Blog Post: Where We Are, and Where We Need To Be

by Paul Scham

It is just over a week after President Trump’s off-the-wall statement that the US will take control of Gaza after Israel has subdued Hamas. While historians have a notoriously poor track record as prophets, I predict, although Trump has doubled down on the statement and insisted he meant it, that neither Israel nor the US will ever succeed in removing a hundred thousand Palestinians from Gaza, let alone all of them, who number more than two million. Although Trump does appear to be succeeding in driving down the international standing of the US to perhaps its lowest point in history and eviscerating our institutions, but neither he nor Israel will succeed in evicting large numbers (i.e., hundreds of thousands) of Palestinians from either the West Bank or Gaza.

Why am I so sure?  For the same reason I am convinced that no one will evict Israelis from the internationally recognized borders of Israel.  It is their national home, and they  will not leave it.  Moreover, I am confident that neither Israeli nor American public opinion, nor their  soldiers, would countenance the much immense and Nazi-like brutality that would be required to perpetrate a second Nakba on the Palestinians. That is in addition, of course, to the fact that the Arab states, who, unlike Trump and his yes-men, realize the political effect a second Nakba would have, and have united against it.  

Yesterday it was the turn of Jordan’s King Abdullah II to meet with and stand up to the new American autocrat in person. Jordan is one of the US’s most dependable allies in the regions, and is also the country that would suffer the worst internal disruption were Trump’s plan to bear fruit. The king, to his credit, reiterated the Arab world’s vociferous opposition to the plan, with predictably little effect on Trump.

The main effect, and probable intention, of Trump’s announcement has been to bolster the standing and governmental strength of Bibi Netanyahu.  His government had lost the support of the “Jewish Power” party of Itamar Ben-Gvir when it agreed to the January 19  ceasefire  negotiated by President Biden and enforced by President Trump, and would collapse if the “Religious Zionism” Party of Bezalel Smotrich were to make good on its threat to leave if the cease fire were to enter its second phase.  Now  Hamas, asserting Israeli violations of the terms of the  cease fire, has paused negotiations for the second phase, cancelled the hostage release for this Saturday, and saved thus Bibi’s government. The winners are Bibi and Hamas.  The losers are the Israeli and Palestinian peoples, who will start killing each other again if the cease-fire expires without a second phase, as seems to be happening. Trump, with his usual finesse, has threatened that “all hell is going to break out” if the hostages are not released Saturday. He may be right about that.

Israelis have, perhaps understandably, been primarily focused on the released hostages – and those whose release has now been postponed, perhaps permanently.  This is the time to commend the head of the new “Democratim” party, retired Major General Yair Golan, whose recent statement, published Sunday in Ha’aretz and now on Partners’ website, is a breath of fresh air within Israeli political discourse. He condemns Trump’s “preposterous” transfer plan and rallies “Jews and Zionists to ensure it is not normalized in the Israeli discourse.” He calls for “the release of the hostages, a stable cease-fire, the establishment of an alternative government to Hamas and the formation of a regional front against Iran …. Only such measures will lead to a Middle East that is safer, guided by a realistic, sustainable vision.”

Golan does not call outright for a two-state solution, recognizing that its status is at an all-time low among Israelis.  However, he offers an alternative vision for an Israel that recognizes that “with the Palestinians we will need to live in security,” that is, neither will ever contemplate leaving or being evicted.  He recognizes that the only way the hostages will return is for the war to end NOW.

Yair Golan deserves credit for his forthright statement that Israel must now take a new path and reject Trump’s seductive and ridiculous promise that the Palestinians can be siphoned off.  Let’s hope that this truth will be recognized in time to save the remaining hostages and begin the task of rebuilding and regeneration, with new elections in Israel, a new government in Gaza, and a comprehensive and impartial investigation into the circumstances that permitted October 7, 2023 to take place and unnecessarily and brutally prolonged the war in Gaza.

Paul Scham is president of Partners for Progressive Israel and a professor of Israel Studies at the University of Maryland.