I would add that often the key to negotiating is thinking outside the box.
For the Middle East, the greatest example of thinking outside the box is the Abraham Accords brokered by President Trump. They bypassed the Palestinians entirely and made peace between Israel and UAE, Morocco and Bahrain, a scenario thought impossible by such luminaries as John Kerry and other State Department experts.
Perhaps what really matters now is peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Recall that Bahrain stated it would never make peace with Israel until there was a Palestinian state... 3 days before they joined the Abraham Accords.
If peace with Saudi Arabia becomes real, and I don't put that beyond Trump's capabilities, then the peace with the Palestinians becomes, frankly, irrelevant. They will remain ruled locally by a collection of warlords, with Israeli security intervention when required.
The Harvard Negotiation Project had a similar framework that resulted in a useful booklet "Getting to Yes".
But attempting to penetrate inside someone's mind to ascertain their "needs" is impossible in such a complex case. I could argue that Palestinian "needs" include the destruction of the State of Israel, because any leader that tries to reach peace with Israel risks assassination, like King Abdullah of Jordan and Anwar Sadat of Egypt.
This more than anything explains why Arafat could not accept the deal offered at Camp David in 2000. It is the reason Mahmoud Abbas can travel easily to Europe or Turkey but would never risk visiting nearby Jenin or Tulkarm. UAE solved this cleverly: the head of their military special forces is a retired Australian general.
If this is the case, then no negotiated agreement is possible.
The monolithic position of Palestinians is documented by their own polling institutes: over 75% of them approve of the Oct 7 atrocities. That points to Israel's needs about the type of leadership that would emerge in a Palestinian state next door and the capabilities it would have from being a state.
When Hama has no functioning moral compass, and MAXIMIZING the number of dead civilians ( both Israelis AND Palestinians) is their strategy, I doubt they will be “pragmatic”.
I appreciate your perspective,Sheri. The situation is certainly complex, with many layers to consider. I don’t claim to have the answers, but I believe acknowledging the nuances is important. It would certainly be easier to make peace with state actors, like Jordan, but they washed their hands of the issue a long time ago.
Jordan stated their goals when they attacked us in 1948 and again in 1967. I wish our leaders had been smart enough to use their warring behaviour as enough reason to just declare our sovereignty over all of Judea-Samaria that we liberated from them and moved on from then. It would have been over and done with. But we are stupid when it comes to running a country.
You are starting from a position that the Palestinians want peace. You are thinking like a westerner and refusing to understand who they are. This is the biggest error that is consistently made. The flaw in your thinking, like that of many in the west is to refuse to give the Palestinians and by extension the Islamists of Qatar and even KSA, agency.
When they say they want to destroy Israel and then the west. It is not a negotiating tactic to wrangle concessions. They truly mean they want to genocide Israel. The west thinks that people with this mindset can still be reasoned with. That they are deep down simply like us. Well they are not. Sorry but Oct 7 taught us, if nothing else, is that they can't be reasoned with any more than the Nazis could be reasoned with in WW2.
I see where you're coming from, and I don’t dismiss the reality of what Hamas and other extremists openly declare. October 7th was proof, if any was needed, that Israel can’t afford to take those threats lightly.
That said, treating all Palestinians as a monolith risks conceding the future entirely to the most radical factions. There are those who -whether out of fear, exhaustion, or pragmatism- would choose stability over endless war if given the option. Ignoring that possibility leaves only two options: permanent military occupation or total war. Neither benefits Israel in the long run.
Recognising an adversary’s ideology doesn’t mean trusting them, to me it means understanding how to divide them, weaken their influence, and create conditions where negotiation, however unlikely, becomes possible down the line. If not, the cycle simply continues.
And we know there are no miracle solutions or great saviours out there. Trump has already gone back on his plan (as I always thought he would), which only reinforces the point: Israel can’t rely on external actors to solve this. The options remain the same: military containment, strategic division of adversaries, and, when possible, identifying those willing to prioritise stability over endless war. Anything beyond that is wishful thinking.
