American diplomatic efforts to end the war in the Gaza Strip and establish a new relationship with Saudi Arabia have converged in recent weeks on one big choice before Israel and its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: What do you want more: Rafah or Riyadh?
Do you want to carry out a comprehensive invasion of Rafah in an attempt to eliminate Hamas – if that is possible at all – without presenting any Israeli strategy for exiting Gaza or any political horizon for a two-state solution with Palestinians who do not belong to the Hamas movement? The reality is that if it takes this path, it will only double Israel's isolation in the world and cause a real dispute with the Biden administration.
Or do you want normalization with Saudi Arabia, an Arab peacekeeping force for Gaza, and a US-led security alliance against Iran? If so, its price would be different: a commitment from your government to work toward a Palestinian state with a reformed Palestinian Authority — but with Israel benefiting from the advantage of being included in the broadest American-Arab-Israeli defense alliance it has ever enjoyed and the largest bridge with the rest of the world. The Islamic world was offered to it at all, while creating at least some hope that the conflict with the Palestinians would not be an “eternal war.”
From the conversations I've had here in Riyadh and in Washington, I can describe Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's view regarding the Israeli invasion of Gaza today as follows: Get out as quickly as possible. This is because all Israel is currently doing is killing more and more civilians, pushing the Saudis who supported normalization with Israel to oppose it, creating more recruits for Al-Qaeda and ISIS, strengthening the position of Iran and its allies, causing instability in the region and driving away foreign investments. Which she desperately needs. As for the idea of eliminating “Hamas” “finally and forever,” they are just dreams, from Saudi Arabia’s point of view. If Israel wants to continue carrying out special operations in Gaza to target the leadership, then there is no problem. But there are no troops permanently on the ground. What is required is to reach a complete ceasefire and release the hostages as soon as possible, and focus instead on the security-normalization deal between the United States, Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Palestinians.
This is another path Israel could take right now — one that no senior Israeli opposition leader is advocating as a top priority, but one that the Biden administration and the Saudis, Egyptians, Jordanians, Bahrainis, Moroccans, and Emiratis support. It is true that his success is by no means certain, but so is the “complete victory” that Netanyahu promises.
This other path begins with Israel refraining from any comprehensive military invasion of Rafah, which is located directly on the border with Egypt and is the main route through which humanitarian relief enters Gaza by truck. This area includes more than 200,000 permanent residents and more than a million refugees displaced from northern Gaza. It is said that it is the place where the last 4 intact Hamas brigades, and perhaps its leader, Yahya Al-Sinwar, are holed up as well.
The Biden administration is publicly telling Netanyahu that he should not conduct a comprehensive invasion of Rafah without a credible plan to remove those more than a million civilians – and that Israel has not yet presented such a plan. But away from the media spotlight, the administration speaks more frankly and says to Israel: No major invasion of Rafah, the talk is over.
American officials are convinced that if Israel destroys all of Rafah, after it did the same to large parts of Khan Yunis and Gaza City, and does not have a reliable Palestinian partner to relieve it of the security burden of governing shattered Gaza, it will commit the same mistake that the United States committed in Iraq will end up facing a permanent insurgency, as well as a permanent humanitarian crisis. However, there will be one fundamental difference between the two cases: the United States is a superpower that can fail in Iraq and then recover and rise. As for Israel, a permanent rebellion in Gaza would paralyze it, especially at a time when it has no friends left.
Therefore, American officials told me that if Israel carries out a major military operation in Rafah, despite the objections of the US administration, President Joe Biden will consider the possibility of imposing restrictions on some arms sales to it.
This is not only because the Biden administration wants to avoid further civilian casualties in Gaza out of humanitarian concerns, or because this would raise the ire of world public opinion against Israel and make it more difficult for the Biden team to defend Israel, but because the US administration believes that A comprehensive Israeli invasion of Rafah will undermine the chances of success of a new hostage exchange operation, for which officials say there is a new glimmer of hope now, and will destroy the vital projects that the US administration is currently working on to enhance Israel’s security in the long term.
The Biden team wants to complete the US-Saudi part of the deal, so that it can act like the opposition party that Israel does not have at the moment and can say to Netanyahu: You can be remembered in history as the leader who oversaw Israel's worst military disaster on October 7, or the leader Who led Israel to leave Gaza and opened the way for normalization between Israel and the most important Islamic country. Your choice! He wants to present this choice to her publicly so that every Israeli can see it.
Therefore, let me end this article where I began: Israel's long-term interests are in Riyadh, not Rafah. Of course, both are uncertain, and both involve risks. I also realize that it is not easy for the Israelis to evaluate these two options at a time when many protesters around the world are attacking Israel these days because of its bad behavior in Gaza and absolving Hamas of the consequences of what it did. But this is the role of the leaders: to explain and clarify that the road to Riyadh has a much greater return than the road to Rafah, which will be a dead end in every sense of the word.
In conclusion, I fully appreciate that Israelis are the ones who will have to live with the choice they ultimately make, and all I want is to make sure they know they have a choice.
Published by special arrangement with the New York Times Service.
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