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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Israel Will Not Defeat Gaza: A Lesson from History</h1>November 15, 2023</div>
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<img src="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Intl-womens-day-678x455.png" alt="" title="Intl womens day" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" width="435" height="292" style="margin-right: 25px;">
Palestinian women rally in Gaza. (Photo: Mahmoud Ajjour, The Palestine Chronicle)
<p><strong>By <a href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/writers/ramzy-baroud" title="Display all articles for Ramzy Baroud">Ramzy Baroud</a></strong> </p>
<blockquote>
<h3>The truth is Israel has no military option in Gaza, and those who
support whatever military strategy Tel Aviv has in mind, are equally
deluding themselves.</h3>
</blockquote>
<p>The ongoing discussions on the Israeli military objectives in Gaza
are largely focused on whether Israel is planning a long or short-term
military reoccupation of the Strip.</p>
<p>Israelis themselves are fueling this conversation, with 41 percent of Israelis<a href="https://new.thecradle.co/articles/majority-of-israelis-support-ceasefire-to-release-prisoners-poll#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Maariv%20poll,after%20the%20war%20is%20over."> wanting</a> to leave Gaza following the war and another 44 percent wanting the Gaza Strip to remain under Israeli control.</p>
<p>These numbers, revealed in an Israeli public opinion poll conducted by the Lazar Institute and<a href="https://www.maariv.co.il/news/politics/Article-1051161"> published</a>
by Maariv on Friday, November 10, reflect real confusion regarding the
legal status of Gaza, even in the minds of Israelis themselves.</p>
<p>In truth, Israel was – and remains – the Occupying Power in Gaza and
the rest of Palestine, despite the ‘redeployment’ scheme from the small
and impoverished region in September 2005.</p>
<p>Back then, Israelis convinced themselves that they were no longer the
occupiers of the Strip and, therefore, are no longer responsible for
it, in<a href="https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/3f1306a57.pdf"> accordance</a> with international law, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention.</p>
<p>But they are wrong, even if on September 21, 2005, the last day of the redeployment, Tel Aviv<a href="https://www.palquest.org/en/highlight/14505/israel%E2%80%99s-gaza-redeployment-2005"> declared</a> Gaza a “foreign territory”. Almost exactly two years later, this supposed “foreign territory” was<a href="https://www.gov.il/en/Departments/General/behind-the-headlines-israel-designates-gaza-a-hostile-territory#:~:text=In%20light%20of%20continued%20terrorist,area%20surrounding%20the%20Gaza%20Strip."> declared</a>
a “hostile territory”, thus subjected to the ire of the Israeli
military, should it not respect Israeli sovereignty and pose a threat to
Israel’s southern borders.</p>
<p>International law, however, is not beholden to Israeli definitions. The United Nations has repeatedly<a href="https://unwatch.org/un-we-still-consider-gaza-occupied-by-israel/"> issued</a> statements insisting that Gaza remains an Occupied Territory.</p>
<p>Moreover, the fences and walls separating Gaza from Israel are not
internationally defined border regions, as designated by the armistice<a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/IL%20JO_490403_Hashemite%20Jordan%20Kingdom-Israel%20General%20Armistice%20Agreement.pdf"> agreement</a> established in 1949 between Israel, Egypt and other Arab countries – following the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948.</p>
<p>So, the heated Israeli discussions on occupying or not occupying Gaza
after the war are moot; Gaza has never been freed to be reoccupied.</p>
<p>Whether Israel accepts this obvious logic or not, it matters little,
since it is the international legal institutions, namely the UN, the ICJ
and others, that have the authority and responsibility to reach and
enforce such conclusions.</p>
<p>Still, however, Israel needs to be reminded of a few urgent matters.</p>
<p>One, resuming the siege on Gaza as usual will not resolve Israel’s
problems. After all, it was the hermetic siege – where Palestinians<a href="https://imeu.org/article/putting-palestinians-on-a-diet-israels-siege-blockade-of-gaza"> were</a>
“put on a diet” but not allowed to die, according to senior Israeli
government advisor Dov Weisglass in 2006 – which provided the main
rationale behind Gaza’s need to resist.</p>
<p>Two, it was that very resistance that forced Israel to redeploy from
populated areas in Gaza in the first place, leading to the draconian
