The day after the war...there is no choice but to stand firm and win

As for the diplomatic movement, the American administration failed to use the Security Council, and it also failed to issue balanced decisions, even regarding a humanitarian truce. It used the American veto once against the Brazilian draft resolution, the American-British-French veto again against the Russian draft resolution, and the upcoming Russian veto against the American draft resolution, which includes condemning the Hamas movement and the so-called “Israel’s right to defend itself,” and demanding the release of prisoners without conditions.

The peace summit held by Egypt also failed as a result of disagreements between two groups: in the first group there are mainly the West, which participates in or covers up the war of extermination, and in the second group there are mainly Arabs who oppose displacement and are helpless in the face of the continuation of the aggression and without opening the Rafah crossing; Because the entry of 20 trucks and then 15 trucks since the beginning of the war until now is not called the opening of the crossing, but rather a dusting of ash in the eyes. The Gaza Strip was entered daily by 500 trucks, including food, drink, fuel, and various humanitarian, living, and medical needs. In order to survive, it needs the entry of 200 trucks at a minimum. At least daily.

The goal of all actions at all levels must be to stop the war immediately, before facing the risk of displacement and providing humanitarian aid. Because stopping the war is what leads to stopping displacement and the flow of humanitarian aid. As for the continuation of the war in light of the continuing horrific killing rates (more than 300 martyrs per day), it is what opens the door to displacement and humanitarian disasters.

War objectives

Israel is still confused about the political goal of the war, and is living in a state of chaos, to the point that there are increasing demands for Netanyahu’s resignation and for him to bear responsibility for the war, fueled by the fear that his personal interests are what push him to prolong the war and make reckless decisions, and this is happening for the first time during the war. Usually, accountability and reckoning took place after the war ended, as happened with Golda Meir, who resigned several months after the October 1973 War.

In the beginning, they acted on the basis that the goal was to erase the Gaza Strip from existence, by displacing its population to the Sinai desert in implementation of a new, old plan that was proposed for the first time in 1953, and renewed in 1968, 1970, 2000, 2010, 2012, and 2018. It failed previously and could be failed again.

The displacement plan was crystallized based on the Giora Eiland project, the former Israeli National Security Advisor, who proposed the idea of his project in the year 2000, crystallized in the year 2004, and was fully presented in the year 2009, which is based on expanding the Gaza Strip at the expense of Sinai in exchange for land from the Negev that is included in Egypt. . A few days ago, he called for the temporary displacement of the entire Gaza Strip to Sinai, and for the return of the displaced after the elimination of the resistance.

There is a variable in the plans proposed now, which is to reduce the area of the Gaza Strip, and to establish buffer zones that become larger or smaller according to those adopting them, between those who want the entire Gaza Strip as a buffer zone, and those who are satisfied with expanding the buffer zone by tens of kilometers or more.

If the plan to displace Gaza was frozen or even temporarily failed due to the Arab and international opposition, especially Egyptian and Jordanian, it was replaced by the plan to displace our people from the north of the Gaza Strip to its south, and if the barbaric war continues for weeks, a month, two months, or three, as Yoav Galant, Minister of Defense, said Israel, and in some estimates for years, as Benny Gantz, the Minister Member of the Military Council and head of the Zionist Camp (the rising party in the current war, which has a third of the seats in the Israeli Knesset in the polls), said to the American President during his participation in the Israeli Military Staff meeting, with the continued entry into Humanitarian aid is on the way, the approaching winter, and the continuation of the war of extermination, and in light of the bombing targeting those displaced from the north to the south, displacement may become a reality. Because it will be a way for Gazans to survive.

As for the goal of liquidating the Hamas movement, it is not clear how Israel will seek to achieve it. There are those who interpret it as overthrowing its rule and ending its ability to resist, and there are those who intend to literally eliminate it, and there are those who are “deigned” and ready to distribute the fighters, leadership, cadres and members of “Hamas” to the Arab countries, as happened after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, when the organization’s leadership, cadres, and fighters were distributed among a number of Arab countries, forgetting that the resistance fighters were in their homeland and among their people, and that they had begun the war for the first time with a historic victory.

These people deceive themselves when they imagine that a decisive Israeli victory will inevitably come, and they ignore that no one can defeat the resistance of a people determined to survive, steadfast, and resist until achieving its goals and national rights. It can be weakened, but it cannot be defeated, and the weak party wins if the strong party does not achieve its goals.