I know you think of me as naïve, maybe I am, but I’d rather explore possibilities than just accept that nothing can ever change. Blind cynicism isn’t a strategy either. I don’t live in Israel, and I fully respect that it’s ultimately up to the Israeli people to decide their own future, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t try to understand what might actually work.
Actually I am not seeding the Palestinians to the most radical, they are. And until their society is totally revamped, aka gear their education toward peace instead of jihadism, nothing is going to change. The way it changes is to completely defeat Hamas, get rid of UNRWA and the UN influence. Israel did trust a “ceasefire” and we saw what happened.
There has been multiple attempts at “peace.” Oslo led to the 2nd intifada suicide bombings. Containing Hamas didn’t work. Nothing left but all out ending Hamas and even the PLO like Sheri said.
Of course Trump backtracked. His friends are too beholden to Qatar and their money. Qatar said no so it’s time to backtrack.
So I think you’re naive? I think you are hopeful. Israelis have to be realistic however. They were naive for a time and look what happened.
As Einat Wilf said, Israel needs to be both Athens and Sparta. It is the nature of the environment where they live. Sometimes things really are just what they are.
I appreciate your attempt to redefine the problem in ways that might help find a solution. However, there are some problems with your arguments.
First of all, the Palestinian Arab position is NOT unlimited right of return -- that's just something they use that they know Israel cannot accept in order to prevent negotiations from going anywhere. They have not shown any desire for "dignity, citizenship, and economic security." Let's leave aside, for the moment, citizenship, they could have had dignity and economic security many times over had they had leaders who did not embezzle the funds that were supposed to provide jobs, infrastructure, and economic security for the population of both Gaza and Judea-Samaria. In fact, those Arabs who worked in Israel and in Israeli-built industrial zones serving both Palestinians and Israelis, have had dignity and economic stability for decades. They could have been role models for other Palestinians but nothing was changed. Because that is not the issue.
Israel's desire is not "to prevent demographic shifts;" it is for friendly relations with our neighbours. Our need is certainly security whether or not the rest of the world legitimizes us or not -- the world already did that via the League of Nations and early UN proclamations. A fickle world is not a measure of anything for us.
Regarding "tradable concessions:" you cannot base negotiations on practical issues when one side is determined that the other side will cease to exist or, at least, cease to exist as a sovereign entity on land that was, for a time, under Moslem rule. Until you tackle that ideological issue, there is nothing to discuss. Even if Israel were to get out of all of Judea-Samaria and return the land that was under Jordanian occupation 1948-1967 to Moslem control, that would not change the underlying problem. Israel withdrew from all of Gaza in 2005, leaving not a single Jew; we see how that turned out.
Ending eternal refugee status? That has nothing to do with Israel. Israel did not create UNRWA. Israel did not compel Arab countries to keep Arabs who were in what became Israel in 1948 in refugee camps and refuse to give them citizenship and full human rights. If you want to start changing the equation for future negotiations, then lobby the ones responsible for these two factors, not Israel.
That's all I will say about your ideas here. Nice try.
I appreciate you taking the time to engage so thoroughly with the argument, and I recognise that many of these issues are deeply entrenched, both historically and ideologically.
I don’t dispute that poor governance and corruption have played a significant role in the economic stagnation of Palestinian territories, nor that Israel’s security concerns are paramount in any negotiation. My goal in exploring these scenarios was not to dismiss these realities but to see whether a structured negotiation approach—grounded in realpolitik rather than idealism—could offer any workable solutions, however imperfect.
You raise an important point about the ideological dimension of the conflict, particularly when one side refuses to accept the legitimacy of the other’s existence (I have said it many times before, you DO need two to tango). I would argue, though, that this ideological impasse does not necessarily preclude negotiations, history has shown that deeply adversarial actors have, in some cases, found pathways to agreements, however grudgingly. That does not mean an agreement is inevitable or even likely, but it does mean that dismissing all negotiation outright risks ceding the ground entirely to the most rejectionist elements on both sides.
