An election campaign defined by what isn’t being said

Strange things can happen when Israeli politicians debate the issue of peace with the Palestinians.

At a panel in front of a hundreds-strong English-speaking audience at the Tel Aviv Port on Monday night, all five panelists — from across the political spectrum — were utterly convincing.

Jewish Home’s Ayelet Shaked rightly noted the bitter experience of the recent past, in which an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza resulted in an increase in violence, not the reverse.

Yesh Atid’s Yaakov Peri and Kulanu’s Michael Oren gave voice to the widespread sense that a peace deal was a necessary component of Israel’s security, and that regional Arab powers may hold the key where direct Israeli-Palestinian talks failed.

Zionist Camp’s Hilik Bar and Meretz’s Tamar Zandberg, meanwhile, offered the sensible and more or less indisputable observation that Israel’s diplomatic and international stature depended to some extent on the perception abroad that the Jewish state was genuinely interested in peace.

The MKs, speaking at a Tel Aviv International Salon-Times of Israel debate moderated by this correspondent, delivered these and other observations with force and conviction.

Yet even as they made their case as plainly and earnestly as any Israeli might have, they struggled to answer the other sides’ challenges.

Previous peace efforts ended in ignominious failure and even disaster – Shaked can hardly be challenged on that point. But if separation from the Palestinians is too unsafe to be feasible, what of the civil rights of a non-Israeli people who will not be free from Israel. Surely they must then be allowed to be free in Israel?

Zandberg insisted peace talks had been haphazard over the years, and that a sustained, intensive push could yield results no previous effort had produced. Yet this criticism arguably ignores the human agency behind the failures of the past. Most Israelis, including many who vote for Zandberg and Meretz, are skeptical about the ability of Palestinian politics to reciprocate with peace.

The idea of a regional path to peace has been heard from many quarters. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself proposed it after the summer war in Gaza. Peri urged such a policy on Monday night. But no one has yet offered a detailed or convincing explanation as to how the inclusion of Egypt, Jordan or Saudi Arabia at the negotiating table would make it easier to find agreement on the return of the descendants of Palestinian refugees, the division of Jerusalem or the security arrangements Israel demands for peace.

These gaps in the debate reflect a broader national bewilderment. A majority of Israelis want to separate from the Palestinians. A majority – one that overlaps a great deal with the previous group – also believes an Israeli withdrawal is unlikely to deliver safety. And so, in a sense, everyone is right.

Bar insisted that Palestinian independence would increase, not decrease, the political window for an Israeli military response to any post-withdrawal attacks. Shaked calmly pointed out that the Gaza situation didn’t quite work out that way.

Shaked insisted the country could “manage the conflict,” leading Peri to retort that the conflict was “managing” the country, holding an outsized role in setting the national agenda.

On left and right, and among the centrists, the debate showed Israeli leaders invariably had an easier time pointing out the weaknesses and foibles in others’ proposals than incorporating those criticisms into their own.

A handful of quick post-debate conversations with attendees suggested this was not lost on the audience — nor did it dramatically change their outlook on the conflict or the parties.

At the end of the day, after a long string of failed peace talks, Israelis no longer believe in the policy narratives of the past. They do not believe peace is attainable in the near term, or that annexation might resolve the fundamental questions of the conflict.

And neither, it seems, do the candidates in this election.