What Gantz’s exit reveals about Israel’s failed Gaza strategy
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.
Meron Rapoport
June 11, 2024
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 Netanyahu for months to lay out
his “day after” plan. The prime minister, who has a personal and political
interest in prolonging the war, 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 — 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. 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 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.
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, 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 that “Gaza is not in the game and is not
relevant … The area in dispute is Judea and Samaria.”
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 in 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 as 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, Israel treats Gaza’s 2.3 million
residents as though they are living in a vacuum.
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” of Palestinians from Gaza, which is
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s ultimate wish, or to the “total
annihilation” 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 of 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 only 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 that control of 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.
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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.
A version of this article was first published in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it
here.
Benny Gantz
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