Sanders, Warren write to Biden with ‘serious concern’ about Israel’s invasion of Gaza

Miranda Nazzaro
Wed, November 1, 2023 

Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), joined by other Democratic senators, sent a letter to President Biden on Tuesday with a “serious concern” about Israel’s invasion and potential occupation of Gaza amidst the country’s war with the militant group Hamas.

While reiterating support of Israel’s right to defend itself following Hamas’s bloody assault on Oct. 7 that killed over 1,400 people in Israel, the senators expressed concerns over the “likely humanitarian toll,” and the “political reality” that could be left in the wake of a large-scale ground invasion by Israeli forces.

The letter, penned by Sanders, Warren and Sens. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), included several questions regarding the U.S. government’s stance on the human toll of an invasion and occupation of Gaza along with what humanitarian aid would look like for civilians in the besieged territory.

Israel has since responded to Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre with a bombardment of Hamas-ruled Gaza, including hundreds of airstrikes, bombings and most recently an uptick in attacks against Hamas militants and infrastructure north of Gaza City. Hamas is recognized as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and several other countries.

At least 8,525 Palestinians have died in the violence in Gaza, with over 21,500 civilians wounded, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.

Sanders has led efforts in the Senate for Israel to minimize and reduce civilian casualties in Gaza. Last week, he warned on the floor that “revenge… is not a useful policy.”

Israel warned more than 1 million Palestinian civilians in northern Gaza to move south in recent weeks, ahead of a wider ground incursion into the territory. While some have fled, several hundred thousand Palestinians remain in northern Gaza.

“Israel’s proposed invasion will likely bring difficult, street-by-street fighting against entrenched Hamas fighters in a dense urban environment still populated by many civilians,” the letter wrote. “Hamas will continue to use human shields and its extensive tunnel network, and will likely resort to insurgent tactics.”

The senators pointed to a piece from two academics who argued Israel’s reoccupation of Gaza will not end the conflict but rather risk a guerrilla war with civilians who see Israeli leaders as their enemy.

The senators pressed the Biden administration over how long it could take to establish military control of Gaza, how much “insurgent activity” it expects after that point and how the operation’s success will be measured.

The senators also expressed concerns about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which has been further driven by Israel’s siege on food, water, medicine and fuel. While some aid has been allowed to pass into the territory, humanitarian leaders have warned it’s not nearly enough to assist the hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians and hospitals on the brink of collapse.

The letter asked how many civilians will receive humanitarian aid and how the U.S.’s funding will help mitigate the crisis, along with how the administration expects the international community to address the human needs in Gaza and the rest of Palestine once the violence stops.

“Just a few months ago, thousands of people defied Hamas’ authoritarian rule to protest on the streets of Gaza,” the letter wrote. “Their voices are silenced now, but there can be no long-term solution to this ongoing crisis without a serious effort to address Palestinian demands for peace, legitimate political representation, and a vibrant economy. The United States must take a leading role in charting out a future that respects the lives of Palestinians and Israelis alike.”

The senators’ letter comes amid the ongoing debate over the Biden administration’s $105 billion emergency funding request to Congress that allocated aid for Israel, Ukraine, security operations at the U.S.-Mexico border and allies in the Indo-Pacific.

Newly elected Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and House Republicans unveiled a $14.3 billion aid package earlier this week that covers just Israel aid while cutting the same amount from IRS funding.

The Senate GOP is divided on the House GOP’s Israel-only proposal as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his allies push for both Israel and Ukraine funding together and others remain opposed to further Ukraine aid.

The White House said Tuesday Biden would veto the House GOP’s proposal in its current form.

The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.

GOP lawmaker compares ‘innocent Palestinian civilians’ to Nazis

Graeme Massie
Wed, November 1, 2023 


A Republican lawmaker has come under fire for comparing “innocent Palestinian civilians” to Nazis.

Rep Brian Mast of Florida made the inflammatory comment in the House as he tried to slow down humanitarian aid to Gaza with a bill that would impose sanctions on foreign support from militant groups like Hamas.

“I think when we look at this, as a whole, I would encourage the other side to not so lightly throw around the idea of innocent Palestinian civilians, as is frequently said,” Mr Mast said.

“I don’t think we would so lightly throw around the term ‘innocent Nazi civilians’ during World War II.”

More than 8,000 Palestinians, including at least 3,600 children, are believed to have been killed in the enclave since Israel launched retaliatory strikes earlier this month.

Hamas militants killed more than 1,400 people in Israel and took hundreds of hostages in the bloody attacks launched from Gaza on 7 October.

Mr Mast’s comments received a quick backlash from Democrats and civil rights groups.

