The Biden administration, along with the governments of most European countries, continues to assert that the “two-state solution” appears to be the most viable option for fostering long-term peace between Israel and its neighboring countries to the east, north, and west. However, representatives advocating for this solution consistently overlook the fact that it was first proposed in 1993 and has yet to yield tangible results. An alternative proposition involves granting full independence to both the West Bank and Gaza, allowing them to become entirely separate countries with the potential to attain full UN membership status in due course.
In theory, hypothetically speaking, even if by the mid-2020s or perhaps by the late 2020s, every individual associated with organizations such as Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS, and others were incapacitated—whether through death, imprisonment, or injury—there would still likely be future terrorist attacks in Israel. Why? Because ideas cannot be eradicated by force alone. It is impossible to completely eliminate any ideology. New groups would emerge, espousing similar ideologies and resorting to violence as a means of advancing their cause, often without regard for international law or education.
The only sustainable approach to combatting ideologies that pose a threat to global peace is through education and enlightenment. Since the 1960s, terrorist attacks have persisted due to the enduring appeal of ideologies motivating these extremist groups. To truly mitigate this threat, efforts must be focused on educating individuals until the ideas that fuel terror cells lose their allure.
The notion of sacrificing oneself for a greater political goal or the perceived benefit of a group is not a novel concept. Such ideas have been present in human history since ancient times, dating back to the Bronze Age and quite possibly even earlier.
I’m well aware that there will be no shortage of historians and political analysts who will have other viewpoints on this, but in my view, the modern interpretation of the concept which has been embraced by numerous terrorist organizations since the 1960’s can be traced directly back to the writings of the Egyptian writer Sayyid Ibrahim Husayn Qutb (1906 – 1966).
The Processes Of Indoctrination and Radicalization
Numerous books have been dedicated to exploring the intricate dynamics of terrorist organizations. Intelligence agencies from various nations routinely conduct interviews with individuals formerly involved in terror cells, while also deploying undercover law enforcement officers to infiltrate these groups. Rooms where terrorists convene to discuss their plans are frequently monitored through video and audio surveillance.
Though terrorist organizations worldwide may espouse differing ideologies, certain elements of indoctrination and radicalization processes appear consistent across various terror cells.
For indoctrination to take root, there typically needs to be a kernel of truth embedded within a group’s ideology, drawn from accurate facts and real events.
Without this foundation, the ideology risks being easily dismissed. Typically, a select few individuals distort these real facts alongside religious and political ideologies to craft ideologies that prey on vulnerable individuals. This pattern has been evident in terrorist attacks dating back to the 1960s.
Gaza From 1947 Through 1995
The first proposals which had advocated for the creation of the modern state of Israel initially began with a meeting which was held in Basel, Switzerland in August of 1897. Half a century later, in November of 1947 the United Nations General Assembly approved Resolution 181, which is commonly referred to as “The Partition Plan For Palestine of 1947”. The intent of the 1947 partition plan was to create two independent countries, Israel and Palestine, and both of those two countries were intended become full UN member states.
The UK’s representatives to the UN had approved the terms of the Partition Plan, and they announced that the UK would withdraw from mandate Palestine. The UK adhered to their timeline for withdrawal, and 6 months later, in April of 1948, people who had been involved with various parties which had been advocating for the creating of an independent state of Israel established the modern state of Israel.
Under the terms of the 1947 Partition Plan, the governments of Jordan and Egypt were supposed to cede territories which would create an entirely separate country which would be called Palestine. Most of the politicians within the governments of Egypt and Jordan had been opposed to the Partition Plan, they’d voted against Resolution 181, and the governments of Egypt and Jordan never ceded the territories which had been intended to become the country Palestine. These are the territories which we refer to today as The West Bank and The Gaza Strip.
During the first decades of Israel’s independence, Israel did not experience peace with its neighbors. There was a war between Israel and all of its neighbors in 1948- 1949. There was a war between Israel and Egypt in 1956, and there was a war between Israel and all of its neighboring countries in the region in June of 1967. The war which occurred in 1967 is commonly referred to as the “Six Day War of 1967”.
It was during the 1967 war that the Israeli government had decided that because the governments of Jordan and Egypt had never complied with the terms of the 1947 Partition Plan and they’d never ceded the territories which the United Nations had intended to have been used for the creation of a State Of Palestine, Israel annexed The West Bank and Gaza. Israel also annexed the Sinai in 1967.
Hostilities erupted again in October of 1973; a number of countries in the Middle East attacked Israel in the conflict which is commonly referred to as “The Yom Kippur War,” “the Ramadan War” or “the Fourth Arab – Israeli War”.
By the mid 1970’s, the government of Egypt recognized that it was time for proposing a peace treaty. It was clear that continued conflicts would continue to deplete their resources by forcing them to continue to allocate further funding and resources for defense purposes, and that a treaty which could eventually result in trade with Israel would be beneficial for the people of Egypt, the people of Israel and for the entire region.
