Biden’s ceasefire plan offers a glimmer of hope for Gaza

The painstaking efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel in Gaza are inching forward, albeit at a regrettably slow pace. However, after US President Joe Biden last week presented a road map for a possible halt to the deadly hostilities, an end to the war seems closer than it has been until now.
Biden outlined a three-phase proposal that he presented as being an Israeli offer, following months of negotiations through mediators, to which Hamas responded positively, at least in principle. Yet there is always the suspicion that although the two sides might agree to the general principles of such an agreement, they could dig their heels in when the finer details, which for now remain opaque, are being negotiated.
A major obstacle to any deal is that there is not an iota of trust between the two sides. Mutual hatred and the notion of a zero-sum game in which only one side can prevail in the conflict are ingrained in their perceptions of each other. This profound distrust means that whatever both sides might agree to, each will still believe the other will violate it, given the opportunity.
Israeli authorities would like a guarantee that if they halt their military operations and Hamas then fails to release the hostages, they would be free to resume the fighting. Hamas, and especially its leaders, would like assurances, which they most probably will not receive, that Israel will not continue to pursue them by other means.
But the logic behind acceptance of the ceasefire proposal — which rather than being an authentic Israeli offer, as it was presented, seems more likely to be the result of intensive international pressure, especially from Washington — is hard to dispute. After eight months of war there is hardly anything that either side can achieve, militarily.
Hamas, through the atrocities it committed on Oct. 7, provoked Israel into a reaction. But Israel, by declaring its goal to be the complete destruction of Hamas, set itself up to fail, especially since its military strategy of maximum destruction, with little concern for civilian lives, meant it surrendered the moral high ground and left it internationally isolated, with no clear strategy for ending the war.
Moreover, if the Netanyahu government was genuinely interested in seeing the hostages return home alive, it should have acted months ago to advance a deal similar to the one now on the table.
Although not without flaws, Biden’s proposal brings an element of rationality to the process of ending the war, as it addresses in its three phases the immediate need to stop the fighting, the release of the hostages, and the reconstruction of Gaza.
It is perplexing why this road map was not presented toward the end of last year or even at the beginning of this year, by which time it had become apparent that there could be no decisive military conclusion to a war that threatened to drag on interminably while innocent people continued to suffer immensely and the stability of the region was shaken.
The first phase of the proposed road map is critical because it sets in motion an immediate, full and complete ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from populated areas of Gaza. This would be followed by Hamas releasing the first batch of the hostages it holds, including the most vulnerable, in exchange for Israel releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, permitting displaced civilians to return to their homes in all parts of Gaza, and allowing a greatly increased number of trucks carrying humanitarian aid to enter the territory each day.

Netanyahu’s situation is precarious, and the reasons for that are mostly of his own making. 

Yossi Mekelberg

In other words, phase one would allow the restoration of some degree of normality to this hellish situation while negotiations take place during phase two over the “cessation of hostilities permanently,” the release of the remaining hostages and a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. This would end the war and allow for phase three, the massive reconstruction project, to begin.
Nevertheless, however smooth the transition from phase to phase might appear on paper, in reality the start of the process would only be the beginning of an extremely bumpy road.
The first phase of the plan appears to be more detailed and thought through than the other two, mainly because of a belief that the six weeks of a ceasefire it provides would create the physical and mental space to cultivate at least the buds of constructive engagement between the two sides.
For Hamas, the end of hostilities and the release of many hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, in addition to the eventual complete withdrawal of the Israeli army from Gaza and increased deliveries of humanitarian aid, might be just enough to convince it to agree to the deal.
However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s situation is much more precarious, and the reasons for that are mostly of his own making. First and foremost, the proposal means Hamas would remain a political and military force, albeit one that is badly damaged — an outcome that by Israel’s own war objectives would represent a failure.
Even worse, every day brings with it the bitter news of more hostages being killed in captivity. Many Israelis blame their government for this, and rightly so, through its failure to negotiate in good faith for their safe release while this was still possible. The insistence by the Netanyahu government that military pressure would ensure the safety of the hostages proved to be hollow.
Netanyahu knows the three-phase plan is the best available option for Israel, but not necessarily for his own political survival, which is his number one, if not only, priority.
To achieve this, he needs to maneuver between the far-right parties that are threatening to leave his coalition government should he accept the Biden road map, and the National Unity alliance, whose leader Benny Gantz presented an ultimatum to Netanyahu that expired on Saturday, a main demand of which was that the prime minister take action to secure the release of the hostages.
Concurrently, the High Court of Justice is deliberating the drafting into military service of ultra-Orthodox youths, who until now have been exempt from mandatory military conscription. Should the judges order the government to conscript these men, their representatives are likely to abandon the sinking ship of the coalition.
Netanyahu could, in a final act of desperation, accept the ceasefire deal and then call a general election in one more attempt to manipulate the Israeli electorate by persuading them the war has been successful. Whatever happens, the Biden ceasefire proposal is badly in need of elaboration to ensure that the events of Oct. 7, and what followed, can never happen again.
One obvious mistake, moving forward, would be to conclude that a permanent end to hostilities can be achieved without addressing the entirety of the root causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For now, an end to the fighting, the release of the hostages, and the free flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza would be much-welcomed initial developments.
But the process cannot, and should not, stop there without moving on to agreement of a comprehensive, fair and just peace settlement within a relatively short framework of time.

• Yossi Mekelberg is a professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the Middle East and North Africa Program at international affairs think tank Chatham House. X: @YMekelberg