In pursuit of gaining a comprehensive understanding of the perspectives of the parties involved in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict following October 7, we will touch on a political analysis, titled “The Road to Peace in Gaza: A Veteran Negotiator’s Plan” by Ambassador Dennis Ross, who has been instrumental in shaping the United States’ role in the Middle East peace process for twelve years and dealing directly with the parties involved. He led the peace process under Presidents Bush and Clinton until the Oslo II Agreement was reached in 1995. Additionally, in 1997, he was instrumental in mediating the Protocol Concerning the Redeployment in Hebron. Ross currently works for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which enjoys close ties with the Jewish lobby that has been active in the US for many years, primarily influencing US-Israeli relations.
This underscores the significance of examining Ambassador Ross’s analysis, as his proposal holds considerable prominence in gaining practical insights into the ideas put forth by the parties involved in the conflict. Dennis Ross started his article with a hook that sets the tone for the rest of his arguments, which reads, “For an opportunity to emerge from tragedy, two bridges must be built: one leading from the current situation to the day after the war, and a second creating a viable path to a Palestinian state.”
Ross believes that the Israelis were profoundly shaken on October 7, and it will take years for them to recover. Destabilizing Israel’s security and the Israelis’ fear that the Palestinians would support Hamas’ actions and replicate them if given the chance made Israel reluctant to contemplate the risks required for peace-making. According to Ross, the Israelis, consumed with their own sense of loss, are either oblivious to or incapable of contemplating the Palestinian losses in Gaza. The recent months of death and destruction have inflicted collective trauma upon the Palestinians. The Palestinians perceive the Israelis as inflicting significant casualties on them without displaying concern for the suffering they inflict. Furthermore, they see the Israelis dehumanizing them and rationalising the ferocity of their military onslaught with the need to “defeat Hamas.”
With both sides utterly absorbed in their own trauma, this may not seem like the right time to talk about establishing two states for two peoples and ending the conflict, Ross states. Neither of them can imagine making concessions to the other. However, an opportunity may emerge from this tragedy, according to Ambassador Ross. He believes that it is possible to somehow reconcile all these conflicting mentalities by building the two bridges that he referred to.
According to Ross, the first bridge necessitates altering the situation in Gaza, even prior to the war’s conclusion, while still maintaining the objective of rescuing the hostages, which requires reaching an agreement. Israel must shift its focus from eliminating Hamas, which represents an Islamist ideology deeply embedded in the minds of many Palestinians, to demilitarizing Gaza, which entails dismantling its infrastructure and military capabilities. In turn, the international community can commit to keeping Gaza demilitarized. This necessitates, as per Ross, a mechanism for monitoring the delivery of all materials entering Gaza, determining where they are stored, and ensuring that they are used for the intended purpose and not for tunnel construction or military armament. If aid is not directed to agreed-upon projects, it will be discontinued. In other words, the United States, working with the Egyptians, Saudis, Emiratis, Europeans, and Japanese, would agree that any approach to reconstruction must ensure that Gaza cannot be remilitarized. Hamas will have difficulty controlling Gaza, according to this road map, once it has lost its military formations, command and control, and weapons industry, particularly if no significant investments are made in the region. Establishing an interim administration is required because a vacuum can’t be left. The Palestinian Authority will not govern Gaza until it undergoes reform and establishes effective governance under the guidance of a competent prime minister. Nonetheless, it should strive to implement reforms, return to Gaza, and achieve political reunification with the West Bank. To address pressing issues such as water, electricity, and health, an international humanitarian mechanism could be established to collaborate with Palestinian businessmen and the bureaucratic structure that has existed in Gaza since the creation of the Palestinian Authority.
This mechanism, Ross indicates, has the potential to meet the immediate requirements of over a million Palestinians who have been relocated from northern Gaza to its southern region, and who should be allowed to return. The goal would be to restore some of the functions of everyday life in areas of Gaza where Hamas has lost control, demonstrating that life can improve with Hamas out of power. According to Ross, a major impediment to any long-term solution is that many Israelis believe that any Palestinian state would be led by Hamas or Hamas-like rejectionists. As a result, he believes it is critical that discussions about establishing a new Palestinian authority subject to reforms do not serve as a backdoor for Hamas to return to political power. If Hamas gains power, its militarism and single-minded sense of mission will be geared towards a takeover, Ross concludes. Not only would this benefit Iran’s “axis of resistance,” but it would also contradict the goal of two states, as Hamas opposes both Israel’s existence and the concept of two states. As such, Ross claims that preventing Hamas inclusion must be part of the second bridge—one that creates a viable path to a Palestinian state without instilling fear in Israel about what that state might look like.