In 1978, the Camp David Accords were held, and the negotiations successfully led to The 1979 Egypt – Israel Peace Treaty. Under the terms of The 1979 Egypt – Israel Peace Treaty, Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt, and Gaza remained part of Israel.
While the 1979 Egypt – Israel Peace Treaty did lead to peace with Egypt, the governments of Israel’s other neighbors continued to refused to acknowledge Israel. There had been several parties which had been continuing to advocate for the creation of an independent Palestine, and in the early 1990’s, the government of Jordan had decided that the perpetuation of hostile relations with Israel was benefiting no one. The Oslo Accords of 1993- 1995 led to a peace treaty between Israel and Jordan as well as the treaties which were intended to create an independent Palestine.
While the borders which were established under the terms of the Oslo Accords are not the precise borders which the United Nations had proposed under the terms of the 1947 Partition Plan), most of the borders which were established under the terms of the Oslo Accords are within a few miles of the borders which the Resolution 181 of 1947 had been intended to establish. The reason that the Oslo Accords did not propose following the exact borders which Resolution 181 of 1947 had been intending to establish is that populations have shifted since 1947, and so attempting to define Israel’s borders with The West Bank and Gaza by following the precise borders which had been proposed in 1947 would be both impractical and counterproductive.
The Oslo Accords were written during the Clinton administration, and while former President Bush II’s views on many foreign policy issues differed greatly from those of the Clinton administration, former President Bush II did agree with the terms of the Oslo Accords. Former President Bush II’s plan which he’d referred to as the “Roadmap To Peace” was a direct continuation of the Oslo Accords.
Israel withdrew from most of Gaza in 1994. The Palestinian Authority had been the governing body in Gaza from 1994 through 2005. While the West Bank and Gaza have not been part of Israel since 1993 and 1995 respectively, Palestine did not become a UN member state, and this has left those two territories in an ambiguous position in terms of their official status.
The Palestinian Authority had been the governing body of both the West Bank and Gaza from 1994 through 2005. Elections were held in 2005, the Palestinian Authority retained authority of The West Bank, and Hamas was elected to be the governing body in Gaza.
Following the 2005 elections, Hamas had numerous opportunities to invest their resources into domestic infrastructure improvement projects, modernizing their education system from preschool through their high schools, expanding their colleges and their universities and to allocate funding for scientific research projects.
Instead, they opted to invest their funds into an elaborate series of propaganda campaigns in which they’ve spent the past 18 years constantly trying to create a series of reasons which were intended to explain that the Israeli government has been preventing them from working on any domestic infrastructure improvement projects, modernizing their education system and investing in other research projects. If they had spent their resources on domestic infrastructure projects, modernizing their education system and scientific research, they’d likely have been close to forging a new peace treaty with Israel and they’d also likely be close to achieving UN membership status. The government of Egypt had realized this in the mid 1970’s, and the government of Jordan realized this in the early 1990’s; this is what enabled the government of Israel to sign a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, and this is what enabled the Israeli government to sign a peace treaty with Jordan in 1994.
The Current Sanctions, Embargos and the Blockade Do Not Constitute An Occupation
If you’d have traveled to Gaza in recent years, you’d have seen Mediterranean beaches along the coast, you’d have seen people growing fruits and vegetables and raising animals inland, small industrial facilities, villages which are filled with apartment buildings and retail areas, you’d have seen cars, trucks and buses traveling along the roads. One thing that you’d not have seen is any Israelis.
Israel withdrew from Gaza entirely in 2005. The IDF did reenter into Gaza briefly in 2006 and again in 2014, and then they left entirely again in 2014. After 2014 the IDF did not return to any locations within Gaza until October of this 2023. Interesting “occupation”.
The complete absence of any Israelis anywhere in Gaza will be quite noticeable to anyone who travels to Gaza. So, why does the belief that Israel is occupying Gaza continue to persist?
There have been a series of sanctions which had been imposed against The West Bank and Gaza in 2006, in 2007 the Israeli government imposed a blockade on Gaza, and the militaries of both Egypt and Israel have been jointly tasked with enforcing the embargo. This is what has enabled terrorist groups to perpetuate the concept that Israel is occupying Gaza.
Hamas was fairly elected in the 2005 elections, no credible political analysts in any countries dispute this. However, after they assumed power they cancelled all further elections. Any group anywhere in the world who cancels all future elections does so for only one reason- their leadership are well aware that if free and fair elections were to be held, they people whom they are governing would opt to elect someone else as their next government.
I’m well aware that this is not what terrorists are thinking about. I doubt that the people who had committed the terrorist attacks in October of 2023 had been thinking that their actions would lead to achieving full UN membership status for Gaza. However, in order to comprehend the origins of the current conflict we do need to attempt to look at their situation from their perspective.
