Amid Escalating War, Proposals for a Lasting Peace

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Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good

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September 20, 2024

Amid Escalating War, Proposals for a Lasting Peace

War has raged in Gaza for nearly a year, and it does not appear close to stopping. If anything, it is likely to expand.
 
After the dramatic explosions of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon this week, Israel and Hezbollah are trading intense fire. Israel said Hezbollah has fired about 130 rockets into northern Israel today. Israel also said it had killed a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut—the second time it has done so since July.
 
At The New York Times, Jerusalem bureau chief Patrick Kingsley writes that Israel is employing a risky strategy in targeting Hezbollah so aggressively, raising the risk of a full-scale ground war with the Lebanese Islamist group. CNN's Helen Regan writes that the Middle East is again on the precipice of a larger war. Since the Gaza war began, Hezbollah and Israel have traded intermittent, low-intensity fire across the Israel–Lebanon border. Yemen's Houthis have also targeted Israel. Analysts have feared a spiral of escalation that could engulf Israel, Iran, Iran's larger network of regional allies, and perhaps the US military in a large, multifaceted conflict.
 
Negotiations to end the Gaza war, meanwhile, have stalled close to the finish line. Some senior US officials say a ceasefire-for-hostages deal is unlikely before US President Joe Biden's term ends in January, The Wall Street Journal's Alexander Ward reports. Assessing a late Israeli demand to control the Philadelphi Corridor between Gaza and Egypt, and subsequently reflecting on the war's intractability, Robert Blecher, director of the Future of Conflict Program at the International Crisis Group recently commented to The New Yorker's Isaac Chotiner: "[Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu has been quite clear that he wants Israel to remain in control" of the Gaza Strip's security. "There doesn't seem to be any electoral chance of replacing him. And so you're going to have a gradual drip, drip, drip of population displacement, and we're already looking at the day after."
 
So, where could this be heading, ultimately? The late US Middle East diplomat Martin Indyk argued in Foreign Affairs in February that, as dire as things seem, a two-state solution is really the only path to ending the conflict meaningfully. The idea of ending the Gaza war, at some point, with a durable settlement to the broader Israeli–Palestinian conflict has gained boosters elsewhere, too.
 
On GPS this month, Fareed heard from former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Nasser al-Kidwa about their rare joint proposal for a two-state solution. In Foreign Affairs, scholars Omar M. Dajani and Limor Yehuda argue for a federated Israeli–Palestinian state with decentralized power to accommodate both groups' interests. That would ensure equal rights and foster cooperation on collective challenges, they write.
 
In the journal Fathom, former Israeli negotiator Gidi Grinstein argues peace talks will end up where they began, mostly for lack of better options. To Grinstein, the Oslo Accords can serve as a framework for postwar Gaza. That 1995 agreement divided Palestinian territories into zones: Area A, with security and civilian authority in Palestinian hands; Area B, under Israeli security control and Palestinian civilian leadership; and Area C, under full Israeli control. That could be the future for Gaza, Grinstein argues—if only because no other idea seems viable.

Harris, the Establishment, and Working-Class Votes

The working class—specifically, the White working class—is often credited with ushering former President Donald Trump into power, having been disenchanted with traditional candidates and the political establishment they represent. Brookings research has complicated that view, finding other past GOP nominees performed as well or better among White working-class voters than Trump did in 2016 and 2020. Still, it's a powerful constituency, and Vice President Kamala Harris may need to make inroads in order to win the presidency, Ruy Teixeira has argued at the American Enterprise Institute.
 
If that's true, The New Statesman's Freddie Hayward notes a discouraging development for Harris and an encouraging one for Trump: "For the first time since 1996, [America's] fourth largest union, the Teamsters, will not endorse the Democratic candidate for president. It's an embarrassment for Kamala Harris who has made working people central to her campaign. Working class voters in traditionally industrial states such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania could hold the key to the election. Losing their support could be fatal."
 
