Yesterday, a Qatari newspaper reported that Washington has agreed to an IDF operation against the Hamas stronghold of Rafah in exchange for Israel’s abstention from retaliation against Iran. Such reports must always be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism, but regardless of the truth of this one, the war in Gaza will come to an end somehow, and Israel will then have to determine how the Strip should be administered afterward. Robert Silverman takes a look at this most difficult problem, and the domestic political considerations that make it even thornier:

The current governing coalition wouldn’t be able to agree on any postwar plan whereby Israel relinquishes even partial control, so the issue is left off of cabinet agendas. Key members of the cabinet, especially Public Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, want Israel to remain in Gaza permanently, as do elements within Benjamin Netanyahu’s own Likud party.

Given the ability of this issue to split the governing coalition wide open, dissolve the government, and lead to elections in the midst of a war, Netanyahu has decided not to bring it before the cabinet. . . . This highlights a general weakness of parliamentary systems like Israel’s.

Moreover, writes Silverman, the Israeli national-security bureaucracy is averse to the kind of the planning necessary for resolving Gaza’s fate. He suggests what an acceptable postwar approach might look like:

The Palestinians have a legitimate interest in a political future independent of Israel. Israel has a legitimate interest in the security conditions of a hostile Gazan neighbor located less than 40 miles from its largest city. The workable solution is for Israel to negotiate with the U.S. over the conditions of its transfer of authority in Gaza to a U.S.-led multinational body, a transfer in which it keeps sufficient ability to intervene in Gaza when needed to protect its security and in which it provides assurances of a Palestinian political horizon, also subject to governance conditions.

Israel’s goals of freeing the hostages and defeating Hamas (the latter necessary to prevent further hostage taking) are to some extent contradictory, since Yahya Sinwar, the ruler of the Gaza Strip, will only turn over hostages in exchange for concessions. But Jacob Nagel remains convinced that Jerusalem should continue to pursue both goals:

Only consistent military pressure on Hamas can lead to the hostages’ release, either through negotiation or military operation. There’s little chance of reaching a deal with Hamas using current approaches, including the latest Egyptian proposal. Israeli concessions would only encourage further pressure from Hamas.

There is no incentive for Hamas to agree to a deal, especially since it believes it can achieve its full objectives without one. Unfortunately, many contribute to this belief, mainly from outside of Israel, but also from within.

Recent months saw Israel mistakenly refraining from entering Rafah for several reasons. Initially, the main [reason was to try] to negotiate a deal with Hamas. However, as it became clear that Hamas was uninterested, and its only goal was to return to its situation before October 7—where Hamas and its leadership control Gaza, Israeli forces are out, and there are no changes in the borders—the deal didn’t mature.