Terrorists possess no comprehension of modern international law, and they do not comprehend that international law actually exists specifically to protect all people throughout the world who believe that their human rights and their civil rights are being oppressed. Terrorists DO comprehend that they were displeased with the situations in which they’d been living under and that someone has presented a series of ideas to them which appeals to them. That’s all that terrorists need to comprehend. If they understood anything else, they’d not opt to become terrorists. So, we need to look at the educational system- or more specifically the lack of an adequate educational system which had left so many people living in a mindset which left them ripe for radicalization and indoctrination. And we need to look at the structure of the agencies which had been operating in Gaza who had decided that they preferred to fund an extensive series of propaganda campaigns which were designed to constantly find new ways to blame Israel for the poverty which is prevalent throughout Gaza rather than allocate funding for modernizing their educational system and attempting to ensure that an explanation of how the institutions of international law function in the 21st century would be included within the curriculum.
While the 1993- 1995 Oslo Accords did result in the creation of Gaza and the West Bank as territories which are no longer a part of Israel, the newly created countries did not become prosperous. The majority of the population of Gaza lived in impoverished conditions from 1995- 2005 when the Palestinian Authority had been the governing body, and the majority of the population of Gaza has continued to live in impoverished conditions since 2005 after Hamas became the governing body.
Gazans do not have to be permanently “trapped” within a small confined area. When Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, the Israeli government signed the 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access, which was intended to enable Gazans to begin to travel internationally. Restrictions were reinstated in 2007, 2 years after Hamas had assumed control of Gaza. The Israeli government does thoroughly comprehend that 99% of the people who live in Gaza have no connection to terrorism or to extremist groups or militias. However, with Hamas in power, it was not safe to allow the freedom of movement which the 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access had been intended to allow for.
The Israeli government is not responsible for the poverty in Gaza. People in Gaza had been permitted to travel to the Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon prior to October of 2023. People in Gaza had been able to import goods internationally. Commercial freight which had been destined for Gaza was initially sent to Israel, and then once the Israeli customs agents inspect and approve the cargo, it is subsequently sent into Gaza.
The poverty which is so prevalent throughout Gaza comes from the government structure (or more specifically the lack of any government structures) which have been created by Hamas. Hamas was elected in the 2005 elections, it was Hamas who chose not to allocate funding for programs which could have enabled the economy in Gaza to grow, and it was Hamas who opted to spend most of their funds on propaganda campaigns, on weapons, on building tunnels which were used by smugglers and on captagon.
People in Gaza are not free to travel from their own airports or seaports because there are no seaports or airports in Gaza. There had been an airport in Gaza which had opened in 1998, and the Israeli Air Force dismantled in 2001. The IDF bombed the Yasser Arafat International Airport (which had also been called “the Gaza International Airport” and “the Dahaniya International Airport”) in 2001. The Israeli military had ensured that everyone had been evacuated from the area prior to the aerial bombing, no one was killed or injured when the Israeli Air Force had destroyed the airport in Gaza.
People in Gaza were permitted to build seaports under the terms of the Oslo treaties. They began to construct a seaport in 1994 and again in 2000, and the Israeli government ordered the IDF to block the construction both times. The Israeli government’s decisions to destroy the airport as well as to prevent the construction of seaports in Gaza had not been inspired by any views which were held by any Israeli politicians that Gazans are somehow an inherently inferior group of people, politicians did not believe that the population of Gaza needed to be punished, and the demolition of the airport and the prevention of the construction of seaports were not part of any efforts to force people to live in poverty. The ministries within the Israeli government which had been responsible for these decisions would only have made those decisions if they had credible reasons to believe that terrorists from various groups which operate in Gaza were intending to use the airport and the proposed seaport to launch attacks against Israel. The decision to destroy the Gaza International Airport in December of 2001 and January of 2002 had been made based partly on analysis of the series of incidents which had occurred from the late 1960’s through the 1980’s in which the PLO had hijacked commercial passenger jets which had been destined to land in a number of different countries, and it seemed that the only way to keep Israel’s airspace secure was to ensure that there would be no possibility of planes which had suicide bombers as passengers aboard could be entering into Israeli airspace from Gaza. The Israeli government also needed to ensure that suicide bombers could not enter into Israel via the Mediterranean waters, and in the first decade of the 2000’s the only way to ensure this was to prohibit the construction of seaports. When the Gazans who are granted permission to travel internationally they usually use the airport in Cairo.
There is one small seaport in Gaza, it is mostly used by small fishing boats and by the Gaza police. There are no passenger ferries which travel through the seaport. In addition to plans for the construction of a new seaport which would have included slips for passenger ferries, there had also been a proposed train line which was intended to operate between Gaza City and Cairo which was never built.
