Analysis: Gazans' "voluntary migration" will be implemented by starvation or resumption of war

"The goal of eliminating Hamas and its military capabilities was never realistic. The decision to do so was made by shocked military and political leaders, hours after the October 7 attack, without any clarity on the ability to implement it."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated that the implementation of the second phase of the ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement between his government and Hamas will be after “eliminating Hamas,” and he considered that normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia will be “after we end the change in the Middle East, after we are certain that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon, and after we annihilate Hamas,” according to what he told Fox News.

Professor Yigal Levy, a researcher in relations between the army and society in Israel, said that “the goal of eliminating Hamas and its military capabilities was never realistic. The decision regarding this goal was made by shocked military and political leaders, a few hours after the October 7 massacre, without clarifying the ability to implement it,” according to his article in Haaretz today, Sunday.

He pointed out that "experience shows that attempts in recent decades to impose changes from the outside, in various parts of the world, have failed. Certainly, such a failure was expected in the special circumstances of Gaza. Indeed, the re-emergence of Hamas immediately after the ceasefire, and the rapid restoration of some of its governing capabilities, as was expressed during the implementation of the kidnapped soldiers deal, surprised Israel."

He stressed that "this is what happens when an unquestionable military ideology takes hold, creating the illusion that killing fighters one by one, destroying tunnels, confiscating weapons, mass killing of citizens and demolishing civilian infrastructure will lead to regime change."

The so-called “center-left” parties in Israel accuse Netanyahu, in the context of talking about the “day after” after the war on Gaza, that because he did not advance a vision for the “day after,” he is allowing Hamas to survive, because he prevented an alternative authority from taking control in Gaza. But Levy stressed that this accusation is baseless, because “it assumes that Israel is capable of engineering an alternative regime in Gaza. A regime needs a basic level of legitimacy, which it will not obtain just because an enemy state invents an alternative regime with international support. It is true that Netanyahu did not present an alternative vision, but his mistake is no less than the mistake of those who created the illusion of an alternative.”

“Most of those who talk about a new regime in Gaza on the ‘day after’ suggest that the Palestinian Authority or a multinational force should dismantle Hamas instead of Israel,” he added. “However, Hamas, which has succeeded in recruiting thousands of fighters again and has strengthened hatred of Israel among those trying to return to their destroyed homes in the winter, is still capable of effectively resisting any regime imposed from the outside, especially against the backdrop of the threat of transfer.”

Levy warned against the "center-left" proposals, and that "they are practically proposing to plunge the sector into an internal war, whether between Hamas and the regime that will be imposed from the outside, or between Gazan militias in the absence of sovereignty."

For his part, Haaretz editor-in-chief Aluf Benn called for not underestimating the order by Defense Minister Yisrael Katz to the Israeli army last Thursday to “prepare a plan for a ‘voluntary exit’ of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, under the initiative of US President Donald Trump. This is the first time that Israel has announced an actual plan to expel Arabs from areas it controls. From now on, transfer is government policy.”

Ben added that the message that Katz and the government sent to senior army officers after he instructed the Chief of Staff, Herzi Halevi, to reprimand the head of the Military Intelligence Directorate, Shlomi Bender, for warning of the security implications of the Trump plan, was that “support for the transfer will be a condition for promotion. In the IDF, there will be extensive appointments, and any appointment of an officer with the rank of brigadier general or higher is conditional on Katz’s signature, and this minister intends to follow in the army the political loyalty tests that the outgoing minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, followed in the police.”

He continued, "The army will be tasked with encouraging the voluntary emigration of Gazans, through starvation, for example, or by resuming the fighting 'to eliminate Hamas,' as Netanyahu pledges. Then, as the screams of the Gazans increase, the countries of the world will agree to open their gates to the refugees of Khan Younis and Jabalia."

Benn said that by talking about the displacement of the Gazans, Trump “unleashed the hidden desires of many Israeli Jews who do not believe in living together with Arabs on the same piece of land. The right says ‘it’s either us or them’, and the left says ‘we are here and they are there’. Years ago, a leader of the Zionist left told me that ‘Kahane is in the heart of all of us’,” referring to the fascist Rabbi Meir Kahane. “After Trump normalized talk of ethnic cleansing, an overwhelming majority of Jews in Israel want to expel the Palestinians,” polls showed last week.

He pointed out that "Netanyahu's policy since he formed the narrow right-wing government includes a clear tendency to implement the legacy of Rabbi Kahane, and the list is long: the Nation-State Law; the annexation steps and the plundering of the Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem; filling the Likud list with Kahanists; the alliance with Ben-Gvir and Smotrich; and above all the policy of expulsion and destruction in Gaza, in response to the Hamas attack on October 7."

“Netanyahu was willing to risk an arrest warrant from the Hague court, and to face pressure from the Biden administration and its supporters in Israel to present a ‘day after plan’ and hand over Gaza to the Palestinian Authority, just to advance the depopulation of the Strip and prepare it for annexation and Jewish settlement,” he added.

“Kahane was considered a thug and a marginal, and the Knesset vomited him out. His successor in promoting the idea of transfer, Rehavam Ze’evi, did not enjoy public support and was later condemned as a rapist and a criminal. But their ideas did not disappear, and after a generation and a half they reached the mainstream, which is still wrapped in hypocritical explanations such as ‘humanitarian concern for the Palestinians’ or ‘We have tried everything and the conflict has not been resolved, and perhaps it is time for another solution.’ Therefore, it is forbidden to underestimate Trump’s statements, Netanyahu’s enthusiasm and Katz’s instructions. The genie of ethnic cleansing that they have taken out of the bottle of political correctness and respect for human rights, in which it has been hiding until today, will be difficult to put back in the bottle,” Benn noted.