A strategy for Israeli victory?

Professor Daniel Pipes, president of the Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum, is on a campaign to “let Israel win” the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; to create the conditions, particularly in Washington, for an “Israel victory approach.”

To this end, he initiated in April the establishment of a Congressional Israel Victory Caucus. Next week, a multi-party Knesset Israel Victory Caucus will be launched.

In the January issue of Commentary magazine, Pipes laid out his tough approach. He seeks to focus on the essence of the problem, which he says is Palestinian rejectionism. Pipes sees no possibility of a deal with current Palestinian leaders and no evidence of a Palestinian Peace Now movement developing. Instead, radical forces in Palestinian society are gaining strength, just as radical Islam is on the march across the region.

This leaves Israel with just one option to win Palestinian acceptance over the long term, Pipes argues: imposition of its will on the enemy, compelling Palestinians through loss to give up their war ambitions.

The Congressional Israel Victory Caucus, headed by Reps. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) and Bill Johnson (R-Ohio), would have Washington robustly support Israel’s path to victory. That translates into not just backing episodic Israeli shows of force, but a sustained and systematic international effort of working with Israel, select Arab states, and others to convince the Palestinians of the futility of their rejectionism.

This means undoing the Palestinian “refugee farce,” rejecting the claim of Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital, and cutting off U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority in response to terrorism and incitement, among other steps.

The veteran Pipes is one of the best analysts of Middle East politics, including the role of Islam in public life, Turkey, the Arab-Israeli conflict and U.S. foreign policy. I share his view of the sterile history of peace processing. And it is useful to have an initiative underway in Washington to build counterpressure against the inveterate, ideologically rigid, peace-processing policy elites.

However, his initiative appears to be at odds with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s current diplomatic position, which is to cooperate with U.S. President Donald Trump in launching a new round of negotiations with the Palestinians.

I can think of a few ways to square the circle by way of combining Pipes’ emphasis on forcing Palestinians to come to terms with Israel’s permanence and Netanyahu’s willingness to advance diplomatically.

Trump and Netanyahu should focus their attention on issues like immediate Palestinian refugee resettlement outside of Israel, and the sharing of prayer rights on the Temple Mount, and make those issues a priority when talks resume.

In peace process orthodoxy, these are classified as “final status” issues — problems so difficult that they can be addressed only after all the supposedly easier ones (like land and security) have been resolved.

But in fact, these issues go to the heart of the Palestinian rejectionism. Palestinian positions on these issues — demanding a right of refugee return to pre-1967 Israel, and insisting on Muslim-only prayer on the Temple Mount — amount to Palestinian insistence on achieving what is not negotiable: Israel’s disappearance.

So confronting these matters early and head-on would be a way of coercing the Palestinian ideological changes that Pipes correctly seeks. It would upend Palestinian delegitimization of Israel, and set diplomacy on a slightly more realistic path.