The dilemma confronting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — whether to pursue peace with an adversary he loathes and distrusts — is hardly new. Since at least 1948, Israeli and Palestinian leaders have had to decide which risks are more tolerable: the risks of escalation or the risks of de-escalation.
Netanyahu’s dilemma is also a remarkable opportunity, caused by Hamas’ agreement to the Board of Peace’s proposal for the militant group’s phased disarmament, including its stated commitment to cease all military activity. Despite years of demanding such disarmament, Netanyahu has refused the deal.
No doubt that he has every reason to distrust Hamas, which remains unrepentant about the atrocities it perpetrated on Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad promised in 2023 to repeat Oct. 7 “again and again” until Israel is annihilated. When asked in a recent interview if he would recant this threat, he declined to do so.
But accepting the current proposal would not rely on trusting Hamas. Under the Board of Peace road map, Israel would not have to withdraw from any area of Gaza until that area has been verified as free of weapons. According to the board’s negotiator, Nickolay Mladenov, once that occurs, Israel will withdraw — and the International Stabilization Force, led by an American general, will move in to secure it. The process would then be repeated, sector by sector, until Hamas is completely disarmed and Israel has completely withdrawn from Gaza.
To be sure, Netanyahu would prefer that Hamas disarm completely throughout Gaza before Israel begins any withdrawal (just as Hamas would prefer that Israel withdraw completely before it begins any disarmament). But refusing the compromise is risky because it can contribute to a narrative of intransigence. For decades now, Palestinians have been reminded: “Israel offered you peace before — at Camp David — and Yasser Arafat walked away. Why should we take you seriously as a peace partner?”
Whether or not one finds this narrative credible — the Palestinian side of the argument is that the deals on the table were not sufficient for a viable state — it has become an Israeli cudgel against taking any further risks for peace.
Netanyahu now risks gifting Hamas a similar weapon. If Netanyahu refuses the Board of Peace deal, then Hamas can say: “We offered Israel disarmament — the thing they claimed they wanted. They refused. Now why should we offer to disarm again in the future?”
With Israel’s international reputation cratering, it can ill afford to give Hamas this public relations coup.
Rather than seeking to end the conflict through a negotiated resolution — as Israeli leaders such as Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert tried — Netanyahu has been widely seen instead as having sought to manage the conflict by focusing on security measures and ratcheting up pressure on Palestinians through military occupation and settlement construction. After Oct. 7, however, the notion that this conflict can be managed is in tatters.
In geopolitical conflict, every behavior tilts the conflict in the direction of peace or in the direction of war. The consequences of any given behavior may be small and probabilistic, but the general trajectory — toward peace or toward more war — matters.
As accurately depicted in “The Brink of War,” a new movie about the 1986 nuclear summit in Reykjavik, both Mikhail Gorbachev (Jared Harris) and Ronald Reagan (Jeff Daniels) surprised each other with ambitious and generous offers toward denuclearization. That summit closed without a deal, but the bold steps the two leaders took in the direction of peace paved the way for the landmark Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty the following year.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a graveyard of missed opportunities. The leaders who rejected opportunities for peace in the past contributed, in their own small way, to the horrors endured by Israelis and Palestinians in recent years. Arafat’s rejection of the opportunity available at Camp David in 2000 increased the risk of future catastrophe for Palestinians. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s failure to seriously pursue the Arab Peace Initiative in 2002 increased the risk of future catastrophe for Israelis.
For Netanyahu, giving Hamas a chance to disarm in exchange for reciprocally returning Gaza to the Palestinian people would be a meaningful step in the direction of peace, one that is likely to reduce the odds of another Oct. 7.
Nothing is guaranteed, of course, and military hawks can always offer internally coherent arguments for why the risks of de-escalation are too great. What such arguments tend to discount are the risks of refusing to de-escalate.
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The status quo is horrific. The death and carnage in Gaza since 2023 beggars comprehension, and human decency requires that the Palestinian people have an opportunity to return to a more humane existence. Meanwhile, Hamas remains the dominant — and well-armed — governing faction in Gaza.
It takes tremendous courage for a leader to stand up to the most hawkish voices on their own side, as Gorbachev and Reagan were willing to do in Reykjavik. And this is a moment for courage: From Israel’s perspective, it is self-defeating to refuse a deal that holds real potential not only to disarm Hamas but also to push Israelis and Palestinians in the direction of peace, dignity and self-determination for both peoples.
Accepting the deal entails risk. But so does refusing it — and Israelis and Palestinians have already learned the terrible cost of believing that the status quo is the safer choice.
Peace does not require Netanyahu to trust Hamas. This proposal requires something harder and more realistic: that each side take a verifiable step. And then another.
For decades, Israeli and Palestinian leaders have had to choose between the risks of escalation and the risks of de-escalation. Netanyahu now faces that choice himself. The greater risk is standing still.
John Aziz is a writer, analyst and peace advocate. Eli J. Finkel is a professor at Northwestern University and founding co-director of the Litowitz Center for Enlightened Disagreement.
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