CHATHAM HOUSE
Lasting Israel–Palestine peace will not be possible without a new policy to neutralize the Iranian threat
Eliminating Hamas and Hezbollah leaders will not on their own bring peace. Tehran’s malign influence must be countered.
Expert comment
Published 7 October 2024 4 minute READ
Sir John Jenkins KCMG LVO
Associate Fellow, Middle East and North Africa Programme
Some people may have thought the Gaza war was all about Palestine. The dramatic events of the last two weeks suggest it was always really about Iran.
For two decades there has been a new Middle East struggling to emerge, with Gulf States in the driving seat. They want a stable and prosperous if authoritarian political order that encompasses old Arab nation states such as Egypt, Jordan and Morocco, their own tribally-based modern welfare states – and both Iran and Israel.
They see this as the essential condition for economic transformation and stability. But this order does not yet exist and cannot be born out of conflict. Both the Gulf States and Israel see Iran as the major obstacle. That reality must shape any new regional peace effort.
The threat of Hezbollah
Hezbollah has always presented a more serious threat to Israel than Hamas. Its capabilities are much greater. It can threaten all of Israel with its increasingly sophisticated missiles. And to all intents and purposes, it controls a sovereign state, Lebanon. Behind it stands Iran, which has threatened Israel with destruction for 45 years.
The hard truth is that… a settlement cannot be achieved simply by ceasefires or negotiations with the PA or PLO.
In this context, the Palestine–Israel conflict should be a second order issue. Yet the Palestinian national narrative has acquired enormous emotional and symbolic resonance over the years. And the one real success Palestinians have had is in internationalizing their cause, making the costs of failure high for the region’s major powers. A durable settlement is therefore an absolute precondition for regional stability.
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Most Arab political leaders wish the issue would go away. But that can only happen if Israel feels secure. It also requires the Israeli political establishment to accept that it needs to live as an imperfect state among other imperfect states as part of an imperfect regional order.
The hard truth is that such a settlement cannot be achieved simply by ceasefires or negotiations with the Palestinian Authority (PA) or Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).
It can only happen once Hamas and particularly Hezbollah cease to be major threats to Israel, and Iran no longer has the power to disrupt the emergence of a new regional order.
A recalcitrant and divided Israeli public must then be persuaded that peace requires Palestinian self-determination – not for the sake of Palestinians but to ensure Israeli security. That in turn requires a new Israeli political dispensation that flies in the face of current political realities – and will therefore need careful nurturing.
Neither the US nor its Western allies seem to have come to terms with all this. Indeed, the Biden administration’s search for a ceasefire has been a quixotic waste of energy. A ceasefire now, without resolving the bigger problems, simply guarantees the resumption of conflict in another year or two.
A Tehran-focussed policy
A new paradigm is needed, which centres on Tehran and its malign influence. Ideally this would mean a change in Iran itself. An extension of the current conflict to the country could destabilize the regime – something the leadership fears in the light of its massive domestic unpopularity. But, given its proven willingness to use lethal force to crush dissent, it would be unwise to count on significant change from within any time soon.
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The way for external actors to blunt Iran’s impact will be to dismantle its influence in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Gaza and Yemen, and on the back of this to sustain a drive towards Palestinian self-determination.
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That would still require an Israeli government that is prepared to play ball. Israel cannot be coerced into agreement. Enough Israelis must themselves want peace to make it politically practical.
After the trauma of 7 October and the recent decapitation of Hamas and Hezbollah leaderships that is a huge ask. Israelis will need to be convinced that even dramatic military successes buy only time, not a solution.
The last year has shown that the US alone cannot dictate the terms of a settlement – if it ever could. Other Western states, like the UK, France and Germany, can and must play supporting roles. But the fact remains that only Washington can convene and lead a new collective effort.
Above all, the US and its partners must keep close to Israel and provide iron-clad long-term security guarantees.
The Gulf States, in particular Saudi Arabia and the UAE, alongside Jordan and Egypt, are the essential partners. They share the same security concerns as Israel but will need incentives too.
The US should work with their governments to develop a set of firm offers (perhaps modelled on the Rabin Deposit of 1993), which set out what normalization with Israel – or in the case of Egypt and Jordan a warm rather than cold peace – would look like.
The PA will also need to be rebuilt. It is the only available instrument – both Palestinian and internationally recognized through the Oslo Accords – which can properly administer Gaza after the destruction of the last year.
Above all, the US and its partners must keep close to Israel and provide iron-clad long-term security guarantees. That has to mean helping Israel neutralize Hezbollah and Hamas – and also the Houthis, who cannot be allowed to become a Hezbollah of the South.
Strategy on Iran
And integral to success will be a credible strategy to counter Iranian influence. I and Policy Exchange colleagues set out ideas for a new British policy in more detail last year.
To begin, in Western countries the mosques, cultural centres, and bogus human rights organizations which Iran has used to shape opinion in its favour need to be closed.
There is scope for the UK to reimpose sanctions unilaterally, perhaps with allies within the EU.
Then there is the question of sanctions. The snapback provision of the JCPOA has expired. But there is scope for the UK to reimpose sanctions unilaterally, perhaps with allies within the EU. Domestic enforcement, financial intelligence and related security service capacity should also be strengthened.
Image — Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) military personnel march under Iranian flags in a military parade in Tehran, Iran, on September 21, 2024. (Photo by Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Regions
Gulf states Iran Israel and Palestine
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Middle East and North Africa Programme
The UK could also move with EU allies to proscribe the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, granting more latitude for action against its funding. And real costs must be imposed on those who use brutal force to suppress legitimate protest within Iran.
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In the region, better structured alliances will be crucial: Gulf Cooperation Council countries should be brought into a consistent and clarified security relationship with the US, UK and other Western allies. Concerned non-Arab countries like Azerbaijan and Turkey could also be better engaged.
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In the military sphere, groups like Shia paramilitaries in Iraq and the Houthis must be hit hard every time they attack US and other targets. Iranian arms and oil smuggling must also be better combatted.
There might be a place for carrots as well as sticks: Iran could once again be offered a place within a new regional order if they decide to become the pragmatic actors they nearly became under former president Rafsanjani.
In 1973 Henry Kissinger seems to have believed that all that was achievable by outside actors in the region was the absence or war rather than the construction of order. But his efforts laid the foundations for the 1978 Camp David Accords, which fundamentally changed the regional security order for the better. If ever there was a time for renewed thinking about what another new order might involve, it is now.
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