While near the Israel-Gaza border fence on Nov. 13, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had a message to the Israeli forces deployed there: The war against Hamas will go on until victory. "This is neither an 'operation' nor a 'round,' but a war to the end," he said.
What he meant by "the end" is clear enough. What he plans to do the day after, much less so.
Even as the Israel Defense Forces comb through a still densely-populated northern Gaza, Netanyahu still doesn't have a firm grasp on what happens after the fighting ends.
Netanyahu's own coalition doesn't seem to be on the same page about what a post-Hamas Gaza will look like. During the second week of the Israeli military campaign, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen stressed that Gaza's territory would "decrease." Mark Regev, Netanyahu's senior adviser, insisted that Israel doesn't want to control Gaza but would demand further security measures, like a bigger buffer zone, to ensure Israel's southern communities were safer than they were on Oct. 7, when Hamas militants killed 1,200 people. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has suggested that Israel wants nothing to do with Gaza in any way, shape, or form after Hamas' military capacity is destroyed. Others in Netanyahu's far-right coalition allies are on the other end of the spectrum, flirting with the concept of rebuilding the settlements former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dismantled in 2005.
Back in Washington, Biden administration officials have their own ideas. While the U.S. is likely to give Israel significant leeway on post-war security measures for Gaza, Biden and his advisers have opposed plans that would include Israel re-occupying the area. On Nov. 10, Secretary of State Antony Blinken spelled out a rough framework for how the U.S. envisions Gaza's future once Israeli forces conclude military operations: no displacement of Palestinians, no shrinking of Gaza's land, no terrorist attacks emanating from Gaza, and "a commitment" to Palestinian control of Gaza and the West Bank under a unified Palestinian government. Presumably, this means the Palestinian Authority (PA) would re-take control of the enclave after it was booted out by Hamas in 2007.
Unfortunately for the White House, what the Americans envision doesn't jive with what Netanyahu wants. "I think that the only force right now that can guarantee that Hamas, that terrorism does not reappear and take over Gaza again is the Israeli military," the prime minister said during an appearance on Meet the Press this Sunday. "As far as the civilian management of Gaza, we need to see the following two things: Gaza has to be demilitarized and Gaza has to be de-radicalized. And I think so far we haven't seen any Palestinian force, including the Palestinian Authority, that is able to do it."
Asked further along in the interview who, other than the PA, would have the ability to prevent Hamas from turning Gaza back into a platform for terrorism against Israel, he simply didn't have an answer. That's largely because every other option on the table—Israeli re-occupation, an international force, or an interim Arab peacekeeping mission—have either been ruled out by Netanyahu or are unrealistic in the current circumstances. The Israelis view the U.N. warily. It's unlikely the Israeli public, or Netanyahu himself, would support a re-occupation. And with respect to an Arab-led peacekeeping force or administration, there isn't a single country in the Middle East or North Africa that wants to be perceived as bailing Israel out after a highly unpopular offensive that has thus far killed more than 11,000 Palestinians.
Parse Netanyahu's words a little further and what he seems to be promoting is the establishment of a Palestinian puppet government in Gaza that would take care of the 2.3 million people living there while granting Israeli forces carte-blanche to enter the territory whenever they perceive there be a threat. This is eerily similar to the three decades-long arrangement in the West Bank, where Israel has the ability to execute raids in cities and towns unopposed. The only difference is that, in contrast to the West Bank, where Israel is also responsible for civil affairs in about 60 percent of the area, Israel would be able to hand off all of Gaza's governance needs to some undefined entity even as it retains overall security control.
It's difficult to see the Biden administration accepting this kind of Goldilocks strategy. While it's true the PA is weak, enfeebled, corrupt and increasingly illegitimate in the eyes of the Palestinian people, it's also true that Washington and Arab governments in the region are struggling to come up with a better option. The alternative Netanyahu has sketched out is hardly worth consideration.
Before Oct. 7, resolving the Israeli-Palestinian issue was low probability as well as low on the list of U.S. priorities. After Oct. 7, the problem is higher on the list. The odds, though, are even lower now than they were last month.
Daniel R. DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a syndicated foreign affairs columnist at the Chicago Tribune.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Netanyahu's Vague, Goldilocks Strategy for Gaza
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15.11.2023
While near the Israel-Gaza border fence on Nov. 13, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had a message to the Israeli forces deployed there: The war against Hamas will go on until victory. "This is neither an 'operation' nor a 'round,' but a war to the end," he said.
What he meant by "the end" is clear enough. What he plans to do the day after, much less so.
Even as the Israel Defense Forces comb through a still densely-populated northern Gaza, Netanyahu still doesn't have a firm grasp on what happens after the fighting ends.
Netanyahu's own coalition doesn't seem to be on the same page about what a post-Hamas Gaza will look like. During the second week of the Israeli military campaign, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen stressed that Gaza's territory would "decrease." Mark Regev, Netanyahu's senior adviser, insisted that Israel doesn't want to control Gaza but would demand further security measures, like a bigger buffer zone, to ensure Israel's southern communities were safer than they were on Oct. 7, when Hamas militants killed 1,200 people. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has suggested that Israel wants nothing to do with Gaza in any way, shape, or form after Hamas' military capacity is destroyed. Others in Netanyahu's far-right coalition allies are on the other end of the spectrum, flirting with the........
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