*Republished from +972 Magazine
At first glance, it is difficult to make sense of the split within the Israeli government over the day after in Gaza, which led Benny Gantz to leave the coalition last Sunday. At a press conference announcing his decision, Gantz accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “preventing … a real victory” by failing to present a workable plan for the Strip’s post-war governance.
Gantz, who joined the government and war cabinet after October 7 as minister without portfolio, has been urging Netanyahu for months to present his plan for the “day after.” The prime minister, who has a personal and political interest in prolonging the war, has so far refused to present one; on the contrary, he has only repeatedly insisted that he rejects both the maintenance of a “Hamastan” and its replacement with a “Fatahstan” run by the Palestinian National Authority (PA).
However, Gantz doesn’t have a viable plan either. His proposal – to replace Hamas with an “international civil governance mechanism” that includes some Palestinian elements, while granting Israel overall control of security – is so far-fetched that its practical meaning is to continue the war indefinitely. In other words, exactly what Netanyahu and his far-right allies want.
The same can be said of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who was Gantz’s closest ally in the war cabinet. Gallant reportedly walked out of a security cabinet meeting last month when fellow ministers reprimanded him for asking Netanyahu to rule out prolonged civilian or military control of Gaza. But the defense minister’s alternative proposal is essentially the same as Gantz’s: establish a government run by non-Hamas “Palestinian entities” with international support – something no Palestinian, Arab or international actor will accept.
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It is true that Gantz and Gallant also asked Netanyahu to prioritize an agreement with Hamas to bring the hostages home, while the prime minister is dragging his feet. But even this apparent disagreement collapses: any agreement would involve a significant, if not complete, Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a months-long, if not permanent, ceasefire. Such a scenario would result in one of two possibilities: the return to authority of Hamas or the reintroduction of the PA, both of which are unacceptable both to Gantz and Gallant and to Netanyahu and his far-right allies.
So why does the Israeli right see Gantz and Gallant’s fundamentally inconsistent proposals as an existential threat? The answer goes far beyond disagreement on the issue of the “day after” of Gaza. What Gantz and Gallant implicitly acknowledge, and what Netanyahu and his allies refuse to admit, is that Israel’s decades-long “separation policy” collapsed in the wake of the October 7 attacks. No longer able to maintain the illusion that Gaza has been separated from the West Bank and therefore from any future Palestinian political solution, Israeli leaders are in trouble.
From separation to annexation
Israel’s separation policy can be traced back to the early 1990s when, against the backdrop of the First Intifada and the Gulf War, the government began imposing a permit regime on Palestinians that limited movement between the West Bank and Gaza. These restrictions intensified during the Second Intifada and reached their peak following Israel’s “disengagement” from Gaza in 2005 and Hamas’s subsequent rise to power.
Most Israelis believed that Israel had left Gaza and therefore no longer had any responsibility for what was happening in the Strip. The international community largely rejected this position and continued to view Israel as the occupying power in Gaza, but the Israeli government has consistently shirked its responsibilities towards the enclave’s residents. At most, he was willing to grant Palestinians travel permits to enter the West Bank or Israel for special humanitarian reasons.
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When Netanyahu returned to the presidency in 2009, he worked to consolidate the policy of separation. He widened the rift between Gaza and the West Bank by funneling funds to the Hamas government in the Strip, based on the belief that dividing Palestinians geographically and politically would limit the possibility of an independent Palestinian state.
This, in turn, paved the way for Israel to annex part or even all of the West Bank. When Yoram Ettinger, an “expert” on the demographics of the Israeli right, was asked in 2021 how he would handle the fact that there are roughly the same number of Jews and Palestinians between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, he explained that «Gaza is not in play and is not relevant… The area under discussion is Judea and Samaria (the West Bank, ed.)».
David Friedman, the pro-annexation US ambassador appointed by Donald Trump, agreed that after the withdrawal from Gaza only the West Bank issue remained relevant. «The evacuation [degli israeliani] from Gaza had a salutary effect: it took 2 million Arabs out of the demographic equation,” he said in 2016. By eliminating Gaza from the conversation, the former ambassador explained, Israel could maintain a Jewish majority even if it annexed the West Bank and granted citizenship to its Palestinian residents.