“Racist and bigoted comments like this are why 6-year-old Palestinian-American Wadea Al Fayoume was murdered by being stabbed 26 times. Disgusting and disgraceful,” tweeted Rep Maxwell Frost, a Democrat from Florida.

Brian Shatz, the US Senator from Hawaii, said: “This is an incredible reckless, racist thing to say. No one should talk like this.”

MSNBC host Medhi Hasan slammed the politician for his comments.

“There are dead bodies, including dead kids’ bodies, still being pulled out of the rubble of the Jabaliya refugee camp and this Republican congressman is suggesting there are no ‘innocent Palestinian civilians’ and comparing ordinary Gazans to Nazis. For shame,” he tweeted.

His denouncement was joined by criticism from IfNotNow, a Jewish American group that wants “to end US support for Israel’s apartheid system.”

The group tweeted that Mr Mast’s comments were a “dangerous, wrong and a craven attempt to justify more bombings & more killings.”

“Every member of Congress should be condemning this vile rhetoric & taking action,” the group stated. “Demanding a ceasefire has never been more urgent.”

Opinion

US has an obligation to save lives. We need to de-escalate Israel-Hamas war. 

Dan Kildee
Updated Thu, November 2, 2023 

I am struggling to make sense of the recent violence in Israel and Palestine, as a citizen, an elected official, and simply as a father and human being. It is painful to witness thousands of innocent lives, many of them women and children, tragically cut short. We must empathize with the pain felt by everyone — Israelis, Palestinians and Americans with deep personal connections to the region.

Heinous terrorist attacks by Hamas against Israel took the lives of 1,400 people and injured 3,000, according to Israeli officials. Over 200 hostages, including American citizens, are still being held captive, and must be released. Over 8,000 Palestinians have died in recent weeks, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. While some have disputed these precise numbers from a Hamas-run organization, there is no dispute that thousands of innocent civilians have died.

I am gravely concerned with the growing loss of human life in the Middle East, and the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza. An immediate humanitarian pause in hostilities, on all sides, is necessary to secure the safe return of hostages, prevent further loss of life and allow the delivery of lifesaving aid to innocent civilians.

A picture taken from Israel's southern city of Sderot shows smoke rising during Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip on Oct. 31, 2023.

Israeli military air strikes have already killed thousands of innocent civilians and displaced over a million people in Gaza. And with each passing day, the death toll rises. Hundreds of thousands more lives are now at imminent risk with the ongoing Israeli ground invasion of Gaza, which will also make delivering humanitarian aid more difficult.

Israel’s security and its right to respond to attacks, however, are not incompatible with a commitment to the humanitarian needs of the innocent people of Gaza. Every single human life is precious, and civilians are the victims in this conflict.

We must speak up and the killing of civilians must stop, no matter their faith, ethnicity or nationality. Period.

Jewish people feel familiar fear: What I need to hear as a proud but traumatized Jew | Opinion
Gaza needs humanitarian aid. US can help.

The U.S. and the world must do more to rush humanitarian aid into Gaza to help innocent civilians. While I support President Joe Biden’s diplomatic efforts to open new humanitarian aid corridors through Egypt, the current amount and pace of aid is wholly insufficient. Twenty-six aid trucks were allowed to enter Gaza on Monday, but the World Food Programme estimates that 465 trucks are needed each day to support civilians with their most basic needs.

We must work quickly to surge deliveries of food, water, and energy to ensure that innocent civilians have the life-saving essentials they need to survive. Depriving millions of Palestinian civilians — half of whom are children — of these necessities is a violation of international law.

People walk through the ruins of buildings in Gaza destroyed by Israeli airstrikes on the 17th day of the war between Israel and Palestine on October 23, 2023.

Additionally, expecting 1 million people—more than the populations of Detroit, Flint, Sterling Heights, Dearborn and Ann Arbor combined—to leave their homes in northern Gaza within 24 hours, as Israel has demanded, is unrealistic, and an impossible task. While hundreds of thousands have fled south for safety, Israel has continued to bomb targets in southern Gaza, too. Gaza has been subject to a blockade by Israel and Egypt for decades, not only of food, water and energy, but the free movement of people. We must recognize that civilians in Gaza have nowhere else to go to protect themselves and their families.
Hamas does not represent Palestinians

As Israel goes after Hamas, we must recognize that Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people. Israel must abide by international law and seek to avoid, to every extent possible, the death or suffering of civilians. Indiscriminate airstrikes will result in more civilian deaths, worsen an already dire humanitarian crisis, and further endanger the hopes of peace in the region — as elusive as that peace may seem at the moment.