Temporary administration, or the return of Authority to the Gaza Strip, or what?

American and Israeli research centers (such as the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the National Security Research Center, and many others) were active and detailed what was being circulated in the corridors of politics and the Israeli elite, including current and former ministers, such as Avigdor Lieberman, who, along with Danny Ayalon and many others, called for the displacement of our people to Sinai. Opinions differ among them about the strategy for the day after the war. As there is almost consensus that Israel (and there is a declared American position expressed by US President Joe Biden by rejecting the occupation of the Gaza Strip and agreeing to eliminate “Hamas!”) 

Will Palestinian Authority return to Gaza?

There is an Israeli-American, American-American and Israeli-Israeli dispute between those who want to rehabilitate the authority so that it is able to rule Gaza after the defeat of the resistance, and what is meant here is to transform it into a completely puppet authority, and those who refuse its return, either because it (i.e. the authority) is corrupt and incapable and does not have the will and ability to implement What is required of it, and it failed in the West Bank and will fail in Gaza, so it must be rehabilitated or rebuilt first before thinking about returning it to Gaza, or because the return of authority is completely rejected. Because it reconnects the West Bank with the Gaza Strip, and revives hope again for the establishment of a Palestinian state after the Israeli governments succeeded in separating them, and buried the option of establishing a Palestinian state or the so-called “two-state solution.”

In the projects currently proposed, within America and Israel, almost no one talks about the two-state solution now. Rather, its supporters demand that the political horizon be kept open, under the pretext that they will achieve it in the long term, and they are deceitful. Because their verbal adherence to the two-state solution aims to arm their Arab allies with a position that they will use in front of their people, while its proposal practically helps them achieve Israeli goals, and never opens the way to the two-state solution, but rather throws dirt on its grave.

Only the defeat of aggression opens the way to the political horizon and the achievement of freedom and independence, as well as to negotiations that start from a position of strength and not from weakness, failure, and surrender.

At the end of this part, we pose the following question: Will the Authority accept returning to the Gaza Strip on the back of an Israeli tank? Although, if it does so, it will no longer be a national authority and will not represent the Palestinians, but rather it will turn into a completely non-national authority.

The Palestinian Authority faces the moment of truth

Help Israel achieve its goals: the continuation of the Palestinian division, and the continuation of the official leadership’s pursuit of false illusions and lost bets that led it to coexist with the fait accompli created by the occupation, in which there is no political horizon, no negotiations, and no final solution, but rather its ceiling is economic security, and among the conditions of Handing over Gaza to the Palestinian Authority - for those who agree to this - to leave the position of neutrality that it has taken since the outbreak of the war and not to explicitly condemn Hamas, and to activate security cooperation and its policy against the resistance.

Immediately taking these steps blocks the path to achieving the goals of aggression, and doubles the possibilities and capabilities of victory. Continuing the neutral position as it is under the pretext of sparing our people from disasters will not achieve this. Rather, it will lead to increased pressure to respond to the American and Israeli demands that urge the Authority not to be satisfied with neutrality and to control the West Bank (refer to Ghaith Al-Omari’s article entitled “How did the Palestinian Authority fail its people?” ", published on the website of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, dated October 19, 2023). Rather, it must side and explicitly condemn Hamas, completely lift the cover on it and the resistance, and transform into a completely puppet authority.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the plans drawn up for displacement, annexation, and Judaization also include the West Bank, and the 48 areas, and what is happening in the West Bank in terms of closures, arrests, and barbaric attacks by settlers and occupation forces, and the massacres in which 95 martyrs have been killed so far since October 7, is evidence of that.

The authority’s neutral position makes it lose its remaining legitimacy

The continuation of the neutral stance will cause the leadership to lose its remaining legitimacy, popularity, and credibility, and will push more civilian and security elements in the Authority and the Fatah movement, especially if the war of extermination continues and the humanitarian catastrophe deepens and expands, to break away from it and join the people, and this could lead to the weakening of the Authority and its subjugation even more of the occupation, and perhaps its collapse, or its division and fighting between two client and national parts. What is required is for the leadership and authority to escalate their position by exercising the right to self-defense, and not be satisfied with repeatedly adhering to the right and verbally condemning the war of genocide and displacement.

Temporary or permanent administration for Gaza?

