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Israel Sees Peace with Hamas or the Palestinian Authority as Impossible
(Wall Street Journal) Walter Russell Mead - With the Oct. 7 attacks still reverberating, there is no pro-"peace process" movement in Israeli politics today. No serious Israeli politician would dream of running on a platform of facilitating the emergence of a Palestinian state. Moreover, the Beltway chatter about "the day after" in Gaza overstates the difference between the Israeli and American positions. There is consensus in Israel not only that Hamas lacks the will (and the human decency) to be an interlocutor for a future Palestinian state, but also that the terminally corrupt and exhausted Fatah movement now in power in the West Bank is too ineffective and unpopular to survive the hard compromises that peace would require. Moreover, the Fatah leadership would be too vulnerable to being overthrown by more radical Palestinian movements for Israelis to trust it as a security partner. The chance of Israelis seriously engaging with an unreformed Palestinian movement on the old Oslo peace agenda is zero. The writer, a fellow at the Hudson Institute, is Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College.