A strategic power vacuum
One of Hamas’ stated reasons for the October 7 attack was to shatter the illusion that Gaza is a separate entity and return the Strip and the entire Palestinian cause to history. In this he undoubtedly succeeded.
However, even after October 7, Israel continued to largely ignore the connection between Gaza and the West Bank, as well as its centrality to the Palestinian struggle as a whole. Israel has consistently refused to articulate a coherent plan for the “day after” because to do so it must necessarily address the status of the Strip in the broader Israeli-Palestinian context. Any such discussion undermines Israel’s carefully cultivated separation policy.
In addition to its sheer brutality, Israel’s current assault on Gaza differs in important ways from previous wars. Never before has Israel allowed a territory under its military control to remain essentially ungoverned. When the Israeli army first occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, it immediately established a military government that assumed responsibility for the civil administration of the lives of the occupied residents. When he occupied southern Lebanon in 1982, he did not dismantle the existing Lebanese government; After establishing a “security zone” in 1985, Israel handed over responsibility for civil affairs to a local militia.
This is in stark contrast to the current operation. Despite the fact that Israel effectively controls much of Gaza, Israel treats Gaza’s 2.3 million residents as if they live in a vacuum.
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For obvious reasons, Israel considers the Hamas government that has ruled the Strip for 16 years illegitimate, but does not consider the PA, which administers parts of the West Bank, as an adequate alternative. Such a scenario would completely undermine Israel’s separation policy: the same Palestinian entity would govern both occupied territories and Israel would face increased pressure to negotiate the creation of a Palestinian state.
As long as the power vacuum exists in Gaza, the right can get what it wants: the war can continue, Netanyahu can prolong his stay in office and there will be no real possibility of opening the peace negotiations, which even the Americans now seem eager to reboot. The messianic-nationalist right wants to maintain this limbo also because it opens up the possibility of the so-called “voluntary migration” of Palestinians from Gaza, the final wish of the Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir, or the “total annihilation” of the population centers of Gaza, ‘ goal of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. Both believe that the red-roofed Israeli settlements lie beyond this period of limbo.
Two visions for Gaza
The army, however, seems tired of this vacuum. For the military, the void promises only endless fighting and no achievable goals, the exhaustion of soldiers and reservists, and a growing confrontation with the Americans, with whom the Israeli defense establishment has a particularly close relationship. The Rafah invasion only increased the army’s discontent.
Israel’s takeover of the Rafah crossing with Egypt has further undermined the idea that Israel bears no responsibility for what happens in Gaza. Gallant correctly recognized that control of the Rafah crossing and the Philadelpi corridor brought Israel closer to establishing a military government in the Strip: without intending it, and certainly without admitting it, Israel appears on the verge of governing Gaza as it governs the West Bank.
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Gantz and Gallant reacted to this situation similarly. Both are in close contact with the United States and are also more exposed to pressure from the families of the hostages, whose support continues to grow in Israeli public opinion. Both understand well that the continued refusal of Netanyahu, Ben Gvir and Smotrich to discuss the day after prevents any possibility of reaching an agreement for the release of the hostages and condemns them to a slow and certain death in the Hamas tunnels.
Gallant and Gantz’s proposals for a Palestinian government are not serious and cannot be accepted by any self-respecting Palestinian, Arab or international body. But they are enough to challenge the preferences of Netanyahu, Smotrich and Ben Gvir for eternal limbo, to provoke their unholy anger and to undermine the stability of the government.
Gantz and Gallant’s statements also express an unconscious admission that Israel currently faces only two real possibilities. The first is an agreement that recognizes Gaza as an integral part of any Palestinian political entity, which would entail the return of the PA and the establishment of a united Palestinian government. The alternative is a war of attrition, which the messianic right hopes will end in the expulsion or annihilation of the Palestinians, but which will more likely end like the First Lebanon War: Israel’s withdrawal under heavy military pressure and the entrenchment of a skilled guerrilla warfare on the border with Israel.
