The Seventy Five Year Old Temporary Gaza Fix Has Broken

The media continually reports that the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) will soon launch a massive assault into Gaza with the dual objectives of rescuing the hostages that Hamas took prisoner on 7 October 2023; and killing or capturing Hamas in its entirety. Similar in purpose to what Israel attempted in 2006 in Lebanon, a Gaza incursion will likely achieve, at best, only partial success, since Hamas’ tight security has blinded Israeli intelligence.

For its part, Hamas can continue futilely launching missiles and terrorist raids against Israel. The Israeli air defense (Iron Dome) will shoot down the missiles, and the thousands of deployed IDF ground forces will obliterate any attempted Hamas terrorist raids.

Meanwhile, with dangers occasioned by Israel’s aerial bombardment prompting Egypt to restrict the flow of people and goods through its Rafah entry point to Gaza, Israel has effectively besieged Hamas-controlled Gaza. Unless Israel permits their passage, only limited food, water, electricity, fuel, and medical supplies can cross into Gaza.

By restraining its army, Israel has dramatically reduced its casualties and avoided international pressure. If mired in a lengthy, likely inconclusive, Gaza invasion, as civilian casualties rose, Israel would face demands from its populace, world public opinion, and its allies to curtail its military.

On the other hand, a siege allows Israel to manage its world image. In all likelihood, pressure from inside and outside Israel may soon compel the Israeli government to relax its near-total blockade. Rather than ineffectively resist and then ignobly submit to international pressure, the Israeli government could remain in its controlling position by immediately partially relaxing its embargo by allowing enough supplies to enter Gaza for the next day, but no more.

If Hamas initiates missile strikes or terrorist raids, Israel could respond by blocking the next day’s shipment of supplies. This action would immediately create an inventory crisis that pits the needs of the Gaza population against Hamas-initiated terrorist activities.

While the Gaza citizenry determines how much of Hamas’ strategic ineptness and attendant suffering it can tolerate, Israel should make two demands: First, Israel’s border policy of restricting supplies flowing into Gaza should remain in effect until Hamas returns all hostages to their home countries.

Second, Israel should continue its partial blockade of Gaza until all known Hamas personnel have either died or accepted Israeli detention as prisoners-of-war under conditions consistent with international norms.

When both conditions have been fully met, the return of the hostages and the incarceration of Hamas personnel, Israel should negotiate with Gaza’s Hamas-replacement government about establishing a more permissive flow of supplies into Gaza.

The proposed policy has seven short-term immediate advantages:

First, it stops the aerial bombardment of Gaza.

Second, it incentivizes Hamas, fearing a backlash from a suffering Gaza populace, to halt its missile and terrorist attacks on Israel.

Third, it eliminates the possibility of Israeli military action harming the hostages before their release from captivity.

Fourth, it links the return of the hostages to the ending of the very restrictive partial embargo on critical supplies.

Fifth, it pits the Gaza populace's short- and long-term interests against those of the Hamas terrorists.

Sixth, it provides a non-violent way to eliminate a terrorist organization, Hamas.

Seventh, it moves Israel and Gaza from a hopeless position of unending violent confrontation to a new political reality with the possibility of a more normalized relationship.

As President Biden opined in his TV address of 19 October, one often hears the hopeful sentiment that an oppressive, dictatorial government's evil views and dogmas do not reflect the attitudes and beliefs of the supposedly peace-loving populace over whom they rule. Hopefully, in a better world, such observations will reflect reality.

From mosques, in schools, in the local media, and from politicians, a

continuing propaganda barrage has inundated the Gaza populace with hate vilifying both Israel and Jewish people. Undoubtedly, some Gaza residents do not accept such malicious messages, but many eventually embrace such hate-filled thoughts as accurate and truthful.

Similarly, attitudes have hardened across the Gaza boundary on the Israeli side. Currently, thoughts of reconciliation in Israel or Gaza hold little sway. Instead, the talk now focuses on justifications for retribution and punishing reprisals.

Is a negotiated settlement possible with hate so profoundly embedded on both sides?

Diplomats and national leaders seem to believe there is, but decades of fruitless negotiations say otherwise.

What other alternatives are there?

