Sharon Revisited: Netanyahu’s Ultimate Aim in Gaza and Why It Will Fail
Sharon and Yitzhak Mordechai greeting United States President Bill Clinton in 1998. Wikipedia.
Israel never learns from its mistakes.
What Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to implement in Gaza is but a poor copy of previous strategies that were used in the past by other Israeli leaders. If these strategies had succeeded, Israel would not be in this position in the first place.
The main reason behind Netanyahu’s lack of clarity about his real objectives in Gaza is that neither he nor his generals can determine the outcomes of their futile war on the Strip, a war that has killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians.
And, no matter how hard he tries, Netanyahu will not be able to reproduce the past.
Following the Israeli occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem in June 1967, Israeli politicians and generals saw eye to eye on many things. The government wanted to translate its astounding military victory against Arab armies into a permanent occupation. The army wanted to use the newly acquired territories to create ‘buffer zones’, ‘security corridors’ and the like, to strangulate the Palestinians even further.
Both, government and military, found the establishment of new colonies to be the perfect answer to their shared vision. Indeed, today’s illegal settlements were originally planned as part of two massive security corridors projected by then-Labor Minister, Yigal Allon.
The Allon Plan was predicated on several elements. Among other ideas and designs, it called for the building of a security corridor along the Jordan River, and another along the so-called Green Line, Israel’s pre-1967 borders. The new demarcations were meant to expand the Israeli borders – which were never defined, to begin with – thus providing Israel with greater strategic depth. The plan was the original annexation scheme, which has been resurrected by Netanyahu in 2019, and is being advanced by current Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
Netanyahu is also sorting through previous governments’ archives with the hope of finding a solution to his disastrous war in Gaza. Here, too, the Allon Plan is relevant.
In 1971, then Israeli General Ariel Sharon attempted to implement Allon’s idea regarding complete control over Gaza, but with his own unique touch. He invented what became known as Sharon’s ‘five fingers’.
The ‘fingers’ were a reference to military zones and colonies, which were meant to divide the Gaza Strip into sections, and to separate the southern city of Rafah from the Sinai region.
To do so, thousands of Palestinian homes were destroyed throughout Gaza, particularly in the north. As for the south, thousands of Palestinian families, mostly Bedouin tribes, were ethnically cleansed to the Sinai desert.
Sharon’s plan, an extension of Allon’s plan, was never fully implemented, though many aspects of it were carried out, at the expense of the Palestinians, whose resistance continued for many years. It is that resistance, expressed through the collective defiance of the population of the Strip, which forced Sharon, then a prime minister, to abandon Gaza altogether. He called his 2005 military redeployment, and subsequent siege on Gaza, the ‘disengagement plan’.
The relatively new plan, which Netanyahu rejected back then, and is trying to revive now, seemed to be the rational answer to Israel’s unsuccessful occupation of Gaza. After 38 years of military occupation, the experienced Israeli general, known to Palestinians as the ‘bulldozer’, realized that Gaza simply cannot be subdued, let alone governed.
Instead of learning from Sharon’s experience, Netanyahu is trying to repeat the original mistake.
Though Netanyahu has revealed little details about his future plans in Gaza, he has spoken often of retaining ‘security control’ over the Strip and the West Bank, as well. Israel will “maintain operational freedom of action in the entire Gaza Strip”, he said last February.
Since then, his army began constructing what seemed to be a long-term military presence in central Gaza, known as the Netzarim Corridor – a large ‘finger’ of military routes and encampments that splits Gaza into two halves.
Netzarim, named after a previous settlement south-west of Gaza City evacuated in 2005, also gives Israel control over the area’s two main highways, Salah al-Din Road and the coastal Rashid Road.
The Philadelphi Corridor, located between Rafah and the Egyptian border was occupied by Israel on May 7. It is meant to be another ‘finger’. Additional ‘buffer zones’ already exist in all of Gaza’s border regions, with the aim of fully suffocating Gaza and giving Israel total control over aid.
Netanyahu’s plan is doomed to fail, however.
The historical circumstances of the ’67 Israeli occupation of Gaza are entirely different from what is taking place now. The former emerged as an outcome of a major Arab defeat, while the latter is an outcome of Israel’s military and intelligence failure.
Moreover, the regional circumstances are working in Palestine’s favor, and the global knowledge of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza makes a permanent war nearly impossible.
Another important point to keep in mind is that the current generation of Gazans is empowered and fearless. Its ongoing resistance is only a reflection of a popular reawakening throughout Palestine.
