Netanyahu Rejects the Gaza Peace Plan and the Israeli Opposition Says Amen
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks a Muni Expo, a local government conference, in Tel Aviv, June. Credit: Hadas Parush
Haaretz Editorial
FollowAugust 10, 2026
Look surprised: This week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel rejects the 15-point plan known as the road map for the future of the Gaza Strip and that the army won't withdraw from Gaza before Hamas is "genuinely disarmed" of both heavy and light weapons.
And for anyone who still dares to remember (or, heaven forbid, remind him of) Netanyahu's 2009 speech at Bar-Ilan University, in which he endorsed the idea of a demilitarized Palestinian state, he made sure to add that as long as he is prime minister, no Palestinian state will arise, "not in Gaza and not in Judea and Samaria."
Nobody should forget for a moment that Netanyahu isn't thinking about the future of the country or the region, or even about relations with the United States. With an election in the offing, Netanyahu is speaking first and foremost to his base. He seeks to assuage it and convince it that with regard to the Palestinians, nobody is more right-wing than he. He is also trying to appease his partners in the governing coalition, after ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich and Orit Strock protested against the plan to him.
Shamefully, the opposition's response, as is typical on issues like these, has been a thunderous silence. The positions held by Netanyahu and his partners are well known, so his opposition to the plan was predictable. The problem is that the parties seeking to replace him aren't offering a clear response to the question of what they would do differently in either Gaza or the West Bank.
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They criticize the conduct of the war, attack the government's decisions and warn about the price these decisions are exacting overseas. But in the face of Netanyahu's rejection of the Board of Peace's plan, none of their leaders has uttered a peep.
Majed Tafesh, 3, runs after his cat while playing among the tents at a camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Thursday. Credit: Abdel Kareem Hana,AP
The opposition doesn't dare treat Gaza as anything other than a military issue. Even if disarming Hamas is a legitimate security goal, it's clear that it isn't a diplomatic program. Who will rule Gaza in its stead? Who will rebuild it? Who will ensure the security of its residents? What kind of connection will it have with the West Bank?
Nor is a different diplomatic program being offered for the West Bank. The settlements are tightening their grip, while the settlers are creating more and more facts on the ground – on Monday, they even attacked Haaretz journalists – and sabotaging any chance of an agreement. Despite this, the Palestinian issue doesn't exist in the Israeli diplomatic discourse.
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Effectively, all the people who want to replace Netanyahu are falling in line with his doctrine of either rejecting or ignoring the diplomatic track, even though this approach has dragged Israel to the brink of the abyss.
Anyone seeking to replace Netanyahu can't make do with promising to be better at overseeing the same policies. The upcoming election will be fateful; no one disputes this. But it isn't only Israelis' fate that it will determine.
The past three years have proven that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict isn't an issue that can be relegated to the sidelines.
The above article is Haaretz's lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.
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