As France considers a UN resolution that would aim to impose a two-state solution by fiat, and rumors fly that a lame-duck U.S. president might endorse it, Eran Lerman explains why such a course of action cannot but backfire:

By advocating coercive pressure on Israel, the would-be “peacemakers” make peace impossible. For any Palestinian leader (particularly a weak and hesitant one), an imposed solution is a painless alternative to the difficult business of negotiating a compromise. Even the hint of such a possibility is enough to persuade Palestinian policymakers that it is better to cast their hopes on international intervention than to accept a negotiated outcome.

Saeb Erekat’s “Study No. 15” of 2014 (an extensive policy document in which he advocated a confrontational course and international pressure) is an example. It resulted in the failure of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to achieve a breakthrough despite an intense effort by the Obama administration to bring Mahmoud Abbas to the negotiating table.

[The] false assumption that a major international intervention against Israeli interests can force the government into major concessions is equally dangerous. It would be a myopic attempt to upset the status quo. True moral responsibility (which the so-called peace activists claim as their guiding light) requires a sober assessment of what would follow such an intervention. A systemic analysis, going from the end-game backwards, makes the tragic implications of an imposed solution all too obvious. . . .

The only implementing agency for an imposed solution, as was the case in Gaza in 2005, is the IDF, acting in support of a legitimate democratic decision. Such a decision can only be made if a decent compromise, ugly but equitable, has been achieved at the negotiating table. The alternative—that an elected Israeli government should impose great pain on its own people for no reward and under foreign pressure—is a fantasy. . . .

The lack of an imposed solution up to now reflects not political folly but diplomatic wisdom. It has never been attempted because even the most aggressive parties knew it would not work.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.