Finally, the Israeli unity that followed the ’67 war is nowhere to be found, as Israel today is divided along many fault lines.
It behooves Netanyahu to revisit his foolish decision to maintain a permanent presence in Gaza, as defeating Gaza proved to be an impossible task even for far superior military men of his country.
Growing Up in Nuseirat –– Where Massacres Become Routine
I clearly remember my first day at an UNRWA school in a refugee camp in Gaza. I was five years of age. It felt like my life was over.
The distance from Block 5 of the Nuseirat Refugee Camp to the New Camp – located within the municipal boundaries of Nuseirat – was long, exhausting and terrifying.
I had to walk for several miles, on a very dusty journey that compromised my new, specially tailored red suit and orange sandals.
On the arduous journey, passing through citrus orchards and heaps of sand, I was accompanied by hundreds of children, some more experienced and confident, and others, like me, crying all the way to the UNRWA Elementary School for Boys.
On the way, I learned about the ‘crazy man of the orchard’, the disheveled guard who chases after unruly children whenever they try to pluck orange fruits from the Hirthani trees. I also learned about the unleashed dogs that belonged to some Bedouin tribe, whose bites may result in many rabies injections and terrible pain.
By the time I reached class, my tears turned into sobbing. Learning how to read and write seemed like a worthless exercise, considering the risks of becoming a pupil at an UNRWA school in Gaza.
Alas, there is no immediate happy ending, as I was, indeed, chased by the ‘crazy man’, bitten by the dogs, ruined my sandals and ruined my red suit with the large, silver-colored buttons.
But, ultimately, it was all worth the effort. My peers, starting on that very first day of the school year, are now the very great intellectuals of Gaza, the journalists, the teachers, the doctors, the parents, the people that made Gaza the tenacious place which is inspiring the whole world. Many of them have been killed or wounded in this war. Many are still fighting to keep Gaza itself alive.
Though I no longer live in Nuseirat, my relationship with the place grew even stronger with time.
In Arabic we say, “those far away from the eyes are also far away from the heart.” Gaza, however, is an exception, because the people we leave behind are unforgettable, and because their suffering, especially during times of siege and war, is too extreme to ignore.
As I checked my mobile phone on Thursday, June 6, for news on Gaza, nine months after the start of the war, once more the breaking news: “Massacre in Nuseirat” topped the headlines. The massacre seemed terrible even before the gory details were released.
A few days later, on June 8, a much bigger tragedy occurred, hundreds were killed and wounded.
The words ‘massacre’ and ‘Nuseirat’ became so intertwined in recent months that new headlines often omit further details.
As I viewed the images of those killed and wounded in the Al-Sardi School and later at the central market, I feared that I would recognize some of the faces. This nightmarish scenario has happened before, and repeatedly so, where I would discover that family members, friends or neighbors were killed or wounded through the news.
Consequently, whenever fresh images from the Gaza onslaught appear, I am always on guard.
In the case of the school massacre, I did not recognize anyone, possibly because the victims are mostly displaced Palestinians from many other areas in the Gaza Strip, whether north or south.
I thought about the school itself. The cluster of UNRWA schools hit in the latest attack hosted 50,000 people – mostly children and women.
Only months earlier, that very school was a source of joy, knowledge, friendship, but also trepidation for little children who were being torn away from their families.
Then, like all schools in Gaza, they became shelters to host the bulk of the Gaza population which has been chased by bombs, repeatedly, from the north to the center, from the center to the south and, again, to the center, and so on.
This journey of displacement, along with the accompanying famine, is yet to end. But massacres at United Nations schools-turned-shelters are a whole different level of cruelty.
To alleviate some of the suffering, many volunteers in the Camp have been holding all kinds of communal activities at some of these shelters.
Volunteer clowns perform regularly, volunteer barbers cut hair, teachers hold classes, women bake together, local football clubs organize tournaments. All of this is done to reassure the children that, despite the ongoing suffering and the sound of bombs all around them, they will always remain safe inside.
But there is no such safety, neither at schools nor mosques, churches or even hospitals.
I write this because I fear that readers and viewers would only associate Nuseirat with massacres, with lifeless bodies lined up on the floor, covered by the very blankets they used to cover themselves at night.
Nuseirat, like Gaza, is a representation of a culture that cannot be broken, no matter the firepower, or the extent of the massacres.
For me, Nuseirat is a life that was fully lived, memories that cannot be forgotten, and a future of freedom and dignity that is waiting to take shape.
