Israel is working to implement the scenario of transferring the population of Gaza, or most of them, towards Sinai, regardless of Egypt’s opinion (Photo from the Palestinian press)
At the beginning, we must reiterate clearly that Israel was the complete losing party on October 7, and everything it did to try to restore the prestige of its army failed, but Israel is credited with having a high ability to restore balance with time and focus on the strategic goals set in advance. And it tries to manipulate every event so that it can get closer to achieving its strategic goals, once it obtains the international military and political support that it relies on, and without which it cannot do anything.
Note that our discussion in this article focuses on the political aspect, as Israel is still considered the losing party on the military level.
A century of conflicting propaganda
If there is a historical period through which we can understand what is happening in the Palestinian territories these days, we will find nothing better than to go back a century to the events of the period from 1915 to 1948. The similarity that I am talking about here is the abundance of contradictory and conflicting propaganda that was intended to cover On the real project that was taking place in the kitchens of Western politics, and it did not appear clearly until it became a reality after the decision to partition Palestine in 1947 and turned into reality during the Palestinian Nakba in 1948.
From the famous Hussein-McMahon correspondence in which Britain was promising the Arabs “independence” under one flag, at the same time that it was secretly agreeing with France to divide the Arab regions between them and arranging the issuance of the Balfour Declaration, to the British propaganda that insisted on denying the Balfour Declaration until its issuance. The mandate instrument and the appearance of its lie, even the first and second White Book and other books issued by Britain during the various Palestinian revolutions to calm the Palestinians who were seeing their country’s lands being leaked little by little by the British to the children of the Zionist project from European immigrants, until the Palestinians waited for the entry of the Arab armies shackled by British generals. And agreements and actual British and French occupation in some cases, who insisted on not entering into the Nakba War until the official end of the British Mandate... until Israel became a fait accompli that the official Arab and Islamic regimes dealt with on this basis.
The similarity here is the conflicting Israeli and American propaganda that has come out to us daily in the media since the beginning of the current war, to confuse the cards and distract minds from the real goals that have been crystallized by the current Israeli government, and behind it are the American administration and a number of European countries.
Whether there is a disagreement between these parties or not, they all have a unified goal, which is to eliminate the Hamas movement at all costs, and to change the general situation in Gaza, whether temporarily or permanently.
What appears to be the dispute here between the Western powers in general on the one hand and the Netanyahu government on the other hand is the form of changing the general situation in Gaza and not the principle itself. While those countries want the return of the Palestinian Authority and the complete demilitarization of the Gaza Strip, the right-wing Israeli government wants to empty the Strip. Gaza is completely depopulated and re-occupied, and I say here clearly: The goal of emptying the Gaza Strip of population, which Israel worked on in the 1960s and then in the 1970s, still insists on the current Israeli mentality, and Israel, with its current right-wing government, wants to implement this scenario, even if it claims that it is not. That, and any claim otherwise is considered short-sighted.
If there is a historical period through which we can understand what is happening in the Palestinian territories these days, we will not find a better period than the period between 1915 and 1948, which was filled with conflicting counter-propaganda that aimed to cover up the true Western project that did not appear clearly until it became a reality after the decision to partition Palestine in 1987. 1947 and then the Nakba
Transfer still exists
A quick, abstract look at the scenario that Israel is currently implementing on the ground, and without hearing any leaks, news, or statements in this regard from any party, shows that Israel is working with all its might to implement the scenario of transferring the population of Gaza, or at least the vast majority of them, and emptying the area of them, whether toward Sinai - regardless of Egypt's opinion on the matter - or via Sinai to other countries around the world.
Although no one can claim that Arab regional parties have actually agreed to this scenario or not, what concerns us is to look at what is happening on the ground, as I mentioned previously.
This scenario Israel wants to implement as a final strategic goal, whether the United States agrees to it or not. The Israeli right now clearly sees the weakness of the current American administration, and has come to understand the European differences and understand that the Arab parties that drafted the peace agreements with it are interested in ending this file without bearing its consequences. Therefore, he now sees himself as the executive force carrying out what can be described as dirty work, betting on the memory of the fish and the fait accompli policy that Western powers have always succeeded in exploiting to deal with this region for a hundred years.
