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WHAT GANTZ’S EXIT REVEALS ABOUT ISRAEL’S FAILED GAZA STRATEGY  
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Meron Rapoport
June 11, 2024
972 Magazine
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_ October 7 collapsed Israel’s decades-old ‘separation policy'
toward Gaza. Gantz and Gallant know it; Netanyahu and the far right
still won’t admit it. _

Minister Benny Gantz speaks during a press conference at the Ministry
of Defense in Tel Aviv, December 16, 2023, Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90

 

On the face of it, it’s hard to make sense of the rift within
Israel’s government over the “day after” in Gaza, which led
Benny Gantz to quit the coalition on Sunday. In a press conference
announcing his decision, Gantz accused Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu of “preventing … real victory” by failing to present a
viable plan for the Strip’s post-war governance.

Gantz, who joined the government and war cabinet after October 7 as a
minister without portfolio, has been urging
[[link removed]] Netanyahu for
months to lay out his “day after” plan. The prime minister, who
has a personal and political interest in prolonging the war
[[link removed]], has so far
refused to produce one; instead, he has only
repeatedly insisted that he rejects both the continued existence of
a “Hamastan” and its replacement with a “Fatahstan” run by the
Palestinian Authority (PA).

Yet Gantz doesn’t have a viable plan either. His proposal
[[link removed]] —
replacing Hamas with an “international civilian governance
mechanism” that includes some Palestinian elements, while
maintaining overall Israeli security control — is so far-fetched
that its practical significance is to continue the war indefinitely
[[link removed]]. In
other words, exactly what Netanyahu and his far-right allies want.

The same can be said of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who was
Gantz’s closest ally in the war cabinet. Gallant reportedly walked
out of a security cabinet meeting last month when other
ministers castigated him
[[link removed]] for
demanding that Netanyahu rule out prolonged Israeli civilian or
military control over Gaza. But the defense minister’s alternative
proposal is essentially the same as Gantz’s: to establish a
government run by non-Hamas “Palestinian entities” with
international backing — which no Palestinian, Arab, or international
actors will accept. 

It’s true that Gantz and Gallant have also demanded that Netanyahu
prioritize a deal with Hamas to bring back the hostages, while the
prime minister is dragging his feet. But this apparent disagreement
also collapses under scrutiny: any deal would entail a significant, if
not complete, Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a months-long, if not
permanent, ceasefire. Such a scenario would result in one of two
possibilities: a return to Hamas rule, or the reimposition of the PA
— both of which are unacceptable to Gantz and Gallant on the one
hand, and Netanyahu and his far-right allies on the other.

[Minister Benny Gantz, families of the Israelis held kidnapped by
Hamas, and Israelis attend a march, March 1, 2024. (Chaim
Goldberg/Flash90)]
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Minister Benny Gantz, families of the Israelis held kidnapped by
Hamas, and Israelis attend a march, March 1, 2024. (Chaim
Goldberg/Flash90)
Minister Benny Gantz, families of the Israelis held kidnapped by
Hamas, and Israelis attend a march, March 1, 2024. (Chaim
Goldberg/Flash90)

So why does the Israeli right see the fundamentally incoherent
proposals of Gantz and Gallant as an existential threat? The answer
goes far deeper than disagreements over the question of Gaza’s
“day-after.” What Gantz and Gallant are implicitly acknowledging,
and Netanyahu and his allies refuse to admit, is that Israel’s
decades-old “separation policy” has collapsed in the wake of the
October 7 attacks. No longer able to maintain the illusion that the
Gaza Strip has been severed from the West Bank and thus from any
future Palestinian political settlement, Israel’s leaders are in a
bind.

From separation to annexation

Israel’s separation policy can be traced back to the early ’90s
[[link removed]], when,
against the backdrop of the First Intifada and the Gulf War, the
government began imposing a permit regime on Palestinians that limited
travel between the West Bank and Gaza. Such restrictions intensified
during the Second Intifada and culminated in the aftermath of
Israel’s “disengagement” from Gaza in 2005 and Hamas’s
subsequent rise to power.

Most Israelis thought that Israel had left Gaza and therefore no
longer bore any responsibility for what happened in the Strip. The
international community largely rejected this stance and continued to
view Israel as an occupying power in Gaza, but the Israeli government
consistently shirked its responsibility for the enclave’s residents.
At most, the government was willing to grant Palestinians travel
permits to enter the West Bank or Israel on special humanitarian
grounds.

When Netanyahu returned to the premiership in 2009, he worked to
entrench the separation policy. He expanded the rift between Gaza and
the West Bank by channeling funds to the Hamas government in the
Strip, based on the belief that dividing the Palestinians
geographically and politically would limit the possibility of an
independent Palestinian state. 

This, in turn, has paved the way for Israel to annex part or even all
of the West Bank. When Yoram Ettinger, the Israeli right’s
demographic “expert,” was asked in 2021 how he would deal with the
fact that between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea there are
roughly the same number of Jews and Palestinians, he explained
[[link removed]] that “Gaza is not in the game
and is not relevant … The area in dispute is Judea and Samaria.”