On Aid and War – How Israel Has Used Starvation To Subdue the Palestinians
Humanitarian aid should never be politicized though, quite often, the very survival of nations is used as political bargaining chips.
Sadly, Gaza remains a prime example. Even before the current war, the Gaza Strip suffered under a 17-year hermetic blockade, which has rendered the impoverished area virtually ‘unlivable’.
That very term, ‘unlivable’ was used by the then-UN Special Rapporteur for the Situation of Palestine, Michael Lynk, in 2018.
As of mid-December, “nearly 70% of Gaza’s 439,000 homes and about half of its buildings have been damaged or destroyed”, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing experts who conducted a thorough analysis of satellite data.
As tragic as the situation was in December, now it is far worse.
67 percent of Gaza’s water, sanitation facilities and infrastructure have been destroyed or damaged, according to a statement by the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees, UNRWA, on June 19, leading to the spreading of infectious diseases, which has ravaged the beleaguered population for months.
The spread of disease is also linked to the accumulation of garbage everywhere in Gaza. Earlier, the refugees agency reported that “as of June 9, over 330,000 tons of waste have accumulated in or near populated areas across Gaza, posing catastrophic environmental (and) health risks”.
The situation was already disastrous. Indeed, three years before the war, the Global Institute for Water, Environment and Health (GIWEH) said, in a joint statement with the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, that 97 percent of Gaza water was undrinkable and unfit for human consumption.
Yet, so far, any conversation on allowing aid to Gaza, or the rebuilding of Gaza after the war, has been placed largely within political contexts.
By shutting down all border crossings, including the Egypt-Gaza Rafah Crossing – which, on June 17, was set ablaze – Israel has politicized food, fuel and medicine as tools in its war in the Strip.
This is not a mere inference, but the actual statement made by Israeli Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, who on October 9, declared that he had ordered a “complete siege” and that “there will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, no water” entering Gaza.
The timing of the statement, which has indeed been put into action from the first day of the war, suggests that Israel did not apply the strategy as a last resort. It was one of the most important pieces in the war stratagem, which remains in effect to this day.
Instead of pressuring Israel, Washington tried to obtain its own political leverage, also by politicizing aid. On March 3, the US Air Force started airdropping aid into northern Gaza. A far more conducive and less humiliating option for Palestinians, however, would have been direct US pressure on Israel to allow access to aid trucks arriving through Rafah, Karem Abu Salem Crossing or any other.
Scenes and images of thousands of starving Palestinians chasing after boxes of aid parachuted in Gaza will remain etched in the collective memory of humanity as an example of our failed morality.
News reports spoke of whole families who were killed under the weight of the dropped ‘aid’, much of which had fallen in the Mediterranean, never to be retrieved.
Even the Gaza pier, constructed by the US military on the Gaza shore last month, did little to alleviate the situation. It merely transported 137 aid trucks, according to the US’ own estimation, enough to cover Gaza’s need for food for a few hours only.
During the years of siege, an average of 500 trucks arriving daily in Gaza has kept the 2.3 million population of the Strip alive, though malnourished.
To deal with the outcome of the war, and to stave off current starvation, especially in the north, the number of aid trucks would have to be much higher. Yet, whole days would pass without a single truck making its way to the suffering population. This is unacceptable.
Not only did the international community fail at ending the war, it has also failed in delinking humanitarian aid from political and military objectives.
The problem with politicizing aid is that innocent civilians become a bargaining chip for politicians and military men. This goes against the very foundation of international humanitarian law.
According to the International Red Cross, citing the Hague Conventions, “international humanitarian law is the branch of international law that seeks to impose limits on the destruction and suffering caused by armed conflict.” In Gaza, no such ‘limits’ have been ‘imposed’ by anyone.
Providing aid to Gaza and ensuring the reconstruction of the Strip must not be a political item for negotiations. It is a basic human right that must be honored under any circumstance.
Meaningful pressure must be placed on Israel to end the Gaza siege, and urgent plans must be drafted, starting today, by representatives of UN humanitarian institutions, the Arab League and Palestinian and Gaza authorities to be the entities responsible for delivering aid to Gaza.
Humanitarian aid to Gaza must not be used as political leverage, or a tool in a cruel war, whose primary victims are millions of Palestinian civilians.
The Altalena Affair: Is Israel Heading Towards a Civil War?
“There will be no civil war” in Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on June 18. But he might be wrong.
