Bad as the news is from Lebanon, there is at least some good news from Saudi Arabia. Less then a decade ago, Islamic State was using the kingdom’s textbooks in its schools in Iraq. Saudi Arabia has since then taken gradual steps to purge radical content from its curricula, including anti-Semitism and bigotry toward Israel. In the long term, such changes may do more to foster peace between Jerusalem and Riyadh than any of the latest White House efforts to broker a normalization agreement. IMPACT-se, an organization devoted to analyzing educational materials around the world, reports:

Importantly, an entire high-school social-studies textbook, once a breeding ground for anti-Israel hatred, has been removed for the 2023-24 academic year. Students no longer learn content which defined Zionism as a “racist” European movement that aims to expel Palestinians, or that Zionism’s “fundamental goal” is to expand its borders and take over Arab lands, oil wells, and Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem. A different version of the textbook is now taught, in which references to Israel as “the Israeli enemy” and “the Zionist enemy” have been replaced.

Examples falsely accusing Israel of the 1969 arson at al-Aqsa Mosque and the “occupation forces” of “destroy[ing] the region” were also removed from social-studies textbooks, alongside a lesson teaching that “the occupying Zionist enemy” builds “settlements” in the Negev to sever the connection between Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula. . . . Notable passages omitted from the 2023-24 textbooks include teachings that labeled Jews and Christians as liars, arrogant, and accused them of falsifying their scriptures.

Nonetheless, . . . the Holocaust is absent from a chapter about World War II, and Israel is still referred to as “the Israeli occupation” and “Israeli occupiers” in the context of the 1948 war.

And while the entire territory from the Jordan to the Mediterranean is no longer labeled Palestine on maps, the textbook authors still can’t bring themselves to call it Israel.

Why, ask many Israelis, can’t we just end the war, let our children, siblings, and spouses finally come home, and get out the hostages? Azar Gat seeks to answer this question by looking at the possible costs of concluding hostilities precipitously, and breaking down some of the more specific arguments put forward by those who have despaired of continuing military operations in Gaza. He points to the case of the second intifada, in which the IDF not only ended the epidemic of suicide bombing, but effectively convinced—through application of military force—Fatah and other Palestinian factions to cease their terror war.

“What we haven’t achieved militarily in Gaza after a year-and-a-half probably can’t be achieved.” Two years passed from the outbreak of the second intifada until the launch of Operation Defensive Shield, [whose aim was] to reoccupy the West Bank, and another two years until the intifada was fully suppressed. And all of that, then as now, was conducted against the background of a mostly hostile international community and with significant American constraints (together with critical assistance) on Israeli action. The Israeli chief of staff recently estimated that the intensified Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip would take about two months. Let’s hope that is the case.

The results of the [current] operation in [Gaza] and the breaking of Hamas’s grip on the supply routes may indeed pave the way for the entry of a non-Hamas Palestinian administration into the Strip—an arrangement that would necessarily need to be backed by Israeli bayonets, as in the West Bank. Any other end to the war will lead to Hamas’s recovery and its return to control of Gaza.

It is unclear how much Hamas was or would be willing to compromise on these figures in negotiations. But since the hostages are its primary bargaining chip, it has no incentive to compromise. On the contrary—it is interested in dragging out negotiations indefinitely, insisting on the full evacuation of the Gaza Strip and an internationally guaranteed cease-fire, to ensure its survival as Gaza’s de-facto ruler—a position that would also guarantee access to the flood of international aid destined for the Gaza Strip.

Once the hostages become the exclusive focus of discussion, Hamas dictates the rules. And since not only 251 or twenty hostages, but any number is considered worth “any price,” there is a real concern that Hamas will retain a certain number of captives as a long-term reserve.