{"id":16428,"date":"2025-05-28T06:20:15","date_gmt":"2025-05-28T13:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=16428"},"modified":"2025-05-29T06:34:27","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T13:34:27","slug":"the-way-to-end-the-gaza-war-has-been-clear-for-nearly-a-year-the-washington-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=16428","title":{"rendered":"“The way to end the Gaza war has been clear for nearly a year”, The Washington Post"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Opinion<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

David Ignatius<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every day he delays, Benjamin Netanyahu harms both Palestinian civilians and his people.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

May 28, 2025 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Wednesday, the 600th day of the Gaza war, Israel faced an astonishing rebuke, not from its enemies but perhaps its closest Arab friend: The United Arab Emirates summoned the Israeli ambassador in Abu Dhabi to protest \u201cdeplorable and offensive<\/a>\u201d attacks on Palestinians by extremists in Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s a measure of how isolated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s government has become \u2014 that the country that first embraced the Abraham Accords is publicly signaling that it\u2019s fed up. What triggered the UAE diplomatic rebuff was an incident on Monday in which extreme Israeli nationalists chanted slogans and attacked Palestinians in the courtyard of the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The world is running out of patience with Netanyahu as the war in Gaza drags on. Britain, France and Canada last week condemned \u201cegregious actions<\/a>\u201d by Israel in its renewed military offensive in Gaza. A top United Nations official on Wednesday denounced an Israeli takeover of humanitarian assistance for Palestinians as \u201can assault on their human dignity<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Netanyahu is being savaged in Israel, too. Former prime minister Ehud Olmert this week accused Netanyahu\u2019s government of war crimes. In\u00a0an op-ed in Haaretz<\/a>, he wrote: \u201cThe government of Israel is currently waging a war without purpose, without goals or clear planning and with no chances of success.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Washington Post Opinions<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Netanyahu\u2019s most serious problem might be in the White House. President Donald Trump is peeved that the fighting in Gaza has dragged on. Perhaps more important, he is openly resisting a rumored Israeli plan to strike Iran. When a reporter asked Wednesday whether he had warned Netanyahu against such an attack while a White House emissary is trying to negotiate a diplomatic deal to cap Iran\u2019s nuclear program,\u00a0Trump answered<\/a>, \u201cI would like to be honest: Yes, I did.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s agree that Netanyahu faces a ruthless terrorist enemy in Hamas and its champion, Iran. And let\u2019s pause to remember the way Israelis were butchered on Oct. 7, 2023, as Hamas attacked across the Gaza fence. But that doesn\u2019t change the obligation for Israel to end this war, for its own sake as well as to spare additional Palestinian civilian deaths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s agonizing is that Israeli military and intelligence leaders were ready to settle this conflict nearly a year ago. Working with U.S. and Emirati officials, they developed a plan<\/a> for security \u201cbubbles\u201d that would contain the violence, starting in northern Gaza and moving south, backed by an international peacekeeping force that would include troops from European and moderate Arab countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In place of Hamas, a Palestinian government, backed by a reformed Palestinian Authority, would take political control. This wasn\u2019t a pipe dream. Officials worked out a detailed road map. They began planning to train the Palestinian security force that would replace Hamas. This was, as golfers like to say, \u201ca makeable putt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Netanyahu said no. His right-wing coalition partners demanded \u201ctotal victory,\u201d even though they couldn\u2019t define just what that meant. The UAE and Saudi Arabia, which had agreed to provide troops and money for Gaza security, got tired of waiting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Postwar planning went into reverse when Trump arrived in the White House and talked about forcibly removing Palestinians and an American takeover of Gaza. But that idea fizzled. Netanyahu was left with a problem he didn\u2019t know how to answer except with more military force. So, in March, after a two-month ceasefire, he resumed the war. Hamas, still strutting for the cameras even though it had been gutted militarily, made it easy for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Israeli-Palestinian dispute might seem intractable, but ending this conflict would be relatively easy. I\u2019m told that Israeli military officials keep working on \u201cday after\u201d plans, honing details as recently as this week. But they have had no political support from Netanyahu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe \u2018exit ramp\u2019 has been staring us in the face for a long time,\u201d argues Robert Satloff, director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. It\u2019s a mix of Arab states and Gaza Palestinians, operating under a Palestinian Authority umbrella, he explains. \u201cIt is messy, with overlapping responsibilities and lots of dotted lines. But it checks all the boxes to enable the process of reconstruction and rehabilitation to get off the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond its awful cost in Palestinian lives, this war has damaged Israel. And I don\u2019t simply mean the country\u2019s international reputation, but its heart and soul. What began as a righteous war of retaliation for unspeakable atrocities has become, as Olmert accurately put it, \u201ca war without purpose.\u201d That kind of struggle bends back on itself, eating away at even the strongest, proudest nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diplomats are needed to resolve most wars. In this case, however, I\u2019d be happy to settle for a real estate developer \u2014 like Trump or his special envoy Steve Witkoff. The settlement terms have been obvious for a year. It\u2019s time to close this deal and end the Gaza tragedy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The comments overwhelmingly criticize Israel’s actions against Palestinians, describing them as genocidal and accusing the Israeli government, particularly Prime Minister Netanyahu, of war crimes. Many commenters express frustration with the U.S. for supporting Israel, suggesting…\u00a0Show more<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0David Ignatius<\/a> David Ignatius writes a twice-a-week foreign affairs column for The Washington Post. His latest novel is \u201cPhantom Orbit.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Opinion David Ignatius Every day he delays, Benjamin Netanyahu harms both Palestinian civilians and his people. May 28, 2025 On Wednesday, the 600th day of the Gaza war, Israel faced an astonishing rebuke, not from its enemies but perhaps its closest Arab friend: The United Arab Emirates summoned the Israeli ambassador in Abu Dhabi to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16428"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16429,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16428\/revisions\/16429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}