Everyone Will Be Disappointed With the Day After in Gaza

In this report, we take a fresh look at the problem of what Gaza will look like after the war.  A lot of people have written about the topic, mostly with unrealistic expectations or false assumptions, and the subject has become a moving target with the parties themselves changing the goalposts. This paper aims to present a realistic vision for the outcome, one in which everybody will almost inevitably have to accept some amount of compromise and disappointment. 

As we get closer to something resembling an end-game in Gaza, we can see the basic outlines of a new status quo. That includes the limited role of the Palestinian Authority, the improbability of statehood, voter discontent in the West, and a prolonged military burden for Israel. This scenario will present a number of problems for Israel and America. Policymakers would do well to consider these hard realities now and start to prepare for the consequences.

About the Author:

—Joshua Yaphe is a senior fellow at the Center for the National Interest and was a senior analyst for the Arabian Peninsula at the US State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. He has a PhD in History from American University in Washington, DC, and is the author of Saudi Arabia and Iraq as Friends and Enemies: Borders, Tribes and a History Shared. In 2020, he was a visiting fellow at the National Council on US-Arab Relations, and from 2022 to 2024 he served as a visiting faculty member at the National Intelligence University. His latest book, Time and Narrative in Intelligence Analysis: A New Framework for the Production of Meaning, is available for free in an Open Access online edition.