In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu explains Israel’s objectives in its war in Gaza:
First, Hamas, a key Iranian proxy, must be destroyed. The U.S., U.K., France, Germany and many other countries support Israel’s intention to demolish the terror group. To achieve that goal, its military capabilities must be dismantled and its political rule over Gaza must end. Hamas’s leaders have vowed to repeat the Oct. 7 massacre “again and again.†That is why their destruction is the only proportional response to prevent the repeat of such horrific atrocities. Anything less guarantees more war and more bloodshed.
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Second, Gaza must be demilitarized. Israel must ensure that the territory is never again used as a base to attack it. Among other things, this will require establishing a temporary security zone on the perimeter of Gaza and an inspection mechanism on the border between Gaza and Egypt that meets Israel’s security needs and prevents smuggling of weapons into the territory.
The expectation that the Palestinian Authority will demilitarize Gaza is a pipe dream. It currently funds and glorifies terrorism in Judea and Samaria and educates Palestinian children to seek the destruction of Israel. Not surprisingly it has shown neither the capability nor the will to demilitarize Gaza. It failed to do so before Hamas booted it out of the territory in 2007, and it has failed to do so in the territories under its control today. For the foreseeable future Israel will have to retain overriding security responsibility over Gaza.
Third, Gaza will have to be deradicalized. Schools must teach children to cherish life rather than death, and imams must cease to preach for the murder of Jews. Palestinian civil society needs to be transformed so that its people support fighting terrorism rather than funding it.
That will likely require courageous and moral leadership. Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas can’t even bring himself to condemn the Oct. 7 atrocities. Several of his ministers deny that the murders and rapes happened or accuse Israel of perpetrating these horrific crimes against its own people. Another threatened that a similar attack would be carried out in Judea and Samaria.
Successful deradicalization took place in Germany and Japan after the Allied victory in World War II. Today, both nations are great allies of the U.S. and promote peace, stability and prosperity in Europe and Asia.
My question is whether Israel can accomplish any one of those goals let alone all three without eradicating the Arab population of Gaza? That is not advocacy on my part, merely an observation. I also wonder if the Israelis understand how extreme those three measures are, extending not just to security but into Gazan schools and mosques. That is bound to provoke pushback not just on the West Bank and in Gaza but throughout the Arab world and in the Arab diaspora including in the United States.
Update
The Egyptians have produced their own peace plan report Summer Said and Carrie Keller-Lynn at the Wall Street Journal:
The Egyptian proposal’s first phase calls for Israel and Hamas to agree to a roughly 10-day pause in fighting, during which all civilian hostages being held in Gaza would be released in exchange for Israel releasing around 140 Palestinian prisoners.
That phase also calls on Israel to withdraw its forces from residential communities in Gaza and allow the free movement of Palestinians across the strip. Israel would also pause drone surveillance and allow a significant increase in aid going into Gaza, especially to the northern part of the enclave, access to which has been restricted.
In the second and third phases, Israel and Hamas would negotiate the release of female Israeli soldiers, followed by male Israeli soldiers, in return for large numbers of Palestinian prisoners.
Those hostage-prisoner exchanges, along with the formation of the transitional, technocratic government, pose a thicket of negotiating challenges for both sides.
The transitional government plans would require rivals Hamas and Fatah to reconcile and work together. Once the transitional government took over, elections would be held in which Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who is 88, would be succeeded by a younger leader accepted by a majority of Palestinians.
The Egyptian plan is being described as “victory for Hamas” by Israelis. It’s hard for me to see a lot of room for agreement in those two plans.
