War Day #69 The Morning After: What Happens with Gaza Tomorrow?
Thursday, December 14
There’s a lot of talk concerning what should happen in Gaza the morning after.
But everyone is forgetting one thing.
Aside from the problem of defining when “the day after” is — Israel is saying a long time from now; the rest of the world seems to think it should be the day-before-yesterday — and what exactly constitutes “the end” of this war — Decimating Hamas? Returning the hostages? Something else? — there’s been a lot of hubbub internationally about the plan for the day after.
(It’s not unlike making a plan for the day after the baby is born. Most parents will understand why such planning is little short of hilarious.)
The discussion about the day after has ranged from (H/T
for the best idea yet) giving Gaza to the UAE to control; to letting Hamas control Gaza (proponents of this one are unclear on the concept); to bringing in some sort of international UN peacekeeping force because that has worked so well in the past (not); to convincing the Palestinian Authority to abdicate their Jewish pay-for-slay and Holocaust denial (yes, we’re talking to you, Mahmoud Abbas!) and turn into responsible overlords of Gaza and the West Bank (this is the solution favored by the U.S., but they’re getting nowhere fast hinting at the Palestinian Authority to see the error of its ways; (if you missed it, see my piece from last week about why, unfortunately, they can’t just award Gaza to the Palestinian Authority.The problem is complicated by the sentiment on the street: Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki’s survey yesterday for the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research shows a significant increase in Palestinian support for Hamas in both the West Bank and in Gaza: 57% of Gazans and 82% of West Bank Arabs support Hamas’ October 7th terrorism. (Jerusalem Post)
Israel, in the meantime, has said it won’t inhabit Gaza long-term, but has been mum on who will. And Israel, in general is not stellar at long-range planning, to put it mildly. So the day-after plans remain murky.
But even those discussing day-after plans have missed an essential part of the problem.
Let’s say we solve the day-after.
Let’s even say that we’re so creative in how we do it, that we conjure up a Palestinian state in the process. Let’s say we rehabilitate Gaza as a peaceful neighbor. Let’s say Iran somehow miraculously disappears, and with it the Iranian axes, not just Hamas but also Hezbollah and the Houthis and Islamic Jihad and the rest of the evil frat boys. Let’s say we use the momentum of the Abraham Accords to rope in Saudi Arabia and some of the others, to create a new, more peaceful, more responsible Middle East.
Let’s imagine a Marshall Plan for the entire area that de-radicalizes it, along the model of a post-war Germany and Japan. Let’s imagine an educational system that doesn’t foster violence and create 8-year-old terrorists.
Let’s even assume - though I don’t honestly think this could ever be our reality, or sadly even a possibility - that we convince Hamas and Iran that replacing Israel with a Muslim theocracy is overkill, that a Palestinian State could be sufficient. (Mousa Abu Marzouk, interviewed in Al-Monitor, today suggested Hamas could recognize Israel, but I’m guessing this is more their latest PR ploy than a genuine sentiment. Marzouk) But let’s assume all of that.
There is still one large piece of the puzzle missing.
(And that’s not counting the smaller warped puzzle pieces - like the fact that the unity of the DC rally has now largely disintegrated, and that, for example, older, more pro-Zionistic Jews are feeling conflicted about younger, more anti-Zionistic Jews, which sometimes are their own children - more about that next week.)
But even disregarding that. There is one puzzle piece that won’t align no matter how hard we squeeze.
And that is those people in the U.S. and all over the world, shouting “Death to the Jews!” and calling for “International Intifada”.
Yesterday, there were reports that, as they were leaving the israeli Embassy’s DC Chanukah celebration, attendees were confronted by pro-Palestinian protesters yelling, “We will kill all of you, occupiers.”
Even if we solve the Palestinian State problem, I very much doubt these people will be going gently into the night.
And the demographics are against us.
Sixty-nine percent of US citizens 65+ view Israel favorably; 60% of 50-64s; 49% of 30-49s; and of those ages 18-29, only 41%. And this is from a 2022 Pew survey; now it’s likely to skew even more dismally.
Will they stop their chants if we solve all the problems? Of course they should.
But stopping would mean that the protests are about the actual issues.
They’re not.
They’re just about hating Jews.
I grew up in rural America where, during the 70s Arab oil embargo, my town sported bumper stickers that read “Burn Jews, not oil.”
Some things haven’t changed.
If these protests were about the well-being of Palestinians or Muslims, folks would be focusing on their plight not just in Israel, but elsewhere in the world, too. (They’re not.)
If it wasn’t all about Jews, they’d be protesting other places as well. (They’re not.)
Most people don’t even realize that Palestinians live in Jordan (3+ million), Syria (more than half a million), Chile (half a million), Lebanon (400,000) Saudi Arabia (300,000), Egypt (300,000), and the U.S. (255,000). Because where they live doesn’t matter - except when it concerns Jews.
Almost no one is following the 2+ million Muslims in Chinese internment camps, the tens of thousands forcibly sterilized, the millions suffering in Yemen, in Pakistan. Because if it’s not Israel and Jews, who really cares?
It’s not about Palestinians at all. The Palestinians are incidental, a convenient pretext on which to hang their Jew hatred hat.
The protests are just vanilla antisemitism, overlaid with dashes of Islamic jihad.
Solving the ostensible problem (of the Palestinians) won’t help, unless we solve the root antisemitic cause behind it all.
And how the heck do we do that?
