The Israeli media reports that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is about to push for Israel to occupy Gaza. This has been long in the offing. Some members of Netanyahu’s government have, ever since the horrific terrorist atrocities on October 7 2023, talked about removing the entire population of Gaza and replacing them. An American plan – we don’t know how serious – was to involve foreign occupation and the creation of an American-administered Mediterranean Riviera in Gaza.
The leaders of the Israeli settler movement, meanwhile, have protested near the border with Gaza and demanded that they be permitted to settle the strip as they have settled in the West Bank. A groundswell of support in Israel – by no means a majority – considers the indefinite takeover of Gaza to be the only permanent solution to the war.
I believe this is mistaken. Occupying Gaza is a terrible idea and would be a grave mistake if the Israeli government and Knesset agree to it. Occupation tends to create more problems than it solves; and it becomes an open wound, a staging post for all of a nation’s domestic and foreign enemies.
An occupation soon proves itself a point of vulnerability, not a demonstration of a nation’s strength and resolve. It is no surprise that hundreds of retired Israeli security officials, including former heads of intelligence agencies, have recently issued a letter to Donald Trump and called on him to pressure Netanyahu to end the war rather than continue it indefinitely.
Western countries know well the perils of occupation. After the September 11 attacks in 2001 – former president Joe Biden’s favourite comparison for October 7 – the United States deposed the rulers of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam’s Iraq and settled in for significant occupations of both countries. Initially at least, these were mounted with British and international help.
In the realms of highest theory, these occupations might have borne fruit. The Afghan economy grew at a rate unseen since the 1970s. Infant mortality collapsed. The population doubled. The number of Afghans who were literate after twenty years without the Taliban in Kabul dwarfed the population who could read in 2001.
Iraq nowadays is a very flawed democracy. Recent visitors to Baghdad tell me they cannot believe how prosperous and peaceful it seems.
But the United States still lost those wars. It was still utterly humiliated and defeated.
America, it turned out, simply wanted to rule Afghanistan less than the Taliban did, and to rule Iraq less than Iraq-based proxies with ties to Iran. There is no reason to think Israelis will be keener to rule Gaza in a decade than those who live there.
Hamas’s leadership has been devastated; the Palestinian Authority is led by 89-year-old Mahmoud Abbas. Some Israeli policymakers might see a vacuum there to be filled with good foreign governance. But this would be false. The truth is that, in the modern world, no matter your reasons and no matter what you think you are doing for the territories under your occupation, the resentment and unhappiness of those living there will win out.
We cannot forget that Israel occupied Gaza from 1967 to 2005. When that occupation ended, Hamas came to power on a tide of grievance and threats. The only alternative to the same result would be not just be a forever war but a forever occupation – a permanent Afghanistan, an eternal Vietnam.
Every issue with the food supply, with electricity and water, would become Israel’s problem. So would every unnatural civilian death. Most countries would not wish the administration of Gaza upon their worst enemies. Israel’s leaders would be better not to take it on willingly.
The Israeli media reports that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is about to push for Israel to occupy Gaza. This has been long in the offing. Some members of Netanyahu’s government have, ever since the horrific terrorist atrocities on October 7 2023, talked about removing the entire population of Gaza and replacing them. An American plan – we don’t know how serious – was to involve foreign occupation and the creation of an American-administered Mediterranean Riviera in Gaza.
The leaders of the Israeli settler movement, meanwhile, have protested near the border with Gaza and demanded that they be permitted to settle the strip as they have settled in the West Bank. A groundswell of support in Israel – by no means a majority – considers the indefinite takeover of Gaza to be the only permanent solution to the war.
I believe this is mistaken. Occupying Gaza is a terrible idea and would be a grave mistake if the Israeli government and Knesset agree to it. Occupation tends to create more problems than it solves; and it becomes an open wound, a staging post for all of a nation’s domestic and foreign enemies.
An occupation soon proves itself a point of vulnerability, not a demonstration of a nation’s strength and resolve. It is no surprise that hundreds of retired Israeli security officials, including former heads of intelligence agencies, have recently issued a letter to Donald Trump and called on him to pressure Netanyahu to end the war rather than continue it indefinitely.
Western countries know well the perils of occupation. After the September 11 attacks in 2001 – former president Joe Biden’s favourite comparison for October 7 – the United States deposed the rulers of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam’s Iraq and settled in for significant occupations of both countries. Initially at least, these were mounted with British and international help.
In the realms of highest theory, these occupations might have borne fruit. The Afghan economy grew at a rate unseen since the 1970s. Infant mortality collapsed. The population doubled. The number of Afghans who were literate after twenty years without the Taliban in Kabul dwarfed the population who could read in 2001.
Iraq nowadays is a very flawed democracy. Recent visitors to Baghdad tell me they cannot believe how prosperous and peaceful it seems.
But the United States still lost those wars. It was still utterly humiliated and defeated.
America, it turned out, simply wanted to rule Afghanistan less than the Taliban did, and to rule Iraq less than Iraq-based proxies with ties to Iran. There is no reason to think Israelis will be keener to rule Gaza in a decade than those who live there.
Hamas’s leadership has been devastated; the Palestinian Authority is led by 89-year-old Mahmoud Abbas. Some Israeli policymakers might see a vacuum there to be filled with good foreign governance. But this would be false. The truth is that, in the modern world, no matter your reasons and no matter what you think you are doing for the territories under your occupation, the resentment and unhappiness of those living there will win out.
We cannot forget that Israel occupied Gaza from 1967 to 2005. When that occupation ended, Hamas came to power on a tide of grievance and threats. The only alternative to the same result would be not just be a forever war but a forever occupation – a permanent Afghanistan, an eternal Vietnam.
Every issue with the food supply, with electricity and water, would become Israel’s problem. So would every unnatural civilian death. Most countries would not wish the administration of Gaza upon their worst enemies. Israel’s leaders would be better not to take it on willingly.