The world is different as a result of the ongoing war in Gaza. But how?
Hamas’s October 7 attack against Israel and the continuing Israeli response in Gaza have not only led to tens of thousands of deaths and disrupted the lives of millions of others, they have also left indelible marks on Israeli and Palestinian society. The prolonged period of stasis in relations between Israelis and Palestinians has clearly come to an end, as the Gaza conflict has more broadly plunged the Middle East into a series of escalating security threats involving regional and international actors and stretching from the Levant to the Red Sea.
But what is emerging in this new era? Many observers have rushed in with ideas of how to revive diplomacy or politics. They have zoomed in offering creative ideas about Palestinian governance and Israeli security, and zoomed out suggesting a Middle Eastern grand bargain that could incentivize peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Such efforts are very much needed. But one thing that is evident from much of the “what should be” discussions is that a great deal depends on “what is”—and perceptions by domestic, regional, and international actors of existing and likely realities are as far apart as are their perceptions of preferred realities.
We have therefore gathered a group of experts to address the various dimensions of and actors involved in the Gaza crisis and asked them to share their understanding of the situation on the ground in Israel, Palestine, and the region, and the international repercussions. They have examined how the crisis may evolve, as well as explained the current and likely future stances of key actors.
The contributors to this compendium have guided us through various debates about the war in Gaza and its aftermath. It is striking how deeply such debates differ over basic questions of war and peace and terms for self-determination, security, national sovereignty, and regional deescalation. There is limited overlap among the questions posed—much less the answers given—in Israeli, Palestinian, regional, and global circles. Of course, those debating the current war differ in their own priorities. But they are also speaking to extremely different audiences. And those audiences have very different concerns and fears. We hope these contributions will illuminate how issues are debated among such radically different publics.
Diplomacy is inherently difficult. It is about bridging gaps among actors with different, competing, and even clashing interests, perceptions, and preferences. In the history of disputes between Israel and various Arab countries, diplomacy has always been especially difficult for two reasons. First, it is often viewed by actors as a reward or even recognition of the legitimacy of a potential interlocutor they do not wish to recognize. At the height of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union maintained mutual recognition and regular diplomatic relations. This has not been the case in the Middle East, where recognition and diplomatic relations between Israel and Arab countries, if initiated, have always followed long-term negotiations and bargaining.
Second, the Middle East is unusual because of the weakness of any multilateral framework for discussing regional problems and solving security crises. Each new problem occasions an attempt—sometimes successful and sometimes not—to devise a cumbersome ad hoc procedure that usually does not last for a long time.
And those difficulties are on prominent display in the current war. One of the most significant questions in any diplomacy, for instance, centers on Hamas: Is it an inevitable part of diplomacy, or is it the point of diplomacy, to find a way to eliminate its role in Gaza and beyond? There are deep differences as well over core questions of security and governance in Israel and Palestine, basic human needs and effective policies to provide for them, the desirability of pauses and ceasefires, and the limits of regional grand bargains in peacemaking between Israelis and Palestinians.
And yet diplomacy has never been so active. Mediators abound; high-level visits have turned into extended tours of the region; there have been hopeful and less hopeful public statements, collapsed rounds of negotiations followed by new rounds, and proposals floated and actively negotiated in the midst of horrific fighting and destruction.
This compendium might reveal a reason for the vitality of diplomacy. Key actors may be vaguely united in avoiding more bloodshed and destruction, but remain deeply divided and even confused over how to get there. Strategy and tactics seem divorced. And in such an environment, pauses, restricted prisoner exchanges, the distribution of limited humanitarian aid, and even some minimal ground rules are negotiated. Diplomacy in such a context is not an alternative to violence but melded to it: it is about communicating threats, declaring redlines and no-go zones, accepting some limits but eschewing others, and often divorcing speaking (indirectly) today from attempts to reach common understandings tomorrow.
But if diplomacy is active, it still seems very short term in focus. There is sometimes talk—most notably with the idea of a “Biden doctrine” and future plans regarding Israeli-Saudi normalization and ensuing regional security arrangements—of longer-term approaches. However, much of that discussion seems to assume that Israeli and Palestinian society, the region, and the world have not changed since October 7, 2023—that it will soon be possible to revive older self-determination, security, and conflict resolution ideas that had been allowed to sink in the global priority list; and that today’s calamities may produce tomorrow’s peace opportunities. Perhaps that is right. We do not dismiss such ideas and have even advanced our own call to revive an approach that may have been forgotten too soon.
We offer our own concern that failing to understand not only how the world has changed but how various actors have changed must be incorporated into long-term thinking. Failing to do so would lead to one more set of short-term and ad hoc arrangements that offer little for the lives that have been shattered in Israel and Palestine and less for future generations in a region long shaken by violence, civil strife, and wars. The breadth of views and depth of differences revealed in this compendium offer no long-term path forward, but they do map domestic, regional, and international difficulties that must be addressed.
