BICOM

Is there a political solution to the conflict between Israel and Hamas that can avoid further rounds of fighting? Fathom editors invited leading policy analysts to discuss: ‘reconstruction for demilitarisation’ – a long-term, large-scale economic development package for the Strip to transform the lives of Gazan civilians in return for the disarmament of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other armed groups.

The policy of reconstruction for demilitarisation has backing from the Israeli government and opposition, the United States, and the European Union. It has a good chance of attracting support from regional Arab states and the Palestinian Authority.

But it will be opposed by the so-called ‘resistance axis’ of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas.

The contributors to the symposium – Matthew Levitt, Michael Herzog, Asher Susser, Jonathan Rynhold, Jonathan Spyer, Gershon Baskin, Benedetta Berti, Einat Wilf and Emily Landau – are among the very best analysts of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and regional security.

We also asked each to respond to a new paper published by the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies. Udi Dekel’s and Shlomo Brom’s Reconstruction for Demilitarization: Lifting the Economic Siege and Tightening the Security Siege around the Gaza Strip sets out the rationale for the policy of reconstruction for demilitarisation, the steps needed to implement it, the actors who may support the policy, and its likely consequences. Dekel and Brom authors claim that ‘the conditions are ripe for shaping a new strategic reality in the Gaza Strip. To this end, the Israeli government must take the interests of the United States and Egypt into consideration and both commit itself and mobilize regional and international players in a US-led political initiative of “reconstruction for demilitarization.”’

Podcasts of the symposium are available here.