Opinion | The path to peace in the Mideast could be paved by fuzzy language

By David Ignatius

Secretary of State Antony Blinken decided to try something different last week on his fourth trip to the Middle East since the Gaza war exploded in October. Rather than stopping first in Israel, as he often does, he began by visiting Arab capitals.

Blinken was hoping to gather some bargaining chips that might persuade Israel to move toward peace, and he got what he wanted from the Arabs. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and other key leaders pledged they would support a postwar reconstruction of Gaza — and normalize relations with Israel — but only if Israel ended the conflict in Gaza and committed to a process for creating a future Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t agree to either demand. So, in that respect, Blinken’s gambit failed. But knowledgeable U.S. and Israeli sources say the diplomatic situation could be more promising than it might appear. Speculating about positive outcomes in the Middle East is often a mistake, but let’s consider some of the factors at work behind the scenes.

Blinken knows he’s negotiating with an Israel still badly shaken by Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack. That’s why he laid out the Arabs’ proposal to a broad audience — not just to Netanyahu but also individually with each member of Israel’s war cabinet. And he explained it in a news conference to a traumatized Israeli public that’s deeply skeptical about a Palestinian state.

Here’s the core question: Is the opportunity for Saudi normalization — and the united front against Iran that it would encourage in the region — the proverbial “offer you can’t refuse”? Netanyahu’s right-wing government would rebel if he even hinted at support for a two-state solution. But Israelis who know Netanyahu well say he might pay that political cost to gain the prize of Saudi normalization that he’s been chasing for years. Battered by the Gaza war, Netanyahu’s career is finished — unless he finds a way to repair his ruined legacy.

Israeli officials tried to answer Blinken’s push for a quick de-escalation in Gaza by pledging to move into a new phase of “lower intensity” combat that should mean fewer civilian casualties and more humanitarian aid. They plan to reduce Israel Defense Forces’ presence inside Gaza from 21 brigades at the war’s outset to four or five by next month. That’s partly because of international pressure but also because they’ve already hammered Hamas. Officials estimate that more than half of Hamas’s 24 battalions no longer operate and that more than 60 percent of its battalion and company commanders have been killed.

Israeli won’t yet allow Palestinian civilians to return to northern Gaza, arguing that Hamas fighters are still active there. The Israelis fear this remnant could meld into the returning civilian population — triggering renewed heavy combat and, perhaps, another forced evacuation. Better to wait, they contend. But to get ready, Israel has agreed to allow a U.N. team to make a detailed survey of water, sewage, health and housing needs in northern Gaza, starting immediately.

Israel also claims it’s working with international aid agencies to create a large refugee camp south of Gaza City to house some of the hundreds of thousands who fled south to Rafah, on the Egyptian border. To provide more humanitarian assistance without the inspection bottlenecks at existing land crossings, Israel and other countries are exploring delivering more aid from ships.

Blinken is said to have responded that these Israeli de-escalation steps aren’t enough. Israel plans to continue airstrikes and shelling of some targets in southern Gaza, but Blinken said in a news conference this week that the civilian toll is “far too high.” Israeli sources concede that they’re still killing one Palestinian civilian for every Hamas fighter they take out. The Biden administration wants Israel to focus on Hamas’s high-value targets.

The future battlespace in Gaza is underground, in Hamas’s vast network of tunnels. Israeli officials recognize that they initially underestimated this “Gaza metro,” as it’s called, which they now reckon zigs and zags more than 300 miles under a strip that’s just 25 miles long and 7 miles wide. The Israelis say they have finally mapped this underground empire, thanks to captured computer diagrams, interrogations of Hamas members who helped build the tunnels, and new listening and location technology.

Israelis warn that the siege of the tunnels could continue for months. The IDF has capped many of the shafts with emulsions known as “sponge bombs” that form a permanent chemical barrier. They’re developing other exotic tools to help them find Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif and others. U.S. officials know that Israel isn’t likely to stop fighting until those planners of Oct. 7 are dead.

Who will maintain order in Gaza as Israeli troops withdraw? That might be the weakest link in this planning chain. As Hamas is diminished, Israel plans to work with an ad hoc governance network of local municipal councils, business groups, trade unions, clans and employees of the Palestinian Authority, which Netanyahu rejects but whose role might be inescapable. The United States has been training Authority security forces for nearly two decades and wants them to oversee the Gaza transition. Netanyahu should welcome that plan but, so far, he hasn’t.

As the Gaza war begins to recede, Israel is sending some of its troops north to the Lebanese border, where its forces have been trading fire with the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia. The Hezbollah threat has driven about 80,000 Israelis from northern towns. The IDF has responded by pounding Hezbollah targets, killing more than 160 fighters and driving the militia several miles back from the border. But Israel demands a real buffer zone, created through a diplomatic agreement or, if necessary, military force.

The Biden administration is scrambling to craft a deal that would send the Lebanese Army into this buffer and defuse the border crisis. Amos Hochstein, a White House aide, has been shuttling between Beirut and Jerusalem, and Israeli officials think a diplomatic settlement is possible. Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah hinted that he might support such a deal in a speech last week.

With Mohammed bin Salman’s offer on the table, the question is how to get to yes. Diplomats are skilled at devising language that fuzzes, say, the process of transition to a Palestinian state or the definition of the interim governing entity in Gaza. We can expect some fuzzy language ahead, but that won’t soften the hard choices.

But what’s really needed is international momentum that drives Israelis and Palestinians toward the right outcome. The Biden administration is planning soon to form “coordination groups” to facilitate Gaza reconstruction and regional peace among the moderate Arab states and the Group of Seven advanced democracies. That’s a good step to keep this ball rolling.

There’s one more inescapable pressure: A U.S. presidential election will take place in November, which means that Blinken — and all those who favor the administration’s effort to end the Gaza war and normalize relations between Israel and the Arabs — might have a short window of time to get there.