By Iman Shams

“A ceasefire and holding Palestinian elections that grant legitimacy to the establishment of a Palestinian entity to administer the Gaza Strip... is the framework within which the extreme Israeli right can be confronted, which wants, from Gaza, to establish a new Nakba regime like the Nakba of 1948.” This is the opinion of the Israeli researcher and university professor Menachem Klein, who was an advisor to the Israeli delegation in the negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organization in 2000, and one of the sponsors of the Geneva Initiative in 2003.

Klein, a professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University, believes that “the agreement between Fatah and Hamas in 2021 to hold elections for the presidency of the Palestinian Authority and its Legislative Council, and Hamas’ accession to the Palestine Liberation Organization, provided and continues to provide an acceptable political horizon towards resolving the conflict. The elections were scheduled to be held in accordance with the Oslo Accords, which included a commitment to respect international law, establish a state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization as the legitimate and exclusive framework, conduct a peaceful popular struggle, and transfer the separate government in the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority.

It was not Netanyahu alone who formulated Israeli policy, Klein notes. Rather, the leaders of the political and security institutions in Israel participated in formulating and implementing the approach that has now collapsed.

However, the cancellation of the elections, after intense pressure from Israel and the United States and the surrender of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to them, led, as Klein believes, to the “Unity Intifada,” and with it the “Saif al-Quds” operation carried out by Hamas, and the Israeli “Wall Guard” operation, and at the same time almost to the conception and planning of the deadly attack on October 7. He believes that if the elections had not been cancelled, a popular, democratic leader would have emerged, but we would likely have witnessed a completely different political reality. But Israel was blinded by success, just as it had happened before the 1973 war.

Israeli arrogance

In Klein’s opinion, “there are many similarities between the October 7 attack and the surprise attack on Israel in the Yom Kippur War. Operationally, in both 1973 and 2023, Israeli intelligence leaders did not pay sufficient attention to the military movements of their enemies on the ground. Strategically, a neighboring Arab country sent a warning to Israel that was not taken seriously:

- In 1973, King Hussein was the king of Jordan.

- And in 2023, Egyptian Intelligence.

In both cases, the Israeli establishment has arrogantly relied on the mistaken belief that its military victories have succeeded in deterring its enemies.

He continues: “As happened in 1973, the main failure of October 7 was political. Two years before that war, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat proposed a partial arrangement with Israel, and he almost agreed with the ideas of Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan at the time. But the Prime Minister Golda Meir did not trust Sadat, and for her there was no difference between him and his predecessor, the Arab nationalist Gamal Abdel Nasser, as both of them simply wanted to destroy Israel. So she stuck to her position. It was a terrible war, in which more than 2,600 Israelis were killed and 300 soldiers were captured, after which Israel signed an armistice agreement with Egypt in 1974, and its conditions intersected to a large extent with Sadat’s proposal in 1971.”

In the writer’s opinion, “When Meir rejected Sadat’s initiatives in 1971, she believed, as did a large section of the Israeli establishment after the Six-Day War, that the country’s situation was better than ever before.” This was the slogan of the ruling party ahead of the elections that were supposed to be held in late 1973. 

This same arrogance was evident in 2021, when Israel opposed the Palestinian elections and pressured Abbas to abandon his relationship with Hamas. Netanyahu, like Meir, believed that the government's policies were working, and that allowing elections and reorganizing the Palestinian political leadership would destroy everything Israel had built.

The cancellation of the elections, after intense pressure from Israel and the United States and the surrender of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to it, led, as Klein believes, to the “Unity Intifada,” along with the “Saif al-Quds” operation carried out by Hamas, and the Israeli “Wall Guard” operation.

The collapse of the Israeli approach in Gaza

Klein points out that Israel's policy towards the Palestinians since 2006 revolves around three main axes, supported by the United States and European countries:

First, complete control over the Gaza Strip from the outside, the physical, legal and political separation of Gaza from the West Bank, maintaining the rivalry between Fatah and Hamas and trying to tame the latter.

Secondly, managing the conflict with the Palestinians instead of resolving it. In addition to the expansion of West Bank settlements, Israel created a unique system that gives it sovereignty between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and turned the Palestinian Authority into its contractor that controls the Palestinians on its behalf.

Third, reducing the broader Israeli-Arab conflict by concluding normalization agreements with Arab countries and leaving the Palestinians isolated and weak at the mercy of Israel.

But Netanyahu was not the only one who formulated Israeli policy, Klein notes. Rather, the leaders of the political and security institutions in Israel participated in formulating and implementing the approach that has now collapsed. Many of them still do not realize the extent to which Hamas's bloody attack requires a radical change in course. Instead, they are seeking to return to previous principles and find a contractor from within to manage the Gaza Strip on behalf of Israel, whether it is a local entity, Abbas’s authority, or an international body.

Back to the 2021 planner

But no such entity can operate without the legitimacy granted to it by the Palestinian elections. Otherwise, he will be viewed as an illegitimate collaborator with the occupier, asserts Klein, who believes that “it is necessary to return to the political plan that was rejected in 2021 in order to create a new reality, and work, in addition to the ceasefire, to hold Palestinian elections as a means to change... The rules of the game and the ability to establish an independent Palestine on all the territories occupied in 1967, instead of reproducing the failed regime imposed by Israel in the West Bank.”

He concludes, “This is the framework that must be put in place to confront the extreme Israeli right that wants to establish a new, harsh regime consistent with the Nakba regime in 1948, starting with the Gaza Strip: exiling the largest possible number of Palestinians from Gaza, and building settlement cities, including rebuilding cities which were evacuated in 2005, and then the same plan was implemented in the West Bank with the same ferocity.” 

He says: “This terrible path was avoided in the past when Henry Kissinger, the US Secretary of State, prevented Israel in 1973 and 1974 from resuming fighting with Egypt once there was a ceasefire, and supervised the signing of the two temporary agreements between Israel and Egypt that paved the way for Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem in 1977, and reaching a peace settlement mediated by President Jimmy Carter in 1978-1979. 

But is there now anyone in America who has the same weight and willpower to do the same thing between Israel and the Palestinians?

* +972 Magazine: It is an independent electronic magazine that, according to its location, does not represent any external organization, political party or agenda, and is managed by a group of Palestinian and Israeli journalists. It was established in 2010. Its name recalls the international telephone code for calling throughout Israel and Palestine.

* The Geneva Document: An unofficial document, signed on December 1, 2003, between some Palestinian politicians and some Israelis from the left, stipulating Israel’s withdrawal from most of the lands occupied in the 1967 war, demarcating the borders between the two parties, and ending the conflict. Palestinian-Israeli, but it was opposed by the Israeli right and some Palestinian national and Islamic parties.

Source: 972mag + Assas Media