siege which has been in place for nearly 17 years.</p>
<p>These dates and events are often overlooked by mainstream media
because they create an unnecessary inconvenience to the Israeli
narrative regarding the war.</p>
<p>In Western media, for example, it is commonplace to highlight
September 2005 – though here ‘redeployment’ is perceived as ‘withdrawal’
– and October 7, the Hamas attack on southern Israel, as the most
significant dates and events deserving attention. While the first is
used to exonerate Israel, the latter is used to implicate Palestinians.</p>
<p>But Palestinians, and anyone interested in the true context of this war, should not feel bound to this logic.</p>
<p>Moreover, we should remember that the majority of Palestinians in
Gaza are descendants of Palestinian refugees who were expelled from
their homes and villages in 1948. They, rightly, continue to see
themselves as refugees entitled to the Right of Return, as<a href="https://www.unrwa.org/content/resolution-194#:~:text=The%20United%20Nations%20General%20Assembly,not%20to%20return%20and%20for"> enshrined</a> in UN Resolution 194.</p>
<p>Another<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2018/6/4/the-naksa-how-israel-occupied-the-whole-of-palestine-in-1967"> date</a>
worth remembering is June 1967, where Israel occupied whatever remained
of historic Palestine – East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.</p>
<p>This event is critical, as it represented an earth-shattering
historical shift in Israel’s relationship with Palestinians, who became
both victims of Israeli settler colonialism and also military
occupation.</p>
<p>The Israeli military occupation ushered in a new form of popular
resistance in Palestine, where ordinary, oppressed Palestinians
confronted Israeli soldiers daily.</p>
<p>The tools of that resistance, from 1967 until 2005, largely relied on
civil disobedience, popular strikes, mass protests and rock-throwing.
Yet, that was still enough for the Israeli military to be chased out of
Gaza, thus ending the everyday policing of the Strip in exchange for a
new stage of military occupation.</p>
<p>On the last day of the Israeli redeployment, tens of thousands of
Palestinians took to the streets in central Gaza soon after midnight to
confront Israeli soldiers as they evacuated the last military base, east
of the Bureij area.</p>
<p>Without prior coordination, the Gaza youth wanted to send a message
to the Israeli army that they were not welcome inside Gaza, not even in
the last hours of redeployment.</p>
<p>Israelis should reflect on this history.</p>
<p>They should also recall that the Israeli rush to escape Gaza – under
the leadership of a notorious military General, then Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon – took place when Palestinians had no army and a few arms.
Their armed resistance consisted mostly of poorly organized militias,
backed by the fury of hundreds of thousands of fed -up, occupied and
oppressed Palestinians.</p>
<p>If Israel returns to Gaza to stay, the challenge of governing the
rebellious Strip will be much more difficult. Gaza’s population has
increased exponentially since 2005. Moreover, the weakest of Gaza’s
fighting groups commands thousands of men, ready to fight and die to
keep the Israelis out.</p>
<p>Even more important, is that Israel has failed to govern one Gaza,
though tried for nearly four decades. If it foolishly decided to return,
it would have to contend with two Gazas – a defiant and empowered
population above ground, and tens of thousands of fighters below.</p>
<p>The truth is Israel has no military option in Gaza, and those who
support whatever military strategy Tel Aviv has in mind, are equally
deluding themselves.</p>
<p>The only solution to Gaza is the same solution to the rest of
occupied Palestine – a clear understanding that the real problem is not
‘Palestinian terrorism’ or militancy, but the Israeli military
occupation, apartheid and unrelenting siege.</p>
<p>If Israel does not end its illegal actions in Palestine, leading to
the freedom, equality and justice for the Palestinian people,
resistance, in all of its forms, will continue unabated.</p>
<div>
<p><br></p>
<p><span><i><span>– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The
Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His latest book,
co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is “Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged
Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak out”. Dr. Baroud is a
Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global
Affairs (CIGA). His website is</span></i><a href="http://www.ramzybaroud.net/"> <i><span>www.ramzybaroud.net</span></i></a></span></p></div>
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