(Middle East Monitor) – Israel never learns from its mistakes.
What Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to implement in Gaza is nothing more than a poor copy of previous strategies used by other Israeli leaders. If those strategies had been successful, Israel would not be in this situation.
The main reason behind Netanyahu’s lack of clarity about his real goals in Gaza is that neither he nor his generals can determine the results of their futile war in the Strip, a war that has killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians.
And no matter how hard he tries, Netanyahu will not be able to reproduce the past.
Following Israel’s occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem in June 1967, Israeli politicians and generals agreed on many points. The government wanted to translate its stunning military victory against the Arab armies into a permanent occupation. The army wanted to use the newly acquired territories to create “buffer zones,” “security corridors” and the like, in order to further strangle the Palestinians.
Both the government and the military saw the creation of new settlements as the perfect response to their shared vision. Indeed, the current illegal settlements were originally planned as part of two massive security corridors projected by then-Labor Minister Yigal Allon.
The Allon Plan was based on several elements. Among other ideas and designs, it envisaged the construction of a security corridor along the Jordan River and another along the so-called Green Line, Israel’s pre-1967 borders. The new demarcations were intended to expand Israel’s borders (which were never defined to begin with) and thereby provide Israel with greater strategic depth. The plan was the original annexation scheme, which Netanyahu resurrected in 2019 and is being pushed by current Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
Netanyahu is also looking into the archives of previous governments in the hope of finding a solution to his disastrous war in Gaza. The Allon Plan is also relevant here.
In 1971, then-Israeli General Ariel Sharon attempted to implement Allon’s idea of total control over Gaza, but with his own twist. He invented what would become known as Sharon’s “five fingers.”
The “fingers” were a reference to military zones and settlements, which were intended to divide the Gaza Strip into sections and separate the southern city of Rafah from the Sinai region.
Thousands of Palestinian homes were destroyed throughout Gaza, especially in the north. In the south, thousands of Palestinian families, mostly from Bedouin tribes, were ethnically cleansed and driven into the Sinai desert.
Sharon’s plan, an extension of Allon’s plan, was never fully implemented, although many aspects of it were carried out, at the expense of the Palestinians, whose resistance continued for many years. It was that resistance, expressed through the collective defiance of the Strip’s population, that forced Sharon, then prime minister, to abandon Gaza altogether. He called his 2005 military withdrawal and subsequent siege of Gaza the “disengagement plan.”
The relatively new plan, which Netanyahu rejected at the time and is now trying to revive, seemed to be the rational response to Israel’s fruitless occupation of Gaza. After 38 years of military occupation, the seasoned Israeli general, known to Palestinians as the “bulldozer,” realized that Gaza simply cannot be subdued, let alone governed.
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Instead of learning from Sharon’s experience, Netanyahu is trying to repeat the original mistake.
Although Netanyahu has revealed few details about his future plans in Gaza, he has often spoken of maintaining “security control” over the Strip and the West Bank as well. Israel “will maintain operational freedom of action throughout the Gaza Strip,” he said last February.
Since then, its army began building what appeared to be a long-term military presence in central Gaza, known as the Netzarim Corridor, a large “finger” of military routes and camps that divides Gaza into two halves.
Netzarim, named after a former settlement southwest of Gaza City that was evacuated in 2005, also gives Israel control over the area’s two main highways, the Salah Al-Din Highway and the Rashid coastal highway.
The Philadelphia corridor, located between Rafah and the Egyptian border, was occupied by Israel on May 7. It is supposed to be another “finger.” Additional “buffer zones” already exist in all of Gaza’s border regions, with the aim of completely suffocating Gaza and giving Israel full control over aid.
However, Netanyahu’s plan is doomed to failure.
The historical circumstances of the Israeli occupation of Gaza in 1967 are completely different from those that are occurring now. The former was the result of a major Arab defeat, while the latter is the result of Israel’s military and intelligence failure.
Moreover, regional circumstances are playing in Palestine’s favour and global knowledge of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza makes a permanent war almost impossible.
Another important point to keep in mind is that the current generation of Gazans is empowered and fearless. Their continued resistance is only a reflection of a popular awakening across Palestine.
Finally, the Israeli unity that followed the 1967 war is nowhere to be found, as Israel today is divided along many fault lines.
It is up to Netanyahu to reconsider his foolish decision to maintain a permanent presence in Gaza, as defeating Gaza has proven to be an impossible task even for his country’s vastly superior military.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment.
Via Middle East Monitor