One problem for Harris might be her alignment with the US political establishment, argues Bloomberg columnist Nia-Malika Henderson. Democrats have touted the endorsements Harris has earned from Republicans like former Vice President Dick Cheney. But Henderson notes that "it's questionable how effective any of these establishment endorsements are with the demographic Harris is struggling to win over and that Trump is centering his campaign around: younger working-class voters, particularly men. According to a NPR/Marist poll released earlier this month, Harris trails Trump 35% to 63% among White, non-college graduate men." In Henderson's view, Harris should focus more on winning Joe Rogan's vote than on Dick Cheney's.

France Leans Right

When French President Emmanuel Macron appointed Michel Barnier of the right-leaning Les Républicains party as prime minister, the left cried foul. A leftist coalition had secured the most legislative seats in a summer snap election, and leftist leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon called Barnier's appointment a theft of the vote.
 
Barnier has now picked ministers to serve in a new government, submitting them for Macron's approval. Le Monde's Claire Gatinois and Alexandre Pedro examine its composition, observing: "These initial elements show that Barnier has drawn on the former majority [of Macron's centrists] and on the right to make his selection. While the prime minister claims to be representing a 'break' with the previous government, his team's profile bears a striking resemblance to the previous one, being essentially made up of Macronists and [Les Républicains] elected representatives. This composition confirms the right-wing direction of Macron's administration. The only difference with previous governments since his 2017 election is that this time, the alliance between the presidential camp and the right is fully asserted."

A New Father on Why He Fights

In Kyiv last week, Fareed spoke with Ukrainian Chief Sgt. Yegor Firsov, who had just returned from the front lines, about the tenuous position of Ukraine's forces amid Russian advances. Firsov's daughter was born this month; becoming a father, he said, motivates him to continue the fight against Russia's invading army.

Syria's Unending Nightmare

Syria's civil war has simmered down from the intense conflict of the 2010s, but as dictatorial President Bashar al-Assad has solidified his control of territory, the broken country that remains is profiled in a series of Le Monde features.
 
Of the ruined, former resistance stronghold city of Aleppo, the first feature in the series of seven observes: "The martyred city, once an ancient and prosperous center at the crossroads of the Silk Road and Syria's economic powerhouse before the 2011 revolution, has lost much of its cultural heritage and industrial infrastructure. 'It's part of our soul, of the city's identity that's gone,' deplored an artist from Aleppo. 'The children won't know this history; it pains me to see my city divided and destroyed.'"
 
Another essay details how "anarchy reigns" in Syria's main Druze city, Sweida: "Stands laden with cans of contraband gasoline lined the streets of central Sweida. Yellow for Syrian fuel, blue for Lebanese. The very public display of this black market has become a feature of the Druze city in southern Syria, as have the weekly demonstrations against the central government. They are symptoms of the economic crisis and abandonment from which this region bordering Jordan suffers, having become a land of trafficking of all kinds, and the kingdom of mafia and criminal gangs."

Tariffs: the New Sanctions?

In the last decade-plus, financial sanctions have become America's favorite weapon of geopolitical coercion. By "listing" certain individuals and companies as violators of US sanctions law, Washington can cut off adversaries from much of the global financial system.
 
Experts have wondered if this weaponization of America's financial hegemony would endanger the US dollar's status as the world's favored reserve currency. Among those experts are Abraham Newman and Henry Farrell, who have examined the exploitation of globalized economic interdependence at length.
 
In a Financial Times column, Farrell warns that tariffs risk being overused in the same way, particularly as Trump favors them so heavily. "Of course, the more that the US uses tariffs to punish allies, the more they will look for markets elsewhere," Farrell writes. "The German economy is already deeply entangled with China's. It will become more so if Trump wins and gets his way. The careful efforts of the Biden administration to build long-term co-operative arrangements with allies over semiconductor export and manufacture will be ripped into shreds."

Correction: In yesterday's edition, the Global Briefing identified a Foreign Affairs essay by economist Branko Milanović as being published recently, alongside another essay on a similar topic. It was, in fact, published in the January/February 2020 issue. We regret the error.