The death and destruction in Gaza continue, and now in Lebanon as well. There have been peace negotiations for a year, but so far unsuccessful. Today, Part 1 of this article examines why. Tomorrow Part 2 will discuss a possible way forward out of this disaster.

Many, many articles have been posted in Pearls and Irritations deploring the deaths and destruction in Gaza. But surely it is time to turn our attention to what is required to bring a halt to the fighting, and then an enduring peace.

The history of peace negotiations over the last year Ever since Hamas launched its murderous attack on Israeli citizens just over a year ago on 7 October there have been almost continuous peace negotiations between Israel and Hamas, brokered by the US, Egypt and Qatar. However, except for a limited cease-fire and hostage and prisoner exchange almost a year ago in November 2023, nothing substantial has been achieved since. Instead, the deaths and destruction have continued and multiplied.

If we want to turn the tide and achieve a successful peace agreement that lasts we must therefore start by considering the history of previous peace negotiations and why success has not been achieved so far.

After the short ceasefire in November 2023 there have been several rounds of discussions orchestrated by one or more intermediaries comprising the US, Egypt, Qatar and sometimes the United Arab Emirates as well.

Typically, the proposed route to a final peace agreement would involve a number of stages. For example, in the most recent proposal, which was under discussion from July until the Palestinian leader Sinwar was killed, there would have been three stages.

In the first stage:

• Hamas would release 33 Israeli captives, mostly women and children, and in return Israel would release 30 Palestinian children and women for every Israeli civilian released.
• Israel would also have to allow “sufficient” quantities of humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, and
• Palestinians would be allowed to return to their homes, with Israel withdrawing from some, but not all, of Gaza.

In the second stage Hamas would release all remaining Israeli hostages, including soldiers, and Israel would release an agreed number of Palestinian prisoners. The prisoner exchanges would be conditional on both parties agreeing to and announcing a “sustainable calm” and the withdrawal of the remaining Israeli soldiers from Gaza. In the third and last stage, Hamas would release all the remains of deceased Israeli captives, in exchange for Israel doing the same for any deceased Palestinian bodies that it holds. Israel would also cease its blockade of Gaza and Hamas would not rebuild its military capabilities.

So why did these peace proposals fail to gain acceptance? Instead, the talks have repeatedly stalled, and the fighting and destruction therefore continues. As best can be judged from outside, the sticking point each time with each peace proposal has been the end point. Netanyahu has consistently rejected a ceasefire, let alone a final peace settlement, if it meant that Hamas would in due course be allowed to govern Gaza. Netanyahu wants to eliminate the risk of renewed fighting by eliminating Hamas as a fighting force and from any future government of Gaza.

Accordingly, Netanyahu has indicated that to ensure that Hamas never returns after a peace settlement, the Israel Defence Force will continue to occupy Gaza for at least some years. Similarly, Benny Gantz, a former Defence Minister, and an alternative leader to Netanyahu, has said that the IDF would continue to operate in Gaza “for years to come”.

Furthermore, at least until recently, Israel has also demanded strategic control over two strategic corridors within Gaza, and that may still be the case. Israel justifies this demand by its need to prevent arms smuggling across the Egyptian border and to prevent militants from slipping into Israel by searching Palestinians returning to their homes in the north.

Not surprisingly, Hamas is not prepared to go into oblivion, and it is equally opposed to Israel continuing to occupy Gaza in any form, such as the two strategic corridors demanded. In addition, Hamas’s only bargaining chip is its hold over the Israeli hostages, and Hamas says it will not release them before a complete Israeli withdrawal of its military forces.

Equally important, both sides have also effectively rejected a two-state solution which all other parties have embraced as essential for a lasting peace settlement. Hamas has always rejected a two-state solution proposing that Palestine should extend from the river to the sea, while recently the Israeli Knesset (parliament) passed a declaration rejecting a Palestinian State in what the Knesset calls The Land of Israel, meaning all the land west of the Jordan river. In addition, some of Netanyahu’s key supporters are talking about allowing Israeli settlers back into Gaza, just as has already happened in the West Bank part of the Palestinian state. Finally, even if the two-sides were prepared to agree to a peace settlement, it is questionable whether they trust each other to observe the agreed terms without a third party to police their implementation.

And now there is a further complication. Understandably Israel is insisting that a key part of any peace agreement is that Hezbollah will desist from firing rockets into Israel and thus allow the 60,000 Israelis who have been evacuated from northern Israel to return home. However, that condition should be readily met if a peace agreement is reached as Hezbollah has agreed to stop firing on Israel if Israel stops fighting Hamas.

A new round of peace negotiations Despite the futility of peace negotiations so far, the killing a couple of weeks ago of the Hamas Leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, has renewed hope that his departure could pave the way to end the war in Gaza and elsewhere in the Middle East.

The US President, Joe Biden, said that the Hamas leader had been an insurmountable obstacle to achieving a ceasefire and the return of the Israeli hostages. Biden then said that he would talk to Netanyahu about “ending this war once and for all, which has caused too much devastation to innocent people.”

Antony Blinken is therefore back in the region talking to the various parties and a new round of peace negotiations are underway once again.

But how realistic is it to hope that this change in Hamas leadership really presents an opportunity for a lasting peace? All the evidence, as a recent article in the US journal Foreign Affairs showed, is that killing the leaders of a large and enduring terrorist organisation like Hamas changes nothing. Despite many leaders having been assassinated in the past Hamas has demonstrated an ability to replace these key leaders.

Israel’s decapitation and scorched earth strategy in Gaza is therefore unlikely to work. Hamas leaders are readily replaced, and this Israeli strategy is just breeding further Palestinian resentment. As the Foreign Affairs article concluded: “Military force can degrade Hamas’s hold on Gaza, but without a political solution to the underlying territorial dispute, the group would soon reemerge in some form and resume targeting Israeli military forces and civilians.”

Conclusion In sum, the peace negotiations between Israel and Hamas appear to have reached a stalemate, and the fundamental reasons why Israel and Hamas cannot reach a peace agreement are most unlikely to change. But a continuation of the killing and destruction is unacceptable. In these circumstances we need to consider an alternative approach where a balanced peace settlement is imposed upon the warring parties, possibly using the authority of the United Nations.

The details of this imposed settlement and how it might be achieved will be discussed in Part 2 of this article tomorrow.