In pursuit of normalization with Israel, Saudi officials have called for Israel to accept “a credible, irreversible path to a Palestinian state.” After Oct. 7 this is thoroughly unrealistic; it is rejected, not just by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but by almost the entire Israeli public. If a path to the two-state solution exists at all, it will have to be the exact opposite: an explicitly reversible path. While this will require a new government in Israel, it is not impossible.
The answer lies in starting Palestinian sovereignty in Gaza first, then, after a period of years, if and only if, certain conditions have been met, to then proceed to good-faith final status negotiations that would focus on extending the realm of Palestinian sovereignty to a demilitarized West Bank.
Here is how a Gaza-first approach, including normalization with Saudi Arabia, might be sequenced:
1. An extended, and potentially permanent, pause in the fighting would occur, leading ultimately to the full release of all remaining hostages.
2. During this pause in the fighting, the United States and Israel would announce their willingness to recognize Palestinian sovereignty over Gaza, and support the admission of the state of Palestine to the United Nations, were a Palestinian government, committed to the two-state solution, to achieve disarmament by Hamas, and thus emerge in full control of Gaza, as Israeli forces withdraw.
3. In response to this commitment, the PLO would establish the Provisional Government of the State of Palestine, whose purpose would be to prepare the way to statehood, and in time, to replace the Palestinian Authority, which today administers parts of the West Bank.
4. Under the auspices of one or more Arab states, Hamas and the Provisional Government would enter into negotiations over the status of Hamas within a Palestinian state. The objective would be three-fold. First to attain Hamas’ agreement to accept the authority of the state in Gaza by disarming. Secondly, to reach agreement on the conditions under which Hamas could participate in Palestinian elections. And third, to secure from Hamas a pledge that it would abide by a comprehensive end-of-conflict peace agreement, were such agreement to be reached with Israel and approved in a Palestinian referendum.
5. If these negotiations between Hamas and the Provisional Government are successful, Israel would make the cease fire permanent, and begin a process of withdrawal.
6. As pledged, if, and when, the Provisional Government comes to exercise de facto sovereignty over Gaza, having thus fulfilled the internationally recognized conditions of statehood, Palestine will be recognized as a state by both Israel and the United States, and admitted to the United Nations.
7. Israeli recognition of Palestinian sovereignty over Gaza, accompanied by a freeze on Israel’s settlement expansion in the West Bank, would trigger a three-to-five-year testing period, during which the blockade of Gaza will be lifted.
8. Upon the start of the testing period, Saudi Arabia will recognize Israel and enter into normal relations.
9. At the same time, a vast international effort will begin, not just to rebuild Gaza, but to put it on a long-term path of economic development.
10. At the close of the testing period, if the Palestinian state has maintained sovereign control over Gaza, adhered to agreed demilitarization provisions, and gained legitimacy through elections, final status negotiations will begin, under internationally recognized parameters. It can be expected that in those negotiations, influenced by Oct. 7 and the subsequent Gaza war, will bring new approaches to the fundamental issues of the conflict: borders, Jerusalem, refugees and security.
Many Israelis view the Biden administration’s idea that the Palestinian Authority — even one “revitalized”— could gain stable control over Gaza, including disarming Hamas, as no more than magical thinking. Is it not also magical thinking to believe that Hamas will agree to disarm, and further agree to conditions under which it would abide by an end-of-conflict agreement with Israel?
Successful negotiation of Hamas’ place within the context of a Palestinian state is a fundamental issue that ultimately has to be resolved in any approach to Palestinian statehood. Israel faced a similar issue when the state was declared in 1948, with respect to the extremist Irgun, an independent paramilitary organization, viewed by many as a terrorist organization, following the massacre at the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin. The Irgun, founded in 1931, existed until shortly after the state of Israel emerged, when it was dissolved, with its fighters being integrated into the army of the state, and with the establishment of a new political party, Herut, by its leaders, most prominently, Menachem Begin. Begin went on to become Israel’s prime minister in 1977, and to win the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1978.
Ideologically, it is quite different to seek Hamas’s disarmament in favor of a Palestinian state, as fulfillment of the standard definition of sovereignty, than to seek such disarmament in favor of another faction such as Fatah or a discredited non-state entity such as the Palestinian Authority, during conditions of continued occupation.
Whether or not such negotiations with Hamas can succeed depends importantly on a) The extent to which Hamas’ military capacity has been destroyed by Israeli forces, and its assessment of the outcome of continued warfare; b) Hamas’ judgment of whether it would be marginalized politically if it stood in the way of the success of the Gaza-first approach to Palestinian statehood; And c) Whether Hamas is offered a viable option for participating in the political life of the Palestinian state.
Would Hamas ever agree to abide by the terms of an end-of-conflict agreement with Israel, provided that such an agreement is ratified in a Palestinian referendum? Many will doubt this, but those who closely follow Palestinian affairs will recognize that this approach to Palestinian unity was, in 2006, part of the widely supported “Prisoner’s Document on National Conciliation” which first surfaced the “ratification by referendum” idea. This framework was explicitly agreed on in subsequent Hamas-Fatah negotiations. In negotiations with the Provisional Government, it is likely that Hamas will again agree to this, provided it is given a path for political participation.
This is clearly ambitious, and there is no guarantee that a Gaza-first approach will work. Any decision about Gaza-first must be made comparatively. Policy makers must ask: “Is there another, more credible, path to the two-state solution?”
Jerome M. Segal is the director of The International Peace Consultancy, and the author of “The Olive Branch from Palestine: The Palestinian Declaration of Independence and the Path Out of the Current Impasse,” University of California Press, 2022.