|
Trending Topics
|
Hamas's Quest to Destroy Israel Thwarts Trump Peace Plan
(RealClearPolitics) Peter Berkowitz - Few Israelis think near-term success is in store for the Trump administration's plan to have donor countries invest $112 billion in Gaza. Israelis doubt that the Hamas-dominated half of Gaza can be rehabilitated without Hamas's removal and doubt that Hamas, which the IDF has severely weakened, can be removed without further fighting. Moreover, Israelis remember the first Trump administration's failed effort to fashion a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at a price tag of $28 billion. Israelis also remember that while their governments were open to Obama administration and George W. Bush administration peace efforts, Palestinians flatly rejected them. And Israelis recall that Palestinians have been dismissing plans for partitioning the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea since before Israel was established. No peace will come to Gaza unless Hamas departs or renounces the war of annihilation against Israel that its 1988 charter declared an Islamic imperative. Because of their beliefs, Hamas has as much chance of desisting from seeking Israel's annihilation and concluding a durable peace agreement with the Jewish state as a leopard has of changing its spots. Inattentiveness to Hamas's beliefs thwarts responsible diplomacy and intensifies the danger not only to the Jewish state but also, given Hamas's Muslim Brotherhood ties, to the U.S. and the West. The writer, former director of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. State Department, is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.