[Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”]

Two things are clear wins for Netanyahu. First, it is not the Palestinian Authority, but a group of Arab technocrats who will take over running Gaza after Hamas surrenders. Whether or not such people can actually be found is a different matter, but at very least, the plan does not allow for an extension of the Palestinian Authority’s corrupt rule.

Second, while a possible Palestinian state might appear in the future, that possibility is hedged in with doubts, that it is likely to never come to pass. Here is the relevant paragraph from the 20-point deal: “While Gaza re-development advances and when the PA reform program is faithfully carried out, the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognise as the aspiration of the Palestinian people.”

How long will it take to redevelop Gaza? How many years just to remove the rubble before rebuilding can begin? And what about the “reform”of the PA that will also take a long time, to remove the PA’s thoroughly corrupt leadership, beginning with Mahmoud Abbas, who, with his sons Yasser and Tareq has amassed a family fortune of some $400 million? Abbas also allows his loyal courtiers to help themselves to millions of dollars in aid. How many years will it take to “reform” this endemic corruption? The PA hasn’t held an election since 2006. How long would it now take it to organize a free and fair election, one in which no Hamas members could run, when the PA has no experience of holding such an election in the last nineteen years?

Note the tone of doubt: “When the PA reform program is faithfully carried out, the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognise as the aspiration of the Palestinian people.”

Will that and reform program be “faithfully carried out”? Will the PA change its ways when its entire history has been one of corruption by its leaders, and of rewarding past and incentivizing future terrorism through its “Pay-For-Slay” program that Abbas has sworn to continue? Note that a “credible pathway may finally be in place” — not “will be in place,” but only “may be in place for a credible pathway…to statehood” — again a deliberate phrasing that suggests a long time line, and expresses doubt with that phrase “may be” rather than “will be.”

All along the way there are many conditions placed on both Hamas and Palestinians, which may not be met, from Hamas members refusing to “decommission” their weapons, that is, to turn them in peacefully, or the Palestinian Authority showing itself unable to run an election that is free nor fair, that will relieve Israel of the pressure to agree to the creation of a Palestinian state. The Israelis can be sure that neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority will uphold all their part of the bargain (assuming that Hamas accepts the deal). The “reform of the PA” will not halt the massive corruption that characterizes the PA, and an election held under PA auspices for a new government in Gaza, Judea and Samaria, is bound to have ballot-box stuffing in favor of the PA’s candidates. So for now, Israel need not worry that from this deal a Palestinian state will emerge. It won’t happen.