The news in Israel lately is swirling with so many unanswered questions. Here are some of them:
Are we getting ready for World War III in the Middle East ? Will DJT attack Iran? With Bibi’s help? Alone? How will Iran react? Against US bases in the region? Against Israeli military and civilian sites?
The Israeli media is telling us every day and every night that the attack may come any day, and we should be prepared for retaliation, but don’t worry, our defense systems are the greatest and America is here to help us (all systems are now supposedly in place). Should we be worried that we will be awakened any day at 4 am, as we were last June, with the announcement that the war with Iran has been launched and we should head once again to our safe rooms?
Will such attacks lead to regime change? Will the Iranian people then be able to overthrow their oppressors? Who will run the country instead of them? Will Trump be “acting president” like he is of Venezuela? (Isn’t he really acting all the time? Is this just one big reality TV show?)
How will all this affect the beginning “stage 2” of Trump’s peace concepts (or are they “frameworks”) and the continuation of the “ceasefire” between Israel and Gaza, the ceasefire that Israel only partially observes? Will Bibi and his political partners (Ben Gvir, Smotrich and others) allow stage 2 to move forward? Or will they prevent it by threatening Bibi’s government once again?
More questions. Are the “plans” for “stage 2” at all realistic? Who, if anyone, will actually disarm Hamas, which is one of the essential items in the twenty-point peace “plan”? What if Hamas is not demilitarized? Will Israel continue to go along with the plans? Or will they renew the war?
Are any of Kushner’s rebuilding plans realistic? Did you see his surrealistic digital models? Is he serious or is this just a farce? Will anyone seriously invest in this? How many years would it take? What happens to the 2 million Palestinians in Gaza in the meantime? Does anyone in America or Israel care about them? Do they continue to live in tent cities? How will all the rubble and mud in their destroyed cities be removed? When might they get real housing again? Who will help them dig out and find the thousands of bodies who are buried beneath the rubble?
Moreover, will Israel be allowed to bomb them and kill them at will during the ongoing one-way “ceasefire“? (Almost 500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire fire began on October 11, 2025!) Will they begin to return to school and work and normal life? Will they give up on armed resistance or will they somehow secretly rearm to start the cycle of violence all over again?
Does anyone anywhere have any serious, sustained, well-thought-out answer to all these (and more) questions? In the USA? In Israel? Among the great leaders of the Bored of Peace?
It seems to me that there are many more questions than answers with regard to the “plans” for moving forward in “stage 2” of DJT’s political reality show to prevent the Israel-Hamas conflict from reaching a real end. Here are some more questions:
Now that the last hostage (Ron Gvili) has been returned (dead) to Israel, is the war over? This is the biggest question. It seems to me that in the minds of Bibi and his buddies, it is not over yet and maybe never will be over. They are licking their chops with energy and enthusiasm to join Trump and his air force in attacking and dismantling Iran. They are also saying over and over again that if someone else does not disarm Hamas, then “we will do it!”, i.e. the IDF (or maybe Ben Gvir and Smotrich can do it with their “hilltop youth” militias!) Some in the IDF and many in Israeli society still want to have “total victory!”, i.e., to totally dismantle Hamas’s military capabilities. There are also major questions about whether the IDF will actually withdraw from the 53% of Gaza that they currently control. Or is this temporary situation going to be another permanent military occupation?
So, is the war not over until Iran and Hamas are totally destroyed? Will the war ever end? Or are we in a “forever war”?
Does anyone have any real answers to all these (and more) questions that we are asking ourselves in Israel these days?
Rabbi Dr Ron Kronish is the Founding Director the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel (ICCI), which he directed for 25 years. Now retired, he is an independent educator, author, lecturer, writer, speaker, blogger and consultant. He is the editor of 5 books, including Coexistence and Reconciliation in Israel–Voices for Interreligious Dialogue (Paulist Press, 2015). His new book, The Other Peace Process: Interreligious Dialogue, a View from Jerusalem, was published by Hamilton Books, an imprint of Rowman and LIttelfield, in September 2017. He recently (September 2022) published a new book about peacebuilders in Israel and Palestine entitled Profiles in Peace: Voices of Peacebuilders in the midst of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, which is available on Amazon Books, Barnes and Noble and the Book Depository websites,