The regional solution, the generals' plan and ending the war

Three titles, owned by one man, the theorist of the last war on Gaza, Giora Eiland. He is a secular soldier, not a messianic cleric, and he detests Ben Gvir and Smotrich. However, whether he knows it or not, he serves the aspirations of the most extreme right in Israel’s history.

Let us begin the story in the year 2000, when Giora Eiland proposed his plan called “The Regional Solution and Land Exchange,” which stipulated expanding the area of the Gaza Strip by 600 square kilometers from the Egyptian Sinai Desert, displacing the Palestinians from Gaza to this area, and establishing a city for them that could accommodate one million Gazans, in addition to establishing a safe passage to Jordan via Sinai, and compensating Egypt from the Negev with the same area or a little less. This plan was presented to former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, but he rejected it on the pretext of not liquidating the Palestinian issue, and this solution would not be at the expense of Egyptian lands and its national security, and he rejected the sum of $12 billion that Dennis Ross offered him in exchange for agreeing to the plan.

When former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi assumed the presidency of Egypt, the same plan was presented to him and he agreed to it in exchange for Egypt receiving 20 billion dollars. Morsi tried to convince Palestinian President Abu Mazen to agree, but he refused, citing the liquidation of the Palestinian cause. In addition, Sisi, who was then the Minister of Defense, refused to deal with this plan and considered it a threat to Egyptian national security, displacing Palestinians from their lands, and solving their problem at the expense of Egyptian lands.

The second title is the generals’ plan, which was also formulated by Giora Eiland and gained the support of most Israeli military personnel. It calls for emptying northern Gaza of Palestinian citizens, deporting them to southern Gaza, and considering those who remain as fighters who must be eliminated. This is what is happening now, especially in Jabalia, Beit Lahia, and Beit Hanoun, in terms of ethnic cleansing and displacement of Palestinians.

In the latest article published by Giora Eiland in Yedioth Ahronoth, entitled “The Reasons for Ending the War in Gaza,” in which he calls for reaching a deal to return the kidnapped soldiers and withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor. He was motivated to do so by four convincing reasons, the most important of which are the human losses that Israel has been suffering recently, secondly, the heavy burden placed on the soldiers, thirdly, the economic burden, as the war costs $135 million a day, which negatively affects the economic indicators in Israel, and the biggest indicator of this is the downgrading of the Israeli economy by two notches by the global Moody’s institution, which gave investors, businessmen, and brains a reason to emigrate from Israel, and fourthly, the reduction in global support for Israel, which has become almost isolated globally.

From what has been presented above, it is clear that Israel has a project that it wants to implement regarding the final status of the Gaza Strip, and the one who is responsible for this project is the same Giora Eiland since the year 2000, knowing that this project began to be thought of since the beginning of the seventies of the last century, but the results of the October War in the year 73 thwarted its implementation at that time. However, it did not leave the imagination of the Israeli military, strategists and politicians, and this project remained a dream that haunted all successive Israeli governments. Whoever looks closely at the Trump plan in the year 2020 finds a similarity between it and the Giora Eiland plan, who exploited the events of October 7 to implement it by force and put the Egyptians under a fait accompli, forcing them to accept it.

Is Giora Eiland's call to stop the war and conclude a deal with Hamas at this time considered a step towards implementing the terms of his plan? Will the Egyptian leadership insist on rejecting this plan, even if it costs it a war with Israel, as Sisi threatened? Will the United States support this plan and will it pressure Egypt to accept it, either through financial temptations or by force? The answers to these questions will become clear after the day after the war has begun to emerge.