When the Gaza and Iran wars are over, the Palestinian question will remain. It’s possible to imagine a scenario where these agonies set the stage for what most experts had decided was impossible — an autonomous Palestinian state.
One can be guardedly optimistic that President Trump won’t commit U.S. forces in Iran. Public opinion and an influential chunk of his base are against it. The danger of escalation is enormous. Imagine how sobering it would be for Trump to hear what might need to happen in the way of retaliation if a B-2 bomber was shot down during an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. In the past, he appeared to think that stealth aircraft were actually invisible, like in “The Invisible Man.” His commanders have straightened him out by now and told him that intercepting B-2s would be terrifically hard, but not impossible.
Besides that, if we joined the war, attacks on U.S. forces in the region are likely, potentially embroiling us in another of the forever wars he claims to have opposed. Trump gets points for his caution about military adventures in his first term. Let’s pray for a negotiated settlement — setting the stage for the three big ifs for Palestinian justice.
First, if we are capable of having a mature relationship with Israel. Until now, Trump’s policy has been dictated by the hyper pro-Israel evangelical right. President Biden had a nostalgic post-1948, Cold War-era view of our regional democratic ally. So they have given Netanyahu nearly free rein. Our leverage over a sovereign state is limited. But we give Israel $4 billion a year in military aid it doesn’t want to lose. We can stop vetoing anti-Israel resolutions in the UN Security Council. And we can join the conservative Arab regimes whose friendship Israel craves, including Saudi Arabia, in pledging the trillions needed to rebuild Gaza and the West Bank while insisting that Israel return to the two-state track.
The second, bigger if is if the war humbles Iran enough. Netanyahu ruthlessly used Oct. 7 to reduce the threats from Hamas and Hezbollah and take the war to their paymasters in Tehran. We may hope that Iran agrees to stop funding its proxies and suspend its nuclear program, as it did under President Obama’s historic deal, which Trump canceled. For that monstrously stupid act, history should lay this war on his doorstep. May he redeem himself by helping end it well. Above all, a Palestinian state is virtually impossible unless Hamas is marginalized and the corrupt, unpopular Palestinian Authority restored to a measure of respectability. All of this seemed fantastic before. After this war, there may be a fighting chance for a just peace.
The biggest if is if the United States rediscovers its conscience with respect to Gaza’s humanitarian catastrophe. Its people are on the verge of starvation, refugees in their own land. Biden took incremental steps to address it. At first, Trump advocated removing the population to make room for coastal resorts. He spoke with some empathy for Gazans after his recent Arab tour, when potentates evidently clued him in.
If Israel takes the view that the war isn’t over until Hamas is finished, then Gaza will be the forever battle in Israel’s forever war. Transfixed by our own troubles, we will probably sit back and let Gaza be paved like a parking lot. Or we can insist that our government, basically in concert with the whole world community, use all the leverage we have on behalf of the proposition that there are two indigenous peoples in the Holy Land, both deserve freedom, security, and national self-determination — and it’s now or never.
The photo shows a Palestinian girl in Jericho in 2007. It was my first visit with Qumri Pilgrimages. We’d walked from St. George’s monastery in the Wadi Qelt. Children were asking for money as we got on the bus, and I offered something to this girl. She accepted it, and then she pointed to my camera. Remembering the moment all these years later, I still feel joyful and a little ashamed. I pray for her all the time.