The single most important quality of a political survivor is the ability to detect where true power lies. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has seen his world shrink. Tra­di­tion­ally friendly gov­ern­ments lined up to recognise a Palestini­an state. The con­temp­tu­ous response of much of the inter­na­tion­al community to his speech at the General Assembly.

Netanyahu was able to brush this all aside and parse that the future of his nation and his own legacy will not be determ­ined in Canberra or in declining European powers led by lame duck leaders, it will be settled in Wash­ing­ton, Riyadh and Doha. Netanyahu wasn’t talking to the UN or its anemic member states. He was talking to his own base and to the White House.

The joint press con­fer­ence by the two leaders, at which the US proposal to end the war was unveiled, showed that Netanyahu retains the con­fid­ence and support of President Trump. President Trump in turn exerts an emperor’s power over the inter­na­tion­al community, par­tic­u­larly those parts of it whose policies are driven by a desire for progress and wealth and not by street rabble, online influ­en­cers and academics clad in corduroy.

And so, as some states, in their desire to project relevance and prestige, moved to recognise a Palestini­an state which isn’t there, the Trump admin­is­tra­tion crafted a proposal to actually end this war. A plan that unlike uni­lat­er­al recog­ni­tion, can achieve the things our gov­ern­ment says it cares about – lib­er­a­tion of the hostages, an end to civilian suffering, a future without Hamas, the de-rad­ic­al­isa­tion of Gaza and its peaceful recon­struc­tion for its people. In other words, true lasting peace and genuine coex­ist­ence rather than temporary cease­fires to allow the domestic political flak for western leaders to briefly settle, or idle joint letters that try to say everything but say nothing at all.

Israel has accepted the proposal which will obligate it to per­man­ently end its military campaign in Gaza, and to release thousands of Palestini­an ter­ror­ists and fighters it currently holds. The gov­ern­ments of the major players in the Islamic and Arab world, including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Qatar, Turkey and Indonesia, have also backed it.

The question is what will Hamas do? And what will our gov­ern­ment, that has insinu­ated itself into the conflict through its recog­ni­tion pro­clam­a­tion, do to ensure this com­pre­hens­ive peace plan becomes a reality? Australia has shown a will­ing­ness to punish Israel in a great number of ways for what it sees as its intransigence, what will it do to ensure the Palestini­ans uphold their side of the bargain?

For starters, our gov­ern­ment can’t simply say it endorses this peace plan, it needs to work with the UK, Canada and France in applying maximum pressure on all Palestini­an factions to accept and implement it without delay.

If this plan succeeds, Netanyahu’s stock as a political survivor will enter new stra­to­spheres. But if it fails despite the will of the United States, Israel and the Islamic world, it will reveal a ter­ri­fy­ing truth – the course of war and conflict, and all the misery it entails, is determ­ined not by the peace­makers but by ter­ror­ists and rogues, and all our inter­ven­tions are for naught. If this is revealed to be so, the total destruc­tion of Hamas, will be the only option.