The ‘Day After’ Deception Exploded in Our Faces |
The weekend briefing that looks, at first blush, like dry diplomatic housekeeping is actually a historic indictment of the government: Benjamin Netanyahu’s long refusal to plan for Gaza’s “day after” has been exposed for what it was – not an oversight, but a political choice with a terrible human cost.
Late last week Hussein al-Sheikh announced that the Palestinian Authority had established a “liaison office,” led by Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa, and was prepared “to carry out its full responsibilities in the Gaza Strip” as a channel of coordination with the office of Nikolay Mladenov and in consultation with U.S. representatives. In short: after two years of bloodletting, delay and false promises that Hamas would be eradicated and no Palestinian authority would return to Gaza, we have arrived – precisely and inexorably – at the outcome the sober few warned about from the start: the Palestinian Authority in Gaza. Not because anyone here suddenly “wanted” it, and not because public opinion “broke” – but because reality, unlike political fantasy, does not bend to wishful thinking.
That avoidance of the “day after” wasn’t a managerial error. It was policy: a deliberate shirking of responsibility meant to preserve a fractious coalition – and, as a consequence, to perpetuate an endless war with no political horizon. As early as December 2023, reports said Netanyahu told confidants that “not only will there be no renewed Palestinian Authority in Gaza… there will be no........