INTO THE FRAY: Gaza—A sense of Déjà vu
All the current “mainstream” proposals for the “Day After” in Gaza represent the triumph of misguided hope—or at least, misconceived correctness—over bitter experience.
Martin Sherman
You cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it.—Albert Einstein
Sadly, the discussion of the fate of Gaza in general, and of the “Day After” in particular, is taking on an eerily familiar look—ominously reminiscent of the discussions of yesteryear.
Misperceptions and misconceptions
Draped in the same misperceptions and misconceptions of the Oslowian era, the debate on Israel’s emerging post-October 7 policy initiatives appears to be treading down the very same tragic path that precipitated the grisly events almost 15 months ago.
After all, it was the Oslo process that handed over Gaza to Yassir Arafat in the hopelessly misguided hope that he had relinquished the path of violence and wished to build a more peaceful and prosperous future for his people.
Indeed, the entire Oslo process was predicated on the assumption that Israel could locate some “domesticated” Palestinian, with both the will and the authority to forge a lasting peace with the Jewish state. This is, of course, precisely the conceptual underpinning of all the current mainstream proposals for the various “Day After” scenarios—with the amical (or at least non-inimical) Palestinian entity/ies being either (a) some non-Hamas strongman (such as Mohammed Dahlan, himself a man with “impressive” terrorist credentials), (b)chieftains of local clans (hamulot), who have expressed little appetite for taking on such challenge, or (c) some flimsily disguised re-concocted version of Palestinian Authority, something which could not possibly more myopic or misconceived, and unmistakably evocative of the definition of insanity as repeatedly trying the same thing while “expecting a different result”.
Triumph of hope over experience
Indeed, even under the highly implausible assumption that some as yet-be-identified Palestinian interlocutor could be located, who has both the genuine desire and necessary authority to initiate—and endeavour to establish—conditions of non-belligerent stability alongside the Jewish state, this is something that is most unlikely to endure.
After all, it is more than probable that any such arrangement will face stiff resistance both from within and without Gaza, with recurring attempts to violate it and to overthrow those party to it. Accordingly, as all the various “Day-After” proposals envisage any future governing entity in Gaza as being demilitarized, any prospective pliant Palestinian partner/s will be totally dependent on the IDF to ensure not only his/their continued ability to administer his/their allotted obligations—but also his/their continued ability to breathe.
Thus, at best, all these schemes represent the triumph of hope (or at least politically correctness) over bitter experience. For they are all born of a denial of the fact that Arab animosity is not rooted in what the Jewish state does, but in what the Jewish state is—i.e., Jewish.
Accordingly, the Palestinian-Arabs cannot be considered a prospective peace partner but an implacable enemy. They must be treated as such.
Even in Gaza. Even the “Day After