On the issue of refugee status, I agree that Israel did not create the problem, but at this stage, does the question of ultimate responsibility even matter as much as finding a way to resolve it? If host countries continue to use Palestinians as political leverage rather than granting them full citizenship, and if no durable solution is put forward, then the problem persists indefinitely. My concern is less about blame and more about whether an actionable path forward exists.
I don’t expect us to agree on everything, but I do appreciate the opportunity to test these ideas against robust counterarguments. If nothing else, I believe engaging with differing perspectives strengthens any serious attempt to analyse the conflict. Thank you, Sheri.
If, for one side, the ideology is the only thing driving them, then the only thing that will result in a solution is to utterly defeat them. After all, we had a ceasefire with Hamas until 6:30 am on Oct 7th. And that is what happens when we do not make sure to totally defeat an enemy that relies on taqiya and regards any ceasefire as something to be broken at their earliest convenience.
Israel has nothing to do with the refugee status of Arabs who left what became Israel. NOTHING. I don't care about blame either, but if you look at the issue practically, then Israel has nothing to do with finding a resolution for those people. Finally Israel did what Israel should have done long ago -- banned UNRWA from our country.
I enjoy debates over issues because it helps me hone my way of expressing myself.
I would add that often the key to negotiating is thinking outside the box.
For the Middle East, the greatest example of thinking outside the box is the Abraham Accords brokered by President Trump. They bypassed the Palestinians entirely and made peace between Israel and UAE, Morocco and Bahrain, a scenario thought impossible by such luminaries as John Kerry and other State Department experts.
Perhaps what really matters now is peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Recall that Bahrain stated it would never make peace with Israel until there was a Palestinian state... 3 days before they joined the Abraham Accords.
If peace with Saudi Arabia becomes real, and I don't put that beyond Trump's capabilities, then the peace with the Palestinians becomes, frankly, irrelevant. They will remain ruled locally by a collection of warlords, with Israeli security intervention when required.
The Harvard Negotiation Project had a similar framework that resulted in a useful booklet "Getting to Yes".
But attempting to penetrate inside someone's mind to ascertain their "needs" is impossible in such a complex case. I could argue that Palestinian "needs" include the destruction of the State of Israel, because any leader that tries to reach peace with Israel risks assassination, like King Abdullah of Jordan and Anwar Sadat of Egypt.
This more than anything explains why Arafat could not accept the deal offered at Camp David in 2000. It is the reason Mahmoud Abbas can travel easily to Europe or Turkey but would never risk visiting nearby Jenin or Tulkarm. UAE solved this cleverly: the head of their military special forces is a retired Australian general.
If this is the case, then no negotiated agreement is possible.
The monolithic position of Palestinians is documented by their own polling institutes: over 75% of them approve of the Oct 7 atrocities. That points to Israel's needs about the type of leadership that would emerge in a Palestinian state next door and the capabilities it would have from being a state.
https://www.jns.org/three-in-four-palestinians-support-hamass-massacre/
I’m seeing the “zero sum” concept as the ultimate ideology driving future behaviors. Mutually exclusive ideologies, like oil & water, don’t mix.
The challenge is shifting from absolute demands to pragmatic trade-offs... moving from 'who wins' to 'how do we both avoid losing'.
When Hama has no functioning moral compass, and MAXIMIZING the number of dead civilians ( both Israelis AND Palestinians) is their strategy, I doubt they will be “pragmatic”.
Hamas are beyond redemption but they are not all that there is.
The PLO that runs the Palestinian Authority in Judea-Samaria is no different in ideology and goal vis a vis the Jews.
