Israel is at the most dangerous period of its short modern history. One can say that its very survival is at stake.

Since the tragic events of Oct. 7 when about 1,200 Israelis were killed in a surprise Hamas attack, Israel has been engaged in ever expanding conflicts around its borders. Its foes are backed by a powerful and emerging nuclear state — Iran. Because of the death and destruction Israeli Defense Forces have wreaked in Gaza, Israel has lost moral authority and international credibility. Arab neighbors who once negotiated with Israel, now hold back from any steps to create a peaceful Middle East. Internally, Israelis are deeply divided. The radical right seems to want to continue war until Israel controls all of Gaza and the West Bank.

When Jewish settlers established Israel in 1948, priority was given to self-reliance — a strong internal military defense force, which was later backed by nuclear weapons developed with the support of the French government. Gradual expansion of land holdings was achieved at the expense of existing Palestinian villagers less able to protect and preserve their own settlements. A superior military force provided the needed national security. After 1948, over 700,000 Palestinians were gradually expelled from their villages in what is called the Naqba and driven into refugee status, many to Gaza, as Israel expanded to include all of traditional Palestine.

After the 1967 war, Israel continued to use its superior military strength and economic support from the United States to establish stable relations with neighboring Arab countries, particularly Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. Under the Abraham Accords, worked out between Israel and the Trump Administration, Saudi Arabia discussed full diplomatic recognition of Israel. The Saudis ultimately declined to follow through on recognition without prior Israeli agreement to the establishment of a separate state for Palestinians comprising Gaza, the West Bank and its capital in East Jerusalem.

Power and influence in the Middle East are now changing. In response to evidence that Iran is pressing ahead with the enrichment of nuclear fuel in support of a future nuclear weapons industry, the US recently imposed sanctions against Iranian sales of oil to China. In 2023, China purchased about 90% of Iran’s oil (1.1 million barrels per day), getting around the US sanctions by purchasing the oil through third country shippers in transactions with small Chinese refineries and banks in RMB currency (yuan). This allowed China to demonstrate no dollar purchases of Iranian oil, which would have been a violation of US nuclear industry sanction efforts on Iran. The US is now concerned that its sanctions, aimed at restraining Iran’s development of nuclear weapons, may soon prove ineffectual.

Russia is a major purchaser of Iranian drones, air to ground missiles and other munitions used in its war in Ukraine. The Iranian weapons are also provided to proxy groups fighting Israel. These include: Hezbollah fighting across the Lebanon border into parts of Northern Israel; Hamas fighting Israel in Gaza; the Houthi located in Yemen but targeting Israeli and other shipping in the Red Sea; and more recently provision of weapons across the Jordan border to Palestinians fighting Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. In April 2024, Israel attacked and killed senior Iranian officials in the Iranian embassy in Syria, resulting in the first Iranian counter attack directly against Israel. Israel is now fighting Iran indirectly and directly in five war locations. The Biden Administration worries that the current situation could escalate into a wider war in the Middle East. It decided to position additional US warships to the region and urgently called for a cease-fire in Gaza.

In November 2022, a new, extreme right Israeli government coalition won the election, representing religious parties and the rapidly growing Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. The new extreme right has been led most vocally by Itamar Ben-Giver as Minister of National Security and Bezalel Yoel Smotrich the Minister of Finance. They have been most strident in pinning Prime Minister Netanyahu to nationalist policies. They and their followers proclaim Israeli land rights from “Jordan River to the Sea.” Extreme right policies and actions include:

■ No establishment of an independent demilitarized Palestinian State;

■ Rapid Israeli settlement and control over the occupied West Bank (currently about 500,000 Israeli settlers reside on the best lands);

■ Reduced tax revenues and other support to the Palestinian Authority, undermining its effectiveness in representing Palestinians in Gaza or elsewhere;

■ Rapid Israeli settlement of East Jerusalem where the future Palestinian capital was to be located (about 230,000 settlers now occupy Palestinian housing in East Jerusalem);

■ Israel killing of more than 500 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since October 2023;

■ UN estimates that more than 90% of the Gaza population has been displaced multiple times and 70% of Gaza housing stock destroyed by Israeli bombing since October;

■ Hamas Ministry of Health estimates that over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed and at least 10,000 missing under rubble and presumably dead, and 92,400 Palestinians wounded since October;

■ After 10 months of war, most of the Palestinian population of 2.1 million in Gaza is starving and sick due to frequent uprooting, squalid living conditions and a lack of basic food, medicine and clean water, and recently the outbreak of polio.

This is a critical moment for a cease-fire. The US Administration is motivated by the fear of a broader war in the Middle East involving Iran and Israel and the influence of the war on the outcome of the US Presidential Election in less than 10 weeks. New motivation for a cease-fire came on Labor Day weekend in Israel when Hamas followed up on a threat to assassinate six hostages if Israel’s troops in Rafah threatened to seize them. Riots erupted throughout Israel blaming Netanyahu for failing to give priority to the return of Israeli hostages, instead insisting on keeping Israeli troops in the Philadelphi corridor between Gaza and Egypt. Many Israeli rioters made the point that the six hostages would be home alive if Netanyahu had given priority to securing a permanent cease fire.

After the killing of the six hostages, a poignant statement made by Benny Gantz, the former war cabinet member and opposition lawmaker, was quoted in the Haaretz newspaper: “The Prime Minister should protect the hostages and the citizens of Israel, not his coalition controlled by extremists ...The time has come to replace the government of complete failure.”

New leadership in Israel is for the Israeli people to decide. For the Biden Administration the path ahead is also clear: The first phase of his proposal made in July calls for an immediate cease-fire followed by a swapping of Israeli hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. The US proposal called for a cease-fire long enough to get critical humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza, followed by plans for rebuilding housing and other critical infrastructure. Longer term, the establishment of an independent demilitarized Palestinian state was seen to be essential to sustainable peace. That will require Israel to see its longer-term security in international diplomacy and living together compatibly with its Middle East neighbors — not in continuing war and destruction.

Arthur Holcombe was resident representative of the United Nations Development Program and Resident Coordinator of UN Operational Activities in China from 1992-1998. From 2011 to 2015, he directed a US program to strengthen economic opportunity for Palestinian women in Gaza. He lives in Hanover.