After the Iran War: Is Washington Looking for a New Rabin?
While the repercussions of the wars that began on October 7 continue to reshape the calculations of regional powers, the United States has begun shifting from managing confrontation to considering the political order it seeks to build in its aftermath. This transition raises a question that extends beyond the outcomes of the wars themselves: how will Washington leverage those outcomes in Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, and Arab–Israeli relations? On September 4, 2026, Israeli journalist Barak Ravid reported in Axios that the Trump administration had begun developing a postwar strategy centered on containing Iran, reducing the likelihood of renewed conflict on the fronts surrounding Israel, and expanding normalization agreements, ultimately leading to Saudi–Israeli normalization.[1] Israel’s elections, scheduled for October 27, also factor into the strategy’s implementation. Washington intends to work with the government formed after the elections, without making its plans contingent on the victory of any particular Israeli candidate.
This moment recalls the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War, when the administration of George H. W. Bush moved from leading the military coalition against Iraq to attempting to reorganize regional relations. Secretary of State James Baker launched a diplomatic initiative that culminated in the Madrid Conference in October of that year. During this period, Washington clashed with Yitzhak Shamir’s government over settlement activity and US loan guarantees. The US Department of State’s official account indicates that the Bush administration used $10 billion in loan guarantees to pressure Shamir. The negotiations launched after Madrid gained further momentum following Yitzhak Rabin’s victory in the June 1992 elections. Secret talks between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization subsequently overtook the Washington negotiating track and culminated in the Declaration of Principles in September 1993.
This precedent does not establish that Washington is currently searching for a new Rabin. Its comparative value lies elsewhere: in the function of an Israeli government during the period immediately following a war. After the Gulf War, the United States needed a government capable of treating negotiations as an instrument for organizing the regional environment produced by the conflict. Today’s emerging strategy, if Washington intends to implement it, similarly requires an Israeli leadership capable of safeguarding what Israel considers its essential security interests while leveraging some of the military outcomes to secure more stable political and regional arrangements.
Yet this Israeli question leads to an issue of greater importance for the Palestinians, because the American project extends beyond Iran and normalization to encompass Gaza’s reconstruction, the future of the Palestinian Authority, and the rebuilding of Palestinian political institutions. Herein lies the central premise of this analysis: the potential problem with any future settlement may not necessarily lie in the absence of references to Palestinian statehood—the current US initiative explicitly invokes self-determination and statehood—but rather in the possibility that the development of Palestinian governance and the renewal of its legitimacy will advance more rapidly than the transfer of sovereignty on the ground. The result could be institutions increasingly capable of administering Palestinian society while the distribution of control over territory, borders, resources, and security remains largely unchanged.
From War to Regional Reordering
The strategy under development by the Trump administration indicates that Washington does not view Iran, Gaza, Syria, and Lebanon as separate files that can be resolved independently. Instead, it is attempting to integrate them into a regional framework designed to prevent Iran from recovering the position and capabilities it lost during the war, reduce the likelihood of renewed conflict in the areas surrounding Israel, and then use the resulting relative stability to expand Arab–Israeli relations. The ideas disclosed by Axios therefore include advancing to the next phase of the arrangements for Gaza, pursuing a security agreement between Israel and Syria, consolidating the understandings concerning Lebanon, and expanding normalization agreements. The relationship between the war’s outcomes and the subsequent political project thus forms part of a single strategy rather than two distinct phases.
The experience of 1991 helps explain the nature of this transition, while also revealing a fundamental difference between the two periods. After the Gulf War, the Arab–Israeli conflict occupied a prominent place in US calculations. The Bush administration believed that the Arab states’ support for the coalition against Iraq required Washington to demonstrate progress on the Palestinian issue, a consideration that helped propel the Madrid Conference. The current project, by contrast, begins with Iran, regional security, and the closure of active fronts. The Palestinian question enters primarily through Gaza: its future governance, the reform of the Palestinian Authority, and the relationship between these processes and regional normalization.