The second bridge in Ross’s proposition, in our opinion, addresses the issue of Palestinian statehood in a way that satisfies Arab requirements and, as he puts it, enhances Israel’s sense of security rather than diminishing it. Thus, Ross deems it imperative to ensure Hamas’ exclusion as part of the second bridge, which would most likely lead to a viable path to a Palestinian state, bringing the Gulf powers to the table while not raising Israel’s concerns about what the state might look like.
At the start of his discussion about the second bridge, Ross raised an important question about whether recognizing the Palestinian state before defining its borders would help provide this bridge, considering the discourse from the US State Department on this issue and the seriousness with which British Foreign Secretary David Cameron has discussed taking such action. To illustrate the range of possible outcomes, Ross reflects on a past event in which he was involved. He, desiring to salvage the Camp David summit in the summer of 2000, proposed to Ehud Barak, the prime minister of Israel at the time, that they recognize a Palestinian state, contingent upon future negotiations concerning its attributes (i.e., sovereignty and borders). However, Barak declined the proposal, stating that he believed the Palestinians would inevitably adopt extremist stances. He also argued that if the international community were to accept a return to the 1967 borders, it would pose a significant strategic threat to Israel and would not make provision for Israeli settlement blocs in the West Bank. Ross considers Barak’s concerns to have been valid. Consequently, he concludes that if Washington considers recognition of Palestinian statehood to be a pathway to a brighter future and evidence that their national aspirations will be taken seriously, then this recognition must be accompanied by an effort to address Israeli concerns.
However, Ross—who has experience with these intricate rounds of negotiations—does not believe that solving this persistent issue will be as difficult as it first appears. He posits in his road map the following explicit preconditions for the establishment of a Palestinian state: 1) the Palestinian state should not be governed by individuals who deny the existence of Israel and the feasibility of a two-state solution; 2) the Palestinian state’s attributes of sovereignty must align with Israeli security needs, necessitating the demilitarization of the state and prohibiting alliances with parties hostile to Israel; 3) the emerging Palestinian state must ensure that its leaders not only acknowledge the existence of Israel, but also recognize its legitimacy in order to undermine the credibility of those who persistently reject Israel and engage in acts of terrorism against it; 4) it is not acceptable for the Palestinian state to continue inciting violence and spreading hatred against Israel, which, according to Ross, has frequently applied to the Palestinian Authority until now; and 5) the Palestinian state requires credible institutions with strong governance to ensure that it is not a failed state and that it is capable of explicitly condemning Hamas’ actions and terrorist acts; otherwise, its failure to do so may be interpreted as support for such actions.
Ross argues that in order to reinforce this second bridge concerning the Palestinian state, the responsibility for taking action should not be solely placed on the Palestinians. Israel must acknowledge the Palestinian people’s desire for self-determination and agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state with appropriate assurances. Despite the fact that this will require some persuasion in the current climate, it is crucial to foster an environment that promotes mutual trust. Israel should cease its settlement activity beyond the existing blocs, as this activity is primarily intended to hinder the creation of a Palestinian state. Furthermore, stringent action must be taken against extremist settlers who endanger and deny security to the Palestinian people. Ross appears skeptical about the ability of the current government, which includes ministers like Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, to undertake the mentioned actions. Ross specifically identified these two ministers, not on a personal level, but rather because they embody a movement that has the potential to thwart ideas and visions that are most closely aligned with the current reality.
In short, Ross argues that constructing either of these bridges will be challenging. However, he is convinced that the events of October 7 and their consequences make it imperative to establish a fundamentally different future for both Israelis and Palestinians. He believes that maintaining the status quo would be tantamount to a definitive verdict on the conflict’s sustainability.
