The Prime Minister aspires to see in Gaza as "something else". If we do not clarify what the " something else" is, the pressure will come from the left and the world to return to a "something else" that is deadly and dangerous for the future of Israel, i.e. a Palestinian state.
“Something else.” That is how the Prime Minister characterized the entity that will control the Gaza Strip on the day after the war. We, citizens of Israel, ask, what is that unnamed “something else.”
As we recall, in response to journalist Moti Kastel’s question: “What will be on the day after?” - the Prime Minister replied: “Security control including the ability to enter whenever we choose in order to eliminate terrorists who might resurface. I can tell you what will not be. There will not be Hamas. I will tell you what else there will not be. There will not be a civil authority there that educates its children to hate Israel, to murder Israelis, to liquidate the State of Israel. There cannot be an authority that pays families of murderers based on the number of victims they killed. There cannot be an authority whose leader, more than 30 days after the massacre, still has not condemned the horrific massacre. That cannot be. There must be something else there, but in any case, we must have security control. I am saying this. There might also be pressure in this regard, but I do not intend to capitulate.”
The clear and resolute words of the Prime Minister that Hamas and the current Palestinian Authority will no longer be able to rule over Gaza are praiseworthy. Indeed, our movement, which is conducting a hasbara (public information) campaign on this issue, supports his position on this, but we remain with the question lingering in the air: What is this “something else” that will be on the day after? What political framework are the Prime Minister and the members of the political cabinet, especially the members of the limited war cabinet, seeking to establish?
In recent days, many plans and ideas have emerged, and we will enumerate only a few examples.
Some suggested that Gaza's status would be similar to that of the territories of Area B in Judea and Samaria, like the model of Shechem and Jenin, leaving security and military control in Israel’s hands while transferring civil control over everything else to the Arabs. Past experience in Israel and worldwide has proven that the result of military rule without a settlement presence is failure and withdrawal. This was the case in Southern Lebanon, so it was proven in northern Samaria, and we saw the same in Afghanistan and Iraq. Military rule without a settlement presence does not yield results that guarantee calm and stability.
According to this model, our courageous soldiers enter these areas almost every night, fighting terrorist nests and their surrounding armed supporters, yet we are far from genuine security calm. Israel is spilling the blood of its precious children in countless small, dangerous, and painful military operations, but there is no real fundamental solution.
There is also a suggestion to transfer the Gaza Strip under the rule of the United Nations, but past attempts, whether worldwide or right next door in the Lebanon sector, teaches that multinational forces are not willing to spill their blood for the security of another nation, certainly not for the sake of our nation’s security. On the contrary; the UN has collaborated with Hezbollah. With the first security incident, they quickly capitulate and disappear from the area. Consequently, all agreements that signed the Second Lebanon War were voided, and Hezbollah, that was supposed to remain north of the Litani River, have positioned themselves at the border fence and no one dares confront them there.
Meanwhile, the name of Mohammed Dahlan, a former senior official of the Palestinian Authority, has also been raised as a candidate to assume leadership of the Gaza Strip. He is a terrorist with a suit and tie that do not successfully conceal his aspiration to establish a Palestinian state on the ruins of Israel. Dahlan is responsible, among other things, for the terrorist attack on the children's bus in Kefar Darom, and considers the establishment of settlements as an act of terror in every sense. His hatred for Israel is no less than that of any of his fellow graduates from the Palestinian Authority academy of terror.
Here is the time and the place to present the Prime Minister and the government ministers other plans that should be placed on the public agenda and tabled for political discussion.
The important suggestion of Members of Knesset Ram Ben-Barak and Danny Danon that included encouraging voluntary emigration and call upon each of approximately 100 countries worldwide to absorb between 10 and 20 thousand Gazans in their territory, where they will be guaranteed a better future than the destroyed cities that remain in Gaza can offer them.
Now we must bring to the forefront the Zionist program that includes full Israeli control, applying sovereignty and Jewish settlement throughout Gaza, establishing cities, communities, and industrial and agricultural areas. Similarly, Israel must have control over the curricula in the Arab education system, strict oversight that will prevent anti-Israel incitement in mosques, and more. This plan will ensure the wellbeing of the communities in the Gaza periphery that will be rebuilt, blossom, and flourish.
In our view, a plan combining the proposal of Ben-Barak and Danon that will reduce the Arab population in Gaza with the Zionist plan of imposing sovereignty and settlement will ensure resolution, deterrence, victory, and security. A political step of that kind will clarify to all the peoples of the region that Israel will command the steepest price for terrorism, the price of land that is the most precious for the Arabs, especially when it comes to land that was never theirs.
We must remember and remind ourselves, first and foremost, that Gaza is part of the tribal portion of Judah. It is ours. It is highly moral that we keep it, not in the sense of Samson's formula of “let my soul die with the Philistines” (Judges 16:30), but in the sense of “in your blood, you shall live, in your blood, you shall live” (Ezekiel 16:06).