Netanyahu’s statement was made in the context of the growing popular protests in Israel, especially following the long-anticipated resignations of several Israeli War Cabinet Ministers, including Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot – both former chiefs of staff in the Israeli army.
These resignations did not necessarily isolate Netanyahu, as the man’s popularity rests almost entirely on the support of the right and the far right. However, the move further illustrated deep and growing rifts in Israeli society, which could ultimately take the country from a state of political upheaval to an actual state of civil war.
Divisions in Israel cannot be viewed the same way as other political polarizations currently rife among Western democracies. This assertion is not necessarily linked to the legitimate view that, at its core, Israel is not an actual democracy but, rather, due to the fact that Israel’s political formation is unique.
The story began long before the current Gaza war.
In February 2019, the leaders of three Israeli parties formed a coalition, Kahol Lavan, or ‘Blue and White’. Two of Kahol Lavan’s founders, Gantz and Moshe Ya’alon, were also military men, widely respected among the country’s powerful military establishment, thus society at large. Despite their relative electoral successes, they still failed to dislodge Netanyahu from office. So, they went to the streets.
Taking the conflict to the streets of Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities was a decision not made lightly. It followed the collapse of a strange government coalition, cobbled up by all of Netanyahu’s enemies, unified around the single objective of ending the right and far-right reign over the country. Naftali Bennet’s failure was simply the last straw.
The terms ‘right’ and ‘far-right’ may give the impression that the political conflict in Israel is essentially ideological. Though ideology does play a role in Israeli politics, anger at Netanyahu and his allies is largely motivated by the feeling that the new right in Israel is attempting to reconfigure the very political nature of the country.
So, starting in January 2023, hundreds of thousands of Israelis launched unprecedented mass protests that lasted until the start of the Israeli war on Gaza. The initial collective demand of the protesters, supported by Gantz and the who’s who of the Israeli military and liberal elites, was to prevent Netanyahu from altering the political balances of power that have governed Israeli society for the last 75 years. With time, the demands, however, turned into the collective chant of regime change.
Though the issue was largely discussed in the media as a political rift resulting from Netanyahu’s wishes to marginalize Israel’s judicial institution for personal reasons, the roots of the event, which threatened a civil war, were quite different.
The story of the potential Israeli civil war is as old as the Israeli state itself, and recent comments by Netanyahu, suggesting otherwise, are yet another false claim by the prime minister.
Indeed, on June 16, Netanyahu lashed out at rebellious military generals, stating that “We have a country with an army and not an army with a country.” In truth, Israel was founded through war, and was sustained also through war.
This meant that the Israeli military had, from the very start, a special status in Israeli society, an unwritten contract that allowed army generals a special and often a central seat in Israel’s political decision-making. The likes of Ariel Sharon, Ehud Barak and others, including the very founder of Israel, David Ben Gurion, have all reached the helm of Israeli politics namely because of their military affiliations.
But Netanyahu changed all of this when he began to actively restructure Israel’s political institutions to keep the military marginal and politically disempowered. In doing so, Netanyahu has violated the main pillar of Israel’s political balance, starting in 1948.
Even before Israel finished the task of ethnically cleansing the Palestinian people during the Nakba, the nascent country almost immediately entered into a civil war. As Ben Gurion issued an order regarding the formation of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) on May 26, some Zionist militias, including the Irgun and Lehi – the Stern Gang – fought to preserve a degree of political independence.
That was the start of the so-called Altalena Affair, when the Haganah-dominated IDF tried to block a sea shipment of weapons on its way to the Irgun, then under the leadership of Menachem Begin who, in 1967, became Israel’s prime minister. The confrontation was deadly. It resulted in the killing of many members of the Irgun, mass arrests and the shelling of the ship itself.
The reference to the Altalena Affair is heard quite frequently in Israeli media debates these days, as the Israeli war on Gaza is splintering an already divided society. This division is compelling the military to abandon the historical balance that was achieved following that mini-civil war, which could have ended Israel’s future as a state only days after its formation.
The internal Israeli conflict over Gaza is, indeed, not just about Gaza, Hamas or Hezbollah, but the future of Israel itself. If the Israeli army finds itself scapegoated for October 7 and the assured failed military campaigns that followed, it will have to make a choice, between accepting its indefinite marginalization or clashing with the political institution.
For the latter to take place, a civil war might become a real possibility.
Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His latest book, co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak Out. His other books include My Father was a Freedom Fighter and The Last Earth. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net.
