A Declaration of Palestinian Statehood Wouldn’t Be a Problem for Israel, Unless America Makes It One

At a press conference on Tuesday, the Palestinian Authority (PA) prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh announced that, should the Jewish state go ahead with plans to apply sovereignty to parts of the West Bank, his government will unilaterally declare Palestinians statehood. What, asks Amnon Lord, would the consequences be?

Yasir Arafat already declared the establishment of a Palestinian state in November 1988, when he was still in Tunisia. In November 2012, the Palestinian Authority launched its diplomatic campaign to upgrade its status within the international community. As a result, many entities across the globe already view it as a “state.” For example, the ever-menacing International Criminal Court recognizes a Palestinian state, ergo the PA’s routine threat of “going to The Hague.”

That same year, the United Nations passed a resolution to upgrade the PA’s status from “non-state observer” to non-member state. . . . Many countries around the world circuitously recognize the PA as a state in such a way that it isn’t always clear what they mean when they say “recognition.” It appears the only development of substance and of potential concern to Israel—in the future—is . . . the [election in the U.S.] of a Democratic administration that would recognize a Palestinian state. And even then, Israel’s answer will be: we’re ready to negotiate peace with the Palestinians.

Read more at Israel Hayom

More about: Palestinian statehood, United Nations, US-Israel relations, West Bank

 

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF