Tally

It is now clear that the fight over the “Day After” has become @IsraeliPM's line-in-the-sand, the issue on which the current Israel government rises or falls. If the #Biden Administration shifts gears, this is also a far more appropriate issue on which to stand its ground than the operational critique of how (not whether) Israel should dismantle Hamas battalions in #Rafah. Remember: the premise of “Day After” is #Hamas’ defeat. This is not a debate – as some mischievous observers suggest – over preserving Hamas, saving Hamas or protecting Hamas. Quite the contrary. The “Day After” debate is over #Israel’s practical vision for security and governance in #Gaza in a post-Hamas environment. The reason to lay it out now is: a) to give local #Palestinians confidence that there is a realistic post-Hamas future so they don’t have to reconcile themselves to a perpetual whack-a-mole strategy in which Hamas continually lives to fight another day. In that environment, they will never join the fight against Hamas, actively or passively; b) to give Israeli troops and the nation they represent confidence that there is a reachable objective in mind so they too are not consigned to a de facto “Groundhog Day” mission of returning to Jabalia and Khan Younis time and time again because their government has not defined an alternative; c) to give Arab and other international actors confidence to invest now in assets and resources to build a reasonable, achievable post-Hamas alternative, a process that itself will feed a desire for real change by local Palestinians; d) to give American friends of Israel – in the @WhiteHouse, Congress and throughout the US political/policy system – confidence that Israel’s impressive battlefield achievement, which would not have been possible without massive US support, is matched by an inspired political/security strategy whose long-term success will also require massive US support. Destroy Hamas, as @netanyahu says – that is a legitimate objective that the US should support and assist. But there is no logical reason to hold up defining a real plan for what comes next. @netanyahu’s equation of “Hamastan” and “Fatahstan” is political advocacy, not analytical assessment; as the @IDF will tell you, the #PalestinianAuthority – for all its real and serious faults – has played a key role in ensuring that Sinwar’s goal of expanding the war from Gaza to the West Bank has so far failed. This does not, by any stretch, mean the return of #AbuMazen to Gaza or "replacing" Hamas-rule with PA-rule, as Netanyahu suggested; but it also doesn’t mean that there can be no whiff of connection between the PA and what will emerge in a post-Hamas Gaza. The US has a strong interest in having a Day After plan proposed by Israel and agreed by Jerusalem, Arab capitals and key international organizations; this requires leadership, creativity, vision and quiet diplomacy. Failure to achieve this risks consigning both the people of Gaza and the soldiers of Israel to endless and sadly unnecessary war.