Forks In The Road

Finishing a week in Israel and the region with a J Street delegation, it's clear historic decisions lie just ahead - posing both enormous danger and amazing opportunity.

After holding meetings and briefings with regional leaders and emotional visits in southern Israel and the West Bank, I come back seeing at least nine critical crossroads ahead:

(1) Ceasefire: Continue to Phase Two or Restart the War?

· This week: Can mediators find a formula before Saturday’s deadline to move from Phase One to Phase Two, freeing all remaining hostages and pulling IDF forces out of Gaza?

· President Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff seems genuinely committed to keeping the deal on track, but President Trump’s rhetoric and proposals are emboldening hardliners.

· An extension of Phase One with more hostage releases and more aid may be the best we can hope for, though resumed fighting is a distinct possibility.

(2) Removing Hamas: The Military or Political Path?

· This week: Will a serious plan for security, reformed governance and redevelopment of Gaza comes out of the March 4 Arab Summit in Cairo?

· With thousands – even tens of thousands – of armed fighters and hundreds of miles of tunnels, Hamas remains in operational control of Gaza.

· Israeli hardliners may want to restart the fighting, and no one wants Hamas to stay. But Hamas can only be replaced with a clear and credible plan – and President Trump’s abhorrent ideas have at least spurred the Arab League to try to provide an alternative.

(3) Bibi: End of the Road?

· This month: Bibi faces serious political challenges on finalizing a budget by March 31 and on drafting the ultra-orthodox – all while navigating ceasefire negotiations. Even if he makes it through these challenges, elections are at most 18 months away.

· The polls are consistent. If elections were held tomorrow, the hard right governing coalition would lose. As around the world, the winds of change are blowing. The Israeli public is ready to end the war and bring the hostages home and for a commission of inquiry that will bring accountability for the failures of October 7.

· Don’t expect a left-of-center victory. Do anticipate a center-right/center-left coalition answering the call for change.

(4) Palestinian Authority: Finally, Reform?

· This past week: the PA announced it’s ending the notorious Prisoner Payment Program, long a red flag for Israel, the US Congress and foreign governments. A new decree folds the payments into a social welfare program based on need.

· Will the program be implemented? Is it sufficient to meet Congressional demands? The coming weeks will tell, but the step brought public protests and the firing of a leading PA official who opposed the move. This one measure alone won’t be enough. To gain Israeli, US and Arab confidence, reform will be needed in governance, education, security and more.

(5) West Bank: Annexation or Normalization?

· The weeks ahead: As in 2020, Israel has a choice – maintain and expand the circle of normalization with Arab neighbors by committing to eventual Palestinian statehood or annex the territory and extinguish the dream of normalization.

· While the world watches Gaza, creeping annexation on the West Bank continues. Massive construction of roads and new settlements everywhere. Settler violence raging. Heavy fighting in the northern West Bank, displacing tens of thousands of Palestinians.

· Now, the risk is that the price Trump pays Bibi for a deal to end the fighting in Gaza is greenlighting at least partial West Bank annexation.

(6) Israel: Liberal or Illiberal Democracy?

· This past week: The Knesset green-lit yet more anti-democratic legislation – this time to criminalize assisting the international courts and to tax into bankruptcy human rights NGOs receiving foreign government grants. The bills will wind their way through the Knesset in March and April.

· One has to ask: where is the outrage from American Jewish leadership? The Conference of Presidents was visiting Israel this week too, with the assault on democracy taking place under their noses. Leaders of Jewish America should be standing up for Israel’s democracy instead of welcoming government ministers like Amichai Chikli who embrace far-right European leaders.

(7) Iran: Negotiations or Military Attack?

· Also just ahead: While our attention is on Gaza and Israel-Palestine, don’t lose sight of Bibi’s longtime goal of taking aim at Iran’s nuclear program and bringing down the regime.

· Without question, Iran is weaker than any point in years – its proxies decimated, its air defenses neutralized. We know President Trump is notoriously averse to military action, so what message is he giving Bibi – that he wants a new deal with Iran or that he’d support an attack?

(8) Trump: Dealmaker of the Century or Messianic Enabler?

· In the coming weeks: Which Trump are we dealing with? A President green-lighting annexation and the messianic and nationalist fantasies of the far right, serious about forcibly displacing two million people? Or a President seeking the ‘deal of the century’ and a Nobel Prize?

· The trajectory of the conflict and the region hangs on the answer. Either scenario feels plausible – and the choice Trump makes in the days and weeks ahead may be the most significant of all.

(9) Historic Opportunity

· Once in 77 years: Never has there been as historic an opportunity for Israel to fulfill the dreams of its founders – to achieve global recognition and regional integration for the national homeland of the Jewish people. Never has there been greater risk that the country’s leadership will choose the road to calamity.

· As one briefer told us, policy makers generally have to choose among not-good options. Rarely is there this clear a choice between the truly awful and the historically good.

That’s where we are today.

Israel must make the strategic choice between continuing down the messianic path toward one state without rights for all, isolation and perpetual conflict, or the path of regional normalization that I call the 23-state solution, bringing integrated security and global acceptance of Israel’s borders.

The choices ahead are clear. Buckle up, because these forks all lie directly in the road ahead.