If someone has a clue as to Israel’s current strategy in Gaza, please step forward. It is quite understandable if during the protracted conflict not much attention was paid to the day after. Nonetheless, there were certainly strategists and planners in our government that dealt with this and, presumably, the conduct of the war was designed to effectuate these long-term goals. But what are they?
The immediate war aims were articulated numerous times by our leadership: defeat of Hamas and its extinction as a military and political force in Gaza, including disarmament and exclusion from governance, and release of all the hostages. (Shame on our government for releasing all the terrorists - including murderers - before every last hostage, dead or alive, was returned to Israel.)
Those aims were appropriate but we must note the distinction between eliminating Hamas and our strategy for post-war Gaza. Those are not the same. Even if Hamas is completely eradicated as a terrorist entity and political power - no easy task given the current war-weariness of the Americans, not to mention much of the Israeli public - eliminating a negative does not automatically create a positive.
What then is our plan, not for Hamas, but for Gaza?
We have already missed several important opportunities. As politics abhors a vacuum, in place of our reticence a series of dreadful suggestions have been proffered, mainly involving rebuilding Gaza in the presence of foreign troops who can hardly be expected to challenge Hamas (if it survives) or thwart the rise of a new terrorist group under a different name. This is a bad plan based on fantasies - but a bad plan based on fantasies will always beat no plan at all.
It seems that we have reverted to the traditional Israeli craving for the status quo, kicking the can down the road, and hoping for the best - a few years of relative quiet. Those who thought that conceptziya was overwhelmed by the Hamas atrocities of October 7 should think again. That conceptziya is alive and well because it substitutes for politicians having to make tough decisions, including insisting on our just rights even in the face of American and international objections.
According to reports, it has given rise to the obscenity that our soldiers are now engaged in clearing the ruins of Gaza under pressure from the United States, and at our expense. It is hard to believe that is true, but weirder things have happened. Is the IDF also being tasked with rebuilding the tunnels?
What should we want to happen in Gaza? It does not mean it will happen but if we do not propose it, it means we have forfeited any possibility of an ideal outcome. Ideally, we would want Gaza to be free of any hostile Arabs, those inimical to the existence of Israel. We would want Gaza to be open to Israeli settlement. We would want remaining Gazan Arabs to live peaceful and prosperous lives in a territory that is stable, if not flourishing. We would want the Arab world to recognize our rights to the entire land of Israel, respect our sovereignty beyond the lip service, and not hide behind the fig leaf of the alleged unrest of the Arab street. And we want to annex Judea and Samaria.
These are dreams, some might say pipedreams, but certainly cannot be realized if we never articulate them.
Imagine this dialogue between PM Netanyahu and President Trump (who has long been puzzled as to what Israel really wants, not that what he wants is connected to reality) at their meeting next week in Florida:
PM Netanyahu: “Donald, as I see it, we have two roads ahead of us. One road can transform the Middle East forever and advance vital American interests, and you will become renowned as the reincarnation of Emperor Cyrus. That road has never been traveled. The other, well-trodden road is to maintain the sad status quo. In other words, we can keep spinning our wheels and doing the same thing again and again hoping for a different outcome. We fight in Gaza, give Hamas a beating, pretend that its citizens are innocents who despise Hamas and love the West, lavish money on terrorists and pretend they will use it to help their people rather than plot Israel’s demise, and then fight again in a few years (next time will be the ninth time). We can do the same thing and buy a few years of relative quiet that ends with horrific terror and another war - or we can try a different approach, a new dynamic.”
President Trump: “Bibi, what do you have in mind?”
PM Netanyahu: “Well, Donald, the first idea was yours! Gaza is a hopelessly toxic environment for its residents. By any reasonable metric, it is irredeemable. The fairest, most moral solution is to relocate them to countries where they can thrive and not be seduced by the vile fantasies of radical Islam. Of course, those who want to recognize Israel’s statehood and sovereignty and want to be part of the civilized world should be welcomed to stay or to return to a rebuilt, rejuvenated Gaza. And, yes, we must build Jewish communities in the parts of Gaza that we have conquered. That is the only way that the Arabs will feel that they were defeated, that Hamas and terror are both destructive and self-destructive, that they can choose a better way.”
President Trump: “Bibi, you know that is a non-starter. Even our Arab allies are against it - the Saudis, the Emiratis, the Egyptians will never accept it. They will never accept Israeli sovereignty in Judea, Samaria, and certainly not Gaza.”
PM Netanyahu: “Well, Donald, then we have to ask ourselves, why not? All those countries’ borders are contrived, arbitrarily delineated by foreign mapmakers, or won through conquest. Why are we different? And, if we are so different, then why do they want us to have to fight the same enemies constantly? Why are they dead set against Israel ever living in peace and security? Have they really, truly, reconciled themselves to a Jewish national presence in the Middle East? If not, then for how long must we chase the chimera of peace with those who dream of our destruction every day and night?
President Trump: “But these countries also want a Palestinian Arab state! They keep saying it. They think that is the only solution, the only way to bring peace to the Middle East, the means of impeding the spread of radical Islam. And the only way I can expand the Abraham Accords, my signature diplomatic achievement, is to indulge their interest in a Palestinian state or at least allow them to finesse it with diplomatese, weasel words that give them political cover.”
PM Netanyahu: “Well, Donald, then we are at an impasse because a Palestinian Arab state is one of our red lines. It makes absolutely no sense to reward the genocidal attackers of October 7 with their own state from which they have already pledged to commit future atrocities against us. That will not happen. And if these so-called moderate countries - your allies, as you call them - want to combat radical Islam, why would they want to create a Palestinian state that will invariably be a base for radical Islam that will threaten us, them, and… you, the United States?”
