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In Israel's 2019 Election, Peace Was Not on the Agenda
(Bloomberg) Daniel Gordis - Very few Israelis hold Prime Minister Netanyahu accountable for the failure to achieve peace with the Palestinians. In this year's election, not a single party included peace in their campaign slogans or promises. In Israel's 2019 election, peace was simply not on the agenda. Many Israelis still hope for peace, but few imagine that there is any chance for it in the coming years. The Palestinians have already declared the coming U.S. peace plan "born dead." There is no "deal" now or in the foreseeable future primarily because the Palestinians have still not made peace with the idea that a Jewish state is here to stay. When Hamas, which controls Gaza, started its "March of Return" last year, it promised that the march would mark the beginning of the "liberation of all of Palestine, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River." The march, in other words, was simply the latest chapter in Hamas' drive to destroy the Jewish state. Israelis take Hamas seriously. Similarly, when Palestinian President Abbas warned U.S. President Trump that any peace plan that does not establish a Palestinian state along the 1967 border would be unacceptable, Israelis took him seriously, too. Those borders, they know, are essentially indefensible; what Abbas is thus seeking is not a state, they believe, but the gradual destruction of Israel. To Israeli ears, peace has long been dead. The writer is senior vice president and Koret distinguished fellow at Shalem College in Jerusalem.