Invoking Rabin therefore offers limited value if it becomes an attempt to establish a direct historical parallel between 1992 and 2026. The Israeli, Palestinian, and regional environments have changed profoundly, while Washington no longer assigns the Palestinian question the position it occupied after the Gulf War. The precedent becomes useful, however, when employed to understand the type of leadership better equipped to manage the transition from force to politics. Military gains alone remain insufficient when they cannot be converted into arrangements that reduce the likelihood of renewed war and provide the United States with room to reconstruct its preferred regional order.
Eisenkot and the Political Use of Military Outcomes
Gadi Eisenkot’s relevance emerges precisely at this point. On September 3, 2026, The Jerusalem Post published a report outlining the policies he would be expected to pursue if he became prime minister. The report indicates that his differences with Netanyahu stem neither from opposition to the use of force nor from a willingness to relinquish Israeli security demands. Rather, they concern his understanding of the political function of military control once it has achieved its immediate objectives.[2] In Syria, Eisenkot currently favors retaining the security zone and the Syrian side of Mount Hermon, while preserving Israel’s freedom of aerial action. At the same time, he believes that some areas of deployment could be used as negotiating leverage to secure the withdrawal of Syrian forces from the border and obtain more favorable security arrangements. This position reflects a willingness to treat military control as a bargaining instrument rather than an end in itself.
This approach is even more evident in Gaza and the West Bank. Eisenkot seeks to end Hamas’s rule and is prepared to work with the Palestinian Authority if the choice is between the Authority and Hamas’s continued control. He also accepts linking incremental disarmament measures to corresponding steps in reconstruction, while insisting on maintaining an Israeli security corridor inside Gaza. In the West Bank, he seeks to reverse some of the policies promoted by Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, restore authority to the military and professional institutions, and adopt a firmer response to settler violence. At the same time, he rejects discussion of Palestinian statehood in the short and medium term. His proposed change therefore concerns the management of Israeli control and its political costs more than the foundations of that control at this stage.
In this sense, Eisenkot does not present a security doctrine antithetical to Netanyahu’s. He offers a different conception of how Israel should use the power it has accumulated. He seeks to preserve freedom of military action and deterrent capacity, yet appears more willing to convert parts of Israel’s military deployment into negotiating leverage, rebuild relations with the United States, Europe, and Arab states, and accept incremental initiatives that reduce Israel’s political and diplomatic costs. The comparison with Rabin acquires a specific significance here. Rabin did not approach political settlement as a departure from Israel’s security doctrine; he used negotiations to pursue objectives he regarded as integral to it. The fundamental difference is that Eisenkot does not place Palestinian statehood within the near-term political horizon.
Should an approach of this kind reach power, Washington may find a more accommodating partner on Syria, Gaza, normalization, and broader regional relations. This would not necessarily produce agreement on the parameters of a Palestinian settlement. The US roadmap calls for a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a political process leading toward self-determination and statehood, whereas Eisenkot seeks to retain a security corridor inside the territory and rejects statehood for the foreseeable future. Even under an Israeli government more inclined to cooperate with Washington, the disagreement may therefore shift from whether to enter a political process to the limits and pace of that process, as well as the relationship between Israeli security and Palestinian sovereignty.
The Problem Oslo Left Behind
If Rabin helps explain the role of Israeli leadership in the postwar period, Oslo provides the most consequential precedent for understanding the dilemma Palestinians may face. The issue left unresolved since the 1990s concerned more than disagreement over negotiations; it involved the relationship between building institutions capable of governing the population and advancing from self-government to sovereignty. The 1993 Declaration of Principles provided for the establishment of an interim Palestinian self-government authority and an elected council, as well as the transfer of authority to the Palestinians in education, health, social welfare, taxation, tourism, and other areas. Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, security arrangements, and borders were deferred to permanent-status negotiations. The transitional period was set at five years, during which a permanent settlement was expected to be reached.
