Top American, Israeli and Arab officials are seeking to forge three parallel but related deals that could end the war in Gaza, finalise its post-war status, and, most ambitiously, set commitments for the creation of a Palestinian state.
Top officials from at least 10 different administrations are trying to forge a head-spinning set of deals to end the war in the Gaza Strip and answer the divisive question of how the territory will be governed after the fighting stops.
The narrowest set of major discussions is focused on reaching a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. This would involve the exchange of more than 100 Israeli hostages held by Hamas for a ceasefire and thousands of Palestinians detained in Israeli jails.
A second track centres on reshaping the Palestinian Authority, the semi-autonomous body that administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. US and Arab officials are discussing overhauling the leadership of the authority and having it take control of Gaza after the war ends, assuming power from Israel and Hamas.
In a third track, US and Saudi officials are pushing Israel to agree to conditions for the creation of a Palestinian state in exchange for Saudi Arabia forging formal ties with Israel for the first time.
The demands and outcomes discussed in all three processes are linked, and the talks are mostly seen as long shots. The war began with the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7 that killed about 1200 people, Israeli officials said. The Israeli counterattack has left more than 25,000 Palestinians dead in Gaza, Health Ministry officials there say. US President Joe Biden has given Israel full support for the war.
Significant obstacles need to be overcome in each set of negotiations. Most notably, Israel’s government says it will not allow full Palestinian sovereignty, raising doubts about whether progress can be made on the major fronts. And the Israeli military campaign has not destroyed Hamas, so it is unclear how Hamas would be persuaded to step aside while it still controls part of Gaza.
The United States is the power trying to stitch it all together. Brett McGurk, the top White House official on the Middle East, was in the region this past week, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to him by phone several times while on a trip in Africa, a senior State Department official said. The Biden administration wants to ensure a top US official is speaking face-to-face at all times with Israeli and Arab leaders.
Officials are tossing around many ideas, most of which are provisional, long shots or strongly opposed by some parties. Several contentious suggestions are:
- Transferring power within the Palestinian Authority from the incumbent president, Mahmoud Abbas, to a new prime minister, while letting Abbas retain a ceremonial role.
- Sending an Arab peacekeeping force to Gaza to bolster a new Palestinian administration there.
- Passing a UN Security Council resolution, backed by the United States, that would recognise the Palestinians’ right to statehood.
The following is a road map to the three tracks, based on interviews with more than a dozen diplomats and other officials involved in the talks, all of whom spoke anonymously in order to discuss them more freely.
1. Hostages and a ceasefire
The Americans see an end to the war as the first thing the parties need to deliver. Those talks are entwined with negotiations for the release of more than 100 hostages seized during the rampage of October 7 and held by Hamas and its allies. Hamas has said it will not release the hostages until Israel agrees to a permanent ceasefire, a stance that is incompatible with Israel’s stated goal of fighting until Hamas is removed from Gaza.
Officials from the US, Israel, Egypt and Qatar are discussing a deal that would pause the fighting for up to two months. In November, the parties agreed to a brief pause that resulted in Hamas releasing more than 100 hostages.
In one proposal, the hostages would be released in phases during a pause of up to 60 days in exchange for Palestinians jailed by Israel. Some officials have suggested Israeli civilians would be released first, in exchange for Palestinian women and minors detained by Israel. Then, captured Israeli soldiers would be exchanged for Palestinian militant leaders serving long-term sentences.
Diplomats on various sides say they hope that more detailed discussions could be held during the pause about a permanent truce that might involve the withdrawal of most or all Israeli troops, the departure of Hamas’ leaders from the strip and a transition of power to the Palestinian Authority. For now, Israel and Hamas have each rejected some of those conditions.
To try to advance these negotiations, CIA Director William Burns plans to meet in Europe in the coming days with senior Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari counterparts.
Some observers hope that the UN world court’s call on Friday (Saturday NZT) for Israel to comply with the Genocide Convention will give momentum and political cover to Israeli officials who are pushing internally to end the war.
2. Overhaul the Palestinian Authority
The Palestinian Authority briefly controlled Gaza after Israeli troops left in 2005, but Hamas forced it from power two years later. Now some want the authority to return to Gaza and play a role in post-war governance. To make that idea more appealing to Israel, which opposes it, there is a push by the United States, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states to overhaul the authority and change its leadership.
Under its current president, Abbas, 88, the authority is widely perceived as corrupt and authoritarian. Mediators are encouraging him to take a more ceremonial role and to cede executive power to a new prime minister who could oversee Gaza’s reconstruction and reduce corruption. US officials say the goal is to make the authority a more plausible administrator of a future Palestinian state. Israeli officials also assert that the authority needs to change its education system, which they say does not promote peace, and end welfare payments to those convicted of violence against Israelis.
Some critics of Abbas want him replaced by Salam Fayyad, a Princeton professor credited with modernising the authority during a stint as prime minister a decade ago, or Nasser al-Kidwa, a former Palestinian envoy to the UN who broke with Abbas three years ago. But diplomats say Abbas is pushing for a candidate over whom he has more influence, like Mohammad Mustafa, his longtime economic adviser.
Some officials have proposed an Arab peacekeeping force to help the new Palestinian leader keep order in a post-war Gaza. Israeli officials reject that notion but have floated the idea of a multinational force under Israel’s oversight in the strip. US diplomats told the Israelis this month that Arab leaders oppose their idea.
3. Saudi normalisation with Israel
In the most ambitious set of talks, the Biden administration has revived discussions with Saudi Arabia to have the Saudis agree to formal diplomatic relations with Israel.
The three-way deal had been under discussion before the October 7 attacks, and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia seemed amenable to it because the Biden administration was offering a US-Saudi defence treaty, cooperation on a civilian nuclear programme and greater arms sales. Under that arrangement, US officials say, the Saudis would have accepted Israel’s relatively minor concessions on the Palestinian issue in return for Saudi recognition.
That recognition would be an important political win for US and Israeli leaders because of Saudi Arabia’s status as a leading Arab and Muslim nation.
Since the war began, however, Saudi Arabia and the United States have raised the price for Israel, now insisting that Israel commit to a process that leads to a Palestinian state and includes Palestinian governance of Gaza. US officials have also told the Israelis that Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations would agree to give money for the reconstruction of Gaza only if Israeli leaders commit to a pathway to Palestinian statehood.
These new terms were first voiced publicly by Blinken after he met with Crown Prince Mohammed in a desert tent camp in Saudi Arabia this month. He delivered them to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel after flying from there to Tel Aviv, Israel. He reiterated them again in a public talk at Davos, Switzerland, as did Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser.
Netanyahu has publicly rejected that proposal — pledging recently to maintain Israel’s military control of the entirety of the West Bank and Gaza. Many Israelis support that, although some US officials wonder whether it is an opening bargaining position by Netanyahu.
To reassure the Saudis and the Palestinians, some officials have suggested a UN Security Council resolution, backed by the US, that would enshrine the Palestinians’ right to sovereignty. But the idea has yet to gain traction.
There is also the question of whether the Biden administration can deliver a Senate-approved mutual defence treaty to Crown Prince Mohammed. Some Democratic senators have already raised concerns about such a treaty. And the chances of Republican senators opposing it are expected to grow as the November US presidential election draws closer.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Patrick Kingsley and Edward Wong
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