The percentage of people in Gaza who do not complete their high school educations is relatively high, and it seems that in the high schools, there is very little emphasis on teaching how modern international law functions. The schools in Gaza are all administered directly by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (the UNRWA). While it may initially seem that people who work for an agency which is administered directly by the United Nations would want to emphasize teaching the basic principles of modern international law, it is now known that a number of people who had been working for the UNRWA had very close ties to Hamas. Whether or not the relationship between the UNRWA employees and Hamas is the reason that so little was being taught about international law in the schools in Gaza has not yet been established because the investigation between the relationship between the UNRWA and Hamas is still an active investigation, and therefore the agencies which are investigating this conflict of interests are not yet releasing the results of their findings to the media.
What Were The Terrorists Who Had Participated in the October 7th, 2023 Attacks Intending to Accomplish?
Considering that many of the terrorists who had participated in the October 7th 2023 attacks embraced ideologies which encourage people to intentionally embark on suicide missions and many of them did in fact succeed in getting themselves killed in October of 2023, it is no longer possible to interrogate them and to inquire about their intended goals. So, we have to analyze what is actually possible for us to know.
Hamas’ Intent May Have Been To Derail The Peace Process
The government of Saudi Arabia knows that Saudi Arabia needs new trade partners if they are going to have a healthy economy, and in October of 2023 the government of Saudi Arabia was on the verge of signing a new peace treaty with the government of Israel. If the intended objective of Hamas was to derail the peace process, then yes, they have in fact succeeded in accomplishing this goal. After the October 7th 2023 terrorist attacks, the hopes for proceeding with the proposed new peace treaty between Israel and Saudi Arabia have been delayed, and it will likely be several years now until the governments of Israel and Saudi Arabia are willing to resume talks towards a new treaty with each other again.
If the Terrorists Had Been Intending that Video Footage of the Israeli Military Bombing Gaza Will be Publicized Throughout The World, Then They Have Succeeded in Accomplishing This Goal Too
Why would they want to launch a series of terrorist attacks which they knew with complete certainty would result in thousands of their own citizens getting killed and many thousands more being injured? The reasoning does not have to make sense to me or to you- the reasoning only needs to make sense to them, and quite obviously this did make sense to them. And there is some evidence to suggest that getting Gazan civilians who have no connection to any terror groups or to any radical ideologies killed may have been a part of their intended goal.
The result of the October 2023 attacks has been that many civilians in Gaza who have no connections to any extremist or terrorist organizations have been injured or killed. Unfortunately because Hamas hides in tunnels which are located directly beneath civilian populations, while the IDF does seem to be making a very thorough effort to minimize civilian casualties, this will occur when terrorists hide among civilian populations.
Hamas is well aware of this. They’ve been trying to prevent people from being able to evacuate to safe zones. Although much of the population of Gaza does not currently have any other locations where they can go to, and although the Egyptian government is not accepting any refugees from Gaza, Hamas had also been blocking access to the Egyptian border. This means that Hamas’ officers are fully aware that the result of their attacks is that many Gazan civilians are going to get injured and killed- which makes their claim that they honestly believe that they are liberating anybody from anything seem notably questionable.
Hamas’ Intent May Have Been A Prisoner Exchange
In June of 2006, terrorists from Hamas’ Izz ad Din al Qassam Brigades kidnapped an Israeli soldier named Gilad Shalit, and they’d held him captive in Gaza until 2011. In October of 2011, the Israeli government agreed to release a total of 1,027 people who were being held in prisons in Israel in exchange for the return of Gilad Shalit. Some of the people who were released in the 2011 prisoner exchange, including Yahya Sinwar were involved in planning the terrorist attacks which Hamas executed on October 7th, 2023.
In October of 2011, the Israeli government had intended that the prisoner exchange would be a peace offering, not just to Gaza and The West Bank, but to the entire world. The Israeli government had been trying to engage in an act which was intended to show that the Israeli government and the people of Israel want to live in peace with Israel’s neighbors.
Hamas’ leadership may have grossly misinterpreted the 2011 prisoner exchange. They may have interpreted the prisoner exchange as an indication that they could continue to kidnap more Israelis in the future, and the Israeli government would continue to release people who were serving prison sentences for having committed violent crimes which they’d claimed had been politically motivated from prisons. The peace offering aspect of the 2011 prisoner exchange was obviously missed entirely by the current leadership of Hamas.
