The future: three options remain after a year of fighting

The series of sirens and dull Iron Dome interceptions that shook me from my sleep on the morning of October 7, 2023, bore deep symbolic meaning. Looking back at that fateful day a year later, I feel that – like many fellow Israelis – I have experienced a rude intellectual awakening.

Today, many of us are forced to re-examine outdated political and existential paradigms, often referred to in public Israeli discourse as “the conceptzia”.

Our system of beliefs, shattered on October 7, concerned both the capabilities of our military and intelligence services, but also the political and diplomatic paradigms within which our government operates.

I am not a military expert, nor do I have the insider information required for a proper analysis of the former. Hence, I would rather focus here on the latter. In doing so, I will offer three possible scenarios for the future.

Just two weeks before Hamas’ surprise attack on Israeli communities in southern Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the UN General Assembly in New York. In a rare policy speech, Netanyahu outlined his diplomatic paradigm vis-à-vis the Palestinians. The Israeli leader was optimistic that a peace deal with Saudi Arabia was imminent, asserting that normalisation with the entire Arab world would soon follow.

“Many dismissed my optimism as wishful thinking,” Netanyahu said, referring to criticism he had faced prior to the signing of the Abraham Accords in September 2020. “Their pessimism was based on a quarter century of good intentions and failed peacemaking.”

The West (and Israeli left) traditionally held that peace with the Arab world could only materialise as a result of normalisation with the Palestinians. But Netanyahu seemed to have disproven that paradigm. Israel, he argued, could reach peace with important regional players such as Morocco and the UAE without the painful territorial concessions they said it must pay.