Diplomacy is half about staging. Because the dramaturgy of an action offers those involved narratives about strength and weakness, which are crucial for every political actor. But sometimes the staging of an initiative is so overpowering that it distracts from the real core of the issue.
This is also the case with the peace plan that US President Joe Biden presented last Friday. Anyone who looks at its substance will see that it is primarily about the president’s re-election. Because this plan can hardly bring lasting peace, perhaps not even short-term peace.
Much has been written and discussed about how Biden staged his initiative. The president repeatedly described the plan as an Israeli proposal, which is neither entirely true nor entirely false. Both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and Hamas have repeatedly agreed to elements of the plan in recent months, but as in all negotiations, the same applies to the Gaza war: nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.
In his speech at the White House, Biden acted as if all that was missing was Hamas’s approval, but – paradoxically – he also urged Israel to accept the alleged Israeli plan. The story that Biden seemed to be offering is something like this: Israel can look like the diplomatic victor, and Hamas gets its ceasefire.
The details of the proposal are as follows: In a first phase, hostilities are to cease, Israel will withdraw from the population centers in the Gaza Strip, Hamas will release all female and all underage hostages, and Israel will release several hundred Palestinian prisoners.
In a second phase, Israel and Hamas are to negotiate the terms of a permanent ceasefire within six weeks. When this begins, in a third phase the remaining hostages will be released and the Gaza Strip will be rebuilt with massive outside help. But there are logical gaps in this sequence as wide as oceans.
The most important gap is where a post-war order would have to be formulated. Instead, the plan envisages that Israel and Hamas will negotiate such an arrangement in Phase 2. In effect, this amounts to establishing Hamas as the permanent ruler of the Gaza Strip, because the terrorist militia is unlikely to sign its own disempowerment.
However, Israel’s declared war aim is to neutralize Hamas militarily. Instead, Israel is now supposed to implement a plan to the letter that ensures Hamas’ survival. Even if one thought that was possible, such a plan would not be a good idea.
If the terrorist militia retains control of the Gaza Strip, it will rearm, even if it promises demilitarization in Phase 2. This would virtually guarantee that a terrorist attack like the one on October 7 and a war like the current one will happen again.
This is precisely why the US and the EU, as well as the moderate Arab states, have been pushing for the Palestinian Authority to take control of the Gaza Strip instead of Hamas. But Biden’s plan would effectively eliminate this only reasonable perspective for Gaza. Ultimately, it seems as if Biden’s initiative is not designed to create lasting stability. The gaps are the real plan.
The six-week negotiation phase is clearly an element that Netanyahu can use to sell the agreement to his radical coalition partners. Ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich want to build Jewish settlements in Gaza and are threatening to break up the coalition if the victory over Hamas is abandoned. That would mean the end of the political career of the prime minister and possibly a conviction for corruption.
But because of the negotiation phase, Netanyahu can argue to the coalition partners that they will not agree on a post-war order with Hamas and that the war could continue after the failure of Phase 2. This is clearly an attempt to buy Jerusalem’s consent at the expense of the logic of the alleged peace plan. The bottom line is that this proposal promises both sides too much to fulfill – it promises Hamas its survival, while it enables Israel to destroy Hamas.
Only against this background does Biden’s staging become understandable. He obviously wants to serve both sides of the American electorate. For Israel’s friends on the right and the traditional center-left camp, he is presenting a plan that Netanyahu cannot reject because it is supposedly his own, but which he may actually be able to push through with his radical allies.
For the pro-Palestinian young voters and African Americans, he is providing an initiative that can suddenly put an end to the mass deaths of innocent women and children – but of course not permanently, but that will not be Biden’s fault, but that of the stubborn conflict parties. The president has apparently tried everything.
Ultimately, Biden’s staging is a Shakespearean trick: a theater within a theater. Biden pretends to take up an Israeli proposal while making it clear that he actually wants to put pressure on Israel. Neither is true, and yet it somehow seems charming and well-meaning. But it serves neither the people of Gaza nor the security of the State of Israel.
