We reproduce an important article by Tony Klug, Senior Next Century Foundation member, as published in The Guardian newspaper

Hamas’s horrific attack on Israeli civilians, coupled with Israel’s horrific retaliation, has prompted some to consign the peace process to the graveyard. But to even refer to a “peace process” these days is fallacious: there has not been a peace process for years, or even the prospect of one. That said, I believe it is possible that from the ashes of the present wretchedness, one could arise.

There were times, notably during the Oslo years, when a more peaceful future could be glimpsed. For decades, following my advocacy of a two-state solution in the early 1970s, I worked closely with Israelis and Palestinians and was often struck by the camaraderie between peace negotiators – rarely matched in other conflict situations – and at unofficial “track-two” meetings. It was not uncommon for them to socialise between sessions.

The flaws in the substance and implementation of the Oslo accords, the stealthy settler conquest of the West Bank and the advancing far-right takeover of the Israeli government put paid to all that. Israelis were told fairy tales by their leaders about “generous offers” that the Palestinians routinely spurned. In the quest for normalised relations with Arab states, Israel’s leaders treated the Palestinians as a defeated people and ignored the cautions of a bevy of analysts of a ferocious explosion if Israel persisted with its occupation of the land and lives of another people. They cannot say they were not warned.

But the stunning failure to anticipate Hamas’s murderous assault was more than a failure of intelligence. It was a failure of concept, born of an abiding contempt for the capabilities and resolve of the Arab foe. This is not the first time a cocktail of hubris and complacency has intoxicated Israel’s leaders. A few weeks before Israel was caught off guard by the Egyptian-Syrian military offensive in 1973, the Israeli prime minister, Golda Meir, told me that if the Arabs were to start a war, she would “feel sorry for the Arabs”. Defence minister general Moshe Dayan prophesied a “six-hour war”. Political heads rolled then. They will surely roll again.

Hamas leaders, who unequivocally share responsibility for the death and destruction being delivered on the people of Gaza, cannot say they were not warned either. Their Lebanese ally, Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, proclaimed in 2006 that had he known it would spark more than a month of warfare at the cost of many lives, displacements and huge physical damage, he would not have ordered the killing and seizure of Israeli soldiers.

It is not clear that the mass killings and kidnappings of Israelis, the consequent slaughter of Palestinians and the reduction of Gaza to rubble had a higher purpose – with the possible exceptions of forestalling closer Saudi-Israel relations and the elevation of Hamas over the Palestinian Authority. On its part, deeply traumatised Israel is lashing out. But rage and vengeance are not a strategy either. They are reflexes that will just fuel the carnage. Neither side appears to know what it’s doing.

Tellingly, every peaceable advance since 1967 has been provoked by an unforeseen seismic event. The 1967 war itself goaded Palestinians into lowering their sights and accepting a state alongside Israel instead of in place of Israel. The 1973 war led to the Egypt-Israel peace treaty in 1979. The first Palestinian intifada culminated in the 1993 Oslo accord. The second intifada impelled the 2002 Arab peace initiative. While it is too early to say with confidence, it is possible that the current outrage will track the same pattern.

If nothing else, the turmoil has surely shattered the illusion that the Palestinian issue can be sidelined, that the conflict can be ignored or managed, or that it can be resolved through military force or by acts of terrorism. These are not new truths, but they should now be as clear as day even to the most hardened ideologues. There is an imperative need, even as the bloodletting continues, for a comprehensive solution to be swiftly formulated, predicated on the satisfaction of the minimum core needs and aspirations of the Palestinian and Israeli peoples and the allaying of their maximum fears. These have always been the indispensable ingredients.

The US has proved itself to be singularly unsuited to play the role of honest broker but, with other external powers, it could put its weight behind an initiative spearheaded by regional states that have made their peace with Israel – exploiting a potential unintended benefit of the Abraham accords – plus Saudi Arabia and Qatar. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. A revised Arab peace initiative – which in its original incarnation pledged to normalise relations with Israel in exchange for Palestinian statehood – could provide the blueprint. Despite everything, the conflict can still be resolved but, if the chance is not seized quickly and robustly, future seismic explosions – foreseen or unforeseen – lay in wait.

Article available at: The Guardian