Hamas’ Intent May Have Been To Damage Israel’s Economic Growth
Did the terrorists facilitate the overthrow of Israel? No. But they have damaged Israel’s economic growth. The Israeli government has been funding a lot of infrastructure improvement projects in recent years. The Ministry Of Transportation is in the process of extending the light rail line in Jerusalem, and they have also approved funding for the construction of 2 new lines on Jerusalem’s light rail system. An entire new subway and light rail system is presently being constructed in Tel Aviv. The national rail lines were being extended. The Ministry Of Transport was in the process of widening the major highways throughout the country in anticipation of expected population growth. Israel’s citizenship laws allow for everyone in the world who can provide documentation which verifies that they are direct descendant of Jewish lineage to be fast tracked through the citizenship process. In recent years, many people have been moving to Israel from various countries in Africa, Europe, the U.S., Canada and Australia. The governments is expecting the population to continue to grow, so they’ve invested heavily in transportation projects which are intended to accommodate needs of the population of a country whose population is expected to soon reach 10 million people.
The progress of all of those transportation projects is now going to be delayed because resources need to be rerouted to the operations in Gaza and defending the northern regions of the country from Hezbollah.
Hamas’ Leadership May Have Thought That They’d Overthrow The Country Of Israel Entirely:
Again, it is not possible to know what the terrorists who had participated in the October 2023 attacks had been intending to accomplish. Most of them were killed on October 7th or within the following 2 days. It is not possible to interrogate people once they are deceased, so we will never know precisely what it is that they’d thought that they were intending to accomplish, therefore we will have to attempt to make sense of their actions based on the statements of the few terrorists who are still alive.
There are only a small handful of terrorists who had participated in the October 2023 attacks who are still alive, they are in prisons in Israel, and they will likely spend the rest of their lives in prison. Mossad agents have been interrogating the few terrorists who were not killed in October. Mossad is intentionally issuing only some of the information which they’ve been able to acquire from the terrorists whom they have been interrogating to the media, and the statements which Mossad has acquired from the few remaining terrorists which they have released to the media are disjointed and difficult to make sense of.
Based on the information that Mossad has been able to acquire from the terrorists which they have released to the media, it seems possible that the people who organized as well as participated in the October 2023 attacks may have been intending to end the existence of the State Of Israel entirely. They may have thought that their attacks would inspire other groups such as Hezbollah and various factions of the PLO to attack Israel and that this would eventually result in the overthrowing of the state of Israel.
There are a number of administrators within Hamas’ leadership who perceive the entire existence of the modern state of Israel as being an occupation. There’s no shortage of people within Hamas who want to see all of the land which currently comprises Israel ruled either by them or by various factions of the PLO. They do not wish to honor terms of the UN’s Resolution 181 from 1947 which was the basis for the creation of the State Of Israel. Hamas is a terrorist organization, by definition terrorist organizations are not interested in modern international law, and furthermore Gaza is one of the very few locations in the entire world which currently has no official status in any IGO’s, so many people in Gaza likely believe that agencies which comprise modern international law either ignore them, have failed them entirely or have no relevance to their lives.
The Current Conflict May Be Intended To Be A Practice Run By The Iranian Government
We also have to consider the possibility that Hamas may not have been intending to accomplish any long term goals at all with the October 7th, 2023 attacks. The current war is not really a war between Israel and Gaza, this is a proxy war. Hamas receives their weapons, their training and their supplies mostly from Iran, and they also from some supplies from Syria. The Iranian government may have planned this attack solely because they want to observe how the IDF responds, they want to observe Israel’s strategy so that they can plan a much larger attack which could be launched by Hezbollah at a later date. Hezbollah is a much larger organization than Hamas, and they possess a much larger arsenal.
It Is Clear That Hamas Underestimated The IDF And The IDF Has Underestimated Hamas
Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad did not record their discussions and their conversations which had led up to their decisions to launch a series of terrorist attacks against Israel. The Israeli government is releasing only very limited information to the media about their investigation into lapses in intelligence which led to the missed opportunities which could potentially have prevented the October 2023 series of terrorist attacks from occurring. It is quite clear that the IDF had underestimated Hamas and that Hamas had underestimated the IDF.
The information that the Israeli government has released to the media regarding the series of intelligence failures indicates that Israel’s Ministry Of Defense had in fact discussed the possibility of terrorist attacks from Gaza. The Ministry Of Defense had underestimated the number of militants in Hamas and other terrorist organizations in Gaza, and they’d concluded that it would be another several years before Hamas would be capable of launching a series of terrorist attacks on the scale of the series of attacks that they’d launched in October of 2023. We now know that part of the reason that the intelligence agencies within the Israeli government and the Israeli military had underestimated the capabilities of Hamas is that Hamas had been holding most of their meetings in which they’d planned their attacks in an extensive series of tunnels which are located beneath the cities of Gaza. While Israel’s intelligence agencies are very vigilant about monitoring all of the activity which occurs above ground throughout Gaza, it is not possible to monitor meetings which are held in tunnels.
