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations, has
all but disintegrated. While the Quartet’s influence was always limited,
it did serve as a vital coordination mechanism, linked to the U.N.
Security Council, that set parameters for international engagement. In
the absence of such a body, U.S. efforts to support Palestinian
livelihoods, reduce tensions, and broker Israeli integration into the
region appear piecemeal and have left partners in the European Union and
Arab world unsure of U.S. intentions. Finally, and despite the historic
achievement of the normalization agreements between Israel and several
Arab countries, the Abraham Accords have done nothing to advance
Israeli-Palestinian relations, nor have they helped to reduce tensions
and violence on the ground.

Yet despite reports of waning U.S. influence and accusations of a larger
U.S. retreat from the region, the United States is still the most
influential player when it comes to Israel and Palestine. A more
coherent approach that provides structure and guidance to partners in
Europe and the Arab world stands a greater chance of success. Working
with allies to strengthen the Gaza ceasefire toward a more long-term
arrangement is the best place to start.

Historic Relations between Israel and Hamas

Hamas grew to prominence in the 1990s as a result of its staunch
opposition to the Palestine Liberation Organization’s engagement with
Israel during the Oslo peace process and its support for terrorist
attacks against Israeli civilians. Such attacks earned Hamas a
designation by the U.S. State Department as a foreign terrorist
organization. The Hamas-Israeli relationship, defined for the most part
by violence, has had many different phases, but their interaction over
the past 18 years in Gaza has been the most consequential.

The violent expulsion of the Palestinian Authority’s security forces
from Gaza by Hamas in 2007 marked a low point in internal Palestinian
politics. It also marked a watershed moment for Israel. Now, the Israeli
government had to pursue different policies toward the West Bank and a
Gaza Strip ruled by a faction that openly espoused violence and refused
to recognize Israel’s existence. The confrontations that followed
included Hamas’ firing of rockets at Israel as well as toward towns and
villages adjacent to Gaza’s boundary. Israel responded with airstrikes
and artillery fire and limited incursions of ground forces. These
confrontations, coupled with a debilitating Israeli closure regime on
Gaza, created a dire humanitarian crisis.

Tensions flared again between Israel and Hamas during the summer of
2014, culminating in some of the deadliest fighting in the history of
the conflict. The results were terrifying in terms of the lives lost and
damage on the ground and forced dramatic shifts in strategy for both
Israel and Hamas. Thousands of Palestinians (more than half of them
civilians) and dozens of Israelis were killed, and some $1.4 billion in
damage was inflicted by Israel on Gaza’s civilian infrastructure. It
took this confrontation and its aftermath for Israel to realize that
completely undermining Hamas’ ability to govern Gaza would not only risk
further conflict, but also leave a vacuum that could be exploited by
more radical and unpredictable forces. For Hamas, if it wanted to rule
over more than just a heap of rubble, it needed to at least curtail its
use of violence and start paying more attention to service delivery and
economic growth. Despite the deep enmity between the two sides, the need
to facilitate a massive, internationally funded reconstruction effort
for Gaza in the wake of the conflict created grounds for a new phase for
the relationship between Hamas and Israel.

Another critical factor in this conflict continues to be the posture of
the Palestinian Authority toward Hamas and Gaza. In response to Hamas’
consolidation of political control in 2017 and 2018, the Palestinian
Authority made a fateful decision to withdraw subsidies on fuel for
Gaza’s power plant, reduce salary payments, and remove some of its
civilian personnel at the crossings with Israel and Egypt. These moves,
intended to put pressure on Hamas, also exacerbated humanitarian
conditions and increased the risk of renewed violence with Israel. To
prevent an escalation, Israel and Hamas accepted proposals from Egypt
and the United Nations, supported by Qatar, for an informal
understanding whereby Hamas would stand down its rockets in exchange for
increased internationally funded and Israeli-facilitated assistance. The
U.N. Special Coordinator’s Office set about implementing several
elements of this primarily Qatari-funded package to generate temporary
employment, support critical infrastructure and increase electricity
supply by at least 10 hours per day through the provision of additional
diesel fuel for the power plant. This remains the basis for the
ceasefire regimes that inevitably follow each round of escalation. While
there have been confrontations since, including a significant round in
May 2021, none has even come close to the levels of destruction from 2014.