Without a two-state solution or single state with equal rights, what hope is there?

Can the Gaza ceasefire, shaky though it is, become the harbinger of a wider resolution to the conflict, even of “everlasting peace in the Middle East”, as Donald Trump, never short of admiration for his own dealmaking skills, suggests?

- Kenan Malik

Can the Gaza ceasefire, shaky though it is, become the harbinger of a wider resolution to the conflict, even of "everlasting peace in the Middle East", as Donald Trump, never short of admiration for his own dealmaking skills, suggests? Well, here's a thought experiment.

Imagine that the terrible events of 7 October 2023 never happened.

No Hamas slaughter, no subsequent Israeli obliteration of Gaza.

What would Israel/Palestine look like now? The biggest difference would be in Gaza, which would not now be a flattened hellscape. Israel, though, would still control the borders, the airspace, the surrounding sea and all movement of people and goods.

Hamas would still be in power and as lethal to Palestinians (as the latest public executions show) as to Israelis. Hamas represents not Palestinian resistance but its degeneration, part of the broader rot of Palestinian political leadership. Its power came largely from the backing of Iran and Qatar, and, though this is almost entirely ignored, from the tacit support of Israel, which, until 7 October, saw Hamas as an "asset", helping reduce prospects of a Palestinian state. On 7 October, the Times of Israel observed, the strategy "of indirectly strengthening Hamas ... went up in smoke".

The West Bank would have been much as it is now, under occupation, penned in by walls and military force, with burgeoning Jewish settlements and Palestinians being driven off their land. The Palestinian Authority, the nominal ruling body, would still be as corrupt and undemocratic.

Little would have changed for Israel's Palestinian citizens, either.