Peloni: The following is an extract from an article published by TOI, “Amid widening spat, Smotrich accuses Qatar of impeding hostage talks to serve Hamas” in which Gen. Avivi describes his vision of the Day After during the Conference of the Israel Defense and Security Forum in Ashkelon.
Founder and Chairman of the Israel Defense and Security Forum Brig. Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi addresses a conference put on by his organization in Ashkelon, January 25, 2024. (Israel Defense and Security Forum, Israel’s Security Summit/Daniel Stravo)
..Speaking at the Ashkelon conference, founder of the Israel Defense and Security Forum Brig. Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi laid out what his organization, a right-wing group with a hawkish stance on military and security strategies, believes should be the policies adopted towards Gaza by the government.
Avivi opined that Israel should take control of the Gaza Strip for a lengthy period of time, and also establish settlements there which, he said, would help secure the territory and Israel as a whole.
Speaking to The Times of Israel, he said that Israel would also need to “create a new atmosphere and society” in Gaza and create a “de-Nazification” process to make long-term changes.
“I think what will happen on ‘the day after [the war]’ is military control. Israel will have to take control of the Gaza Strip, maybe for a long time,” said Avivi, who served as deputy commander of the IDF’s Gaza Division.
He said that during this period of military rule, Israel should build up a local Palestinian bureaucracy for the management of civilian concerns in each different city and municipal locality in Gaza, and utilize the civil councils that exist at present and were used by Hamas to manage everyday life in the territory.
“We need to create a new atmosphere and possibly a new Palestinian society, we’re talking about the de-Nazification of Palestinian society, changing the whole education system, the religious dialogue,” said Avivi.
The former general argued that “Jewish settlements” in Gaza would be necessary to establish security control.
He pointed to the severe security problems experienced by the IDF during its 15-year occupation of South Lebanon as an example of the difficulties faced by militaries in hostile regions where there is no civilian presence.
“In Judea and Samaria [the West Bank], you can take your car and drive anywhere you want without the army, without a convoy. That’s because of the civilians and the thousands of cars which are moving around the roads all day, and the presence of all these towns which creates control and security,” claimed Avivi.
“The only viable solution [for Gaza] is combining overriding security control over Gaza with Jewish towns, with settlement,” he contended.
Asked if such a system would be politically viable in terms of governing the Palestinians and diplomatically viable in the face of what would be intense international opposition to rebuilding Israeli settlements in Gaza, the former general said there were numerous countries around the world with “diminished sovereignty,” which could serve as a model for some form of self-governing Palestinian entity, citing the microstate of San Marino which lies entirely within the borders of Italy as an example.
And asked whether purely military and security arrangements can guarantee Israel’s long-term security in the face of the Palestinian desire for an independent state, Avivi said that limited Palestinian autonomy in what is now Area A and B of the West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority currently governs, would be sufficient to deal with such concerns.
“We need to set the terms to really, seriously secure Israel forever. The question is not if by any chance we will have a Palestinian [David] Ben-Gurion who will manage to get them to do peace for 30 or 40 years,” referencing Israel’s first prime minister.
“The question you need to ask is, once war is imminent and they are preparing for war, are the terms which were set something which will enable us to exist or will it be like what happened in Gaza, [with the Palestinians] exponentially building terror infrastructure to such an extent that you need the entire IDF just to deal with this small, shallow area by the sea?” asked Avivi.
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