We can give many examples of this to understand this equation that we see today. At the beginning of the war, the Israeli propaganda that was repeated by both Western and Arab media centered around the need for Gazans to head south towards the “safe areas.”
The Israeli argument in the field was that there were no taboos for it in the northern Gaza Strip.
Considering that the main problem is the missiles launched from the north, and to prove its seriousness in this matter, Israel bombed the Baptist Hospital, then resorted to preoccupying world public opinion by denying its involvement in this and accusing the Palestinian resistance. Thus, the world was busy analyzing, proving, and denying, so that Israel exploited this by opening the door wide to destroy hospitals. schools, etc.;
Taking advantage of the time that the world spent trying to understand what happened, whether by justifying it, denying it, or proving it, which ultimately led to making the attack on the Shifa Medical Complex and its destruction appear to be a “normal” matter after the world got over the Baptist Hospital tragedy.
Later - and contrary to the propaganda it initially published about its main problem being with the northern Gaza Strip - Israel actually began to head south and focused its propaganda on the idea of (Khan Yunis or all of the south), and occupied the world with conflicting news about the American administration’s refusal to do so, and internal Israeli disputes to actually intervene. To Khan Yunis and make the Rafah area the most densely populated place when the Palestinians thought that their presence near the border with Egypt could guarantee them that the occupation forces would not attack the area.
Today, the drums of war are beating in Rafah, the last southern region in the Gaza Strip, and it is focusing all its propaganda on Rafah, while the media is busy reporting news of international rejection, soft American reproach, and warnings against this operation, at the same time that the world is occupied with the fabricated UNRWA crisis. Which seems clear that it was raised in full coordination with the American administration.
Also, the media propaganda leaked by various parties to American and Israeli news agencies on a weekly basis about the presence of “pressure” on Netanyahu - especially from the Americans - to accept exchange and ceasefire deals, and for Netanyahu to come out several hours after it spread to announce that there will be no end to the war, are all intentional in and of themselves. To manipulate the morale of the Palestinian side in particular, as it is considered one of the war tricks that have become remarkably frequent in this period.
What we must know is that the Netanyahu government has decided on its options from the beginning regarding implementing its program in Gaza, whatever the cost, and that it has a green light from the deep state in the United States to exploit this golden opportunity to the fullest extent, and all this propaganda spread by the media has no meaning. The American and Israeli forces constantly discuss disputes between the two parties and the like, and Netanyahu does not care about his prisoners and hopes for their end so that he can get rid of this burden. Indeed, in his government there are a number of members of the religious messianic movement who see that expanding the war is considered a major religious and national interest.
The only solution to this issue comes on three levels:
The first is: absolutely not to deal with any leaks or news from official American or Israeli bodies, whether due to disagreements, pressure, or anything else, and this is something the Arab media must do as well.
Secondly: At the level of the Palestinian people, the Palestinians must understand that if Israel succeeds in the scenario that it is now trying to implement in Gaza, it will begin to implement it completely in the West Bank. This is of course after the completion of the northern front on which Israel is beating the drums of war, and I do not rule out that it will begin the attack. And do not wait for the situation to get worse. Therefore, silence and anticipation are not in the interest of the Palestinian people as a whole.
Third: At the level of the Palestinian factions and the official and popular forces around the world that are angry about what is happening, and if they retreat on the political level, Israel will proceed with its plan, and we will find hundreds of thousands of people heading under fire towards the Egyptian border, which is the most terrifying scenario in reality.
Because it means that Gazans will never return to Gaza at all, and we have previously seen this scene twice over the past seventy-five years, and whoever does not consider history does not understand reality.
Opening eyes to the worst scenario, getting rid of the “unreasonable scenario” complex, and understanding that there are no limits to Israeli appetite in reality, are considered the greatest duties in confronting this expansionist project, which sees the entire region as an enemy that must be subdued by force.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.