Put people at center of Middle East peace

The Biden administration must do whatever it can to protect the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. It must also do whatever it can to protect Israelis. That means both pausing military assistance to the Israeli government until Palestinian civilians in Gaza have sufficient food, water, medicine and shelter to survive the war, and guaranteeing the Israeli people that the United States and its allies will do all they can to protect them from further attack.

The key to this dual policy is focusing on the lives of the people on both sides rather than on supporting or withdrawing support for a state. Will Israel survive as a Jewish state? Will the Palestinian people get their own state? Government officials and foreign policy experts operate within an international system composed of states and, thus, typically focus on governments rather than people.

Right now, and for the foreseeable future, the lives of people — men, women and children on both sides — must supersede those questions. The Israeli government has killed tens of thousands of Palestinian men, women and children and could kill tens of thousands more in its quest to eradicate Hamas. Hamas and its backers seek to kill or expel the more than 7 million Jews living in Israel. Following the Oct. 7 attack, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh announced Hamas intended to follow up the attack “with a crushing defeat that will expel [the enemy] from our lands.” Hamas alone cannot possibly do that. Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran combined could, if no other nations support the Israeli government in pushing them back.

It is impossible to know whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes he is protecting the Israeli people or simply is acting to keep himself in power by continuing and even widening the war he declared against Hamas but is pursuing against all Gazans. But people around the world who believe the Israeli people have a right to live in peace and security in a Jewish state — and that the Palestinian people have the same right in a Palestinian state — can see the tremendous damage Netanyahu is doing. His policies are dramatically weakening support for Israel in the United States and Europe, possibly for years to come, and are returning Israel to pariah status across the Arab and Muslim world, undoing decades of progress toward normalization.

Israelis cannot see the longterm peril they are in because of the immediate trauma they are still experiencing as well as the information bubble that surrounds them. They see videos and hear stories of Oct. 7, over and over, much as Americans rewatched and relived the Sept. 11 videos of the planes hitting the twin towers, with people jumping to their deaths and 110 stories of steel and glass rippling to the ground in seconds. Israelis are also still under attack and heading for bomb shelters on a daily basis. However, Hebrew-speaking Israelis watching the news do not see the pictures of the pulverization of Gaza’s apartment buildings, schools, hospitals and mosques; starving children and the parents who will do anything to try to feed them; relatives grieving the deaths of family members just as intensely as the relatives of Israelis murdered by Hamas. The pictures are certainly available, but neither Israeli journalists nor the country’s Jewish citizens are looking for them.

President Joe Biden and leaders in other countries that have traditionally supported Israel should speak directly to both the Israeli and Palestinian people. To the Palestinians, the message should be that we will do everything within our power to ensure they have what they need to survive and rebuild — but that support for a Palestinian state must go hand in hand with recognition of Israel’s right to exist in peace and security.

To the Israelis, Biden should speak directly about his commitment to their safety and prosperity. That commitment, however, cannot extend to a mode of self-defense that kills tens of thousands of civilians and, in the judgment of the U.S. government, endangers Israeli and U.S. interests around the world. After Oct. 7, the administration initially interpreted “having Israel’s back” as supporting whatever the Israeli government decided to do in response. It is now entitled to decide that its commitment is to the Israeli people rather than to a government that is working against the best interests of its people. It is up to the Israelis, in turn, to hold new elections.

Of the $26 billion aid package for Israel just passed by Congress, only about $9 billion is earmarked for humanitarian aid to Gaza. Another $4 billion goes to replenishing Israel’s missile-defense systems. The remainder, like the vast majority of U.S. aid to Israel, will likely enable the Israeli military to purchase U.S. weapons under the Foreign Military Financing program.

All these weapons are ultimately purchased with the tax dollars of the American people. Those dollars could be far better spent to protect the security and self-determination of both the Israeli and the Palestinian people.

Anne-Marie Slaughter is chief executive of New America. She was previously the director of policy planning at the State Department and the dean of Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs. This was originally published by The Washington Post.