Oslo did not design this administrative structure as the intended political endpoint, nor did it formally present self-government as a substitute for a final settlement. Yet experience demonstrated that institutions created to administer a transitional phase can endure even when the transition they were intended to facilitate stalls. The Palestinian Authority continued to assume extensive responsibilities for administering society, public services, the economy, and internal security, while questions of territory, borders, settlements, Jerusalem, and sovereignty remained outside a final settlement. Consequently, what was conceived as temporary gradually evolved into a relatively stable political structure without fulfilling the purpose for which it had been established.
This is what gives the arrangements being developed by the United States for Gaza their significance. In January 2026, the US administration announced the formation of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza and tasked it with restoring essential services, rebuilding civil institutions, and stabilizing daily life as part of the implementation of the second phase of Trump’s plan. On July 30, the Board of Peace subsequently published a roadmap calling for a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the empowerment of Palestinian governance, reconstruction, and the launch of a credible political process leading to self-determination and Palestinian statehood. The declared US project therefore does not formally present Palestinian administration as an alternative to sovereignty.
Recognizing this element, however, does not eliminate the dilemma; it makes it more precise. The inclusion of Palestinian statehood as the plan’s endpoint does not, by itself, guarantee that the preceding stages will lead to it. Administration, reconstruction, institution-building, disarmament, and security oversight are measures that can be initiated and their progress quantified. The transfer of sovereignty, by contrast, requires deeper political agreement among Israel, the Palestinians, the United States, and regional powers. This creates the possibility that the institutions administering the transitional phase will advance more rapidly than the mechanisms intended to bring that phase to an end. It is here that the Oslo experience becomes relevant, despite differences in circumstances, actors, and plans. The problem begins not with the establishment of a Palestinian administration, but when a transitional phase consolidates into a stable arrangement that never advances toward its intended political objective.
The Functional Settlement
This possibility can be described as a “functional settlement”: an arrangement in which Palestinian institutions expand their functions and strengthen their capacity to administer the population, economy, public services, reconstruction, and internal security without a commensurate transfer of control over territory, borders, and the security domain. The concept does not assume that Palestinian statehood has been removed from the horizon. Rather, it identifies a potential gap between building an authority capable of performing the functions of government and acquiring the constituent elements that would transform that authority into genuine political sovereignty.
In Gaza, a Palestinian body could assume responsibility for municipalities, public services, education, healthcare, the economy, reconstruction, and the daily administration of institutions, while withdrawal, disarmament, and security arrangements continue to proceed according to separate phases and conditions. In the West Bank, a more capable and legitimate Palestinian Authority could improve public services, governance, the economy, and internal security, while benefiting from a reversal of certain Israeli policies associated with annexation and settler violence. Yet this would not necessarily transfer control over Area C, settlements, borders, or the security domain. Improvements in governance would therefore provide an inadequate measure of political progress.
The importance of this distinction becomes clear when the US roadmap is compared with Eisenkot’s vision. The former calls for a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a process leading to self-determination and statehood. Eisenkot, meanwhile, maintains security demands that include retaining an Israeli corridor inside Gaza and rejects Palestinian statehood in the short and medium term. This divergence means that the emergence of an Israeli government less confrontational toward Washington and more willing to participate in regional arrangements would not automatically resolve the Palestinian question. The dispute could shift from rejecting the political process itself to negotiating its parameters, pace of implementation, and the relationship between the powers granted to the Palestinians and the extent of control Israel relinquishes.
Any future Israeli government should therefore be assessed by more than the extent to which its rhetoric differs from Netanyahu’s. Curbing settler violence, rebuilding relations with the Palestinian Authority, facilitating Gaza’s reconstruction, and improving relations with Washington and Arab capitals could produce important and tangible political changes. These measures alone, however, would not determine the nature of the settlement that ultimately emerges.
