Now that there’s a truce in Gaza, two pieces of hard work begins.  

The first is both sides accepting a reality check of where they stand post mini-war.  First, as to Hamas claiming it has won the battle, that would be tantamount to a football team losing 42-6 and suffering devastating injuries to their key players, yet then claiming it won.  The Israeli military crushed Hamas, and that’s obvious on its face.

But at the same time, Israel is globally in the most precarious position since its founding in 1948. There is little present universal support for Israel at this time, and whether Israel was right or wrong in trying to incapacitate Hamas, and I think it was right, the global media, including in the U.S. has been consistently merciless in attacking Israel for being overbearing against the Gazans and Palestinians generally. And this skirmish and fall-out is happening at a time that worldwide anti-Semitism is at its highest point since Hitler.

I provide this next point purely out of caring.  Israeli leaders need to come to grips with the country’s present image and start rebuilding its name and reputation worldwide as a true democracy, and there should be no delay in taking action.  Particularly in the U.S. and Europe. Doing so will be difficult, and this proposition leads me to the second prong of the hard work—literally cleaning up the great big mess in Gaza, which includes dealing with both the emotional on edge Israeli and Palestinian people.  Measures must be taken promptly so that everyone will feel as if their health, safety and well-being is attended to by the Israeli leaders, especially in Gaza, where there are no leaders, only terrorists.  That strip of land is facing a dire humanitarian crisis which cannot be ignored.   If Israel is engaged, it can help repair and moderate some of the terrible public relations problems it indisputably faces.

A critical economic factor supports Israel’s need to be proactive. That is, summer is nearly here and if American Jewish and Christian tourists do not feel it is safe to visit Israel, they won’t be coming, and those dollars support countless Israeli jobs.  Remember, Israel already lost a fortune of tourism money the past sixteen months due to Covid-19, and it just spent billions on the Gaza incursion.  Maybe more important, given that the court of public opinion feels like it is decidedly against Israel, it must try something new by helping fix Gaza’s humanitarian issues.

As to the Palestinians, Hamas has been marginalized with its infrastructure destroyed and many of its top leaders killed. Undeniably, Hamas is a terrorist organization. Living conditions in Gaza have dramatically worsened since 2007 when Hamas took total control over that territory.  It is unfortunate that any innocent Gaza Palestinians died, but Hamas’ sending 4000 missiles into Israel directly caused the retaliatory bombing in Gaza, the goal of which was to decimate Hamas.  Fortunately, the Iron Dome system knocked down the vast majority of those missiles.

Conversely, Fatah controls the West Bank and excepting a few minor skirmishes, it avoided confrontation with Israel.  Just prior to the violence, Mahmoud Abbas cancelled the Palestinian parliamentary and presidential elections, upon realizing that Hamas was way ahead in the polls. While Fatah is known for corruption, at least it’s not a terrorist group. Now, however, with new elections, Abbas and Fatah should have the opportunity to take long-term control of the West Bank and Gaza.  Hopefully, they will see benefit to working with the Israelis and the Palestinians in Gaza, to improve their station in life. This is also complicated, but should Hamas win the next Palestinian election, that would long term be terrible for Israel and for the peace-loving Palestinians, and there are a lot of them.

Since I don’t think either Israel or the Palestinians are quite ready to draw up their mutual cooperation wish list, here is one that has long-term positive ramifications for all.

1. Critically, while Fatah is not a terrorist organization, it must renounce terrorism and acknowledge Israel’s right to exist in peace.  The PLO actually agreed to this as part of the Oslo Accords, until they fell apart.

2. Israel rolls back the eviction of the Palestinian families from their homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. Optically, taking anyone’s home that they’ve lived in for generations feels wrong.

3. Forthwith, the United States should send 2,000,000 Covid vaccines to Gaza and the West Bank since clearly, Americans are declining taking the vaccine. If Israel has extra vaccines or can quickly produce them for the Palestinians, they should.  The USA and as many countries as possible should send food, water and other rebuilding supplies to Gaza to help the people get back on their feet.  With careful precautions to ensure weapons are not brought in on the Gaza Coast, the long-time embargo in place by Egypt and Israel should be lifted in part.

4. Israel, the United States, Arab countries and the world community must step up to find a fix to the water aquifer in Gaza that will soon run out of fresh water and will make a bad situation in Gaza even worse.  Perhaps building desalinization plants in Gaza will help. Certainly, the broken sewers need to be fixed and rubble from the bombing must be cleaned up.  This needs to be a unified effort.

5. Israel and the Palestinians must report to the bargaining table to discuss a two-state solution. If this doesn’t happen, Israel and the Palestinians likely will be plagued repeatedly by more rounds of this violence in the future.  Israel must be freed completely from any actual or perceived responsibility for Palestinian lives or government, outside of those who wish to stay in Israel proper. Conversely, going back even before 1948, the Palestinians have abrogated every opportunity to have their own homeland. How can the Palestinian people complain about their lot in life, if they’re not willing to have self-pride and take responsibility for their own well-being?

Some may ask why Israel should do anything to help the Palestinians since going back to the very day that Israel became a nation in 1948, it was attacked by them and neighboring aggressor Arab nations.  Indeed, numerous Palestinian terrorist organizations in the West Bank still seek to destroy Israel.  But don’t forget, Yasser Arafat and the PLO almost got to peace and a two-state solution. 

As an ardent supporter of Israel including its right to defend itself, the country I love needs to try something different.  What does it hurt to show kindness and develop goodwill?  And if it doesn’t work, the world will see Israel’s effort and then it’s on the Palestinians’ backs.  Most may say this is a pipe dream, and frankly, they’re probably right.  But what’s wrong with dreaming?