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Israel and the Palestinians: From the Two-State Solution to Five Failed "States" | CSIS - Cordesman |

There is an important distinction between prediction and warning. No one can now predict how the current fighting between Israel and the Palestinians will end, or if it will even pause for a prolonged period - a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas can easily become the prelude to a new low-level, sporadic war of attrition or Intifada. History teaches all too well that any form of new agreement can become the prelude to new acts of political extremism and polarization - to acquiring new arms and defenses, taking new security measures, and creating forms of resistance and terrorism.

The latest rounds of Israeli and Palestinian violence have already reached levels where they are a further barrier to any real and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel has reported that more than 3,400 Hamas rockets had been fired at Israel in the week ending on May 17th. Israel had responded with steadily intensifying precision air strikes on 766 targets, and Hamas claimed that they had resulted in 200 casualties, including 59 children and 35 women - 1,305 injured by the same date - although Israel claimed that more than 130 of those killed were Palestinian militants.

There were reports that Hamas might be seeking a ceasefire, but the fighting and air strikes continued to intensify.1 Even once this fighting does end, it seems far more likely to polarize both sides than bring them together. At the same time, they already seem to be dividing outside states over support of Israel versus support of given Palestinian factions - further making the Palestinian issue one that divides Israel's neighbors or one that they might attempt to exploit.

The Abraham Accords between Israel, Bahrain, Morocco, the Sudan, and the UAE occurred between Israel and states that had never really backed the Palestinians in war and that needed U.S. aid and political support or major U.S. weapons transfer like the F-35. They might, however, have still been the prelude to a broader accommodation between Israel and the Arab world.

However, the renewed attention to the Palestinian issue, the sheer intensity of the current fighting, and the level of civilian casualties and collateral damage caused by Israeli efforts to suppress Hamas's rocket attacks seem likely to reverse such limited progress. It also opens up the risk on added divisions over the peace and Palestinian issues in Jordan, Egypt, and other moderate nations in the Arab world - an issue that Syria, Iran, and the Hezbollah will likely exploit for the Palestinian cause, and one that Russia, China, and Turkey will likely attempt to exploit to their own strategic advantage.



'Sapere aude'
by Oui (Oui) on Wed May 26th, 2021 at 11:56:40 AM EST

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