The dream seller must be ousted

By Zvi Barel

We can talk about a picture of victory from now on. Because we will not witness a greater victory in Gaza. Even if we kill several thousand Gazans, destroy hundreds of tunnels, and present Sinwar's head on a silver platter, the emerging reality in Gaza is a "trophy of victory" that we will still face. 

We can continue to agonize over how to define Hamas as "crushed," "exhausted," or "defeated," but the major threat to replace Hamas now exists. There are two million people in Gaza who are more prepared to explode, because they have nothing to lose, and because it is more difficult to defeat the population in Gaza than we did. No security zone, no international force, no messiah can prevent them from becoming fertile ground for the threat that will develop towards us, if it is not addressed immediately.

But Israel, which is deeply immersed in Hamas's tunnels, has no plan or blueprint for dealing with Gaza above ground. Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Israeli army would remain in the Strip for as long as it needed, and strongly rejected the possibility of the Palestinian Authority managing the Strip. According to him, “the authority also wants to destroy us, like Hamas.” Israel cannot rely on an international force to do its job. He is right, as Lebanon has proven the ineffectiveness of such force.

For Netanyahu, the solution is to establish a security zone deep in Gaza, and the real meaning of this is to turn the entire strip into a security zone, and for the Israeli army to remain there for years. This is what should happen in Lebanon. In order to push Hezbollah away from the border beyond the Litani River and keep it there, Israel must reoccupy the historic “security belt” and hold it for a long time. According to the “security belts” strategy, Israel will directly control more than 6 million people, living in three burning areas: the West Bank, southern Lebanon, and Gaza, within which it will absorb the majority of the Israeli army forces, and drain the state’s budgets. There is not, and cannot be, any actual translation of the government's false promises of "integrated security."

But we cannot continue to sell illusions to the residents of the “Gaza envelope” and the northern border. They realize that they must make the decision to return to their homes, fields, and schools, and begin rebuilding the destruction, and continue to live under constant threat, as they lived for many years, or leave their places of residence and move to live deep inside Israel, or abroad. Their rational assumption is that this government, which has lost its legitimacy and is made up of parts that cannot be put together, will not fulfill its promises.

The only way out is to replace the war cabinet with a real political-economic cabinet, which lays out a road map that forms a basis for the return of normal life, while realizing that some of the threats will remain present.

This realization requires us to acknowledge that the Palestinian Authority, in its current state, is the necessary foundation for managing the lives of citizens, not only in the West Bank, but also in Gaza, while the army continues to work to thwart the renewal of Hamas’ military operations, just as it does in the West Bank.

The calming of the situation in these two areas could be reflected in the northern scene, which was ignited by the events in Gaza. This front will not disappear, because even if Hezbollah is pushed back beyond the Litani, its long-range missiles will still pose a threat. But at least, in the immediate term, it is likely that a lull in the Gaza Strip, with large-scale humanitarian assistance, will also return Lebanon to the equation of mutual deterrence, and to the relative calm that has prevailed in this region since the Second Lebanon War [the July 2006 war].

The problem is that any rational solution is conditional on the immediate expulsion of the dream seller who runs the country through a crystal ball.