Palestinian Elections and the Renewal of Legitimacy
The Palestinian legislative elections scheduled for November 28, 2026, form part of this political environment. They should not be interpreted as evidence of a US plan to reshape the Palestinian political system, since no reliable information indicates that Washington requested the elections or participated in selecting their date. Rather, they represent a development that could functionally intersect with the need for more legitimate institutions should the Palestinian role expand in Gaza and the West Bank. On July 9, President Mahmoud Abbas issued a decree calling on Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip to elect a new legislative council on November 28. On August 3, he reaffirmed that the elections would proceed as scheduled, while the Central Elections Commission announced that preparations were continuing despite the challenges posed by Jerusalem, Gaza, and Israeli restrictions on movement and access.
The significance of these elections extends beyond the distribution of seats among competing lists. They would be the first Palestinian legislative elections in twenty years and would take place as Palestinian and international actors consider the institutional arrangements governing Gaza, reconstruction, reform, and financing. If the next phase assigns greater political, financial, and administrative responsibilities to Palestinian institutions, renewing the Legislative Council and recalibrating the balance of power within the Palestinian political system could provide these institutions with a more current basis of legitimacy. It could also produce a recognized political interlocutor with whom Arab states, the United States, and international actors could engage. This does not mean that elections alone could overcome Palestinian divisions or settle the question of governance in Gaza.
The more immediate question is whether the elections will reach the ballot box at all. Previous experience has shown that completing the legal and administrative preparations does not guarantee that elections will take place. In 2021, the process ended in postponement after Israel refused to permit voting in East Jerusalem.[3] The same possibility arises in 2026, given Israel’s practical ability to obstruct the elections by restricting voting and campaigning in Jerusalem or by opposing Hamas’s participation—whether directly or through its support for sympathetic candidates and electoral lists. Such measures could force a postponement on the ground without requiring an explicit Israeli decision. Some Israeli assessments suggest that certain Palestinian actors might consider this scenario a convenient way out if they anticipate unfavorable results, since it would place responsibility for the disruption on Israel while reducing their domestic political costs.[4]
The question raised by the elections is therefore more important than the identity of the eventual winner, because renewed legitimacy does not, by itself, determine the purpose it will serve. If the Legislative Council and the institutions emerging from the elections are connected to a process that clearly defines the transfer of powers and control over territory and borders, the vote could become part of a political process that moves the Palestinian system from administering self-government toward building sovereignty. If, however, elected institutions assume greater responsibilities in Gaza and the West Bank and receive international funding and expanded administrative capacity while the questions that define sovereignty remain deferred to an unspecified future stage, the elections could confer renewed legitimacy on a transitional arrangement capable of perpetuating itself rather than serving as an instrument for moving beyond it.
In this sense, asking whether Washington is searching for a “new Rabin” remains useful for understanding one dimension of the present moment, but it does not provide the decisive test of what the postwar period will produce. The United States may find an Israeli government more willing to cooperate in containing Iran, closing active fronts, improving Arab–Israeli relations, and reconstructing Gaza. This would represent an important departure from the policies of Netanyahu’s government. For the Palestinians, however, the political value of such a change will depend on whether it transforms the relationship between governance and control, rather than merely changing the rhetoric or the degree of diplomatic openness.
[1] Barak Ravid, “Scoop: Trump Administration Drafting Post-War Middle East Plan,” Axios, September 4, 2026, https://www.axios.com/2026/09/04/trump-middle-east-iran-post-war-strategy
[2] Yonah Jeremy Bob, “Nuclear Kill Zones: How Eisenkot Would Contain Iran if He Manages to Beat Netanyahu—Exclusive,” The Jerusalem Post, September 3, 2026, https://www.jpost.com/israel-election-2026/article-907531
[3] Palestinian Central Elections Commission, “2021 General Elections Report (Postponed),” September 2021, https://www.elections.ps/Default.aspx?TabId=1083&ArtMID=9183&ArticleID=2788
[4] Eti Gil-Lev, “The Most Likely Scenario Is That Israel Will Halt the Palestinian Authority Elections,” Davar, September 5, 2026, https://www.davar1.co.il/695947/