By Chuck Stephens
TWO peace plans have emerged in the Ukraine war so far. Neither of them have been taken seriously because they were tantamount to one side surrendering. That is not peace. For example, some voices say that there was only one world war, with a 20-year armistice in the middle. Germany was crushed and embittered by WWI. So it came back with a vengeance. Learning from this, the allies introduced a grand “Marshall Plan” after WWII ended, to help to revive the defeated countries.
Speaking of WWII, it is worth noting that it was basically democracies fighting autocracies. The axis powers like Germany, Italy, Spain and Japan were all governed autocratically. Whereas the allies were democracies – Britain, the USA, Canada and South Africa, for example.
So it is that the autocratic countries that surround Israel – the only true democracy in the Middle East – will try to trap it into an unsustainable peace. One can see from the one-week debate in the UN Security Council and the latest “peace plan” being touted by Egypt, that they want Israel to win the war but to lose peace.
Netanyahu’s language has been tough. He will not allow a Hamastan or a Fatahstan to emerge but Egypt is already peddling a peace plan that starts with patching things up between Hamas and Fatah, then moves on to patching things up between Israel and Palestine.
Golda Meir once commented that you cannot negotiate peace with someone who has come to kill you. Egypt’s so-called peace plan sounds more like Israel surrendering, not unlike the Chinese peace plan put forward for Ukraine. It was a pathway to Russian victory, not a peace plan.
In South Africa, there was a time when many players were pushing for an end to apartheid. The ANC was in exile or in prison. Then there was the United Democratic Front that stirred things up. Another large player was the Inkatha Freedom Party. There was external pressure as well, from the front line states, and also broad economic sanctions. The Commonwealth played a part in the drama, sending delegations of Eminent Persons. Not to mention the efforts of the United Nations.
However, it was a quiet meeting in Iceland between US president Ronald Reagan and UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher that determined the way forward. The end of apartheid was tied to the end of the communist bloc. It was all very dramatic.
Once again, in the Battle of Gaza, there are strong geopolitical currents and cross-currents. Obviously the main driver is the IDF, which is slowly crushing Hamas. Yes it is taking time, but make no mistake. Hamas is going down. Will that leave Fatah to patch it up with Israel? Not necessarily, for there are other actors in the mix, as there were in South Africa.
Take for example the Palestinian National Initiative. It is led by a doctor from the West Bank, Dr Mustafa Barghouti. (Not to be confused with the Houthi rebels in Yemen.) He ran for president the last time that elections were held among the Palestinians. That was 18 years ago. Abbas was elected and has remained in power ever since. Speaking of autocracy! Dr Barghouti’s PNI movement remains active. So why have so few outsiders heard of him?
In a word, because of autocracy. That’s the way it works. The president of Egypt is an autocrat. So he is not likely to promote a democratic solution in Palestine.
His peace plan is too shallow. Israel is not going to be easy to convince that it can safely negotiate with Hamas and Fatah, both of which say that Israelis are intruders. Occupiers of Palestine.
WWII ended with the democracies beating the autocracies. There is no way that the USA, Britain or even France are now going to allow Palestine to be ruled by autocrats. Talk of a “two-state solution” is evasive language. It avoids talking about the real bugaboo – autocracy. The language should be a “two-Democracy solution”. That’s better. Now we are getting somewhere.
Legitimate actors in this drama include non-violent Palestinians like Dr Mustafa Barghouthi. Violent actors like Hamas are unsuitable. They will make a “two-state solution” into a pay-later plan.
This explains why Israel wants to finish the war by defeating Hamas. Once the Nazis are gone, Germany can be rebuilt. Why would the allies negotiate peace with Hitler after defeating him? This is precisely why Egypt and the UN are trying to weaken Israel’s offensive. They want to salvage Hamas from the rubble of war.
Talk of “collateral damage” is a decoy. Egypt couldn’t care less about Palestinian civilians, and nor could Hamas. That is self-evident. What they are afraid of is that Palestine will end up democratic and not autocratic. That’s the rub.
Two and a half millennia ago, Athens was unstable and ruled by successive autocrats. It was a military city-state. But there was a popular figure in town – a judge. Not a military or political leader, a judge on the bench dispensing justice. But he was known to be wise and fair. His name was Solon. So the people approached him and asked him to be their tyrant. At least they could have a just despot.
This is exactly what Sisi and other regional leaders want in Palestine. A functioning tyranny.
But Solon declined. He told the Athenians that he would not accept their pathetic offer. He told them that he had devised a new approach – he called it Democracy. Not tyranny. He told them that he would launch it in Athens if they promised to keep it for at least a decade. Ten years. During which time Solon would leave and travel so that democracy could operate on its own. They accepted. Democracy was born.
This is the last thing that Sisi and the regional autocrats want for Palestine. Think Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran.
At Christmas we do not just celebrate the birth of a new leader, but the arrival of a new way of leading. Muslim countries have been resisting the advent of Democracy in their region for 75 years. Israel has risen from an international plan to eradicate anti-Semitism. This scourge had plagued the whole world for centuries, far and wide. The State of Israel was the UN-led solution to that perennial problem. Yet 28 countries in the region have never recognized it, and many of these are committed to its destruction.
Tying Israel to yet another autocracy in the region will be the kiss of death for Democracy. The Abraham Accords were on the right track. So we need to expose this real and present danger to Israel. And I don’t mean Hamas, which is on its last legs. I mean the deception of the autocrats, who don’t want a “two-Democracy solution”. They would prefer to tie a millstone around Israel’s neck in a UN-imposed “two-state solution”, then watch it sink.
The writer is an author and activist at the Desmond Tutu Centre for Leadership.
