WhatsappSo after a Thursday meeting the Israeli Security Cabinet authorized a full take over of Gaza City as a first stage in conquering the final 25% of the Gaza Strip. While this plan appears to be a compromise plan between Prime Minister Netanyahu and his Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, global powers except the USA have freaked about Israel’s potential occupation of the Gaza Strip.
Before delving into why countries like Germany, England, and France as well as Egypt. Qatar, and Turkey are melting down about Israel’s Gaza take over – let’s understand the gist of the plan that was accepted by Israel’s Security Cabinet.
In short, the operation will begin with the evacuation of the nearly one million residents of Gaza City to Gaza’s south. This will take a few weeks to happen as Israel is first committed to building field hospitals, temporary housing, and humanitarian infrastructure in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.
Along side of the above, the US is committed to quadrupling its GHF run aid centers from 4 to 16 – essentially completely cutting out Hamas from the aid.
After that, the IDF will be sent in to take over Gaza City and end Hamas’ rule there.
This plan is far from the plan that was originally leaked to the press. There is no mention of occupation and lacks the goal of occupying the entire Gaza Strip.
Why only stop at Gaza City?
Likud Minister Avi Ditcher, a former head of Shin Bet and a proponent of the plan believes that the fall of Gaza City – which many consider the beating heart of Hamas’ rule will create a domino effect and force the end of the war without occupying the central areas of the Gaza Strip where most of the hostages are.
So Israel will not occupy the entire Gaza Strip and it will essentially just take over Gaza City in hopes that Hamas will simply get nervous and surrender?
This is very unlikely.
No wonder Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich voted against the plan and then later stated that he has lost faith in the Prime Minister.
The fact is, Israel will one way or another be forced to take over the entire Gaza Strip. If Hamas wanted a deal or be willing to surrender – they would have done so already.
If the end game is a full occupation – why not just get it done, the world is against us anyway.
So why are countries like England, Germany and France so against us taking over Gaza?
One can chalk it up to the rising percentages of Muslims in Western Europe, but that is too simple.
Gaza like the Palestinian Authority occupied areas in Judea and Samaria have always been Western Europe’s pet project – a sort of neocolonial endeavor that is built around the goal of weakening the only Jewish State in the world. Without access to Gaza and Israel’s move toward sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, Western Europe loses its final foothold in the Holy Land.
Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar view the situation somewhat differently. For them, Gaza is the forward base in their hopes of weakening Israel enough to finally take it out. True, this is now a long shot, but Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar are hoping to form the foundation of a resurgent Sunni Islamic nationalism as an opposing force to the UAE, Bahrain, and Saudi axis. Without Gaza – Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar lose a huge leverage point in their struggle for regional hegemony.
So what’s the end game?
As far as I can tell, the loss of Gaza City is a serious blow for Hamas – after all Israeli flags being raised over the city most identified with Sunni Jihadist ideology is certainly an accomplishment, but without a full occupation of the entire Gaza Strip and a real solution to the radicalized residents that still live there albeit in humanitarian camps in the Strip’s south there will be no end to the current situation.
The world will scream and yell, but Israel’s government would be best to ignore the them – after all they will hate us no matter what we do. Israel has an opportunity to finally end Islamic rule over Gaza once and for all. We should not miss this moment.
