Israel is unlikely to make security concessions as part of any new peace agreement with regional countries, making it difficult for those seeking to lull Israel into a false sense of security before launching an attack to succeed, Prof. Eytan Gilboa told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.
Gilboa is an expert on diplomacy at Bar-Ilan University and Reichman University and a senior research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.
Gilboa spoke with the Post after KAN reported that officials from a regional country advised another to agree with Israel to “lull it to sleep” before an attack.
Though the countries involved in the alleged plan were unnamed by KAN, as were the foreign sources who informed the Israeli public broadcaster of the alleged scheme, Gilboa had little doubt that such a tactic would fail.
“That’s the problem with October 7. The trauma is so significant and will last for so long that I don’t think signing peace agreements in the future that require substantial security compromises,” he said. “I don’t think that would be possible.”
Doubting that any countries Israel currently has any kind of agreement with would risk offering such advice, Gilboa noted that several countries and armed groups are currently in a state of negotiation with Israel or are being pushed by Washington to begin such talks.
A possible agreement with Damascus has been widely discussed since the fall of the Assad regime, despite interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa’s terrorist history as the leader of the Islamist group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and his own history of anti-Israel commentary.
Peace agreement requiring concession of Golan Heights 'isn't in the cards,' Gilboa says
With a peace agreement likely requiring Israel to hand over the strategically vital Golan Heights, something that Gilboa said “isn’t in the cards” for Jerusalem, US President Donald Trump has pushed to see a security agreement between the countries that would not require such a concession.
Gilboa said the rough idea would see Israel withdraw from areas in Syria beyond the 1974 separation line, agreed upon by the Disengagement Agreement, for Damascus to “commit to some kind of non-belligerence agreement, pledging not to attack Israel.”
Regardless of what Trump may want, Gilboa said he couldn’t see such an agreement materializing because neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor whoever is in power following the upcoming election is likely to withdraw from the territories in exchange for “f commitments that you never know whether the other side will implement or respect.”
On the Lebanon front, where there are discussions and processes in play to perhaps see an Israeli withdrawal, Gilboa said Lebanon had a genuine desire to end the war, even if Hezbollah was focused on creating more instability.
“If Hezbollah were to disarm, I think there’s a good chance for Israel to take a chance on peace with Lebanon,” he said, adding such a gamble would only be made if the Lebanese Armed Forces can demonstrate its capable of policing Hezbollah in the pilot zones.
Israeli experts say BoP 15-point plan is insufficient
There are also discussions to see Hamas disarmed and the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza take over the Palestinian territory. Though Israeli experts have made clear that the Board of Peace’s 15-point plan to see the transfer of weapons and power as insufficient, and Israel has already rejected the agreement, Gilboa said there was a faint chance of a reformed Palestinian Authority eventually being allowed to take control.
The BoP “think that Hamas’s disarmament could be carried out gradually, that Hamas is serious about doing it, and that an international stabilization force, with soldiers from Morocco, the UAE and other countries, would be able to take over. But Hamas has not changed its goal of destroying Israel. Given that reality, I believe the chances of meaningful peace negotiations and agreements in the next decade are slim,” he said.
Outside the question of which actor is believed capable of lulling Israel into a false sense of security with an agreement, Gilboa said October 7 marked a significant change in Israel’s calculus. While before the massacre it had focused on which groups were capable of doing harm, it now also looked at which actors have bad intentions.
“Since then, Israel would not judge the positions of any potential enemy based on intentions. You can sign a peace agreement with the intention of maintaining peace, but that would not guide Israeli national security. The main guideline would be capabilities. Are you developing military capabilities that could threaten Israel’s survival? That is the main issue.
“I believe that even if, somehow, through American mediation, another peace agreement were signed in the next decade with any country in the region, the agreement would be judged based on capabilities,” he concluded. “Therefore, the probability of a country signing a peace agreement with Israel while accumulating military power designed to attack Israel would be very low.”