Do people see Palestinians? I almost gave up hope people will see humanity in Palestinians | Opinion

American leadership in the world has always been important, but especially in times of conflict. The U.S. has an obligation to help de-escalate this tragic conflict and save lives. We must also work to prevent a broader regional conflict that would threaten America’s national security.

Ultimately, there is not a military solution to this decades-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. More violence and bombing, from either side, will not result in peace and stability. The only way to achieve peace is a two-state solution. Israel has a right to exist, and the Palestinian people have a right to dignity and self-determination. I understand how difficult a two-state solution appears now, especially in the fog of war. But as difficult as it seems, we cannot give up. The long view of history will judge our actions in the coming weeks and months. Let us all work to safeguard every human life and to seek peace.

U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint Township, says the need for humanitarian aid in Gaza is great.

In such extraordinarily difficult times, when passion and fear run deep, it is even more important to remember and lead with our values, including respect for life. We must continue to speak out and actively oppose hate speech and actions in all its forms, including antisemitism and Islamophobia. And as an elected official, I will continue to use my position to speak in support of human life and work toward peace — in the U.S., Israel, Palestine and around the world.

Dan Kildee, a Flint Democrat, represents Michigan's 8th District in the U.S. House of Representatives. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Hamas is not Palestine. US must help Gaza get aid it desperately needs

Palestinian American family mourns 42 relatives killed in a single day in Gaza

Isabel Rosales
Updated Wed, November 1, 2023 

Thousands of miles away from the brutality of war in Gaza, Tariq Hamouda and his wife Manal are in disbelief over the loss of three generations of their family.

The Palestinian Americans, who live in Maple Grove, Minnesota, say it’s been over a week since they learned 42 relatives were killed in the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, and they’re still unable to fully comprehend the news.

Hamouda says his wife, whose maiden name is Saqallah, lost four brothers, a sister and most of their children when two explosions destroyed the Saqallah family compound on October 19 in the Sheikh Ejleen neighborhood of Gaza City.


Hamouda and the family say it was an Israeli airstrike. Israel has launched numerous airstrikes on Gaza City since October 7, including multiple strikes in the area that day.

CNN cannot independently confirm that it was an Israeli strike. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it could not comment without coordinates of the house. The family declined to provide CNN with the coordinates for fear of reprisal.

A video shot by a neighbor and provided to CNN shows what is left of the family compound; charred ruins and rubble, of what relatives say used to be three buildings, now surrounded by virtually untouched homes in the residential area.

A screengrab taken from video shows ruins of the Saqallah family compound after the blast on October 19. - Courtesy Tariq Hamouda

“Up until last night, she is still denying [what happened],” Hamouda told CNN on Thursday, referring to Manal. But the grief being felt in their Midwestern home is very real.

“She loves every member of her family. She spent the summer with them,” explained Hamouda, who says he and his wife are originally from the same neighborhood in Gaza but have lived in Minnesota since 2004.

There has been fear and numerous conflicts between Israel and militant groups in Gaza since then, but nothing like this, he says.

A view of the Saqallah family compound before the strike. - Courtesy Tariq Hamouda

Israel declared war on Hamas on October 7, after the militant group broke through the barrier that separates Gaza from Israel and killed more than 1,400 people, including civilians and military personnel, and abducted over 220 others, according to Israeli authorities.

In response, Israel launched devastating airstrikes on Gaza. It says it wants to destroy Hamas, which governs the coastal territory. But 2.2 million Palestinians living there, unable to escape with closed Israeli and Egyptian border crossings, are caught in the crossfire.

Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 8,485 Palestinians and injured more than 21,000 others, according to the latest figures released by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, drawn from sources in the Hamas-controlled enclave. Another 1.4 million people have been internally displaced, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says, after the IDF warned residents in northern Gaza to move south.

But Hamouda doesn’t have time to properly mourn the dead, he says, as he is still worried about what will happen to those who’ve so far survived.

‘Your whole world stops’

In South Florida, Manal’s cousin Eyad Abu Shaban is equally distraught. “It’s like your whole world stops,” he said.

“It’s not one, two, three, or four – it is 42 members, it’s really hard to cope with.”

Abu Shaban says the deceased range in age from three months to 77. They were all staying in a single compound. His uncle, Essam Abu Shaban, wife Layla Saqallah and their son Ahmed were among those killed. To avoid Israeli airstrikes, they had evacuated the nearby Tel El Hawa neighborhood and sought refuge in the Saqallah’s home, Abu Shaban says.

Before the airstrikes, the IDF called to say there could be military activity in the area, but they were never told to evacuate their home, Hamouda says surviving family members told him.

“They have bombed houses with warnings and without warnings,” he said, lamenting there is a lot of fear, confusion and nowhere to go.

