Many Palestinians rely primarily on UNRWA for assistance and employment; many Israelis, on the other hand, view UNRWA as a nagging reminder that Palestinian refugees continue to exist and, worse yet, demand their rights. If UNRWA were to go away, in the view ofsome Israelis, those refugees’ rights would disappear with it.
The day After – Gaza
The daily summary from Ha’aretz this morning said nothing surprising. It’s so unsurprising that it’s necessary to comment on what is not news, because it isn’t anything new. That’s not Ha’aretz’ fault, they’re just sharing updates that are so clear only dense people didn’t know them already.
Twenty weeks, about 140 days, and “four and half months” after what they refer to as the start of the Israel-Hamas war Jonathan Lis and Ben Samuels reported today that Prime Minister Netanyahy has presented “the day after” plan to his war cabinet for their approval. This is, they say, the first time that Netanyahu has presented a plan for Gaza since the “war” started. This contradicts what I said earlier, but the fact remains that what Netanyahu has proposed should surprise nobody.
Writing under the title “Netanyahu Unveils Israeli’s Plan for Post-War Gaza: Full Demilitarization and Closing UNRWA” Lis and Samuels say that Israel’s military goals haven’t changed, and then slip into the same paragraph about medium-term planning that ” the postwar plan adds that Israel will maintain security control over the West Bank.”
Netanyahu’s plans – which are really should be called Israel’s plans – for Gaza are both familiar and laughable. The plan for civil affairs and public order, also known as governance, ‘will be based on professionals with managerial experience. These local officials must not be identified with states or organizations that support terror and must not receive salaries from them.’ While this sounds like it makes a lot of sense, governance is, by long-standing practice of practically every place in the world, managed by officials that identify with states or organizations and receive salary from the state. Not only that, but the state generally carries out elections, and the elected people appoint people to help minister civil affairs and public order. The only difference is, that in Gaza, any elected officials according to Netanyahu’s plan, will be voted in from the outside.
Part of Netanyahu’s plan is to permanently end UNRWA. Defunding UNRWA has long been a goal of both Israel and many of Israel’s backers in the United States. UNRWA, The United Nations Relief and Works Agency in the Middle East was a temporary creation to deal with the 750,000 Palestinian refugees from Israel’s War of Independence, and has become the major support organization for Palestinians, rendering service from healthcare to education and beyond. Summarizing the recent and ongoing attempts to defund UNRWA, Moustafa Bayoumi wrote in The Guardian
Part of the plan of permanently dismantling UNRWA would be to make sure the Palestinians don’t exist or demand their rights.
Next, part of Netanyahu’s statement regarding his plan is that
rebuilding Gaza will only be possible once the Strip has been demilitarized and once a process of deradicalization has started. The rehabilitation plan will be carried out with funding from and under the leadership of countries of which Israel approves
I’ve mentioned before that part of Netanyahu’s grand plan, and a long-envisioned plan of Israel, is a demilitarized Palestine. It’s odd that Netanyahu sees the need to demilitarize Palestine, because he’s said several times – and current ministers in his government say the same thing – that there never be a Palestinian state. I’ve described before that in order for there to be peace both Israelis and Palestinians must disarm.
What exactly does Netanyahu means by the deradicalization of Gaza? Writing in November, 2023, professor Tom Mockaitis said the idea that more than two million Palestinians in Gaza need is deradicalization is patently absurd. What they actually needs is better economic conditions.
The second part of this point by Netanyahu is clear. ‘The rehabilitation plan will be carried out with funding from and under the leadership of countries of which Israel approves.’ The rebuilding of Gaza, to the extent it will be rebuilt someday, is only going to happen in the way Israel allows it to. The people of Gaza has no say in the development or redevelopment of Gaza.
Netanyahyu had one more point to convey to the war cabinet, or perhaps just to the world. ‘Israel utterly rejects international diktats over a final-status agreement with the Palestinians,’ and that a unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state by the international community ‘would grant a huge prize to terrorism, the like of which we have not seen before, and would prevent any future peace agreement.’
This is doubtless a response to President Biden’s repeated and meaningless statements in recent weeks that a conclusion to this current attack on Gaza must result in a two-state solution. Netanyahyu and Israeli ministers disagree – there should be no Palestinian state. It would be wrong to say that recognizing Palestine as a state would be a unilateral act; three-quarters of the world‘s countries consider Palestine to be a state.
The summary that Ha’aretz provided today was both obvious and worth sharing. Netanyahu has plans for Gaza and the Palestinians aren’t included in planning “the day after.”
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