Since the question of what should become of the Gaza Strip after Hamas’s defeat is as daunting as it is premature, Richard Goldberg suggests that the U.S. and Israel should work on making clear what ought not to happen there. He outlines five points, among them:
Israel cannot repeat the mistake of unilaterally abandoning security control of Gaza. No single policy decision looms larger over the events of October 7 than the decision of the former prime minister Ariel Sharon in 2005 to “disengage” militarily from Gaza. The Palestinian Authority’s security services proved incapable of holding the territory, and Hamas used the vacuum left by Israel to take the Strip by force. Israel gave up security control believing it would get peace in return. Instead, it got more than 10,000 rockets and a metastasized Hamas threat on its border over the subsequent fifteen years, leading to the massacre of October 7.
As part of its current operations in Gaza, Israel is reestablishing key corridors of security control that would allow the Israel Defense Forces to respond rapidly to terror threats as they emerge in future months and years in real time—not just for the defense of Israel but for the defense of whatever civilian government will follow Hamas’s destruction.
Detractors of Israel will falsely label this a reoccupation of Gaza, giving Hamas supporters rallying in the streets and on college campuses something new to condemn. Let them do so (though challenge them at every turn when they do). Such radicals cannot dictate the future of Israel’s security and the stability of a post-Hamas Gaza Strip.
Read more on Commentary: https://www.commentary.org/articles/richard-goldberg/what-must-not-happen-in-gaza-after-hamas/