His mother-in-law was on a balcony when the first strike hit, Hamouda says. She was able to flee with the help of a relative who also survived.

A second strike completely destroyed the compound, killing dozens of relatives, he says.

A video shot by surviving family members and provided to CNN shows the numerous bodies – wrapped in white burial shrouds – being placed into a mass grave.

“My mother-in-law said her sons tried to evacuate, but they had no time,” Hamouda said, adding that his family was not involved in militant activity and that they “had nothing to do with anything at all.”

Abu Shaban, a Boca Raton real estate developer, said the family were only civilians, and counted numerous medical professionals among them.

From left, Doctors Omar Saqallah, Saed Saqallah and Ameed Saqallah were among the 42 relatives killed on October 19. - Courtesy Tariq Hamouda

Of Manal’s four brothers – Saed, Omar, Ameed and Khorsheed – three were eye doctors; the other was an ENT doctor. Hamouda says they operated Gaza’s largest network of family-owned eye clinics.

“We have no Hamas members [in our family]. They’re just ordinary people: doctors and grandmothers and grandfathers and uncles and aunts and children,” Abu Shaban said.

“I mean, if you want to exterminate Hamas then you should go to the source.”
Pleading for a ceasefire

The Maple Grove community has since rallied around the Hamouda family, showering them with love and support.

Community members visited the nearby Brooklyn Park Islamic Center last week to pray for the family. A staff member from Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s Minnesota office even called to offer condolences and extend an offer of assistance, Hamouda says.

But all Hamouda and Abu Shaban want is for the killing to stop.

“We’ve never seen in this day and age where the whole world is watching innocent people just being torn apart. Families, whole families, just wiped off the map,” Abu Shaban said.

“I want everybody to know that the people of Gaza are just like them, they hurt, they bleed, they have families, they have feelings.”

Photos and videos of the conflict flooding social media are too much to bear, he says.

Activists, human rights groups and international officials have all called for a ceasefire, but the war rages on, and has witnessed a new phase of dangerous ground operations.

Until the killing stops, Abu Shaban says his family still reels: “I’m still in this nightmare. I haven’t woken up yet.”

CNN’s Yahya Abou-Ghazala, Ivana Kottasova, Ben Wedeman, Akanksha Sharma and Tamar Michaelis contributed to this report.




Why the Israel-Hamas 'ceasefire' debate is so divisive


Andrew Romano
·West Coast Correspondent
Thu, November 2, 2023 

“The 360” shows you diverse perspectives on the day’s top stories and debates.

Photo Illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Jacquelyn Marin/Pool/AFP via Getty Images, Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images, Getty Images (1).
What’s happening

As the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza escalates — with relentless Israeli airstrikes claiming the lives of more than 8,800 people there, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry — so too have calls for a ceasefire, both in the U.S. and abroad.

The calls for a ceasefire

Bombing “is not going to bring the hostages back safely,” Rep. Delia Ramirez, a Democrat from Illinois and one of 12 House progressives who recently signed a “Ceasefire Now” resolution, explained earlier this week. “The only way we are going to get to long-lasting peace is a ceasefire — is deescalating and using diplomacy.”


Global protests have echoed that message, as have humanitarian groups such as Amnesty International and Doctors Without Borders. A nonbinding resolution demanding an immediate and “sustained humanitarian truce” in Gaza overwhelmingly passed the United Nations General Assembly on Friday.
The arguments against a ceasefire

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has unequivocally rejected calls for a ceasefire as his forces push deeper into Gaza as part of an expanded ground operation to eliminate Hamas after the militant group’s brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israel that left more than 1,400 people dead.


Hamas also seized hundreds of hostages in the assault and has so far refused to release the vast majority of them.


“Just as the United States would not agree to a ceasefire after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, or after the terrorist attack of 9/11, Israel will not agree to a cessation of hostilities with Hamas after the horrific attacks of Oct. 7,” Netanyahu said Monday. “Calls for a ceasefire are calls for Israel to surrender to Hamas, to surrender to terrorism, to surrender to barbarism. ... Israel will stand against the forces of barbarism until victory.”

Why there’s debate

Amid an Israeli siege, fuel, food, water, electricity and medical supplies continue to dwindle in Gaza, dramatically worsening conditions in an impoverished enclave that human rights organizations have long described as an “open-air prison.”


Israeli airstrikes continue as well, hitting apartment buildings in Gaza’s largest refugee camp Wednesday for the second day in a row, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run government. The Israel Defense Forces said its strikes killed a top Hamas commander there Tuesday.


Proponents of a ceasefire argue that a formal commitment to end the fighting — with an eye toward a permanent political resolution — is the only way to adequately minimize civilian suffering and escape the region’s endless cycle of violence.


