Trying to make sense of Joe Biden’s threat to withhold arms from Israel if it attempts a full-scale operation in Rafah, Gerald Steinberg argues that the president is not primarily motivated by humanitarian concerns or by a desire to court hard-left and Arab-American voters, whom he has most likely already lost. It’s difficult to say with any certainty what is in the minds of the president and his closest advisers, but Steinberg’s alternative explanation seems plausible:

A look at the details suggests a carefully planned strategy, under the heading of a grand bargain for the Middle East. This dream scenario has been in the background (and at times, foreground) of administration policies for months. The essential elements include “irrevocable commitment” [from Israel] to Palestinian statehood and “end of conflict,” large-scale Israeli withdrawal on the West Bank, and a formal Saudi-Israeli peace agreement echoing the Abraham Accords.

In other words, Biden and Secretary of State Blinken are aiming for the diplomatic equivalent of a moon shot, the Nobel Peace Prize, and, not incidentally, victory in the November elections. The script for redrawing the map was written by Tom Friedman, the veteran New York Times columnist who has been promoting versions of this for decades.

And it begins in Rafah, through orchestrating a stalemate and ceasefire that prevents Israel from totally defeating and uprooting Hamas as the dominant Palestinian terror organization and the rulers of Gaza.

The problem (and it is a very big one) is that the entire scenario is built on a foundation of wishful thinking, not history and political realism. . . . Israelis, including Prime Minister Netanyahu’s most vocal critics, know that withholding munitions to prevent the IDF from entering Rafah and recognizing a virtual Palestinian state will not end 76 years of Palestinian rejectionism. More likely, the determination to attack Israel will increase, accompanied by Iranian support. The addition of a Saudi-Israeli peace package will not change this reality.

If there is to be peace, Palestinians will have to unlearn the hatred of Israel they have imbibed during nearly two decades of Hamas rule. This will be a difficult task, but Cole Aronson argues, drawing on the experiences of World War II, that Israel has already gotten off to a strong start:

The population’s compliance can . . . be won by a new regime that satisfies its immediate material needs, even if that new regime is sponsored by a government until recently at war with the population’s former regime. Axis civilians were made needy through bombing. Peaceful compliance with the Allies became a good alternative to supporting violent resistance to the Allies.

Israel’s current campaign makes a moderate Gaza more likely, not less. Destroying Hamas not only deprives Islamists of the ability to rule—it proves the futility of armed resistance to Israel, a condition for peace. The destruction of buildings not only deprives Hamas of its hideouts. It also gives ordinary Palestinians strong reasons to shun groups planning to replicate Hamas’s behavior.