The conversation lasted four hours. That is how long US envoy Jared Kushner needed to try to persuade Benjamin Netanyahu to accept the American peace plan for Gaza - or at least not to obstruct its implementation. A source familiar with the talks confirmed this to American media.

The plan has 15 points and Netanyahu already rejected it at the start of August. What makes this conversation more interesting than another failed diplomatic attempt is the reason he gave Kushner.

Elections as an argument against peace

According to the same source, the Israeli prime minister assessed that progress is „problematic” because of the parliamentary elections scheduled for the end of October. Polls forecast a drop in his support, so he is leaning on right-wing voters and avoiding concessions on Gaza before the vote.

That is a sentence worth reading twice. This is not a security assessment, nor a dispute over terms. This is a calendar. The peace plan is waiting because the elections come first - and anyone who has ever watched an election campaign in the Balkans knows exactly what it looks like when state policy shuts down until polling day.

Who puts down the weapons first

Instead of accepting the plan, Netanyahu told Kushner and Board of Peace director Nickolay Mladenov that Hamas has to take the first step. On Sunday the two met representatives of the Palestinian organisation in Egypt.

The core dispute is disarmament. Netanyahu demands the complete disarmament of Hamas as a condition for withdrawing the Israeli army from Gaza. Hamas says it will lay down its weapons only if that happens simultaneously with a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from the enclave.

Each side wants the other to move first. That is not negotiating, that is waiting - and meanwhile the calendar in Jerusalem runs faster than any diplomacy. The question is how long a peace plan can sit on the table before it stops being a plan.