[Palestinians cross the Qalandiya checkpoint, outside of the West
Bank city of Ramallah, June 17, 2016 (Photo by Flash90).]
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Palestinians cross the Qalandiya checkpoint, outside of the West Bank
city of Ramallah, June 17, 2016 (Photo by Flash90).
Palestinians cross the Qalandiya checkpoint, outside of the West Bank
city of Ramallah, June 17, 2016. (Flash90)

David Friedman, the pro-annexation U.S. ambassador appointed by Donald
Trump, agreed that after the withdrawal from Gaza, only the question
of the West Bank remained relevant. “The evacuation [of Israelis]
from Gaza had one salutary effect: it took 2 million Arabs out of the
[demographic equation],” he said
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2016. By removing Gaza from the conversation, the former ambassador
explained, Israel could maintain a Jewish majority even if it annexed
the West Bank and granted citizenship to its Palestinian residents.

A strategic power vacuum

One of Hamas’s stated reasons for the October 7 attack was to
shatter the illusion that Gaza is a separate entity, and to return the
Strip and the entire Palestinian cause back to history. In this, it
has undoubtedly succeeded.

However, even after October 7, Israel has largely continued to ignore
the connection between Gaza and the West Bank, as well as
its centrality to the Palestinian struggle
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a whole. Israel has consistently refused to articulate a coherent plan
for the “day after” because doing so necessarily requires
addressing the Strip’s status within the broader Israeli-Palestinian
context. Any such discussion fundamentally undermines Israel’s
carefully cultivated separation policy.

In addition to its utter brutality, Israel’s current assault on Gaza
differs in important ways from previous wars. Never before has Israel
allowed a territory under its military control to go essentially
ungoverned. When the Israeli army first occupied the West Bank and
Gaza in 1967, it immediately established a military government that
assumed responsibility for the civil administration of the lives of
the occupied residents. When it occupied southern Lebanon in 1982, it
didn’t dismantle the existing Lebanese government; after
establishing a “security zone” in 1985, Israel handed over
responsibility for civilian affairs to a local militia.

This stands in stark contrast to the current operation. Despite the
fact that Israel effectively controls large parts of Gaza
[[link removed]], Israel treats
Gaza’s 2.3 million residents as though they are living in a
vacuum. 

[Israeli soldiers from the 8717 Battalion of the Givati Brigade
operating in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, December 28,
2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)]
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Israeli soldiers from the 8717 Battalion of the Givati Brigade
operating in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, December 28,
2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Israeli soldiers from the 8717 Battalion of the Givati Brigade
operating in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, December 28,
2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

For obvious reasons, Israel sees the Hamas government that ruled the
Strip for 16 years as illegitimate — but it doesn’t view the PA,
which administers parts of the West Bank, as a suitable alternative.
Such a scenario would fully undermine Israel’s separation policy:
the same Palestinian entity would govern both occupied territories,
and Israel would face greater pressure to negotiate the establishment
of a Palestinian state. 

So long as the power vacuum in Gaza exists, the right can achieve what
it wants: the war can continue, Netanyahu can prolong his time in
office, and there can be no real possibility of opening peace
negotiations, which even the Americans now seem eager to restart. The
messianic-nationalist right also wants to maintain this limbo because
it opens the door to the possibility of so-called “voluntary
migration [[link removed]]” of
Palestinians from Gaza, which is National Security Minister Itamar Ben
Gvir’s ultimate wish, or to the “total annihilation
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of Gaza’s population centers, which is Finance Minister Bezalel
Smotrich’s goal. Both believe that red-roofed Israeli
settlements lie at the other end
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this period of limbo.

Two visions for Gaza

The army, however, seems tired of this vacuum. For them, it promises
only endless fighting with no achievable goal, burnout among soldiers
and reservists, and a mounting confrontation with the Americans, with
whom Israel’s defense establishment has a uniquely close
relationship. The invasion of Rafah
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heightened the army’s displeasure. 

Israel’s takeover of the Rafah Crossing with Egypt has further
undermined the idea that it has no responsibility for what happens in
Gaza. Gallant correctly recognized
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the Rafah Crossing and the Philadelphi Corridor have brought Israel
closer to establishing a military government in the Strip: without
intending to, and certainly without admitting it, Israel appears on
the precipice of governing Gaza like it governs the West Bank.

Gantz and Gallant have reacted to this situation similarly. Both are
in close contact with the United States, and are also more exposed to
pressure from the hostages’ families whose support continues to grow
among the Israeli public. Both understand very well that the continued
refusal of Netanyahu, Ben Gvir, and Smotrich to discuss the “day
after” prevents any possibility of reaching a deal for the
hostages’ release, and sentences them to a slow and certain death in
Hamas’ tunnels.

Gallant and Gantz’s proposals for Palestinian rule are not serious,
and cannot be accepted by any respected Palestinian, Arab, or
international body. But they are enough to challenge the preferences
of Netanyahu, Smotrich, and Ben Gvir for eternal limbo, to provoke
their unholy rage, and to undermine the stability of the government.

Gantz and Gallant’s statements also express an unconscious admission
that Israel currently faces only two real possibilities. The first is
a settlement that recognizes Gaza as an integral part of any
Palestinian political entity, which would involve the return of the PA
and the establishment of a united Palestinian government. The
alternative is a war of attrition, which the messianic right hopes
will end with the expulsion or annihilation of the Palestinians, but
which will more likely end just as the First Lebanon War did: an
Israel withdrawal under sustained military pressure and the
entrenchment of a skilled guerrilla force on Israel’s border.

_Published in partnership with Local Call. A version of this article
was first published in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it __here_
[[link removed]]_._

_Meron Rapoport [[link removed]] is an
editor at Local Call._

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+972 Magazine [[link removed]] is an independent,
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journalists. Founded in 2010, our mission is to provide in-depth
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* Israel
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* Gaza
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* West Bank
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* Palestinians
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* Benjamin Netanyahu
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