The Fundamental Task Of Reconciliation In The Middle East

2025-10-15 07:01:27

(MENAFN- Asia Times) Few events are more welcome than a ceasefire, even when the ceasefire has come far more slowly than it could and should have done. What now needs to be achieved in Gaza and in the wider Middle East is a task far larger than the also difficult task of sustaining the ceasefire in the short term.

It is the task of finding structures, agreements and a resulting prosperity and security sufficient to reconcile Palestinians, Arabs, Iranians and other communities with the permanent, peaceful and productive presence of Israel, and vice versa.

The pressure that America finally imposed on both Israel and the Hamas militia can be credited with achieving the ceasefire almost exactly two years after Hamas began this war with its deadly attack on Israel.

That belated pressure, in turn, arose thanks to Israel's foolish decision to try to kill Hamas leaders meeting in Doha, the capital of the Gulf state of Qatar, on September 9th. That attack spurred the Arab states to put pressure on Donald Trump to persuade Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire.

Amid all the detail in the 20-point peace plan that America has designed, one element stands out as being more important than all others. It is the planned presence in the intended peacekeeping, or“stabilization,” force to be sent to Gaza of forces from the Arab states and the implied acceptance of a role in rebuilding and reorganizing Gaza for the governments of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the other Gulf states.

Alongside the tragic memory of the estimated 67,000 Palestinian deaths during this conflict, the 1,200 Israelis who were killed on October 7, 2023, and the 250 hostages who were taken, many of whom died (the last 20 alive have now been released), one other important fact needs to be recalled.

This is that the major diplomatic event that was canceled as a result of Hamas's atrocity two years ago was the planned joining by Saudi Arabia, the most powerful of the Gulf states, in the so-called Abraham Accords with Israel, which had previously been signed in 2020 by Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

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