It is also now known that throughout September of 2023, many of the security guards who had been working at posts along the Gaza border had been repeatedly attempting to warn their commanding officers that they’d been observing activity which appeared to be suspicious along the borders, and their commanding officers had repeatedly dismissed the reports that they’d been receiving. The officers who had been receiving the reports from border guards about suspicious activity had felt that Hamas did not pose a threat which was worth investigating or monitoring further.
While we will never know the thought process that led to Hamas’ decision to launch terrorist attacks in October of 2023, it is doubtful that Hamas’ leaders had expected that the IDF would destroy half of Gaza. By now approximately half of the buildings in Gaza have been at least partially damaged, more than half of the population has been displaced, there is a severe lack of water, food, fuel, plumbing, clothing and medical supplies.
Further evidence that Hamas appears to have vastly underestimated the capabilities of the IDF can be observed by statements that they’ve been issuing via social media. In the autumn of 2023 Hamas had issued statements in which they’d stated that they’d felt that the U.S. government had been too accepting of the Israeli government’s descriptions of the events of October 7th, 2023. They had also had offered to release all of the hostages if Israel would cease all aerial bombings. These statements indicate that the war is not proceeding according to Hamas’ expectations.
The population of Israel has been consistently expanding every year for the past several years. Because military service is mandatory in Israel, the population growth is resulting in a larger military. People from a number of countries throughout the world have continued to move to Israel following the start of the current conflict.
While military service is mandatory for much of the population of Israel, military service is optional for members of some fundamentalist sects of Orthodox Jews, and prior to 2023 very few people from the sects which have legal exemption from military service had been opting to join the military. After October of 2023, people from the religious sects who are legally exempt from conscription have been opting to enlist in the military for the first time in Israeli history.
In Israel people are typically drafted into the military after they complete their high school education, though people have the option to join the military when they turn 17. People who select to join the military at the age of 17 complete their high school education while they are in the military. Soldiers cannot legally serve in combat positions until they turn 18, soldiers who are 17 years old work in other positions while they are too young to serve in combat positions. Prior to 2023, very few people in Israel opted to enlist at the age of 17, I suspect that a lot more people are going to opt to do this now.
Membership in terror cells may be growing now too. It is well known that wars create opportunities for indoctrination and radicalization. Intelligence agencies in quite a few countries are attempting to monitor the activities of all of the known terror cells which are currently operating throughout the Middle East. For security reasons, the intelligence agencies which are monitoring terror cells are not going to release precise numbers regarding their estimates of the sizes of the terror cells that they are monitoring to the media.
It is clear that all of the parties which are presently involved in the current war did underestimate each others’ capabilities. Every day now, we see politicians and political analysts in the U.S. and Europe discussing concerns that the current war can escalate into a larger regional conflict which would involve a lot more countries. It is clear that a solution which would result in a long-term stable peace between Israel and all of its neighbors is needed. Furthermore, it should be clear to politicians throughout the world that a solution which would involve a series treaties which would be comparable to the Abraham Accords in which Israel would be able to resume trade with its neighbors and allow for people to travel between Israel and the neighboring countries would be beneficial for the long term prosperity of the entire region.
What Is The Current Legal Status Of Gaza?
This is the most important issue relating to the future of Gaza. Gaza is not an Israeli colony. Gaza is not a fully independent country yet either, and without the ability to function as a fully independent country, people who live there as well as their family members who live in other countries will likely continue to feel alienated. When people feel alienated, they become susceptible to radicalization. The State Of Palestine officially has non-member/ observer status in the United Nations. However, due to the terminology which was used in the decision to grant observer status, it’s debatable whether the “State Of Palestine” refers to an entity which includes both The West Bank and Gaza, or if the phrase “The State Of Palestine” is intended to refer specifically to The West Bank. The application for observer status was submitted by Mahmoud Abbas in 2011, and as of 2011 the Palestinian National Authority had no legal authority over Gaza, they were only the official governing body of the West Bank.
If you opt to interpret the 2011 decision to grant observer status to the State Of Palestine as referring to an entity which is comprised of both Gaza and The West Bank, then Gaza has official observer/ non member status. If you opt to interpret the 2011 decision to grant observer status to the State Of Palestine as referring to an entity which only includes The West Bank, then Gaza has no official status whatsoever under current international law.
It is important to note that if you do opt to interpret the 2011 decision to grant observer status to the State Of Palestine as referring to an entity which is comprised of both The West Bank as well as Gaza, then the current governing body of a country which has non-member observer status in the United Nations was directly responsible for the October 7th 2023 attacks. The United Nations does not grant membership status to terrorists. If Gaza is to be granted full member status, they will have to be governed by a party which has no connections to terrorism.
Is A Fully Independent Gaza A Viable Possibility In The 21st Century?
