Crisis Group on Gaza-Israel: Okay, not great

I’ve just read the executive summary of the Crisis Groups latest paper on the Israel-Gaza war. There are some good things in it but I’m quite disappointed at how tame it is. Not least because the CG acts as a sort of unified “Policy Planning Staff” for most of the West European governments. So if this is the advice the EU governments and countries like Australia and Canada are getting, then I think it’s far too incremental and wimpy. Crucially, it makes no mention of linking attainment of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas organically to a determined new international push to secure a final-status peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Here are the CG’s main policy prescriptions:

To protect civilians, limit political damage (regional polarisation and radicalisation, further discrediting of any “moderates” or “peace process”) and avoid a further catastrophe (massive loss of life in urban warfare in Gaza, a Hamas rocket hit on a vital Israeli installation), third parties should pressure both sides to immediately halt military action. In short, what is required is a Lebanon-type diplomatic outcome but without the Lebanon-type prolonged timetable.
To be sustainable, cessation of hostilities must be directly followed by steps addressing both sides’ core concerns:
1. An indefinite ceasefire pursuant to which:
   * Hamas would halt all rocket launches, keep armed militants at 500 metres from Israel’s border and make other armed organisations comply; and
   * Israel would halt all military attacks on and withdraw all troops from Gaza;
2. Real efforts to end arms smuggling into Gaza, led by Egypt in coordination with regional and international actors;
3. Dispatch of a multinational monitoring presence to verify adherence to the ceasefire, serve as liaison between the two sides and defuse potential crises; countries like France, Turkey and Qatar, as well as organisations such as the UN, could play an important part in this; and
4. Opening of Gaza’s crossings with Israel and Egypt, together with:
   * return of an EU presence at the Rafah crossing and its extension to Gaza’s crossings with Israel; and
   * coordination between Hamas authorities and the (Ramallah-based) PA at the crossings.

But, as noted above, this prescription makes no mention whatsoever of the urgent need to re-start the negotiations for a final Israeli-Palestinian peace, on a completely new basis.
Why should Hamas, or Israel, or any other party be happy with a return to a slightly improved version of the status-quo-ante if the big issues of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinian remain unresolved and there is no big hope held out for an imminent future in which a clear basis has been laid out and agreed upon for a speedy resolution of all the outstanding claims between the two peoples?
If the present horrendous crisis is not enough to force a jump-restarting of international efforts to secure a final-status peace, then I can’t imagine what kind of a crisis this would require! But meanwhile, why should we assume that a continuation of the interminable peace-processing efforts of the past 15 years would bring an outcome, two or five or ten years down the pike that would be any different from today’s?
I’m also a little uncertain about the timing of what the CG is advocating. They say there should be a cessation of hostilities that is “followed by … an indefinitie ceasefire pursuant to which … Hamas would halt all rocket launches, etc., and ….Israel would halt all military attacks on and withdraw all troops from Gaza.”
But wouldn’t the cessation of hostilities itself directly mandate the halting of all hostilities and (hopefully) the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, rather than these ceasefire steps “following” a cessation of hostilities?
I think their wording could be a lot clearer on those issues.
I note that the CG is not calling for the disarming of Hamas, but only for limitations on its deployment of “armed militants.” And it’s calling for the dispatch of a multinational presence to monitor the ceasefire. Both of these are realistic steps that could be expected make the ceasefire more politically palatable to Hamas than the status-quo-ante. But by the same token we could expect them to be strongly resisted by Israel, which would presumably strongly prefer to see the ceasefire agreement mandate the disarming of Hamas, and which has steadfastly maintained its opposition to any new international truce-monitoring presence in the OPTs for 41 years now.
So even these fairly cautious steps advocated by the Crisis Group would be politically hard to attain. Given that that’s the case, why not go whole hog and actually “use” this crisis to take some bold new steps toward the attainment of a final Israel-Palestinian peace? After all, if the “international community” is going to have to confront and rile this present belligerent government of Israel quite a bit even to get a workable ceasefire, why not rile them just a bitmore and go for the final peace?
Any kind of a ceasefire is going to necessarily include some steps that the citizens of both countries find hared to stomach or unsatisfactory. But least if there is also a meaningful new effort to secure a final peace, Israelis and Palestinians can all look forward to an imminent future in which the armed conflict is definitively past, the terms of future coexistence have been laid down, and people can start to rebuild their lives on a longterm basis and plan for a productive future. Yes it will involve “painful comproimises” (to use Ariel Sharon’s term.) But there will be better future in sight.
This conflict is not more intractable than that between France and Germany, or that between Whites and Blacks in South Africa. For many decades, people thought those other conflicts could “never” be resolved. But they were. This one can be, too.