No Resume Needed

Gaza after Israeli retaliatory strikes, 10/11/23

No Resume Needed

President of Gaza

Israel established its initial nationhood in 1948, seizing lands that local Palestinians had claimed for themselves. The Jews escaping the Holocaust justified their “return to their Holyland” by asserting a claim based on a British declaration formed during a pending defeat of the Ottoman Empire (aligned in WWI with Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire): “The Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British government in 1917 during the First World War announcing its support for the establishment of a ‘national home for the Jewish people’ in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with a small minority Jewish population.” Wikipedia. A nascent Israel, now surrounded by hostile Arab nations, faced constant military threats.

But the major conflicts that further expanded Israeli territory were the 1967 Six-Day War between neighboring Arab powers and the Jewish state… and another more dramatic conflict, the Yom Kippur war of 1973 that redefined Israel’s borders, now including additional Palestinians, notably in a small strip on the Mediterranean (Gaza) and a larger territory that included Jerusalem and the West Bank, formerly part of Jordan. The struggle of local Palestinians, through various phases that escalated to bombings and the killing of Israeli civilians, began in the 1960s… and generated global sympathies resulting in the commitment of the relevant factions to a “two-state” solution (effectively a relatively autonomous Palestinian nation separated from Israel) decades later:

“On September 13, 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Negotiator Mahmoud Abbas signed a Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements, commonly referred to as the ‘Oslo Accord,’ at the White House.” That doctrine, much discussed, was never implemented, and, during the Trump administration with his support, was repudiated by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.

But the PLO of 1993 had, by 2018, long since divided into two warring factions: “the national movement formally split—politically, geographically and strategically—after Hamas, an Islamist party, beat Fatah, a secular movement, in the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council elections. Factional fighting erupted after the two parties failed to reach a power-sharing agreement. Hundreds died. The Palestinian Territories divided into two polities: Hamas ruled Gaza, and Fatah led the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank.” US Institute of Peace, June 25, 2019. Since that 2006 political breakup, Gazans have never had an election… Hamas just rules.

The 2023 Yom Kippur war, beginning with a murderous assault by Hamas forces, mostly against innocent Israeli citizens living near the Gazan border, stunned an unprepared Israeli military with its brutal but effective attack. Whatever ultimately happens, anticipating an Israeli victory, exactly what brings this little strip of land into future years is a mystery. A clearly weakened Netanyahu, now operating with a new “unity government,” pledged to execute the entirety of the Hamas leadership as well as its brutal foot soldiers. The US is pressuring against a full Israeli occupation. But assume somehow, Israel is successful in totally decapitating Hamas in Gaza. They are unlikely to try and integrate Gaza into Israel, but there is a very real question of whom Israel with negotiate with if Hamas is gone… and more importantly, exactly what form of government, under unknown new leaders, will take over Gaza.

Writing for the October 15th Los Angeles Times, Washington correspondent, Doyle McManus, asks: “Regime change in Gaza? A tall order… If Israel ousts Hamas, it would face a conundrum like U.S. did in Iraq… ‘We will destroy Hamas,’ Netanyahu said Friday [10/13]… ‘We are crushing Hamas’ ability to function as sovereign,’ Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for Israel’s armed forces, told reporters. ‘We cannot continue to live with this rule.’

“To remove Hamas from its hold on Gaza, Israel [initiated] a massive ground invasion. It has imposed a blockade, launched punishing airstrikes and urged more than a million Palestinian civilians to evacuate the northern third of the Gaza Strip… Such an offensive [was and will] be difficult and costly. Hamas presumably knew its terrorist onslaught would provoke massive retaliation… The group has spent years building fortified tunnels, preparing booby traps and training for house-to-house fighting. Former Israeli officers have estimated that dismantling Hamas’ military power could take between two and six months of fighting.” Who knows what anger Israeli conquest my evoke, but recent polls suggest that 70% of Gazans would prefer to live under the vastly more moderate Palestinian Authority (PA) that governs the West Bank than Hamas. They clearly have not been given that choice. Rebuilding Gaza will be a very major challenge as well. McManus continues:

“The United Nations warned that a massive, chaotic evacuation would have ‘devastating humanitarian consequences.’… But even if Israel succeeds in toppling Hamas, it will face a conundrum that Americans will recognize from the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq: Who will administer Gaza? Who will police the streets and ensure Hamas doesn’t rise again in an impoverished territory of people who have lost family and homes? The answer isn’t clear… The problem with Gaza is that nobody seems to want it except Hamas.

“Israel doesn’t want to occupy the territory; that’s why it left in 2005… Egypt, which abuts the Gaza Strip to the south, doesn’t want it either… Even the Palestinian Authority, which administers the Israeli-occupied West Bank and is led by longtime opponents of Hamas, may not want to take over — at least not right away, aboard Israeli tanks… The PA is ‘the most natural address,’ former Prime Minister Ehud Barak said last week in an appearance at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. ‘It doesn’t make sense to give [Gaza] back to Hamas.’… But it’s not clear that the PA is up to the job. On the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority is widely regarded as inefficient and corrupt. Its leader, 87-year-old Mahmoud Abbas, hasn’t allowed elections for 17 years.

“Critics of Netanyahu say the prime minister has deliberately weakened the PA by allowing Israeli settlements on the West Bank to expand, even as he quietly maintained a modus vivendi with Hamas in Gaza… Barak and others have suggested that a post-Hamas order in Gaza might begin with an interim peacekeeping force provided by Egypt and other Arab countries… But that will require Israel to ask those countries, plus the United States and Saudi Arabia, for help brokering such an arrangement… Some or all of the Arab countries involved would likely demand that Israel halt settlement expansion on the West Bank or make other concessions to the Palestinians as the price of their participation in a difficult and unrewarding mission…

“All of which brings the issue back to where it started: the Israeli-Palestinian standoff, which has been gradually deteriorating for 15 years… Israel’s strategy of mowing the lawn in Gaza didn’t just fail because Hamas is committed to the destruction of the Jewish state. It also failed because Hamas had a seemingly endless supply of potential recruits among young Gazans who saw no viable future.” Indeed, the most dangerous people on earth are miserable and impoverished peoples with nothing to lose. Retribution intensifies. Trapped Gazans, with a short temporary humanitarian door from Egypt, expect rising anger against both Israel and Hamas as more die.

I’m Peter Dekom, and for students of history, there is one definite path that guarantees perpetual local animosity, global sympathies for the trapped civilians and unending war: retribution.