Microstates do in fact exist, and some are quite prosperous. The microstates in which sizeable percentages of the population experience a relatively high standard of living and in which sizeable percentages of the population have comparably high annual incomes have become prosperous because their governments have invested in infrastructure projects, medical facilities, their governments allocate a lot of funding for continuing to modernize the education systems in those countries, and the governments also allocate funding for tourism in those countries. The microstates which are prosperous did not become prosperous as a result of their governments secretly allocating funding for terror cells while concurrently embarking on an elaborate propaganda campaign which is intended to fabricate a series of excuses which are intended to explain how their neighbors are preventing them from becoming prosperous.
Gaza includes more than 20 miles of Mediterranean coastal beaches, and there are some archaeology sites which date back to the late bronze age and to the iron age in the inland regions. The governments of Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Israel and Egypt have all figured out ways to turn similar resources into highly successful and profitable tourism industries. There is no reason that a governing body in Gaza would not also be able to create a successful tourism industry.
Currently Gaza lacks a central national governing body which is willing to do anything to attempt to allocate resources for infrastructure projects, medical facilities, their education systems, scientific research projects or creating a tourism industry. This is a complex cycle: without a central national governing body which is willing to address any of those aforementioned issues, their chances of achieving full UN membership will be notably slim. Without full UN membership, they are stuck in a state of limbo, which enables a rogue regime such as Hamas to perpetuate the idea that the international community has abandoned them entirely. Once Hamas or any other organization is able to perpetuate the idea that almost no one anywhere in the world is interested in paying any attention to Gaza, they’ve created an environment which is ripe for new terror cells to continue to form. Once new terror cells form, most countries will support international embargos or a blockade because it is no great secret that terrorists do not only pose a direct threat to Israel, modern terrorists pose a threat to the entire world. Once an embargo has been imposed, the embargo will need to be enforced, thus contributing to the illusion of an occupation. And once people have been convinced that they’re being occupied, it’s not difficult to promote ideologies which state that all diplomatic efforts and peaceful means have been fully exhausted and the only way to overthrow the occupiers is through new rounds of violence.
“I Stand With ….”
You may meet some people who state that they subscribe to views which are both pro-Israeli and concurrently pro-Palestinian. Is this possible?
Actually, yes. Yes, this is quite possible. While the media in many countries seem to present the view that if one is pro-Israeli then by definition they are going to be opposed to a healthy West Bank and a healthy Gaza, and that if someone embraces ideologies which are pro-Palestinian, then by default they are going to be anti-Israel, this is not what the 1993 Oslo I Treaty and the subsequent 1995 Oslo II treaties were intended to accomplish. People who state that they embrace ideologies which are both pro-Israeli and concurrently pro-Palestinian are people who have likely read the terms of the 1993- 1995 Oslo Accords and they comprehend what those 2 treaties were intending to accomplish.
The Oslo Accords were not intending to create a situation in which one country becomes wealthy, people experience a relatively high standard of living within it, while its neighbors live in poverty. The people who wrote the terms of the Oslo Accords recognized that a healthy Gaza, a healthy Israel and a healthy West Bank would contribute towards the long term stability of the entire region, thus potentially creating an environment in which people in Gaza, Israel and the West Bank could all experience a relatively high standard of living.
At no time did the government of Israel have any interest in preventing the governing bodies of The West Bank or Gaza from pursuing any of those objectives. The government of Israel does recognize that all projects which would contribute to the long term stability of the region would actually be beneficial to everyone. A world in which tourists from throughout the world would potentially view Gaza, Israel and the West Bank as appealing destinations would be profitable for everyone. A situation in which everyone is living in a constant state of fear of another terrorist attack will not attract terribly many tourists.
A Clarification Regarding Terminology
You’ll notice that throughout the course of this article, I’ve not used the phrase “proposed three state solution”. While the plan which I’m proposing would involve the creation two new countries, and thus Israel, The West Bank and Gaza would be three separate countries, the reason that I’m not using the phrase “three state solution” in this article is that the phrase “three state solution” refers specifically to a proposal which dates back to 2008 in which control of the West Bank would be returned to the government of Jordan and control of Gaza would be returned to the government of Egypt. This is precisely the opposite of what I’m proposing in this article, this would solve nothing and this would likely create further problems in future decades. If the government of Jordan had ceded the West Bank and the government of Egypt has ceded Gaza back in 1948, as the UN General Assembly Resolution 181 had instructed them to do back in November of 1947, most of the conflicts which have occurred within the region since 1948 would likely have been avoided. So, while I am discussing a proposal which would result in three separate countries, this is not the “three state solution” which some politicians and political analysts sometimes mention.
