"Yet what choice did Israel have but war?" - Or Yissachar is an Israeli national security expert.
In an interview with Mandiner, Or Yissachar talked about who will rule Gaza after the war and why a two-state solution is impossible. According to the expert, there will not be a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza because the Palestinians want the entire Holy Land.
Or Yissachar is an Israeli national security expert and head of the Habithonistim research department at the IDSF (Israel Defense And Security Forum). He previously served in the elite 8200 unit of intelligence and speaks five languages, including French and Farsi.
How do you see the state of the war, how do you think Israel's ground operation in Gaza will develop? The northern part is already under the control of the IDF, but sooner or later they will have to head south to eliminate Hamas.
This war came to Israel at a time when it did not expect it. I have an intelligence background and I can say that I was quite surprised by the scale of the attack. Before I get to how we can take southern Gaza, let me tell you why we are doing all this.
Israel declared martial law for the first time since the Yom Kippur War, and
we have set a goal that we rarely do: we must win the war.
In the past, we always tried to postpone the next conflict. However, the scale of the atrocities and the sadism of Hamas has created a situation that ties Israel's hands. The military has no choice but to remove this threat. Why? Because the whole Middle East is watching us.
If we don't defeat Hamas, it will give a green light to Hezbollah, Iran, the Houthis, and anyone who wants to oppose us, including the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria, the heartland of Israel. That's why we need to show that we are dead serious about protecting the country.
Our goal is to occupy Gaza militarily and defeat Hamas. The northern part was the center of Hamas, where their military strength was concentrated. Some of the Israeli hostages were kept here. In order to capture the northern part, it was necessary for one million civilians to cross to the south, so that there were as few civilians in the way of the Israeli army as possible. The next section will be the southern section.
I suspect that in order to clear the entire area from Hamas, the entire zone would have to be occupied. There will be no choice but to pressure Egypt to allow people to flee south. This does not mean that they have to leave Gaza for good. They must be allowed to leave the war zone.
It is not in Israel's interest that Gazan civilians get hurt.
Hamas is the one who wants as many photos as possible of dead civilians. Because it increases international pressure. If the civilians can be evacuated so that they can return later, then the IDF mission can begin.
Who do you think will rule Gaza after Hamas? The Biden administration has made it clear that it wants the Palestinian Authority to run the Strip, but the people of Gaza probably don't want that either...
Nobody wants the Palestinian Authority. The international community tries to tell Palestinians and Israelis what they should believe, what they should do, what their ideal policy is...
I would advise them to listen to what the Israelis and Palestinians want.
We appreciate the support of the United States. They have given us financial, diplomatic and moral support, but they are wrong about the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority is coming to an end. Mahmud Abbas is already 88 years old and cannot live forever. The Palestinians are fed up with Fatah rule. It cannot be denied that Hamas has great support in Palestinian society.
After the war, Israel will be forced to temporarily exercise military control over the Gaza Strip. The second step must be some kind of political agreement, because
the two-state solution is no longer an option. We tried it, it doesn't work.
Gaza was a de facto state. We saw what happened after Israel withdrew from it and displaced its inhabitants. Gaza has become a center of terror. If we want to prevent this from happening again, two things need to happen.
First, it must be ensured that Israel always has operational freedom in the area. This does not mean that we want to govern Gaza. But that the Israeli army must have the freedom of operation that they have in Jenin, Nablus, or Hebron, that they go in, arrest some terrorists and then come out.
This is what we do every day in Judea and Samaria. We have arrested two thousand terrorists this month alone. These are potential terrorists who could have killed Israelis, just as they did on October 7.
I don't think a Palestinian state can be established there, but there can be local governors, mayors, technocrats who ensure that the Palestinians manage their own affairs. Education must be radically changed.
All anti-Semitic content must be removed from textbooks.
This is what we call the "Nazification" of education. The school curriculum must be freed from anti-Semitic topos, which it is currently full of, and which Nazi propaganda would be proud of.
This is also an opportunity for the international community. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt could join forces. A victory in Gaza could bring Israel closer to normalization with Saudi Arabia. The United States, France, anyone can take part in the arrangement. There are not many people standing in line who want to govern Gaza, maybe no one is standing in line, but there will certainly be international actors willing to cooperate.
