In her recent stop in Dubai, Vice President Kamala Harris outlined five principles for post-war Gaza, following emphases on Palestinian civilian casualties. True, she gave passing lip service to the terrorist attacks of October 7 that started the war and the casualties, though without emphasizing the difference: That civilian casualties on October 7 were by design, whereas in Gaza casualties to Israel’s actions were a consequence of the war – that Hamas could have avoided.
I must guess that the Vice President never read President Harry Truman’s letter of August 11, 1945, responding to Mr. Samuel Cavert, the General Secretary of the Federal Churches of Christ in America, reprinted below
Replace “Israel” for the “United States” and “Hamas” (or Hezbollah, ISIS, or any other Islamist group) for “Japan” – and President Truman’s points stay as valid now as then, without changing one word. This letter may also help closing debates about “proportionality.”
One difference between the situation Truman faced then and Israel now is that Japan was a “state” with whom the United States could negotiate with and hold responsible and accountable for respecting treaties signed. “Gaza” is not a state, and Hamas is just one of a number of armed units operating within the territory. Although countries around the world have recognized “Palestine” as a “state” – on paper - it is not a state either. It does not have a government willing and able to disarm the many armed cells even in the West Bank, never mind disarming Hamas and other armed units .
This situation also suggests that the discussion of using the 1967 borders cannot be a starting point in negotiations. Egypt ruled Gaza until 1967, but does not want anything to do with it, and is building a wall to ensure its lack of involvement. Jordan does not want the West Bank, Syria is a failed state with dozens of armed groups operating and controlling territories within the pre-1967 borders. Same with Lebanon: Hezbollah has a massive army within it, its declared goal being the destruction of Israel. Thus, the discussion of a Palestinian state and borders at present appears little more than hallucination on paper.
Once a Palestinian government emerges willing and able to disarm all the various armed units – then there is underlying meaning to negotiating borders and signing treaties, cease-fires. Israel did just that back in 1948: Following the creation of the IDF (Israel Defense Force), there were Jewish armed units within Israel that did not want to put down the arms and continued importing them. Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion understood that you cannot create a state while allowing armed units to operate. He ordered official forces to shoot at a ship (Altalena) that was smuggling arms to these units, killing some 80 Jews on board. This was a shocking act, happening just a few years after the Holocaust. However, the rebellious cells put down their arms. No such political will and ability exist among Israel’s neighbors now with whom it is supposed to negotiate, and you cannot negotiate either sustainable cease fires, never mind longer-term treaties when one party to the negotiation openly declares that it wants to kill the other, or expel them from their state.
VP Harris outlined in her speedy Middle East tour the present administration’s thinking about what to do after the fighting ceases, and that would pave the way toward some Palestinian state. She outlined the following: “Five principles guide our approach for post-conflict Gaza: no forcible displacement, no reoccupation, no siege or blockade, no reduction in territory and no use of Gaza as a platform for terrorism.”
Nice, but irrelevant. It does not appear that Israel wants or can displace some 2 million people living in Gaza. It does not want to occupy it: Actually, it left it in 2005, leaving behind thriving innovative agricultural hothouses that the World Bank donated to Gaza, and which the locals destroyed in no time. Israel imposed no siege: In contrast to Egypt, it supplied water, fuel and – when Gaza did not export terror to Israel, it allowed Gazans to come and work in Israel: For a few months before October 7, some 20,000 Gazans were passing the border. As to Gaza not becoming a platform for terrorism, it all sounds nice on paper, but who will enforce it? Who will prevent the imports of arms?
Answers to this question, and a wide range of others by a Ramallah-based polling company, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR), carried out in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip between 22 November and 2 December 2023., offers answers. 1231 adults were contacted, of whom 750 were interviewed face to face in the West Bank and 481 in the Gaza Strip, complex as the latter was. How seriously to take them can be debated. (The survey is here:
These are some of the results: 89% think Hamas did not commit war crimes during the current war, and 85% say they did not see videos of Hamas acts against Israeli civilians, such as the killing of women and children in their homes; only 7% said that they did. 75% of those in West Bank favored Hamas continuing to rule in Gaza, though only 38% of those living in Gaza. However, 72% believe Hamas will return to rule Gaza after the war.
If not, after the end of the war, and if the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were unified under the control of the Palestinian Authority, only 28% of those surveyed would support that, and 70% oppose the deployment of an Arab security contingent, from countries like Egypt or Jordan. But 45% would accept from the latter and other Arab countries a range of goods and services – yet nothing related to security.
In light of all the above, probably the best strategy Israel could pursue after the war is to emulate Egypt’s. If Egypt can build a wall and strictly control movement of people and goods across the border, having long flooded the tunnels where arms were smuggled, so can Israel. Since 70 percent still support Hamas after the October 7 events, Israel has no obligation to assist it in any shape or form. President Truman's sharply worded reasoning still applies.
Moreover, the fact that Gaza would be then closed on the South by Egypt, and East and North by Israel, walled in – has precedent in the Middle East, and it does not imply inability to prosper.
The precedent is … Israel. Before 1967, it was closed by Egypt on the South (at one point Gamel Abdel Nasser, Egypt’s late President also closed the straits preventing ships to get to Eilat), on the East Syria and Jordan closed on it, and Lebanon in the North. Since the Gazans still do not want anything to do with Israelis except kill them, Israel has no obligation to assist them.
Perhaps Egypt’s and Israel’s walls – like fences – can eventually, gradually, perhaps over decades or centuries make for better neighbors. The Balkans may serve as reminder too.
