Sharon Revisited: Netanyahu’s Ultimate Aim in Gaza and Why It Will Fail
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.
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
America Isolated: Why Some Western Capitals Are Shifting Positions on Gaza
Some Western capitals are shifting their positions on Gaza. (Design: Palestine Chronicle)
Some Western capitals are shifting their positions on Gaza. (Design: Palestine Chronicle)
By Ramzy Baroud
On June 6, Spain joined South Africa’s case at the United Nations top Court, accusing Israel of genocide.
This move followed a decision by Madrid and two other western European capitals – Dublin and Oslo – to recognize the state of Palestine, thus breaking ranks with a long-established US-led western policy.
As per American thinking, the recognition and the establishment of a Palestinian State should follow a negotiated settlement between Israel and Palestine, under the auspices of Washington itself.
No such negotiations have taken place in years, and the US has, in fact, shifted its policies on the issue almost entirely under the previous administration of Donald Trump. The latter had recognized as ‘legal’, illegal Jewish colonies in Palestine, Israel’s sovereignty over occupied East Jerusalem, among other concessions.
Several years into the Biden Administration, little has been done to reverse or fundamentally alter the new status quo.
More recently, Washington has done everything in its power to support Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Aside from supplying Israel with the needed weapons to conduct its crimes in the Strip, the US has gone as far as threatening international legal and political bodies that tried to hold Israel accountable, thus ending the “extermination” of Palestinians in Gaza – a term used on May 20 by the International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan.
Washington continues to behave in such a way despite the fact that Israel refuses to concede to a single US demand or expectation regarding peace and negotiations.
Indeed, Israel’s political discourse is deeply invested in the language of genocide, while the Israeli military is actively carrying it out.
The West Bank, where the bulk of the Palestinian state would supposedly take shape, is experiencing its own upheaval. Violence there is unprecedented compared to recent decades. Across the West Bank, tens of thousands of illegal settlers are torching homes, cars, and attacking Palestinians with total impunity, in fact, often alongside the Israeli army.
Yet, despite the occasional gentle reprimand and ineffectual sanctions on a few settlers, Washington continues to stand firmly by its declared policy regarding the two states and all the rest. Not a single mainstream Israeli politician, certainly not Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government of extremists, is willing to entertain the very thought.
This is not surprising, as America’s foreign policy often goes against common sense. Washington, for example, fights losing wars simply because no US administration or president wants to be the one associated with failure, retreat or, worse, defeat. America’s longest war in Afghanistan is a case in point.
Due to the massive influence wielded by Israel, its allies on Capitol Hill, in the media, along with the power of lobbies and wealthy donors, Tel Aviv is clearly far more consequential to US domestic policies than Kabul. Thus, the continued US military and political support of a country that is being accused of genocide and extermination.
This reality, however, has created a political dilemma for Europe, which has often blindly followed US steps – or missteps – in the Middle East.
Historically, there have been a few exceptions to the post-WWII rule. French President Jacques Chirac defied US-imposed consensus when he strongly rejected Washington’s policies in Iraq in the lead-up to the 2003 war.
Such important, but relatively isolated fissures were eventually repaired, where the US returned to its role as the uncontested leader of the West.
Gaza, however, is becoming a major breaking point. The initial western unity in support of Israel, immediately after the October 7 events, has splintered, eventually leaving the US and, to some extent, Germany, committed to the Israeli war.
The strong, more recent stances by several western European countries accusing Israel of genocide and joining forces with countries in the Global South with the aim of holding Israel accountable, is a major shift unseen in many years.
It could be argued that the extent of Israeli crimes in Gaza has exceeded the moral threshold that some European countries could tolerate. But there is more to this.
The actual answer lies in the issue of legitimacy. Western leaders are not shying away in phrasing their language as such. In a recent piece, speaking on behalf of the ‘group of elders’, former president of Ireland Mary Robinson warned against the “collapse of international order”.
“We oppose any attempts to de-legitimize” the work of the ICC and ICJ, through “threats of punitive measures and sanctions.”
The Elders’ opposition, however, made no difference. On June 5, the US House of Representatives passed resolution H.R.8282 aimed at authorizing sanctions on the ICC.
References to the collapse of the legitimacy of the West-established international order have also been made by many others in recent months, including by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
In his statement on requesting arrest warrants for accused Israeli war criminals, Karim Khan himself made that reference.
For some in the west, the issue is not just about the Gaza genocide. It is also about the future of the west itself.
For a long time, Washington has succeeded, at least in the eyes of its allies, in keeping the balance between the collective interests of the West and a nominal respect for international institutions.
It is now clear that the US is no longer capable of maintaining that balancing act, forcing some western countries into adopting independent political positions, the future outcomes of which shall prove consequential.
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