Gaza First Again... And the West Bank?

Gaza is at the heart of the scene once again, all eyes on it, while the West Bank seems absent from calculations. "Gaza first" is not just a description of the war, but a reminder of a recurring political dilemma: saving the Strip without linking it to the West Bank means reproducing a fragmented conflict, instead of a comprehensive solution.

Gaza first, a phrase that returns strongly to the forefront today, not as a description of the war alone, but as a political entry point that brings to mind a previous Palestinian moment whose outcomes have not yet been decided. When we go back to 1994, we recall Yasser Arafat's insistence on including Jericho alongside Gaza in the first agreement stemming from Oslo. This was not a fleeting geographical detail, but a clear expression of a deep fear that the political path would open only through Gaza, and then close before reaching the West Bank. He realized that a fragmented beginning carried within it the risk of turning into a fragmented end, and that if Gaza was left alone, it might become a title for an incomplete solution that would not be finalized.

That fear was not born out of skepticism about the political process itself, but from an early understanding of the nature of the Israeli approach to a solution, an approach based on fragmenting geography and breaking down the issue into separate stages and files, which are easy to control and manage without reaching a comprehensive solution. The formula of Gaza-Jericho First came as an attempt to curb this logic, or at least to restrict it, and to link the Strip to the West Bank from the very first moment. But what was intended to be a transitional beginning, over time turned into a permanent pattern, until fragmentation became a political and geographical reality, not just a possibility.

Today, nearly three decades later, the same scene returns but under harsher conditions. The focus is entirely on Gaza, while the West Bank is absent from the political equation, not by public rejection, but by deliberate neglect. The West Bank is left to swing between accelerating settlement, eroding land, and the absence of a political horizon, as if it is a suspended area outside any conception of a solution. It has no presence in ceasefire formulas, nor in post-war maps, nor in the concepts being circulated about the future of the conflict.

In contrast, Gaza today bears a double burden. It needs to be saved from the clutches of war, and hearts tremble at the mere thought of returning to destruction and death. The overwhelming humanitarian scene draws all eyes to it, and all attention is focused on what will happen there, how it will be managed, and who will control its future. This focus is understandable humanely, but dangerous politically, because it is reproduced without any clear link to the unity of the cause and the path.

In this climate, the Palestinian Authority finds itself once again on the defensive. It is not in a position of initiative, but in a position of seeking to prevent being bypassed. It is called upon when needed, and excluded when concepts are drawn up, and it is treated again as an administrative or security title, not as a bearer of a political project. And as in previous stages, the solution is reproduced from above, without real partnership with those who are supposed to be the owners of the cause.

Israel, for its part, is not driven to seek a solution out of a desire for peace, but because it is now forced to choose, or at least to manage this choice. Today, it deals with an undeclared Palestinian entity, but one that is embodied on the ground as a complete people, whose population is no less than that of Israelis. This demographic and political reality imposes itself, and makes the continuation of the status quo a decision in itself, not a state of neutrality.

In principle, the options are clear. Either full annexation, with all its legal, moral, and demographic consequences, or granting Palestinians full freedom and sovereignty. But Israel, due to its security concerns, wants neither. It does not want annexation at its cost, nor does it want Palestinian sovereignty with its repercussions. And here begins the gray area, where politics is managed through temporary solutions, hybrid arrangements, and formulas that do not state their true name.

From this dilemma emerges what Netanyahu and the Israeli right call thinking outside the box. In essence, it is a search for a creative solution in an unprecedented formula, especially in the West Bank. The focus is not on the land as a political unit, but on population centers. Separating people from land, and managing Palestinians as separate human groups, not as a political community with collective rights. Extended self-rule here, civil administration there, strict security arrangements everywhere, without sovereignty, without a horizon, and without a final solution.

In this context, Gaza once again becomes a laboratory, while the West Bank turns into a postponed file, or a testing ground for new forms of conflict management. And here lies the real danger, not only in the fragmentation of geography, but in the redefinition of the Palestinian issue itself, from a matter of liberation and self-determination, to a matter of population management.

The political warning here cannot be understated. Any path that starts from Gaza, ignores the West Bank, and treats Palestinians as numbers and gatherings rather than as a single political entity, is a path that reproduces the conflict instead of solving it. Gaza deserves to be saved from the war, yes, but saving it outside the context of the unity of the cause will once again make it a gateway to an incomplete solution, which Palestinians are asked to live with as the maximum possible.

History does not literally repeat itself, but it persistently repeats its logic. And unless the logic of the fragmented solution is broken, the same cycle will continue, Gaza first, West Bank suspended, creative solutions without justice, and a reality imposed and then demanded to be accepted. This is not a pessimistic reading, but the conclusion of a long experience that says that what is not politically resolved, is drained over time, until it loses its meaning.