Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently said that Israeli soldiers will remain in the Gaza Strip indefinitely.
At the same time, Israeli officials have talked about creating a “buffer zone” to keep the Palestinians away from the Israeli border. They rule out that the Palestinian authorities in the occupied West Bank can play any role in the area, where there is still no prospect of Israel’s warfare being successful.
The US vision for the area appears to be completely different. US government officials say they will not allow Israel to reoccupy Gaza. Nor will they allow Israel to reoccupy parts of the area so that what is envisioned as a future Palestinian state shrinks once again.
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Want Abbas to Gaza
Instead, US officials have expressed the wish that the self-governing authority in the occupied West Bank regain power in Gaza, and that negotiations on a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine resume.
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It is now over 16 years since Hamas won the Palestinian elections and ousted Fatah and the self-governing authority from Gaza.
Since then, support for the self-governing authority and President Mahmoud Abbas has continued to fall, and after two months of war, the fall is free.
Nevertheless, the US maintains that the best solution is to hand over power in the Gaza Strip to Abbas and his men.
Abbas himself says that he only envisages a return to Gaza if it is part of a wider plan for the creation of a Palestinian state and with the 1967 borders as a starting point.
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Video causes a stir: Must kneel in the streets in their underwear
Hamas may play a role
Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh even allows Hamas to become part of a new Palestinian government. In an interview with Bloomberg, he confirms that there are ongoing talks with the US about a Palestinian takeover of power in Gaza.
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– If they are ready to enter into an agreement and accept the PLO’s political platform, there will be room for talks. Palestinians should not be divided, says Shtayyeh.
The aim is to build an independent state consisting of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, according to the prime minister, who himself belongs to the Fatah party, the largest and most important wing of the PLO.
But Netanyahu has little left for the plans. He believes that Abbas cannot be trusted, and also rejects the idea of deploying an international peacekeeping force in Gaza. Only the Israeli army is capable of securing a “demilitarized” Gaza, he claims.
Ulne Israeli plans
As for Israel’s own plans for the Gaza Strip, he is vague.
– After destroying Hamas, Gaza must be demilitarized and deradicalized so that there will be no threat to Israel from Gaza. The buffer zone becomes part of the demilitarization. That is the plan, says Ophir Falk, one of Netanyahu’s advisers.
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Only at the beginning of December were Israel’s Western alliance partners and neighboring countries informed about the buffer zone plan. But no detailed plan should have been put on the table.
– They only say that it will be a temporary buffer zone, says an unnamed Egyptian source.
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Among the countries briefed on the plan were Egypt, Qatar, Jordan, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
In the past, an Israeli document has also been leaked in which plans are made for the displacement of Gaza’s population to the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, a plan that Egypt has strongly distanced itself from.
Demand a truce first
The authorities in Arab countries have so far refused to talk about Gaza’s future as long as the fighting continues. Among them is Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, who recently stated that “Arab countries will not come to clean up the mess after Israel.”
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Qatar’s Emir Tamim bin Hamad has gone so far as to accuse Israel of genocide and crimes against humanity, while the country is deeply involved in the mediation between Hamas and Israel.
From the American side, there have also been statements which indicate that the USA is becoming increasingly skeptical of the signals from Israel. Vice President Kamala Harris recently stated that a new Israeli occupation of Gaza is completely out of the question.
– Five principles guide our approach to Gaza after the war – no forced displacement, no reoccupation, no siege or blockade, no reduction in territories, and no use of Gaza as a platform for terrorism, Harris said in a speech in Dubai on the first weekend of December.
– We want to see the unification of Gaza and the West Bank under Palestinian self-governing authorities, and Palestinian voices and longings must form the core of this work, she added.
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– Agree to crush Hamas
In Israel too, there is some frustration with Netanyahu. According to the commentator Amos Harel in the newspaper Haaretz, Israeli defense officials believe that Netanyahu is most concerned with keeping his strongly right-wing government together, and that this is what motivates the warfare.
However, Israel and the US have always agreed on one important goal: to crush Hamas, writes the AP news agency.
– It is important for them that Israel achieves its military goals because it is the start of any change that can happen the following day, says Israeli intelligence chief Eldad Shavit.
He believes that the US will only try to pressure Israel when it comes to the protection of civilian lives and emergency aid, not on the future plans for Gaza.
At the same time, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Washington has spoken of a “transition period” after the war – without saying anything about how long such a period will last.
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Election year in the USA
But Biden also has considerations to take at home in the United States. Because while the death toll continues to rise in the Gaza Strip, he is entering an election year where the Democratic Party risks a strong split as a result of the war.
A significant part of his voters want an end to Israel’s warfare, and the division is likely to increase as long as it is completely unclear what will happen next and the suffering of the Palestinians continues.
Middle East expert Daniel Levy believes that the US’s reaction to the large numbers of civilian casualties in the south of Gaza has been “lukewarm”, and that this indicates that the Americans are unlikely to put their foot down for Israel’s warfare.
He has previously been one of Israel’s negotiators in the peace negotiations with the Palestinians, but today heads the foreign policy institute US/Middle East Project.
– Israel has a feeling that the race they are running is not endless, but they still feel that they have a long way to go, says Daniel Levy.
2023-12-08 12:07:18
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