Israel's Failed Past Formula's Won't Bring Peace

As the fighting in Gaza drags on, it appears that the Israeli leadership is determined on jettisoning common sense, experience, and logic — and has set its sights on adopting the failed formulae of the past for implementation in the future.

A collection of collaborators and traitors

For example, one of the most prominently cited “plans” involves transferring the post-war civilian administration of Gaza to various heads of clans, unaffiliated with Hamas, who would each be responsible for different portions of the Strip.

Those with a longer historical perspective will be struck by the resemblance between this policy proposal and the past attempt by the Israeli authorities in the late 1970s and early '80s to install an Israeli-sanctioned Palestinian administration, known as the Village Leagues, as an alternative to the PLO. The initiative, which initially had support from the Israeli and Jordanian governments, eventually ran out of steam and petered out in 1983.

Although the details might differ from the currently proposed initiative, the underlying principles are very similar. Accordingly, there is little reason to believe that the overall outcome will differ significantly.

Thus, just as the leaders of the Village Leagues were treated with suspicion and hostility by much of the Palestinian population, it is likely that this will be the sentiment encountered by any future Israeli-approved clan-based civil administration. Indeed, according to one analyst: The Village Leagues consisted of "a coalition of rural thugs… The Palestinians saw the Leagues as a collection of collaborators and traitors.”

It is thus hardly surprising that some of the leaders were assassinated by disgruntled kinfolk — a fate that could well await any compliant clan leader, who opts to collaborate with the “Zionist invader.”

90% of Hamas committed no war crime …

The odds of such hostility toward an Israeli-ensconced administration are enhanced by the pervasive approval of Hamas — and its carnage — by much of the Palestinian population.

Thus, in a December survey, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) found that 72% of the Palestinian public believe that Hamas' decision to launch the October 7 massacre was correct. Likewise, while a staggering 95% think Israel committed war crimes only 10% think Hamas was guilty of such crimes.

Clearly then, under such conditions of prevailing support for Hamas, any artificially appointed administration, formed specifically to stymie a return to power by Hamas, is likely to face widespread enmity and distrust from the very population over which it is purported to rule.

But beyond the a priori implausibility of its initial formation, there are grave questions as to the long-term sustainability of the clan-based proposal.

After all, how long will the population, in each clan-controlled segment, be confined to that segment? What will be involved in regulating the movements over time from segment to segment?

Clearly, an arrangement whereby a local population is subject to an externally imposed civilian administration and a foreign security regime (presumably both domestic and external) is not a sustainable political configuration over time and is hardly likely to foster any amicable sentiments toward Israel in the future.

No initiative, that Israel is behind, will be acceptable

As if anything further was required to consign this foolhardy scheme to the well-deserved oblivion on the trash heap of history, the final nail in its coffin was hammered home by the prospective administrators themselves. Indeed the suggestion was recently rebuffed with a caustic amalgam of utter rejection and universal ridicule.

According to sources in Gaza, “no initiative, that Israel is behind, will be acceptable.”

In a gruff statement, representatives of the Gaza clans asserted that they reject the Israeli plan for them to shoulder responsibility for the [civilian] administration of Gaza, describing the idea as “ludicrous.” The statement went on to declare that “talk by some of the leaders of the Occupation, that heads of clans will administer the civilian life in Gaza, is utterly contemptible and totally unacceptable.”

Merely sound political science

Clearly then, it is time for Israel to bite the bullet.

It must forego the illusions that somehow the Arabs will deign to pull its chestnuts out of the fire.

Its leaders must realize that the political rationale of the Gaza-conflict is governed by the inexorable logic of a quasi-mathematical algorithm — hitherto studiously ignored by Israel’s policy-makings: The only way Israel can ensure who governs Gaza is to govern it itself.

Moreover, the only way Israel can govern Gaza without imposing its rule on “another people” is to remove that “other people” from the confines of Gaza, over which it must rule.

Significantly, the only obstacle preventing this outcome, and frustrating the overt desire of many Gazans is the hard-hearted callousness of Egypt. Indeed, Cairo seems bent on compelling the hapless masses, huddled against its sealed border gates, to suffer the travails of war and hunger, of pestilence and pollution, rather than let them seek their salvation elsewhere, outside the confines of the hapless enclave.

This is not radical right-wing extremism. It is merely sound political science.