But the Western world insists on a two-state solution. Recently, for example, the Spanish Prime Minister suggested that they are ready to recognize the Palestinian state. If the whole world insists on this plan, what can Israel do?
A two-state solution is not really a solution. You can call it a plan, but it is a plan doomed to fail. They tried it in Gaza, but it didn't work. There are three reasons why it might not work. The first is the security reason. Just as it did not work in Gaza, it will not work in the West Bank either, we cannot allow terrorism to grow, then attack the Israelis again and start all over again.
Second, the people in Judea and Samaria live in such a way that they cannot be separated into two entities. They are completely mixed up. About one million people would have to be resettled, which will not work.
The third reason is the most important:
the Palestinians do not want the West Bank and Gaza. They want the entire territory of Israel, the entire Holy Land.
I say this not as an accusation, but as a fact. I have been researching the Middle East for 15 years now and I can say: this is what the Palestinians want and we have to accept the cruel reality, we cannot be so racist as to try to explain what the Palestinians really believe and want.
For example, I hear a lot that Hamas does not represent the majority of the Palestinian population. This is not true. Hamas represents a significant part of the Palestinian population. Anyone who reads or listens to what the leaders of the Palestinian Authority are saying will see that they are chanting the same way that "from the river to the sea Palestine will be free." They also want Tel Aviv, Beer Sheva, Haifa, and Jerusalem. Obviously we won't give it to them. So a two-state solution is not an option, but some kind of settlement can happen.
Little is said about the male hostages, even though the Palestinians held several Israelis (two soldiers and two civilians*) even before October 7. Is there a chance to release the men, or will Israel take them out as part of the operation?
This is a very painful thing. It is important that society deals with the weak, the elderly and children, and one is touched by their return home. But I think men are just as human.
Hamas would only release the men as part of a humiliating deal for Israel.
We remember what happened in 2011, when Hamas asked for 1,027 terrorists for Gilad Shalit. They will ask for a similarly high price, which will probably allow Israel to free them in a ground operation.
* The two detained soldiers were probably killed, but Hamas did not release the bodies (ed.).
Since the beginning of the war, Israel has been told that Hezbollah could attack at any moment, but so far they have not done so. Nevertheless, in Israel they are very much counting on the possibility that a front will open in the north as well. What do you think?
If I lived in northern Israel, I would certainly not go home for a while now. In the north, many Israelis literally live next to the border fence. They walk out onto the terrace in the morning and see an elite Hezbollah unit watching them on the other side of the border.
Israel will be forced to enforce UN Resolution 1701, which has proven completely useless, and UNIFIL forces simply do not have the mandate to remove Hezbollah from the border. (The resolution states that a demilitarized zone must be established on the Israeli-Lebanese border, ed.)
In the past, Hezbollah created a bogus environmental organization and pretended to be activists. Today, they openly walk the border in Hezbollah uniforms. Israel has two options. He is persuading the international community to pressure Hezbollah to leave the border. There is not much chance of that. The other option is for Israel to launch a pre-emptive strike.
Israel is also currently fighting a propaganda war. How do you think Israel is doing on this front? There are, for example, many people who say they support the Jewish state's right to self-defense, but, for example, overestimate the number of victims in Gaza.
We must tell the truth about Gaza, we cannot talk about fantasies, we cannot romanticize the conflict. Information warfare is also part of war. There is a saying that
the first victim in a war is truth.
Israel has a lot to improve in order to convince the world of the justice of its cause, but the world is not very understanding towards us.
I have no hope for the protesters marching in Western cities. Western governments will be forced to do something about their radical groups. It is very commendable how Hungary handled the matter and already banned pro-Hamas demonstrations. Even before, the country handled the migration crisis better than the rest of Europe.
Regarding the often mentioned civilian and minor victims in Gaza, all we can say is that we do not know the truth. People are just echoing Hamas propaganda.
The numbers are issued by the "Gaza Ministry of Health", which is none other than Hamas.
On the other hand, I want people to ask themselves, why is Israel at war in Gaza? Imagine the babies and old people who were slaughtered, the soldiers and youths who were murdered in the most vicious way. Then ask yourself the following question: what other choice did Israel have?
Featured Image: Or Yissachar