“Look the Abraham Accords were a godsend for Israel. It showed our people that we need not be isolated forever in our region and that there might be Muslims who acknowledge our existence. But the Saudi regime is rooted in a more radical form of Islam than, for example, the Emirates. The slightest relaxation of repression in that country is met in the West as if Thomas Jefferson has been crowned as their new king.
"But we are an ancient people returned, as the Bible prophesied, to our land. You may not believe that (and I might not believe that) but that is the reality. The Bible said it, repeatedly, and here we are. So, know that Saudi rapprochement is not worth our acquiescence, even in theory or words, to a Palestinian Arab state on our land. Such a pact anyway would be a paper agreement, without real substance, much like - let’s be frank - your repeated declarations that you brought peace to the Middle East after three thousand years of war. There hasn’t been three thousand years of war - and there is no peace today.”
President Trump: “What can you give me, some type of achievement, some diplomatic victory?”
PM Netanyahu: “Donald, substantive and historic achievements are there for the taking! You freed all the living hostages. That could not have occurred without a miracle, and you were the vehicle for that divine miracle. Imagine your place in history if you changed course and - like you say all the time - stop doing things again and again that don’t work. Recognize our sovereignty over Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. It has been in our possession for almost sixty years! Sixty years! For how long must its residents live in limbo? For how long must we play the diplomats’ game that has never worked and will never work? For how long must we pretend that Judea is not Jewish or indulge the Arab fantasy that they can destroy us?”
“I will tell you something else, Donald. If we declare sovereignty, you will respect us more, and even more importantly, the Arabs - even those countries you see as allies - will also respect us more. They know the value of land. They are attached to it, even the desert. They sense that our hesitation to declare sovereignty is because we really do not believe it is ours. And if we do not believe it is ours, then they convince themselves that our residence in the land of Israel is tenuous and temporary. Enough with that! You can make history! American recognition of this annexation will neutralize the UN and flummox Europe which will eventually come around as well, much like it did with your recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.”
President Trump: “But we have already a workable plan to which you agreed. Nations from across the globe - Turkey, Qatar, Indonesia, Azerbaijan, and others - have committed to sending in their own troops in order to disarm Hamas and rehabilitate Gaza. They are on the verge of coming, and the Arab world will pay for it!”
PM Netanyahu: “Well, Donald, here is the real deal. In the Middle East, what people say to your face is not always what they mean, and often it is the exact opposite. You might even be familiar with that from the real estate business. Already, Qatar is refusing to fund the reconstruction of Gaza, and no country in the world has agreed to risk their own armies in removing Hamas’ weapons and banishing it from Gaza. None. Everyone is sweet-talking you and your emissaries, talking a good game but not delivering. Even the countries that might send troops want to send them to the area under our control. But we don’t need them there!”
“And do we look insane? Irrational? Why in the world would we allow troops from Turkey and Qatar who are our enemies, who themselves in their private moments dream of our demise, to enter Gaza? Qatar basically paid for Hamas’ terror infrastructure - billions of dollars now wasted - and long hosted their terrorist leaders in luxury. Turkey has been overtly hostile to Israel for almost twenty years and wants to rebuild the Ottoman Empire which ruled the land of Israel for four centuries. Erdogan just said the other day that Jerusalem is Muslim, not Jewish.
"Do you really think that they will ensure that Hamas doesn’t rebuild or that a new terror organization is not created? Sure - and why don’t you allow Venezuela to interdict drug shipments to the US, perhaps even give them a base in South Florida?”
“You don’t trust Venezuela because they are themselves the criminals. We don’t trust Turkey or Qatar because they are themselves supporters and fomenters of terror. And don’t get me started on the Palestinian Authority."
President Trump: “What do you suggest?”
PM Netanyahu: “Let us, for once, together, do the right thing, the bold move that makes history, just like you did in the first term. We will disarm and defeat Hamas ourselves, allowing anyone who wants to leave Gaza to leave first. Then we will settle northern Gaza and the land that abuts our communities in the south - you do realize that Gaza is about the size of two Manhattans - punctuating our victory and ensuring our security. Then, we will finally annex Judea and Samaria - at first the areas where Jews live, then all of it - bringing diplomatic clarity to that region for the first time since Israel’s founding.
“You will go down in history, again, as a visionary leader. You will endear yourself, again, to your Christian evangelical supporters who understand completely the Bible’s prophecies and the inalienable rights of the Jewish people to Judea and Samaria, the biblical heartland of Israel. I would love to tell you that this would even increase your support among American Jews but, let’s face it, they are a strange bunch who don’t like me any more than they like you.”
“And, Donald, one more thing: is there a better idea than this one that can secure the interests of both our countries and stabilize the Middle East? There is none that occurs to me or to anyone credThere is a strategic and political vacuum in Gaza. We should fill it now, before it is too late once again and we revert to the same failed policies of the last seventy years.ible, beyond, let Israel withdraw and Gaza rebuild, as if that hasn’t been tried multiple times in the past. So, Donald, what do you say, let us together make history.”
President Trump: “I see your point.”
Well, maybe that won’t happen immediately but it will never happen if we do not raise these issues or if we speak only the language of needs and never the language of rights.
We should not let the vacuum linger but replenish it with policies that reflect our interests, values, and destiny.
Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, Esq. was a pulpit rabbi and attorney in the United States and now lives in Israel where he teaches Torah in Modiin, serves as the Senior Research Associate for the Jerusalem Center for Applied Policy and as the Israel Region Vice-President of the Coalition for Jewish Values, and is the author of “The Jewish Ethic of Personal Responsibility” (Gefen Publishing).