Ceasefire opponents, however, say that cycle will continue as long as Hamas, which strategically embeds itself in civilian areas and aspires to eradicate Israel and its Jewish population altogether, remains in control of Gaza — and that the only way to stop the bloodshed is by eliminating Hamas’s leaders and military capabilities.


Seeking to strike some sort of balance, the Biden administration — which has repeatedly emphasized Israel’s right to defend itself — has said that it opposes a full ceasefire but is now prepared to back “temporary localized humanitarian pauses to allow aid to get to specific populations and maybe even to help with the evacuation of people that want to get out,” as National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby put it Monday.

What’s next

Given the U.S. and Israeli positions, a traditional ceasefire seems unlikely anytime soon. But as protests continue and civilian casualties mount, political pressure will build for some sort of restraint.


“Food, water, medicine [and] other essential humanitarian assistance resilience must be able to flow into Gaza,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday. “Civilians must be able to stay out of harm’s way, a task that’s made even more difficult as Hamas uses civilians as human shields, and humanitarian pauses must be considered.”
Perspectives

The answer to violence is not more violence

“Civilians — wherever they are — must be protected equally. Gaza’s civilians did not choose this war. Atrocities should not be followed by more atrocities. The response to war crimes is not more war crimes.” — Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees, the Guardian

As long as Hamas remains in power, the violence will continue

“I don’t see how the cycle of hatred, killing, and suffering ends while there is a fundamentalist terrorist organization explicitly dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews — read its 1988 founding charter; the message is not subtle — equipped with legions of fighters ready to kill and die to achieve its goals, an arsenal of missiles, and a powerful state sponsor, Iran, that enables its violence and shares its explicitly genocidal agenda.” — Ned Lazarus, international affairs professor at George Washington University, the Atlantic

The Israeli people will not accept a ceasefire at this point

“It seems like the big demand from a lot of people who are critics of Israel is just, ‘You should have a cease-fire. They should stop doing what they’re currently doing.’ [But] Israelis of all stripes have unified around a need to do something ... really, really dramatic about the Hamas threat. … An expert on Israeli politics told me this point blank: ‘No ceasefire and no return to the status quo. Something needs to change.’” — Zack Beauchamp of Vox, in conversation with Ezra Klein, New York Times

A ceasefire ‘would mean Hamas would win’ — and nothing would change

“At present, [Hamas’s] military infrastructure still exists, its leadership remains largely intact, and its political control of Gaza is unchallenged. As Hamas did after conflicts with Israel in 2009, 2012, 2014 and 2021, the group will almost certainly rearm and restore. It will be able to add to its system of tunnels running under the enclave. The strip will remain impoverished, and the next round of war will be inevitable, holding both Gazan civilians and much of the rest of the Middle East hostage to Hamas’s aims.” — Dennis Ross, former U.S. envoy to the Middle East, New York Times

Both sides should ‘pause’ — to free hostages, protect civilians and rethink their approaches to the war

“Israel should keep the door open for a humanitarian cease-fire and prisoner exchange that will also allow Israel to pause and reflect on exactly where it is going with its rushed Gaza military operation — and the price it could pay over the long haul. ... A pause could also allow the people of Gaza to take stock of what Hamas’s attack on Israel — and Israel’s totally predictable response — has done to their lives, families, homes and businesses. ... Hamas has gotten way too much understanding and not enough hard questions.” — Thomas Friedman, New York Times

A ‘humanitarian pause’ will only facilitate more fighting, not peace

“Generally, cease-fires aren’t simply about ceasing fighting, but about advancing or serving as a part of a broader political process — dialogue and negotiation, in other words, ideally leading to a long-term political settlement. Humanitarian pauses are not. A cease-fire is the only one of these two options that has the potential to produce a peaceful, nonviolent solution to the current conflict, because it’s the only one that treats such a solution as an actual goal. ... Cease-fires exist to facilitate dialogue and eventual peace; humanitarian pauses exist to facilitate continued fighting.” — Branko Marcetic, Jacobin

A ceasefire is fine — if Hamas surrenders

“Those who are demanding a ceasefire should aim their demands at Hamas. There can be a ceasefire the moment Hamas releases all its hostages and agrees to disarm by turning over all of its weapons to the United Nations or the government of Egypt. However, doing so would mean putting the wellbeing of the Palestinian people over Hamas’ genocidal ambitions — a fundamental rejection of Hamas’ entire purpose.” — Rep. Brad Sherman, California Democrat, Newsweek

What is the path to peace in Gaza?

