In the days of the final ground offensive in Gaza City, Israel faces the crossroads that Ehud Barak pointed out years ago: “remain Jewish, democratic or control all the land”. It cannot have it all at once.

When Benjamin Netanyahu writes in X that ‘there will never be a Palestinian state’, apart from expressing an irrationally ideological position, he charts a potentially deadly course firstly for Israel’s interests, and secondly for international law.

This statement is not meant to question the understandable fears of the Jewish state after decades of wars, failed agreements and spilled blood. It intends to recognise the vital need for the return of politics as a continuation of war by other means, and not the other way around.

The same General von Clausewitz, a historical advocate of armed conflict resolution, would recognise in this day and age that the Israeli government’s categorical rejection of any political solution to the Palestinian issue amounts to thetriggering of a time bomb destined sooner or later to explode right in the heart of Tel Aviv.

The weight of demography and democracy

As Daniela Santus has already pointed out in Il Foglio, it is demography that speaks for itself. From the river to the sea today live about 15 million people: 7 million Jews, 2.5 million Arab-Israeli and about 5 million Palestinians. Any hypothesis of permanent control of the entire region must therefore come to terms with this demographic reality. Hence the paradox: in the event of permanent annexation, the potential recognition of political rights to the Palestinians would result in a scenario where the electoral majority is no longer Jewish, but Arab. With a consequent good chance of an overthrow of the democratic form of state. At the same time, the non-recognition of political rights to millions of people would definitively configure Israel as a rogue and formally anti-democratic state.

To these arguments must be added the reality, which sees millions of Arabs deprived of political rights living in Gaza and the West Bank, fuelled by Hamas terrorist blackmail and the hardships of the conflict. These territories and their inhabitants certainly cannot be wiped off the map, let alone restricted by borders artificially imposed by walls and checkpoints. Therefore, the three variables mentioned by Barak are logically incompatible. Israel cannot maintain perpetual military and administrative control of the entire Holy Land without distorting its constitutional identity as a Jewish and democratic state. Hence the need for a political path.

Gaza as a failed test case

The plastic failure of the strategy based solely on force is the ongoing tragedy in Gaza.

The Israeli operation, between bombardments and ground incursions, has caused thousands of civilian casualties and a humanitarian crisis of disproportionate dimensions. However, neither greater security nor a renewed sense of trust in the country has corresponded to this high price.

Militarily, Hamas has been hard hit, but not eliminated; politically, however, it has (absurdly) emerged strengthened. Today, partly due to Israeli strategic failures, it is perceived and, in part, legitimised by international public opinion as a force of resistance to oppression. A confirmation, in the words of Norberto Bobbio, that ‘bad means can corrupt good ends’.

Bibi’s Spartan dream and the indignation of civil society

While Israel’s international isolation grows by leaps and bounds, to such an extent that PM Netanyahu has said he is ready to espouse the autarkic path ‘as in a super-Sparta’, something in the country is moving.

The heaviest warning comes from theIsrael Business Forum, which brings together the country’s leading private companies and has long supported the premier’s economic policies. “We are not Sparta. Netanyahu’s policies risk leading us into an unprecedented diplomatic and economic nadir. The government should stop the bloody war with the release of all hostages and call general elections as soon as possible.”

The strong stance taken by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum is of high symbolic value. The organisation, which has been fighting for 714 days for the unconditional release of the civilians kidnapped on 7 October, a goal semantically shared with Netanyahu, denounces the PM in a statement, accusing him of ‘deliberate treason for political considerations’. According to the association, the lives of the surviving hostages held in Gaza City under siege ‘are currently hanging by a thread’.

That Trumpian ‘unwavering support’ can backfire on the Star of David

So we list: business elites, senior ranks of the IDF and Mossad, two-thirds of public opinion (source: NYT), the European Union, and-after the Doha bombings-even the strategic ‘Abrahamic’ partners in the Gulf. All zealously united against the actions of the government in Tel Aviv. At this point, what drives the prime minister to swagger ahead down a seemingly suicidal path?

The answer has a name and a surname: Donald Trump. Netanyahu clings to the support of the tycoon’s government, reaffirmed again by Secretary of State Rubio on an official visit to Jerusalem on the eve of Operation Gideon Chariots II. As strong as “the stones of the Western Wall”, the favour of the Trump administration and the US, on which Israel has become militarily and economically almost dependent, is the only foothold left for the Israeli prime minister in his strategy of political survival above all personal.

Netanyahu’s titanic confidence in Trump, however, has no unshakable basis. On the other hand, with its unconditional support for Israel, the US is undermining the Middle East balance achieved after the Abrahamic Accords of 2020. In this regard, the question arises: to what extent is the US willing to jeopardise historical and fruitful strategic relations with its Gulf allies in the name of the Israeli cause?

The rope, according to Politico, cannot be pulled for long. And, again according to Politico, Trump’s position embodies the only leverage potentially able to make Netanyahu back down. Perhaps already during the meeting between the two leaders scheduled in Washington on 29 September.

Glimmers of Peace: the role of the Arab League

Despite rhetorical and political support for Tel Aviv’s decisions, the White House is well aware ofthe incompatibility of the three variables mentioned by Barak. Therefore, the ‘day after’ discussions in Gaza are centred on an agreement with all regional actors on the body that will replace Hamas in governing the territories, which cannot be Israel. The protagonists of these developments are the Arab League – which after the historic resolution in New York on 30 July accredited itself as the preferred diplomatic platform – and the working team led by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

By finally abandoning Hamas, the Arab countries, once labelled as ‘conniving with Islamic terrorism’, have opened a new phase in Middle Eastern developments. With the Qatari capital Doha at the epicentre of renewed negotiating activity. Shaken recently by the 9 September IDF air force attacks on the Hamas delegation in the city. The offensive not only represented a strategic failure for Israel with the failure to eliminate the Hamas leadership, but triggered an institutional short circuit with the Al Thani government and the other partners on the peninsula. In order to recompose the rift, it was necessary for US Secretary of State Rubio to intervene to guarantee the Gulf monarchy’s role as sole mediator. Even in light of these facts, the balance remains precarious, and the US margin of tolerance towards Netanyahu narrow.

The Blair Plan

In the midst of these myriad difficulties, as revealed yesterday by the Times of Israel, the efforts of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) to draw up a shared peace plan are moving forward. The draft resolution, already endorsed by Trump, envisages the establishment of the Gaza International Transitional Authority (GITA). In Blair’s plans, GITA is to have a board of seven to ten members, including ‘at least one qualified Palestinian representative (in agreement with PNA leader Ramallah, whom Blair met with in July)’, a senior UN official, leading international figures with executive or financial experience, and a ‘strong representation of Muslim members’.

The historic crossroads awaiting Israel

The involvement of all regional partners and the recognition of a Palestinian state authority purified of Hamas are therefore the globally agreed (and shareable) cornerstones for putting an end to the post-7 October violence. While the latest political developments do not seem conciliatory, Israel is faced with a choice that cannot be postponed.

With or without Netanyahu, it must abdicate its supremacist claim to total control of Gaza and the West Bank, shelving obtuse radical and messianic impulses and re-embracing the values of free markets and international cooperation. If Israel wants to remain the democratic beacon of the Middle East and the home of the Jewish people, it must heed Barak’s warning and return to political realism. Neighbourly peace with the Palestinians is the only viable path: difficult, risky, but inevitable. Today Israel must decide whether to remain a prisoner of fear or, quoting Yitzhak Rabin, ‘take big risks in the name of peace’. Either weapons or dialogue, the road is a thin one.