A Proposal Which Involves A Fully Independent West Bank And A Separate Independent Gaza Is Not An Effort To Divide Or To Crush The Collective Will Of A People
One of the primary objections to all proposals which involve creating two separate fully independent states for Gaza and The West Bank is that the Palestinians view themselves as one united people, and some of them would view the creation of separate countries as an effort to further divide them from each other. However, a very simple glance at a map of the world in 2024 will show that there are presently 193 UN member states. It is very easy to find quite a few examples throughout the world today in which people who are of the same ethnic, religious, linguistic and cultural heritages live in separate countries. That’s the reality of modern geography in a world in which the current population is now approaching 8 billion people, and will continue to grow. In most situations in which people who share common ethnic, religious, linguistic and cultural heritages live in separate countries, they are able to do so peacefully.
Much of the population of Gaza and the West Bank are people who do share a common lineage, genetics studies verify this. Therefore, it could actually potentially become beneficial for them for The West Bank and Gaza to become two fully independent and concurrently separate countries because if The West Bank and Gaza are to become two fully independent and concurrently separate countries then the Palestinian people would have two seats in the United Nations as well as in the Arab League.
Is A Solution Which Proposes The Creation Of A Fully Independent Gaza A Realistic Proposal?
As I’ve mentioned, it is not possible for us to know what the terrorists who organized and engaged in the attacks of October 7th, 2023 had thought that they were intending to accomplish because almost all of them are dead now. However, it is very clear what the attacks have accomplished. All of the domestic infrastructure improvement projects which were being constructed throughout Israel have now been delayed by many years because the Israeli government now has to allocate a much larger percentage of the country’s resources on defense. This has not only damaged the economic growth of Israel, this has damaged the economic growth of the entire region. The progress towards a peace treaty between Israel and Saudi Arabia has also been delayed, but the progress towards a peace treaty has not entirely ended; there will not be a peace treaty between Israel and Saudi Arabia in 2024, but it looks as if a peace treaty between the 2 countries will still be possible, perhaps in the late 2020’s or possibly sometime in the 2030’s. There have been prisoner exchanges; the Israeli government has released quite a few Palestinians from some of the prisons in Israel in exchange for some of the hostages whom Hamas had captured. And the IDF has destroyed approximately half of the buildings and the roads throughout Gaza, and many Gazan civilians have ended up getting killed in the crossfire while the IDF has been in the process of locating, capturing and killing terrorists.
As I’ve mentioned at the beginning of this article, the concept that it is noble and admirable to sacrifice ones’ life for what one perceives to be goals which will benefit the greater good of a community dates back as far as the late bronze age; the idea is not likely to disappear anytime soon. There will continue to be no shortage of people who are willing to place a 21st century spin on this concept and then proceed to pedal perverse ideologies to people who are impoverished and feeling alienated from the world which surrounds them. It is very clear that the international community needs to create an environment in Gaza in which ideologies which seem to inspire many of the terrorist organizations which are operating throughout the Middle East in the 2020’s will no longer appeal to people. Allowing Gaza to become its own fully independent country which would eventually be able to apply for UN membership would be an ideal place to start. The results of the 2005 Palestinian elections have demonstrated that there will be years in which the majority of the people who live in Gaza do not want to be governed by the same people who govern The West Bank, so it seems that allowing Gaza and The West Bank to become two entirely separate and independent countries would now be the best opportunity for creating an environment which would allow the people who live in those two territories to feel like they will soon be part of the same international system which the rest of the world is living in. People will no longer feel that the institutions of 21st century international law have no relation to their lives. Furthermore, an environment needs to be created which would encourage people to complete their high school educations, the schools will have to have explanations about how the institutions which are responsible for legislating as well as enforcing modern international law function included in the curricula, and there will need to be oversight to ensure that people who work in the schools are not associated with any terrorist organizations.
There have been eight new countries which have been granted full membership status in the United Nations since 2000, and six of those 8 countries still exist in 2024. A new governing body of Gaza would have to demonstrate that they have no ties to any terrorist organizations, to any rogue militias or to any organizations which are involved with smuggling or human trafficking, and then they’d be eligible to follow the same procedures which the governments of all of the other countries which have achieved full UN membership status have been doing since the United Nations initially began operating in 1945.
If Gaza and The West Bank do achieve full UN membership status, the next governing body of Gaza can invest their resources into domestic infrastructure improvement projects, modernizing their education system, from preschool through high school, expanding their colleges and their universities and scientific research projects. They might want to begin by constructing new water desalination plants, new electricity plants and building a new mint so that they can produce their own coins and currency because I can be quite certain that the era in which they receive their water, their electricity, their fuel as well as their national currency from Israel is quite finished.
A fully independent Gaza and a separate and fully independent West Bank would obviously not immediately solve all issues relating to Israel’s relationship with its neighbors. There’s no shortage of examples from history in which some of the rogue regimes throughout the world of the 20th and the 21st centuries have had members in their cabinets and in their militaries who had been surprisingly well educated, and so this proposal would not eliminate all possibilities of future terror attacks, but as of February of 2024 this seems like the best possible hope for stability in the entire region for the duration of the 21st century.
