Egyptian takeover of Gaza will not work

Submitted by Michael S. (United States), Aug 29, 2014 at 18:46

"Israel's goal is to end the threat coming out of Gaza. This has not yet been achieved, even temporarily. There is much frustration in Israel over this."

Indeed.

"Hamas itself is a jihadi group, so that takeover has already occurred in Gaza. If an even more radical, ISIS-like group (such as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad) were to replace it, little would change."

True.

"My preferred solution? That the Egyptian government again rules Gaza, as it did from 1949 until 1967. Although the Sisi government is hardly eager to take responsibility for Gaza, it also worries about the Muslim Brotherhood having a base there from which to attack Egypt, so it might just agree to take this step."

I think this would require a re-negotiation of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty of 1979. Egypt cannot be expected to fight HAMAS, Islami Jihad, etc. in Sinai and Gaza while hamstrung by the military provisions of that treaty. In many respects. this would return Egypt to where it was in 1967 -- namely, threatening Israel's existence. In other ways, it resembles the failed 1995 Oslo Accords, which were based on the assumption that the PLO would act as an Israeli ally to fight HAMAS.

In my opinion, Israel needs to directly rule Gaza like a colonial power -- using loyal locals as intermediates. This worked successfully in southern Lebanon, until Ehud Barak and the Israeli people unceremoniously dumped their Christian allies, turning Middle Eastern Christians -- from Greece to Iraq -- against Israel.

I would say that Israel's failure to accomodate non-hostile minorities, such as Arab Christians, has been its singular failure both domestically and internationally. There will be no peace in Israel until this is reversed.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".