There are ideas on the table, such as creating a special security system or a temporary administration for Gaza (see the article by Dennis Ross, David Makovsky, and Robert Satloff, entitled “Israeli War Goals and Principles of Administration in Gaza in the Post-Hamas Period,” published on the Washington Institute’s website , dated October 17, 2023. We know how temporary turns into permanent. The transitional phase in Oslo is supposed to have ended in May 1999, but it is still in place, and the transitional solution is intended to be eternal.

There is an effort to involve the Arab countries in shaping the future of the Strip that have established or are about to establish normalization with Israel, as well as the United Nations. In this context, ideas are being raised about irregular Arab forces alone or with the participation of international forces led by a Western person. 

This is all a pipe dream; Because the United Nations is not exclusive to Western countries. Rather, there is a majority in its institutions, including the Security Council, that will not agree with the hostile goals and plans aimed at liquidating the Palestinian cause. Rather, it will support and defend the Palestinian right, even though it is unable to stop the war and deliver humanitarian aid.

The ground war and the opening of the northern front

Despite the Israeli decision to wage a ground war because without it, a decisive victory over Hamas cannot be achieved, and without this victory, Israel will lose its strategic position and become a “slave” to all its enemies, the war has not yet begun.

The delay in the ground war is due to the following reasons:

First: The occupation forces fear that heavy losses will occur among their ranks due to surprises prepared by the resistance, such as the surprise that shook them in the Al-Aqsa flood. Therefore, they need time to obtain intelligence information and for American forces to arrive in the region, with the increasing possibility of opening other fronts.

Second: Continuing the scorched earth policy that has reached the point of continuing and escalating mass massacres, and making areas unlivable for a long period, until the occupation forces ensure that their losses are reduced, while the destruction and demolished buildings, as military experts say, may deprive the resistance of a heavy human presence, but it provides barricades that will help the resistance fighters and enable them to inflict heavy losses on the Israeli forces. Every resistance fighter in urban warfare is a defender hiding in a fortified bunker underground or above it. He knows the battlefield well and is fully prepared for it. According to experts, he needs 26 attacking soldiers for equality to occur between the two teams.

Third: Fear of the possibility of expanding the limited war on the northern front after it became clear that Hezbollah will not allow the resistance to be defeated, so it resorts to gradual escalation in its war, in proportion to the progress of the war, and the moment it feels that the resistance will be broken, it will not hesitate to expand the war. Even if this leads to a regional war with the entry of other fronts, Syrian, Iraqi, Yemeni, and finally Iranian, while I estimate that expanding the limited war in the north will contribute to stopping the war on the Palestinians, it will more than open the way to a regional war, which no one wants; because it is destructive and its results are not guaranteed.

Fourth: The Israeli government’s trade-off between initiating a pre-emptive strike against Hezbollah (being the second target of the Israeli war); Israeli and American sources indicated that the Israeli Minister of Defense called for a preemptive strike, but the American administration opposed that, and between starting the ground war in the Gaza Strip, and preparing at the same time to expand the war on the northern front.

Fifth: The pressure of the United States and the countries that have prisoners in the hands of the Palestinian resistance to delay the ground war, in the hope that it will be able to release them, especially since the resistance was good at using this card, and appeared humane and responsible and not ISIS, as stated by Abu Ubaida, the spokesman for the  Al-Qassam Brigades, when he announced that the civilian prisoners of other nationalities are guests, and will be released when appropriate conditions exist, and here negotiations are underway to stop the war for several hours, and perhaps for days, so that the resistance can release them.

The best way to conclude the article is what was stated in the article by Thomas Friedman, the American Zionist journalist close to the Biden administration. He said: “Seizing Gaza without linking it to a completely new approach regarding the settlements, the West Bank, and the two-state solution would be a disaster for Israel and a disaster for America,” and added: “It may lead to igniting a global fire and blowing up the entire structure of the pro-Washington coalition that the United States has built in the region” that was engineered by Henry Kissinger since the end of the October War in 1973, it “could otherwise irreparably damage Israel... threaten Jews everywhere and destabilize the entire world.”

It is clear that they did not and will not heed Friedman's advice, and therefore if they do not deter and stop the war, what he warned about will happen, and more than that, Israel will face defeat. Because the Palestinian people only have the option of steadfastness and victory, knowing that the war has Arab, regional and international extensions, and falls, with or without planning on its part, into the global struggle to draw the map of the region and the world, and to lead the next world order, and that tomorrow is near.