Conflict-ending international agreements often work because they separate the warring parties. The 1783 Treaty of Paris, which ended the American Revolution, required Great Britain to abandon all claims to her former colonies, which had the effect of using the Atlantic Ocean to separate Great Britain and the United States, thus giving both countries and their leaderships a chance to refocus their thinking. The emigration of Loyalists to England and the British Empire effectively ended the civil war aspect of the American Revolution. After World War II, Japan had to disband her empire and repudiate all claims to conquered Asian mainland territories and Pacific islands. Reconstituted as an island nation, isolated from Asia by the Pacific Ocean, Japan went on to prosper as a peaceful country. The former Japanese-occupied lands became sovereign countries that focused on their futures rather than past grievances. The 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement established a demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, which continues to prevent the renewal of hostilities.

The most readily apparent separation of Gaza and Israel would involve expanding the ‘no go’ zone associated with the current border. Unfortunately, such an enlarged ‘no go’ zone would consume virtually all the available land in Gaza and Israel’s surrounding territory, thus precluding its viable implementation.

A second option would involve a transfer of population and territory. A precedent for such a population/territory exchange occurred after World War II in Europe. Poland surrendered its eastern territory to the Soviet Union while receiving from Germany territory along its western border up to the Odor-Neise River. Similarly, the Israelis would get the whole of Gaza while the Palestinians would receive an equivalent area of West Bank settlements.

Such an exchange would settle the Gaza problem and address the Palestinian concerns about West Bank settlements. Of course, there would be objections to the transfer concept by the governments involved and the people impacted. However, continuing the current Gaza situation of endless conflict has little to no appeal. One is reminded of the choice between a risky operation and a painful, possibly fatal malady.

Alternatives exist if the parties reject the West Bank settlements for Gaza territorial exchange. Nations have exchanged territory for money or alternative land. The United States, for example, has on numerous occasions expanded its territory by purchasing land from foreign countries (Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803, Florida from Spain in 1819, Gadsen Purchase from Mexico in 1854, Alaska from Russia in 1867; and the Virgin Islands from Denmark in 1917.) In 1667, Holland exchanged its ownership of New Netherlands (later the state of New York) for the South American colony of Suriname.

The land west of Gaza belongs to Egypt’s North Sinai Governate. It has oil wealth, a population of less than a half million, desert lands, roughly ten thousand square miles, and an ongoing ISIL insurgency.

If a donor could make Egypt an acceptable offer for a portion of the North Sinai Protectorate, the current Gaza residents could relocate to a new home located entirely within the North Sinai Protectorate, physically separated by some distance from Israel, without oil resources, and with aerial and maritime access to the world. Initially constituted as a protectorate of the United Nations, the enclave would eventually grow into a viable sovereign nation independent of Israel.

Again, many nations and peoples will find many reasons, some valid, to object. However, sticking with Gaza’s status quo ante has little attractiveness and will perpetuate the endless hostility between the Gaza populace and the Israelis.

A fourth set of relocation options would include the transfer of Gaza’s population to lands distant from Israel. In 1492, the Turkish Sultan welcomed the transfer of Spain’s expelled Jewish population to the Ottoman Empire. In 1762-3, Katherine the Great of Russia invited non-Jewish Europeans, primarily from Germany, to emigrate to Russia and settle along the Volga, where they were identified as Volga Germans. After World War II, Canada encouraged displaced Europeans to immigrate to Canada. In 1980, the United States accepted Cubans fleeing the Castro regime (the Mariel boatlift.)

Many Eastern European countries, Russia and China, face severely declining populations. Following the example of 19^th and early 20^th century America, such countries could open their borders to Gaza residents to repopulate their countries.

In the aftermath of the war created by the 1948 partition of Britain’s Palestinian mandate, the 1949 Egyptian-Israeli peace created Gaza as a temporary home for displaced Palestinians. Seventy-five years later, the unsatisfactory quick fix that never worked very well now does not work at all. The people living in Israel and Gaza need a solution that reforms the current chaos into a livable resolution.

Robert (Bob) Purssell is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate, Bob worked in the defense and semiconductor industry first as an engineer and subsequently as an engineering manager. Currently retired, he writes novels and gives talks on military and historical events.