Israel's six options for peace

Anyone looking for a resemblance between the June 8 shooting attack at the Sarona market in Tel Aviv and the mass shooting four days later at the gay nightclub in Orlando can find it in the worn expression “getting back to normal.” In Israel and the United States, this means the normal condolence calls, the usual visits to the wounded and condemnation of the killers, the routine mouthing of hollow slogans and incitement against the murderer’s peer group. It's back to the business of sipping coffee and lighting candles at the site of the disaster until the next attack.

In a speech after the Orlando massacre, US President Barack Obama said, “We have to decide if that’s the kind of country we want to be.” He then added, “And to actively do nothing is a decision as well,” a not-so-veiled reference to conservatives’ persistent refusal to limit the purchase and ownership of guns.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in a better position than Obama. Netanyahu has two options from which to choose: He can continue doing more of the same, meaning nothing, the results of which will be identical — that is, bereavement, despair and hatred — or he can take action. He can easily muster a solid majority in the Knesset to take action. If he cannot mobilize this majority within his ruling coalition, he can count on support from the opposition. That’s what Prime Minister Menachem Begin did when he agreed to the Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsulai in the early 1980s and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon did when he pulled settlers out of Gaza in 2005.

Those who say that the beaches of the Sinai Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh are not the same as the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, or that one cannot compare a Gaza settlement bloc to the Etzion settlement bloc in the West Bank, are right. Indeed, reaching a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians is way more complex than signing a peace treaty with Egypt.