No, argues Yossi Kuperwasser. The president of the Palestinian Authority has made it clear that his basic principles won’t allow any agreement that Israel can seriously consider (free registration required):

Abbas rejected the formula developed by the Americans a year ago as the basis for continued negotiations, since in practice it included recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. . . . [He believes] that the Palestinians continue to prefer not to establish a state if it involves recognition of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, which would mean concessions on the commitment to a Palestinian state in all of Palestine, including Israel itself.

The ongoing incitement of the Palestinian public has been designed to buttress these fundamental principles. In recent years, I have focused on following the issue and unfortunately have seen thousands of examples of incitement on the part of the Palestinian Authority and its leaders. Under such circumstances, it is impossible to establish genuine peace, and as we have seen in Gaza, every concession will be irreversible and will serve as a basis for expanding the effort at achievement of the ultimate goal.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.