When US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was asked who would govern the Gaza Strip following Israel\u2019s devastating war against Hamas, he said a return of the internationally recognised Palestinian Authority made \u201cthe most sense.\u201d What he failed to mention is that the Palestinian Authority, weak and deeply unpopular with its own people, has already said it has no interest in assuming power if it is helped by Israel. Blinken\u2019s comments Tuesday reflected what some analysts see as the questionable assumptions and short-term thinking that have guided American and Israeli policymakers since Israel declared war in response to Hamas\u2019 Oct. 7 cross-border attack in which its militants killed more than 1,400 people and took roughly 240 others hostage.<\/p>\n
With strong American backing, Israel has defined two clear goals: bringing home all of the hostages and destroying Hamas, the Islamic militant group that has governed Gaza since ousting the Palestinian Authority in 2007. Even if these hard-to-achieve goals are realised, neither Israel nor the US appears to have given much thought to what would come next for Gaza. Officials have floated several ideas \u2013 each with seemingly slim odds of success \u2013 while acknowledging that no one has a plan for the territory once the war ends.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody is united that Hamas can\u2019t be there,\u201d Israeli Cabinet Minister Ron Dermer, a close confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told reporters over the weekend. Beyond that, he said, \u201cthere\u2019s a lot of ideas that are out there, but it\u2019s premature to discuss it now.\u201d Speaking at a US Senate hearing, Blinken said there could be no return to Hamas rule of Gaza. He also ruled out a permanent Israeli occupation of the territory, which Israel also says it doesn\u2019t want. \u201cAt some point, what would make the most sense is for an effective and revitalised Palestinian Authority to have governance and ultimately security responsibility for Gaza,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said this might take some time and require support from other countries in the region. He then repeated President Joe Biden\u2019s stated goal of reviving attempts to forge a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians. For both Israelis and Palestinians, this seems out of the question. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has governed semi-autonomous areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank since Hamas expelled his forces from Gaza, is already deeply unpopular with the Palestinian public. Opinion polls show that his administration is widely seen as corrupt and, because of his security coordination with Israel, as a subcontractor who has helped entrench Israeli control in the West Bank. Netanyahu has repeatedly rebuffed efforts to restart a diplomatic process, further weakening Abbas.<\/p>\n
During a meeting with Blinken in Jordan in mid-October, Abbas made it clear that he couldn\u2019t take over a war-battered Gaza on the heels of Israel\u2019s invasion, especially in the absence of a long-term diplomatic solution, according to two Palestinian officials with direct knowledge of the talks. \u201cI will not return on top of an Israeli tank,\u201d they quoted Abbas as telling Blinken. He demanded control of the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza \u2013 areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war \u2013 \u201cin the context of establishing a Palestinian state.\u201d The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing a closed diplomatic meeting.<\/p>\n
Tahani Mustafa, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, a conflict resolution think tank, said the Palestinian Authority isn\u2019t capable of governing Gaza, even if it wanted to do so. She said the authority, established 30 years ago with the goal of leading the Palestinians to independence, has been reduced to a \u201cservice provider\u201d \u2013 incapable of providing basic services or security to its people in the shadow of Israel\u2019s overall control of the territory. \u201cIt\u2019s devoid of any political substance,\u201d she said. This lack of a political horizon is \u201cwhat\u2019s pushing Palestinians to armed resistance: the feeling that there\u2019s no hope beyond this nihilistic, suicidal form of resistance,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Even before the war, Netanyahu opposed Palestinian independence. It is hard to imagine that any Israeli government would be willing to cede land to the Palestinians in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks out of Gaza, from which Israel withdrew in 2005. Israeli officials have floated their own proposals for the future of Gaza in recent weeks, none of which include Palestinian independence. Among them are calls for the creation of a \u201cbuffer zone\u201d in northern Gaza meant to keep Palestinians far from the Israeli border. This scenario would do little to address the territory\u2019s long-term status. A paper released by Israel\u2019s Intelligence Ministry, which conducts research for the government, looked at a number of long-term scenarios, none of which included Palestinian statehood.<\/p>\n
Instead, it described a return of Abbas\u2019 Palestinian Authority to Gaza as the worst option \u2013 saying it would give an \u201cunprecedented victory to the Palestinian national movement, a victory that would cost the lives of thousands of Israeli civilians and soldiers and not guarantee Israel\u2019s security.\u201d Likewise, it said the possibility of cultivating an alternative leadership in Gaza suffered from major shortcomings \u2013 including a lack of deterrence and the risk of renewed violence. Its preferred option was a mass expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza into neighbouring Egypt \u2013 a scenario that the Palestinians and Egypt have ruled out and that could destroy Israel\u2019s fragile relations with Egypt.<\/p>\n
The ministry has no decision-making authority, and Netanyahu\u2019s office played down the document as a \u201cconcept paper\u201d and said that no decisions had been made. Such thinking reflects what many see as a deep misunderstanding of the Palestinians and their history with Israel. Israel and the U.S., for instance, have repeatedly compared Hamas to the Islamic State group. While the brutal slayings on Oct. 7, which included beheadings and burning people alive, were reminiscent of IS tactics, the groups\u2019 ideologies are different. IS was heavily made up of foreign fighters enlisted to join what they believed was a global jihad against the West. In contrast, Hamas has limited its focus to battling Israel, albeit through a violent ideology that calls for the destruction of Israel.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe U.S. has never understood Palestinians,\u201d said Diana Buttu, a Palestinian analyst and former peace negotiator. She said successive American administrations haven\u2019t thought through Gaza\u2019s future. She called for a long-term vision that would offer the Palestinians freedom and create a true political and economic connection between the West Bank and Gaza \u2013 which are on opposite sides of Israel. \u201cI don\u2019t think they fully understood that no matter what is done to Hamas, there\u2019s going to be yet another version of resistance that springs up,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople want to be free and they\u2019re going to resist in order to become free.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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