Prior to the Trump administration’s 2019 peace proposal, what Eran Lerman dubs the “Everybody Knows Paradigm” for addressing the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians came to dominate in American and European foreign-policy circles. Claiming that “everybody knows” what is necessary to make peace, the plan’s supporters call for Israel to withdraw from almost all of the West Bank, retaining a few small areas for which it will compensate the Palestinian Authority with land it has held since 1949. Lerman explains that such a proposal cannot be the basis for serious negotiations:

Failure to advance peace based on the Everybody Knows Paradigm is in part the result of the firm opposition of most Israelis to a “solution” that would require relinquishing key strategic areas of the West Bank, forcibly uprooting hundreds of thousands of people from their homes in Judea and Samaria (Israel’s biblical homeland); carving up the living city of Jerusalem; and responding to Palestinian demands for the so-called “right of return,” [i.e., a right for descendants of refugees from the War of Independence to citizenship not in Palestinian state, but in the Jewish one]. Such propositions are unacceptable to a broad consensus of Israeli public opinion, regardless of who wins future Israeli elections.

However, the mainstream of Israeli opinion . . . would be willing to accept a two-state solution (or a so-called “state-minus” situation) with an emphasis on Palestinian demilitarization if key Israeli security interests were protected and the dislocation of settlers were reduced to a minimum. But such an accommodation seems inconceivable, given that the Palestinians adamantly refuse to consider any Jewish minority in their midst.

This will continue to be so, because such positions create an altogether unrealistic anticipation on the Palestinian side of a solution imposed by the international community rather than a solution negotiated with Israel. . . . Such expectations are already being fed by the decision of the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor to launch an investigation into the possibility that war crimes have been committed in “Palestine,” [which the court defines as] all the territories beyond the June 4, 1967 lines, including parts of Jerusalem. When such a definition by an international institution is dangled in front of them, which Palestinian leaders will be bold enough to settle for less at the negotiating table?

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.