https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/416618
The Arab affairs commentator, Zvi Yehezkeli, warns that the Trump administration - together with the mediators in the hostage deal - is about to bring about a situation in which Hamas will remain in power in the Gaza Strip.
"The mediators' working assumption is that you cannot remove Hamas from power. They are assuming that it will simply return rebranded. You can include Hamas in any government and they know how to operate in a 'quiet jihad.' The mediators tell Hamas, 'Give Israel all the bodies and then you will see Gaza's rehabilitation and your return to power. You will benefit from it'," explains Yehezkeli.
This is something the US used to be good at and Israel never has figured out.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't want to occupy a territory but still want to control it, you need a proxy army. And you also need to ensure that proxy army is well armed and not pay attention when it does stuff that you yourself would never do.
Before Israel left Lebanon in 2000 they should've armed the South Lebanon Army to the teeth, promised it air cover and told it to do whatever it could to keep Hezbollah away from the border. But instead they just pulled out and left the SLA to be wiped out.
This time Israel should've spent its time arming clans and gangs with the instructions to keep Haza from reorganizing, again providing whatever support they needed. But they didn't and now Hamas will take back control.