Path to peace? Here's how October 7 created fertile ground for peace agreements

Many in Israel are under the impression that the events of October 7 and the ensuing war have caused Israelis to “sober up,” leaving notions of peace or diplomatic agreements with Palestinians behind.

In contradiction to this common thesis, Mickey Gitzin, the director of the New Israel Fund in Israel, said that October 7 and the nine months since have caused changes in Israeli society and Israeli perceptions that create the conditions for diplomatic agreements with Palestinians and real progress on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“The most meaningful thing that happened is that people are looking for answers,” Gitzin explained, saying that this is something that employees at the NIF are seeing in their research.

While some common wisdom says that October 7 challenged the idea that there is a partner for peace, Gitzin highlights the fact that for many it also challenged the idea that it is possible to continue to maintain the Israeli-Palestinian status quo.

“What ended for many was the idea that it is possible to manage the conflict.” Israelis had managed to disconnect from the realities of the conflict, Gitzin said. “If I am not in the territories [in the West Bank], I don’t know what is being done in my name, I don’t know what it means, practically speaking, I don’t feel threatened by it, so I can live with it.”

But on October 7, Israelis “understood how much this threatened us. How much it can destroy our lives, how much it can be violent and dangerous,” Gitzin explained.

The Israel-Hamas war has also led people to the understanding that the only way to weaken extremist elements, both Israeli and Palestinian, is through diplomatic agreements, he said, adding that it has thrown the limitations of what can be achieved through military strength alone into sharp relief.

“Hamas cannot be destroyed by force. I’m not the one saying this – the army is saying it,” he said. 

The IDF has been in Gaza for nine months, using immense force, and if military force were enough, it would have beaten Hamas many times over, said Gitzin. “We still have not beaten Hamas, because terror organizations can’t be beaten only with force.

“The army is apparently doing great military work but not getting results,” because results will not come from force alone,” he said.

Results of the war 

The war has also highlighted the importance and the stability of Israel’s diplomatic agreements, Gitzin explained, offering as example the international response to Iran’s April attack on Israel.

“Israel’s security perspective since the founding of the state is based on Israel as a country with partners.”

October 7 showed how deeply the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Israel’s policy of management affect Israel’s international relations, Gitzin explained.

The belief in the importance of these agreements is not purely ideological, according to Gitzin. “I think it is also the least naive thing to say. What would be the most disconnected from reality is to think that Israel can defend itself by itself without strategic partners, without regional thinking.”

Another result of the war, according to Gitzin, is that since October 7, the vision of Israel’s extreme Right has been fully revealed, showcasing a vision that he says is not in line with the general Israeli public’s.

“The extreme Right is not hiding that their goal is to move Jews to live in Gaza. As we speak [Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich is leading de facto annexation in the West Bank.

“There is not a majority [in favor of] settling Gaza,” among Israelis, despite them being unsure about the possibility of diplomatic solutions with Palestinians, Gitzin said. “There is not a majority for annexing the West Bank. There is not a majority for an eternal war.

“The division between Smotrich and [National Security Minister Itamar] Ben-Gvir and the rest of the public has become so clear that people will look for solutions that are not the Smotriches and the Ben-Gvirs.”

This issue is magnified by the fact that those who are in favor of the Jewish settlement of Gaza and the West Bank are also often those willing to sacrifice the hostages held by Hamas, said Gitzin, saying that this will push Israelis further away from this ideology.

“The hostage issue is a huge social force.”

These effects of the Israel-Hamas war; the desire for answers, the failure of managing the conflict, the importance of regional cooperation, the failure to destroy Hamas through force alone, and the “revelation” of Israel’s extreme Right, taken together, create the space for diplomatic agreements, said Gitzin.

This is not an ideological choice of pacifism, he explained. 

“I am not speaking in the language of a pacifist; I understand the need for the use of force,” he said. 

But force alone, without a plan for a “day after,” without diplomatic goals, cannot work, and things in Israel will be as they have been.

“Israel need to be strong, Israel needs an army, Israel needs to defend itself – those things are clear,” he said, adding that taking this approach to the extreme of only using strength will lead Israel to “another reality that just won’t work.”

Diplomatic agreements are not without risk, Gitzin acknowledged. “There are huge risks in going to agreements,” he said, adding that in part this is because of extremist factions in the Palestinian and Israeli populations that are not interested in these agreements.

These risks are necessary because “we understand that without a diplomatic agreement and without incorporating the Palestinians in an agreement, we will live from October 7 to October 7.”

Gitzin describes support for diplomatic agreements as an array of different ideas. 

Some will support agreements because they believe in the morality of such agreements. 

Some will take a purely practical approach. This isn’t a bad thing, according to him; it is “the political variety that we need to work with.”

For these agreements to materialize, the most meaningful thing is leadership, explained Gitzin. 

Israel needs “a leadership that aspires to peace, that isn’t afraid to talk about an agreement and a different way of life. I think we are missing that today.”

THE WAR has pushed Israel to a true crossroads. “Israel is at a point where it needs to decide what it is,” said Gitzin.

“Is it the nation-state of the Jewish people that is also a democracy that promises equality and so on, or is it an autocratic, nationalist state led by the populist Right or the messianic Right?“This ‘both at the same time’ we were trying to live isn’t going to work forever. We are getting to too many conflict points, and at their end we will need to choose.”

This is deeply connected to Israel’s relationship with the rest of the world, and Israel is at a point of choice between international isolation and the need to make significant changes.

“Israel is abnormal in the international political landscape because it has a long-term occupation that leaves people under its control without civil and human rights and with no horizon for change,” said Gitzin, explaining that this not only puts international pressure on Israel but isn’t right for Israelis.

“If we really see ourselves as a democratic, liberal society, we can’t be a country that runs two parallel legal systems. We can’t.”

NOT ONLY does this crossroads carry significant meaning for Israel’s international standing, it will affect Israel’s relationship with Diaspora Jewry, according to Gitzin.

Through his work with the NIF, Gitzin works with Jewish leaders around the world, and in his work he has seen Jews outside of Israel stuck between the “absolute insanity” of what Gitzin said can be called “the radical Left,” which saw October 7 as a decolonization effort, and the Jewish establishment, which has maintained the “Israel can do no wrong” view.

While the Jewish population has been forced to leave these radical left spaces, “the majority of the US Jewish population [also] does not feel it fits [in the Jewish establishment]. It sees the horrors in Gaza, it sees the dead children, it sees the pain.”

“Israel must find a way to communicate with the majority [of Diaspora Jewry] that is saying ‘yes, October 7 is the biggest disaster that happened to the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Israel must defend itself. No, wars should not be fought without limits. Yes, there are innocents in Gaza. Yes, we need to find ways to diplomatic agreements.’”

“The Ben-Gvir, Smotrich way has strong supporters among Jews abroad, but the vast majority isn’t there,” said Gitzin.This is significant if Israel takes a right-wing path, following those two politicians. “What would it say about the Jewish nation-state, that the majority of the Jewish people doesn’t agree with its path?”

Finding the middle ground between the idea that Israel can do no wrong and the idea that October 7 was a struggle for decolonization is vital, said Gitzin.

“If the Palestinian-Israeli space turns into Ben-Gvir or into Hamas, we have lost our connection not only with the Jewish Diaspora, but also with the international community,” said Gitzin.

On October 7, the NIF began working to house evacuees in Israel and protect communities by supplying shelters. 

At the same time, the organization recognized the need to provide humanitarian assistance to Gazans.

“That is the complexity we bring as an organization,” said Gitzin. The “reality demands a complex worldview.” •