I appreciate your perspective,Sheri. The situation is certainly complex, with many layers to consider. I don’t claim to have the answers, but I believe acknowledging the nuances is important. It would certainly be easier to make peace with state actors, like Jordan, but they washed their hands of the issue a long time ago.
Jordan stated their goals when they attacked us in 1948 and again in 1967. I wish our leaders had been smart enough to use their warring behaviour as enough reason to just declare our sovereignty over all of Judea-Samaria that we liberated from them and moved on from then. It would have been over and done with. But we are stupid when it comes to running a country.
Extremely reasonable. But pretty sure ideological hatred will trump reason for the Palestinians.
You are starting from a position that the Palestinians want peace. You are thinking like a westerner and refusing to understand who they are. This is the biggest error that is consistently made. The flaw in your thinking, like that of many in the west is to refuse to give the Palestinians and by extension the Islamists of Qatar and even KSA, agency.
When they say they want to destroy Israel and then the west. It is not a negotiating tactic to wrangle concessions. They truly mean they want to genocide Israel. The west thinks that people with this mindset can still be reasoned with. That they are deep down simply like us. Well they are not. Sorry but Oct 7 taught us, if nothing else, is that they can't be reasoned with any more than the Nazis could be reasoned with in WW2.
I see where you're coming from, and I don’t dismiss the reality of what Hamas and other extremists openly declare. October 7th was proof, if any was needed, that Israel can’t afford to take those threats lightly.
That said, treating all Palestinians as a monolith risks conceding the future entirely to the most radical factions. There are those who -whether out of fear, exhaustion, or pragmatism- would choose stability over endless war if given the option. Ignoring that possibility leaves only two options: permanent military occupation or total war. Neither benefits Israel in the long run.
Recognising an adversary’s ideology doesn’t mean trusting them, to me it means understanding how to divide them, weaken their influence, and create conditions where negotiation, however unlikely, becomes possible down the line. If not, the cycle simply continues.
And we know there are no miracle solutions or great saviours out there. Trump has already gone back on his plan (as I always thought he would), which only reinforces the point: Israel can’t rely on external actors to solve this. The options remain the same: military containment, strategic division of adversaries, and, when possible, identifying those willing to prioritise stability over endless war. Anything beyond that is wishful thinking.
I know you think of me as naïve, maybe I am, but I’d rather explore possibilities than just accept that nothing can ever change. Blind cynicism isn’t a strategy either. I don’t live in Israel, and I fully respect that it’s ultimately up to the Israeli people to decide their own future, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t try to understand what might actually work.
Thank you 🙏
Actually I am not seeding the Palestinians to the most radical, they are. And until their society is totally revamped, aka gear their education toward peace instead of jihadism, nothing is going to change. The way it changes is to completely defeat Hamas, get rid of UNRWA and the UN influence. Israel did trust a “ceasefire” and we saw what happened.
There has been multiple attempts at “peace.” Oslo led to the 2nd intifada suicide bombings. Containing Hamas didn’t work. Nothing left but all out ending Hamas and even the PLO like Sheri said.
Of course Trump backtracked. His friends are too beholden to Qatar and their money. Qatar said no so it’s time to backtrack.
So I think you’re naive? I think you are hopeful. Israelis have to be realistic however. They were naive for a time and look what happened.
As Einat Wilf said, Israel needs to be both Athens and Sparta. It is the nature of the environment where they live. Sometimes things really are just what they are.
Thank you. I love that quote, by the way.
I appreciate your attempt to redefine the problem in ways that might help find a solution. However, there are some problems with your arguments.
First of all, the Palestinian Arab position is NOT unlimited right of return -- that's just something they use that they know Israel cannot accept in order to prevent negotiations from going anywhere. They have not shown any desire for "dignity, citizenship, and economic security." Let's leave aside, for the moment, citizenship, they could have had dignity and economic security many times over had they had leaders who did not embezzle the funds that were supposed to provide jobs, infrastructure, and economic security for the population of both Gaza and Judea-Samaria. In fact, those Arabs who worked in Israel and in Israeli-built industrial zones serving both Palestinians and Israelis, have had dignity and economic stability for decades. They could have been role models for other Palestinians but nothing was changed. Because that is not the issue.