Andrew Romano
·West Coast Correspondent
October 25, 2023

Photo Illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Getty Images [2]

“The 360” shows you diverse perspectives on the day’s top stories and debates.
What’s happening

Ever since Hamas brutally attacked Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,400 people and taking more than 200 hostage, Prime Minister Benjamin Netayahu’s right-wing government has vowed to launch a large-scale ground offensive in the Gaza Strip and destroy the militant group once and for all.

But as the days have passed with no invasion — and as unbridled Israeli airstrikes have leveled large swaths of Gaza, killing at least 5,700, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry — experts, observers and even U.S. officials have started to question whether Israel has a workable plan for the “day after” it eliminates Hamas (assuming it can even accomplish that goal).

“The Biden administration is concerned that Israel lacks achievable military objectives in Gaza, and that the Israel Defense Forces are not yet ready to launch a ground invasion with a plan that can work,” the New York Times reported Monday.

In response, the U.S. has sent a Marine three-star general and several other U.S. military officers to Israel to help advise its military leadership — while also urging Israel to delay its ground offensive until hostage negotiations can play out.

Israeli forces will almost certainly invade Gaza. But the consensus is that how Israel fights Hamas — by minimizing or maximizing civilian casualties? by considering the future of the Palestinian people as well as its own? — will set the stage for what comes next.

Is peace a possibility, or will war engulf the entire region?

Why there’s debate

Over the last 75 years, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has proven to be perhaps the world’s most intractable and combustible problem. Given the current level of hostilities — and Israel’s increasingly hard-line internal politics — a lasting resolution has rarely seemed more remote.

Yet as David Ignatius, a longtime foreign-affairs reporter and columnist at the Washington Post, recently explained, wars in the Middle East tend to “open new opportunities for peace.”

“That was true with the 1973 war, which produced [Egyptian President Anwar] Sadat’s trip to Jerusalem and eventually the Camp David Peace Agreement between Egypt and Israel,” Ignatius wrote. “The First Intifada produced [the] Oslo [Accords] and the Palestinian Authority. This war will produce openings, too, if Israel and the Arabs are wise enough to see and pursue them.”

The question is what Israel — and allies such as the United States — must do today to pave the way for such opportunities later.

A cease-fire is unlikely, at least before Hamas releases its hostages. But most experts agree that Israel’s current trajectory — “Obliterating Hamas capabilities” at all costs, as Israel's ambassador to the United Nations put it last week, without “thinking now what will happen the day after the war” — risks maximizing Palestinian deaths.

Such an approach could also mire Israeli forces in Gaza for the foreseeable future, triggering outrage in the wider Arab world and drawing Iran and Iranian-backed militant groups such as Hezbollah into the conflict.

So is there a different path — a path that might aim to alleviate rather than intensify the region’s endless cycle of violence? And if so, can Israel be convinced to pursue it?
What’s next

Publicly, President Biden has spent the last few weeks emphasizing America’s unstinting support for the Jewish state. But behind the scenes his administration has successfully pressured Netanyahu to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, and there are signs that the U.S. is using the hours before Israel’s seemingly inevitable invasion to steer its hawkish government toward a more far-sighted course of action.

“As hard as it is, we cannot give up on peace. We cannot give up on a two-state solution,” Biden posted Monday on X, the platform previously known as Twitter, referring to the diplomatic plan that envisions an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. “Israelis and Palestinians equally deserve to live in safety, dignity, and peace.”
Perspectives

Eliminate Hamas now; diplomacy can come later.

“At this moment, Israel’s imperative is not to stall, but to conclude. To see this through, it must dismantle the roots of this recurrent cycle of violence, which are embedded deep within the toxic ideology of Hamas. Once Hamas and its violent brand of nationalism are defeated, the two-state solution, and the prospect of a lasting peace, can be meaningfully revisited.” — Joe Roberts, National Post (Canada)

But the problem is that ‘indiscriminate destruction’ will only lead to more Hamas-like extremism.

“Hamas, whose atrocities deserve bitter condemnation, is a product of alienation, desperation, and dispossession. The movement is seen by millions of Palestinians as part of a resistance to exactly the kind of indiscriminate destruction Israel is now unleashing upon a defenseless population. If Israel truly wanted to ‘wipe Hamas off the face of the earth,’ as its defense minister says, it would deal with the conditions that created them.” — Ronan Burtenshaw, Jacobin

So Israel needs to reframe its approach ahead of the invasion…

“Israel would be much better off framing any Gaza operation as ‘Operation Save Our Hostages’ — rather than ‘Operation End Hamas Once and for All’ — and carrying it out, if possible, with repeated surgical strikes and special forces that can still get the Hamas leadership but also draw the brightest possible line between Gazan civilians and the Hamas dictatorship.” — Thomas Friedman, New York Times

… and make ‘the aim of the war itself … a lasting Israeli–Palestinian peace rather than the military defeat of Palestinian aspirations for statehood.’

