I understand their reasons. They pulled out of Gaza because they hoped it would lead to peace. Well, that was a wrong idea and now it's time to re-evaluate the strategy.
Except they now have to do it under more shayt conditions than before. They will not be reoccupying it. Suggesting it is political poison in Israel, and the Israelis will have to get a damn sight more desperate to face up to this again.
Well, it's not about what they want. You can always find people willing to cooperate, especially if their only alternative is starvation. Israel could also use some Israeli Arabs (those who don't want to destroy Israel) to act as moderators.
Yes, well, if you're talking about a small number of window-dressing Israeli stooges, under 24/7 Israeli military protection, in it for the money, with no credibility with anyone and of nothing but symbolic use to the Israelis. Then fine. Just remind me what use it is you think their are going to be?
I am talking about a situation where Gaza has been disarmed and the major terrorist networks crushed. Of course there would be risk of an individual suicide attack, but that's something Israel would have to risk if it wanted to stabilize Gaza. In other words, it's a choice between the certainty that dozens of rockets will be fired at you every day from an Islamist-controlled Gaza and the risk of an occasional suicide attack.
Yes. That will require, oh, maybe a decade of up-close and personal military occupation, hunting terrorists et al., the IDF subjecting itself to all manner of risks and casualties they don't run now, and which the Israeli public is loathe to accept. And that's just to get the situation to the first stage of your plan. At this point Israel clearly isn't prepared to do anything of the sort.
In the mean time you can of course completely close off Gaza, which will mean nowhere to went frustration and desperation except inside Gaza, but whaddaya know; the IDF will be moving around inside it in force, and since they will be responsible for every man, woman and child inside, they will be engaged in all manner of things requiring more than just protecting themselves, meaning opportunities to hurt them. (I strongly doubt Isreal will get the opportunity of having the UN around for this.) And if the place isn't a giant open-air prison camp already, this way it most certainly will be one.
Or, to ease the preassure, you accept screened Palestinians working in Israel again, for preference those Gazans who still have personal friendly relations with private Israeli citizens on the other side since the last time the could work in Israel. The problem is that there is still only a matter of time until a suicide-bomber slips through. Essentially it means giving the Hamas, or somesuch, a couple of free blows at Israel. At this point the Israelis absolutely will not take that risk. As soon as a sucide-bombers sets himself off, this falls apart. And again, for the Israelis to accept risks like that for a future possible, but uncertain, trade-off, they are going to have to get a damn sight more desperate than today. Again this is political poison in Israel.
Seconded, but as you said once - accepting the notion that a situation went FUBAR makes people seek radical solutions.
Yes, then you get them anyway. In this case it starts with Hamas growing in the West Bank, and the possibility of Islamists taking over various Arab nations, beginning with Egypt most likely. If you're going to root out the terrorists in Gaza, odds are very substantial it will prove necessary to reoccupy the West Bank to do the same, which will be harder to do and require even more Isreali blood and resources. At some point it becomes unworkable, in the sense that too much of the Israeli national effort could be drawn into to it to the neglect of a bunch of equally necessary stuff. The Palestinian hardliners will want this at least.
I am sceptical too. I think there will be a radical solution, sooner or later. In Israel there is a growing sense of looming danger on all sides. Not a good atmosphere for peace talks.
The likeliset radical solution is that the Islamists win large chunks of the ME, we have one or more major wars there again, and Israel either never makes it to its centennial, or does it only as an undemocratic aparthaid state, still beleagured, its future still uncertain, no resolution in sight.
As far as I'm concerned it's all a lose-lose situation. Gaza has been a festering situation for a long time. I'm real pessimistic here. You could say that Israel is trying to "lance the boil" here. The problem with the continuation of that metaphor is that in doing so, it has likely set contminant agents flying all over the place.
What you have suggested could work. If the Israelis have the stamina for it. At this point, nothing suggests they do. What you've called for requires for Israelis in general to embrace the conflict and step into it, in a sense, when they have spent the last decade trying to insulate and separate themselves from it. For, I imagine, pretty different reasons, I think we agree that could be a good thing.
