In the "escape route" we have paved for ourselves here in recent months, we think crookedly instead of straight and deceive ourselves – sometimes a little and sometimes a lot. In this "escape route" there is too much imagined reality and too little reality as it is, which must be presented to ourselves and to the world, without apologizing and stammering.
We are evading saying what is already clear to many: On the day after, the solution will not be Hamas nor a "renewed" Palestinian Authority (82% of whose residents support Hamas and the massacre), nor Fatah, which has returned to terrorism (80 documented terrorist incidents so far, and just this week several PA officers were arrested on suspicion of weapons manufacturing), and not even Qatar, the mother state of the Muslim Brotherhood – none of these is the solution. None of them or their likes will do our bidding in Gaza in the same way we need and know how to do.
The best plan for the day after –- it is time to muster courage and say it out loud – is us, the State of Israel, with the IDF on the ground and with a civilian administration that will operate in the Gaza Strip. Anything else will be temporary and short-lived at best, or at worst – a deception and a fraud, from its very inception; a recipe for the renewed, early or late, flourishing of Gaza terrorism.
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Even the dithering vis-à-vis Rafah is part of the same self-deception. The longer the operation is delayed, the higher the cost in the lives of our soldiers will be. Hamas is not resting on its laurels and is preparing for the battle of its life. The delay also distances a hostage deal. Hamas is teasing us in order to buy time; every time the Rafah operation seems imminent, Hamas lowers its demands, waits a few days and then puts forth maximalist positions again. This is how they prolong the informal ceasefire even further – a free ceasefire, without anything in return. When the formal ceasefire arrives, in case of a deal, it will be a two-for-the price-of-one bargain.
And here is another station on the "escape route": Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is indeed correct when he says that the people support his policy: a large majority (63%) currently opposes a Palestinian state. An even larger majority sees a renewed PA as a fraud. A similar majority opposes an "outrageous prisoner exchange" and Fatah rule in the Strip, and yet Netanyahu tells us only half the truth. Because the humanitarian aid to Gaza – another cornerstone of his policy that the US is forcing on him and on us in return for a "diplomatic safety net" – has prolonged the war rather than shortened it.
The aid postpones rather than brings closer the release of the captives. The American obsession with aid gives Hamas more and more oxygen and legitimacy to prolong the war and the deal and allows it to continue to torment us and the families of the captives.
Even the Bidenesque terminology, "uninvolved," which Israel has adopted – should be filed under self-deception. There are, of course, also some uninvolved in terrorism, but many – as evidenced by photographs, documents, ammunition, and tunnel and bunker shafts in thousands of private homes, educational institutions, hospitals, and more – show that hundreds of thousands were involved in terrorism; that the throngs who raided the Jewish communities on Oct 7. completed the work begun by the Palestinazis of Hamas and represented circles many times wider. This too must now be put on the table, face to face with Biden, without fear or trepidation.
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