“A more targeted campaign against Hamas’s leadership and capabilities could be coupled with a historic effort to secure significant Arab support and resources for ... a reconstructed Gaza. ... Gaza’s southern border could become a conduit for humanitarian support to Palestinian civilians rather than a route to expel them permanently into Egypt.” — Ben Rhodes, New York Review of Books

Now is the time to start figuring out who will govern Gaza.

“Israel doesn’t want to run Gaza, and its proxies will be rejected as collaborators. The best hope — the only hope, really — is that moderate Arab nations will work to create a new, post-Hamas structure that will represent a new Palestinian Authority that could govern the West Bank, as well.” — David Ignatius, Washington Post

Israel can learn from America’s failures in Iraq.

“If you fail to try to build something better in Hamas’s place or try in a halfhearted way, Israel will gain only a few years’ respite. … So what should you prioritize at the outset? … 1. End Hamas’s culture of economic corruption in Gaza. … 2. Listen to what Gaza’s residents want. … 3. Change the educational curriculum. … 4. Find a path for Gazans to write a constitution that will lead toward a more democratic state that can live in peace side by side with Israel. … 5. Show Gazans that Israel is prepared to help Gaza rebuild economically. … 6. Border security for Gaza that Israel can live with — not a siege — is vital.” — Thomas S. Warrick, former State Department and Homeland Security official, in the New York Times

The ‘work of moral rebuilding’ must begin too.

“Israel desperately needs a genuinely Jewish and Palestinian political party, not because it can win power but because it can model a politics based on common liberal democratic values, not tribe. American Jews who rightly hate Hamas but know, in their bones, that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is profoundly wrong must ask themselves a painful question: What nonviolent forms of Palestinian resistance to oppression will I support? More Palestinians and their supporters must express revulsion at the murder of innocent Israeli Jews and affirm that Palestinian liberation means living equally alongside them in safety and freedom.” — Peter Beinart, New York Times

Does a Two-State Solution, Long Discounted, Still Have a Future?

Mark Landler
Updated Wed, November 1, 2023 

From left: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel; President Donald Trump; Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani, the minister of foreign affairs of Bahrain; and Abdullah bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, minister of foreign affairs of the United Arab Emirates; on the day the Abraham Accords were signed at the White House in Washington, Sept. 15, 2020. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)


JERUSALEM — “There has to be a vision of what comes next,” President Joe Biden said last week of the war between Israel and Hamas. “In our view, it has to be a two-state solution.” The surest path to peace, said Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain, is a two-state solution, a sentiment echoed by President Emmanuel Macron of France.

At first glance, their words seemed like a sepia-tinted throwback: invoking, as a remedy for the worst eruption of bloodshed between Israelis and Palestinians in many years, the faded relic of a peace process that many on both sides viewed as dead and buried some time late in the Obama administration.

And yet, the two-state solution — Israelis and Palestinians living side-by-side in their own sovereign countries — is getting a new hearing, not just in foreign-policy circles in Washington, London and Paris but also, more quietly, among the combatants themselves. In part, it reflects the lack of any other viable alternative.

“We cannot return to a pattern where every other year, there is a violent confrontation between Israel and Hamas,” said Gilead Sher, who helped lead Israel’s negotiations with the Palestinians in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the two sides arguably came closest to striking a two-state settlement.

“If America engages in what President Biden has stated he would commit to, there is a chance,” Sher said. “There is a chance for negotiations that could provide a step-by-step process to two distinct states.”

Such an effort would have to overcome a thicket of obstacles, not least the proliferation of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which Palestinians say have eroded the dream of creating a viable state on that land. The rise of ultranationalists in Israel further complicates the task: They oppose Palestinian statehood, seek to annex the West Bank, and know that uprooting the settlers is political dynamite.

Sher listed a string of caveats for Israeli-Palestinian talks: The two sides would have to start modestly, with a political process focused on disengagement rather than a high-stakes negotiation over the details of two states. Both would need new leaders, he said, since the existing ones have proved to be unwilling or incapable of striking a deal. Above all, Hamas would have to be vanquished and the Gaza Strip demilitarized.

Israeli officials say they are focused on the battle against Hamas, which could last for months, and that any discussion of a peace process must wait until after the guns are silent. But in think tanks and corners of the Israeli foreign ministry, discussion of what a day-after political process would look like has already begun.

