After Gaza

Peloni: There is a great deal to be garnered from this conversation, which includes good ideas, bad suggestions, and great dilemmas, all of which face Israel as it approaches the Day After Gaza.

A Tablet roundtable about the challenges facing Israel in Gaza, Lebanon, and Washington, with Elliott Abrams, Jeremy Ben-Ami, Amiad Cohen, Michael Doran, Jon Greenwald, and Lee Smith

by Tony Badran | Tablet | May 08, 2024

Israel had barely begun its military operation in Gaza, after Hamas slaughtered 1,200 people and kidnapped 240 more, when the Biden administration began talking about what would need to happen the day after the war was over. “There has to be a vision of what comes next,” President Biden said on Oct. 25, 2023.

Subsequently, the term “the Day After” was everywhere. In part, it was a device used to cast doubt on the Israeli military operation altogether, presenting it as an emotional response born of trauma and driven by a desire for vengeance—base instincts that can be tolerated only for so long. Sure, smashing things might bring immediate, short-term gratification, but what’s the plan for “the Day After”?

Administration officials leaked how they were “frustrated by Netanyahu’s unwillingness to seriously discuss plans for the day after.” What comes next, the president said on Oct. 25, “has to be a two-state solution.” That is, once Israel got its quest for blood out of its system, it needed to sit down and get with the plan—the underlying assumption being that Israel is responsible for (or at least capable of meaningfully shaping) Palestinian behavior. Clearly, the problem with Israel’s pre-Oct. 7 policy toward Gaza was that Benjamin Netanyahu needed to let more Qatari money and Iranian weapons into the Strip. Only by granting Hamas a state with full control over its borders and diplomatic relations with the European Union could future large terror attacks be prevented.

Needless to say, there is something completely insane about holding the victims of a horrific large-scale murder rampage responsible for the future happiness of their attackers. On the other hand, surely you don’t want this to happen again, do you?

To flesh out what could or should come next for Israel and the Palestinians, I have asked a group of accomplished colleagues to weigh in on some questions. Each one of these experts brings important perspectives. I think you’ll find their views, as well as their disagreements, illuminating.

Elliott Abrams, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the chairman of the Vandenberg Coalition

Jeremy Ben-Ami, founder and president of J Street

Amiad Cohen, CEO of Herut Center and publisher of the Hebrew-language intellectual journal Hashiloach

Michael Doran, director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East and senior fellow at Hudson Institute

Jon Greenwald, former vice president of the International Crisis Group who also served for 30 years as an American diplomat

Lee Smith, author and regular Tablet contributor

Tony Badran: What should “the Day After” look like in Gaza? What do you think it will actually look like?

Elliott Abrams: A group mostly consisting of former colleagues from the George W. Bush administration, myself included, has published a report called “The Day After: A Plan for Gaza.” We call for an International Trust for Gaza Relief and Reconstruction. The trust would be led by countries committed to a peaceful, demilitarized, deradicalized Gaza, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States. It would marshal relief and reconstruction funds; coordinate with Gazans in the diaspora and in Gaza who can help the common goals; work with Israel; and work with nations, international organizations, and NGOs committed to the same goals.

Security is perhaps the toughest problem in postwar Gaza. We suggest a combination of efforts: some existing, vetted non-Hamas Gaza police personnel; new police trained by the United States at our Jordan International Police Training Center; forces from Arab countries that are establishing refugee camps, tent cities, or the like in Gaza and might be willing to protect what they’re building; and private security companies to protect food convoys, warehouses, housing areas, and other important locations. It may also be possible to give local civic and business groups or clans some security responsibilities if they have or can create the capacity to keep the peace locally.

Hamas and Iran will continue to foment and undertake acts of terrorism in Gaza to the extent they can, and Israel will need to be able to enter Gaza whenever required to fight terrorism and destroy Hamas remnants.

Now, is all of this likely? It’s conceivable, but continuing Hamas terrorism and criminal violence, continuing IDF activity, and a shortage of nations willing to help in any serious way suggest that it is not a good bet. It would help enormously if the United States marshaled the positive forces, but that will be a largely thankless and very difficult task. If I were betting, I’d place my wager on chaos, hardship, controversy, and a long struggle against the terrorist remnants of Hamas.