Israel's desire is not "to prevent demographic shifts;" it is for friendly relations with our neighbours. Our need is certainly security whether or not the rest of the world legitimizes us or not -- the world already did that via the League of Nations and early UN proclamations. A fickle world is not a measure of anything for us.
Regarding "tradable concessions:" you cannot base negotiations on practical issues when one side is determined that the other side will cease to exist or, at least, cease to exist as a sovereign entity on land that was, for a time, under Moslem rule. Until you tackle that ideological issue, there is nothing to discuss. Even if Israel were to get out of all of Judea-Samaria and return the land that was under Jordanian occupation 1948-1967 to Moslem control, that would not change the underlying problem. Israel withdrew from all of Gaza in 2005, leaving not a single Jew; we see how that turned out.
Ending eternal refugee status? That has nothing to do with Israel. Israel did not create UNRWA. Israel did not compel Arab countries to keep Arabs who were in what became Israel in 1948 in refugee camps and refuse to give them citizenship and full human rights. If you want to start changing the equation for future negotiations, then lobby the ones responsible for these two factors, not Israel.
That's all I will say about your ideas here. Nice try.
I appreciate you taking the time to engage so thoroughly with the argument, and I recognise that many of these issues are deeply entrenched, both historically and ideologically.
I don’t dispute that poor governance and corruption have played a significant role in the economic stagnation of Palestinian territories, nor that Israel’s security concerns are paramount in any negotiation. My goal in exploring these scenarios was not to dismiss these realities but to see whether a structured negotiation approach—grounded in realpolitik rather than idealism—could offer any workable solutions, however imperfect.
You raise an important point about the ideological dimension of the conflict, particularly when one side refuses to accept the legitimacy of the other’s existence (I have said it many times before, you DO need two to tango). I would argue, though, that this ideological impasse does not necessarily preclude negotiations, history has shown that deeply adversarial actors have, in some cases, found pathways to agreements, however grudgingly. That does not mean an agreement is inevitable or even likely, but it does mean that dismissing all negotiation outright risks ceding the ground entirely to the most rejectionist elements on both sides.
On the issue of refugee status, I agree that Israel did not create the problem, but at this stage, does the question of ultimate responsibility even matter as much as finding a way to resolve it? If host countries continue to use Palestinians as political leverage rather than granting them full citizenship, and if no durable solution is put forward, then the problem persists indefinitely. My concern is less about blame and more about whether an actionable path forward exists.
I don’t expect us to agree on everything, but I do appreciate the opportunity to test these ideas against robust counterarguments. If nothing else, I believe engaging with differing perspectives strengthens any serious attempt to analyse the conflict. Thank you, Sheri.
If, for one side, the ideology is the only thing driving them, then the only thing that will result in a solution is to utterly defeat them. After all, we had a ceasefire with Hamas until 6:30 am on Oct 7th. And that is what happens when we do not make sure to totally defeat an enemy that relies on taqiya and regards any ceasefire as something to be broken at their earliest convenience.
Israel has nothing to do with the refugee status of Arabs who left what became Israel. NOTHING. I don't care about blame either, but if you look at the issue practically, then Israel has nothing to do with finding a resolution for those people. Finally Israel did what Israel should have done long ago -- banned UNRWA from our country.
I enjoy debates over issues because it helps me hone my way of expressing myself.
You are thoughtful but are missing the intransigence factor that defines the phony Phallustinians.
Hudna taquiya and dar El Islam aren't addressed which renders any discussion moot.
There's no negotiating, only defeat and exile.
Years of chanting free Palestine were heard by President Trump who said I'll take it, who are we to get in the way of that kind of energy.
"The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity", as the saying goes.