Among Palestinians, suffering Israel’s bombardment and blockade of Gaza, and rising tensions on the West Bank, the prospects for statehood appear even more far-fetched. But some Palestinians argue that the shock of the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 has stripped Israelis of the illusion that they can manage conflict with Palestinians without confronting their deeper aspirations for nationhood.

“What happened on Oct. 7 should push us to be more creative and more innovative about the two-state solution,” said Nidal Foqaha, director general of the Palestinian Peace Coalition, a nonprofit group based in Ramallah, in the West Bank. “Without a political horizon, this is an impossible mission.”

The mechanics of such a process are far from clear. The European Union last week called for an international peace conference, an idea championed by Spain, which held a landmark Middle East peace summit in Madrid in 1991. Arab nations could also convene peace negotiations, though an early effort by Egypt last week, as the Israeli military operation in Gaza was gearing up, produced little.

By all accounts, the United States would have to take a central role in any talks between the Israelis and Palestinians. That has not happened since the Obama administration, when the secretary of state at the time, John Kerry, shuttled between the two sides in 2013 and 2014 before giving up in frustration. It was a quest that even then, some aides to President Barack Obama viewed as quixotic.

Under President Donald Trump, the United States shifted its energy from resolving the Palestinian issue to normalizing relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors. That strategy dovetailed with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was in a coalition with right-wing partners who openly disdained the idea of a Palestinian state. Netanyahu has swung between saying he would be willing to consider a Palestinian nation with limited security powers, and opposing it outright.

“One of the biggest issues with the phrase ‘two-state solution’ is that it fails to address the very real threats against Israel that exist now, and will likely continue to exist, within certain segments of Palestinian society and elsewhere,” said Jason D. Greenblatt, who was Trump’s special envoy to the region.

Greenblatt said the Trump administration’s approach to peacemaking emphasized Israel’s security needs. The Abraham Accords, the Trump-brokered deal under which Israel normalized relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in 2020, forestalled an Israeli plan to annex 30% of the West Bank. But it effectively set aside the goal of a Palestinian state.

Despite its fealty to the dream of two states, the Biden administration largely adopted the Trump blueprint. It had been trying to broker a deal that would normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, an even greater prize for Israel than the Gulf emirates, given Saudi Arabia’s status as the vanguard of the Arab world.

Those talks have been put on hold by the Israel-Hamas war. But if Israel were able to revive them, that could put the two-state solution back on the table. The Saudis have told Secretary of State Antony Blinken that they want steps toward a Palestinian state to be part of any normalization accord with Israel.

Arab countries are also likely to push for the Palestinian issue to be addressed as a condition of playing a role in stabilizing and rebuilding postwar Gaza. Dangling the prospect of a Palestinian state could reassure Egypt and Jordan, which are alarmed by the prospect of millions of refugees from Gaza.

“Part of this is to give them the framing, the packaging, they need to take part in a solution for Gaza,” said Ghaith Al-Omari, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a research organization. “That’s one reason I think the president talked about it, even if it seemed irrelevant.”

The odds of progress with the current Israeli and Palestinian leaders are nonexistent, Al-Omari said. Netanyahu’s governing coalition includes ultranationalist partners who want to annex the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967 and which they refer to by the biblical names of Judea and Samaria.

At a minimum, his government was committed to rapidly expanding the number of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Since the Hamas attacks, attacks on Palestinians by settlers and Israeli troops have surged.

The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, 87, has lost legitimacy with his public, analysts said, particularly after he canceled elections in 2021. Critics say Netanyahu contributed to the weakening of the Palestinian Authority by pursuing a divide-and-conquer strategy that bolstered Hamas.

Diplomatic historians like to point out that the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Yasser Arafat, came tantalizingly close to a deal with Israel brokered by President Bill Clinton in 2000, only to walk away. And that was before hundreds of thousands of new settlers put down roots across the West Bank.

Violent clashes between Israelis and Palestinians have cut both ways in terms of influencing subsequent peace efforts. The barbaric nature of the Hamas attacks and the ferocity of the Israeli military response in Gaza, experts said, makes the coming debate in Israel particularly unpredictable.

“There will be two sides to that debate,” said Dennis B. Ross, a peace negotiator under Clinton and Obama. “What Hamas showed is that it is too dangerous to have a Palestinian state next to us because it could become dominated by groups like Hamas. The countervailing argument will be, once we defeat Hamas, we cannot freeze the situation with the Palestinians on our terms indefinitely.”

Al-Omari, who once advised Palestinian negotiators, suggested a less calculated reason for the reemergence of the two-state solution.

“This is similar to 9/11 in that everyone knows something huge has happened and there are going to be changes, but no one knows what the changes are going to be,” he said. “You default to your muscle memory; you default to your talking points. It’s a placeholder while you figure out what will happen.”

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