Jeremy Ben-Ami: Like all wars, the horrific Israel-Hamas conflict will end. Like many, it will probably not be with a surrender or peace agreement between the combatants. It is nearly certain that the aggressor, Hamas, will have lost its governmental capacity in Gaza but will likely be alive and well as a political and insurgent force.

Understanding the 2023 to 2024 Gaza tragedy demands placing it in the context of a century of a larger, often-violent dispute between Jews and Palestinians. The massacres committed by Hamas on Oct. 7, the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza resulting from the war’s subsequent conduct, the looming threat of new regional fronts, the disruption in the United States and Europe of civil relationships and domestic political loyalties—including the abhorrent rise of antisemitism and Islamophobia—make clear that minimalist efforts to achieve Middle East security by working around the Palestinian question have failed.

President Biden began the search for a more ambitious approach shortly after Oct. 7 while underscoring his support for a path forward that would ultimately provide for an independent Palestinian state beside Israel. But more is needed.

Ideally, by the time the fighting ends, the U.N. Security Council and/or the Arab League will have supplemented that initiative with implementation parameters; the Palestinian Authority (PA) will have made progress on reforms needed to reclaim its legitimacy; and a coalition will have been formed of states prepared to do heavy lifting in Gaza. That coalition will need to promptly take on administrative and security responsibilities, invite the PA to move relatively quickly into Gaza, support it as it gradually assumes more responsibility there, and commit to a Marshall Plan-like effort to rebuild Gaza, invest in the West Bank, and assist reconstruction of Israel’s damaged southern and northern border areas. Regional Arab states should be persuaded to form the coalition’s core for Gaza management, while the United States and Europe should join them in the Marshall Plan-like exercise.

Unfortunately, the Biden administration is already stretched dealing with immediate issues, which suggests that key elements may not be ready when the shooting dies down.

If so, there is a risk that important matters such as administrative responsibility for Gaza; PA preparations; international parameters; and, above all, structuring the environment so as to minimize Israeli interest in retaining close responsibility for Gaza and maximize incentives to choose engagement with the international community on the way forward will be handled day-to-day and ad hoc. This would make it more likely that cautious crisis management, not bold resolution, will predominate.

Michael Doran: The day after what? Obviously, we are discussing the day after the war ends, but what exactly is the nature of this war? Who are the belligerents? What are they fighting over? What constitutes victory? And how will we ever know that the conflict has ended and that, indeed, we have arrived at “the Day After”?

These questions don’t have clear-cut answers. From the outset, the Biden administration has presented the conflict as a Palestinian-Israeli war, but that framing is objectively false. Because Iran and its proxies are clearly a party to this war, one might be tempted to say it is an Iranian-Israeli war. Tehran-backed forces, however, have repeatedly hit American targets. Properly understood, the Iranian-led Resistance Axis is making war against the U.S.-led regional order.

Only when Iran is defeated, therefore, do we arrive at “the Day After.” Until that time comes, the question that should be at the forefront of our minds is whether the diplomatic initiatives that Washington is taking are likely to foil Iran’s plans.

All the talk that the Biden administration has generated about “the Day After” fails to perform that service. Just weeks after Oct. 7, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a Senate hearing that the most sensible political goal of the war “would be for an effective and revitalized Palestinian Authority to have governance and ultimately security responsibility for Gaza.”

First, there is no such thing as an “effective” Palestinian Authority. The Biden administration is trying to organize a cavalry charge while mounted on a donkey. Second, the donkey is unwelcome in Gaza. Hamas emasculated the Palestinian Authority a decade and a half ago, and there is no sign that the Gazans are eager to “revitalize” it. Finally, and most important, the effort to resurrect the failed two-state solution sets the United States at odds with the Israelis—all Israelis. From the center-left to the far-right, voters reject the idea of a reformed Palestinian Authority taking control of Gaza. No major party endorses the plan.

The Biden administration is also helping, with its voice, to advance the objectives of Iranian political warfare. By sparking “the Day After” debate, Washington is doing Tehran’s work for it, creating the impression, globally, that the issue of Palestinian sovereignty is the core problem to be solved and that, moreover, the Israelis are the primary impediment to the achievement of that sovereignty.

We would be much wiser to talk about what we need to see on the day before “the Day After”—namely, the total demise of Hamas. Let’s postpone all talk of a new political order until the hard military work is done.

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