The following article is by Mr Jaafar el-Ahmar, who heads the Next Century Foundation in the United Kingdom.
Day by day, the goal of Israel’s Gaza war becomes more obvious. What Israel appears to want is the displacement of all Gaza’s inhabitants, a dream that has haunted the imaginations of most of Israel’s prime ministers. Even the best of them, Yitzhak Rabin, who laid down his life when he was assassinated at a peace rally in 1995, once said that he dreamt of waking up one day and not finding Gaza on the map.
The October 7 Hamas attack gave Benjamin Netanyahu’s government both the excuse and the motivation to turn this old dream into reality. An excuse to displace most of the residents of North Gaza tothe South on the pretext of self-defense, eliminating Hamas and recovering prisoners.
Israel’s military operations after October 7 focused on the bombardment of Gaza’s infrastructure, not just its residential tower blocks, but also it’s schools and hospitals, presumably so that much of Gaza would become uninhabitable.
Of course the intention was that significant numbers of Gazans be displaced rather further than merely from North to South. Israel’s apparent actual goal, that of displacing most, if not all, of the Palestinians of Gaza, is one that most of those in the wider Arab world regard as outrageous. Hence it was kept under wraps at first. It did not become apparent until Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi revealed that he had been asked to help with this during his first meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on October 15, 2023. Egypt’s president then publicly declared his complete rejection of the US proposal for the displacement of the Palestinians of Gaza. Jordan’s King Abdullah II immediately backed this absolute rejection of any displacement of Palestinians.
The Egyptian President reiterated his rejection of the United States’ request that Egypt comply with the displacement of Palestinians during his meetings with the German Chancellor and other European leaders. Critics of the Egyptian President say that he fears the displacement of a substantial number of the Palestinians of Gaza to Sinai, considering it a threat to Egypt’s national security.
Arguably his motives may be nobler. He may not wish to help in any degree with the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Cynics similarly attribute base motives to Jordan, claiming King Abdullah II fears that the displacement of the Palestinians of Gaza will encourage Israel to displace the Palestinians of the West Bank to Jordan, and this commence the implementation of a second strategic Israeli goal, in so much as many on Israel’s right consider Jordan the alternative homeland for the Palestinians. That may or may not be the case but he too may have nobler motives, in so much as he almost certainly wishes to speak out against something he regards as morally wrong.
As the USA’s (and thus presumably Israel’s) plan to displace residents of the Gaza Strip was exposed (Blinken is alleged to have asked Egypt to take up to half a million Gazans), the United States quickly distanced itself from the crude nature of the plan. The USA declared its rejection of the “forced displacement” of Palestinians. But America’s justification cannot hide its support for this plan from the beginning, presumably at Israel’s behest. Indeed the USA is alleged to have practiced stick and carrot tactics with the Egyptian President: by hinting at the cancellation of part or most of Egypt’s foreign debt, estimated at more than $150 billion, and again by threatening to cut US aid, currently estimated at 1.3 billion dollars.
The phrase “forced displacement”, which Washington rejects as malicious, suggests that Washington believes the displacement is voluntary. This is clearly misleading, as displacement in this context cannot be voluntary: displacement comes about either by intimidation, as Israel is doing by asking the Palestinians of northern Gaza to go to the south of the Strip, and / or by destroying the necessities of life so that the Palestinians have no choice but to leave. In both cases, the cause is forced displacement.
The Safe Zone
On Tuesday (October 14, 2003) it came to light that Israel had informed the US administration, the United Nations and European and Arab countries that it was encouraging the construction of a “safe displacement zone” in the area of Mawasi near the sea in the southwest of the Gaza Strip. Mawasi is a coastal region adjacent to the Egyptian border one kilometre wide and seven kilometres long that includes a small Bedouin town. Israel asked that international organizations, under the auspices of the United Nations, erect 200,000 tents to accommodate more than one million Palestinian refugees from the northern Gaza Strip in this safe area. US special envoy for humanitarian affairs, David Satterfield, began exerting pressure on Egypt to cooperate by allowing the required transfer of personnel and materials and on the office of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to approve the plan and start it quickly. But Guterres’ office told America and Israel that the UN “prefers not to engage in this process, and demands that all measures be taken aimed at protecting civilians and providing them with the food and health requirements for their livelihood.”
It seems that Satterfield, is exerting pressure on Egypt to take operational steps in the Al-Arish area and parts of the Sinai, in terms of facilitating the installation of centers for international organizations in the proposed areas. This despite the notorious instability of Northern Sinai.
The Hostages
In the meantime, negotiations for the exchange of hostages for prisoners are stalled, but it is clear that Netanyahu is not enthusiastic about any exchange deal that allows a full scale truce or a humanitarian cessation of military operations. The reality is that the fate of Israeli hostages is not the top priority of Netanyahu’s government. The families of Israeli hostages appealed to him for help in his first very belated meeting with them on October 28. They asked him to rush the exchange: all for all (i.e. all hostages for all Palestinians held in Israel’s gaols) and strongly criticized him for his slowness, and warned him not to endanger the lives of their loved ones.
If evidence of Netanyahu’s lack of interest in the return of prisoners held hostage in Gaza were needed, it is provided by his constant refusal to meet with the families of the hostages until his Defense Minister Yoav Galant announced that October 29 was set as the date for him to receive the families of Israelis held prisoner, and then and only then did Netanyahu invite the families of the hostages to meet with him on the 28th. However, when the families asked that he complete an all-for-all deal, he did not commit to anything.
Netanyahu’s motives
Netanyahu is leading the war thinking about the day after the war, as he awaits the judgement of the electorate for his negligence and failure on October 7. He therefore takes these extreme positions that go beyond the declared goals of the war, namely the return of prisoners and the elimination of Hamas (although the second goal cannot in reality be achieved because too many Palestinians are either Hamas members or Hamas sympathisers). Netanyahu needs an achievement that will mitigate the low opinion Israelis now have of both him and his defense minister.
In this sense, Netanyahu is waging a personal war over his personal and political destiny. Netanyahu has no qualms about doing anything to do so, even if it leads to a regional war. Netanyahu already wishes for this war, in which Iran would be involved, and he wants to drag Washington in to deal the strong blow to Iran, he has always dreamed of.
Washington is keen not to join the war, and it exerts pressure on Netanyahu and his defense minister, Galant, not to break the rules of engagement with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, However, Netanyahu’s insistence on implementing his plan of the systematic destruction of the Gaza Strip with his avowed aim of the elimination of Hamas and his covert aim of displacing the population of the Strip in order to guarantee security for Israel, could push Hezbollah to participate in the war against Israel in an attempt to prevent the displacement plan.
There is no doubt that the growing death toll among Palestinians, which has reached more than 12,000, including more than four thousand children, and the images of the mass destruction of residential buildings, and of dead Palestinian children and women, are fueling feelings among Arabs and Muslims in general against Israel and the United States. This escalation of international anger, official and popular, against the continuation of the war on Gaza puts further pressure on Washington.
In this stressful atmosphere, things may slip into an all-out regional war, accidentally or deliberately.
It remains in Washington’s hands to control the situation in the region and make sure not to expand the war. To do so effectively means it must modify its course in its absolute support for Israel. So will it do so?
The beginning is to agree to a ceasefire.
