The Washington Post published a report over the weekend stating that the White House is working on a plan to take over and rebuild the Gaza Strip. One of the proposals mentioned the “voluntary” resettlement of two million Palestinians, and Donald Trump's team is also planning to build beach resorts.
This is strongly reminiscent of the Republican president's statement in February that he wanted to “take over” the Palestinian enclave and turn it into a Middle Eastern Riviera. This statement was met with positive reactions from Israel and criticism from Arab states and the international community.
Against the backdrop of these plans, the Israeli army finally marched into Gaza City, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had already announced at the end of August – also amid protests from Arab and Muslim states. However, Tel Aviv is pushing the Palestinian question even further by considering the legalization of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
The expansion of the Jewish state at the expense of its neighbors has essentially continued since its founding in 1948. While the representatives of the supporters of Zionism expected a mandate for Palestine that stretched “from the river to the sea,” the Arab states relied on the 1947 partition plan, in which the UN outlined a Jewish and an Arab state.
Jordan seceded the West Bank, Egypt the Gaza Strip, but Israel controlled the rest – and it is precisely this area that is still considered Israeli territory today. After the Six-Day War in 1967, however, Tel Aviv occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, all of which remain occupied to this day, with the exception of the latter.
Greater Israel
Israel argues that it is adhering to the decision of Great Britain, which considered Jordan an “Arab state” and renamed Palestine “British Mandate of Palestine – Transjordan.”
Similarly, the Golan Heights in northeastern Israel, which originally belonged to Syria, are under occupation because Israel needed to secure a source of drinking water – Lake Tiberias [also known as the Sea of Galilee or Lake Genezareth, editor's note]. In 1981, the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, unilaterally annexed two-thirds of this area by passing a law.
After the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December last year, Israel made a “preventive” incursion into the security zone on the edge of the Golan Heights, which also met with criticism. Currently, there is also “no need” to respect the borders established after World War I, as US Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack explained.
The ambassador to Ankara and envoy for Syria and the Caucasus said in a recent interview that Tel Aviv has the “ability or desire” to take control of Lebanon and Syria. This was part of a warning against continuing the war in northern Israel against the Shiite Hezbollah and disarming it.
“In Israel's eyes, these borders drawn by Sykes and Picot are meaningless. The Israelis will go where they want, when they want, and do what they want to protect the Israelis and their borders,” he said, referring to negotiators Mark Sykes and François Picot, after whom the agreement on the borders of Syria, Iraq, and Jordan is named.
As political scientist John Mearsheimer recently explained, the goal of Israel's founders was to control the entire mandate territory assigned by London after World War II. Zionists such as David Ben Gurion and Vladimir Ze'ev Jabotinsky were aware that the new Jewish state would have to “cleanse” the area ethnically of its Arab population, and current governments (especially those on the right) are therefore attempting to unify and annex the occupied territories.
The professor referred to this territory as “Greater Israel.” The result would be an annexation similar to that of the Golan Heights, widespread legalization of Jewish settlements, but also the granting of citizenship to certain groups of the population beyond the Jordan River—especially the Samaritans. However, this scenario essentially points to further displacement of the Palestinians.
Liberation of Palestine
For the purposes of the Israeli Declaration of Independence, the ancestors of today's Palestinians were given the designation “Israeli Arabs.” In the event of “peaceful coexistence,” they were guaranteed basic rights, and some were also granted citizenship. Currently, of the ten million Israelis, about 2.1 million are of Arab nationality.
However, citizenship and rights were only granted to Arabs living in the area bounded by the so-called Green Line. This is a line where Israeli and Arab troops stood during the 1949 ceasefire and is considered the de facto “border” of Israel.
However, Israel does not have a border confirmed by the UN. The Jewish state relies on the international community's willingness to guarantee the draft of the British Mandate of 1947, i.e., “from the river to the sea.”
However, Israeli Arabs refer to themselves as “Palestinian citizens of Israel” and thus identify with the descendants of the Arabs who were expelled during the founding of Israel. The identity of Palestinians outside Israel is linked precisely to their status as refugees or displaced persons.
Palestine was to be established alongside Israel in the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Resolving their conflict by establishing two independent states has also been the policy of the US since the presidency of Jimmy Carter through to Barack Obama, as well as that of several European countries.
In quick succession during the summer months, France, Great Britain, Australia, and Canada announced that they would recognize Palestinian statehood at the next UN General Assembly in September—with the Anglo-Saxon states, however, setting conditions. Since the beginning of the war in the Gaza Strip in October 2023, they have joined nine other states that recognized Palestine last year.
Of a total of 193 countries, 147 now recognize Palestine, while the United States, Japan, South Korea, Myanmar, and Panama have long opposed it.
Maintaining the status quo
After the establishment of Palestine as a sovereign state, a whole series of other problems could arise. The first problem will be the territory itself, which is not connected and in whose various parts different political groups govern the Palestinians.
The Palestinian Authority officially governs the West Bank. It is the highest representative body of the Palestinian people, established on the basis of the Oslo Accords in 1993 to 1995. It was originally under the auspices of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), which, however, does not enjoy much trust in Israel due to a series of terrorist attacks on Jewish targets.
The PLO also unites political movements that are represented in the legislative body of the Palestinian Authority, with the social democratic Fatah movement – Movement for the Liberation of the Palestinian People – having the decisive say.
Opposing this order is the nationalist movement Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), which emerged in the Gaza Strip as the Palestinian offshoot of the originally Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. After the structures became independent, Hamas operated within the PLO and the Palestinian Authority until 2006, when it won the parliamentary elections and took complete control of the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Fatah) then annulled the election results, leading to mutual clashes and the expulsion of Fatah members from the Gaza Strip. Similarly, the Palestinian Authority expelled several Hamas members from the West Bank, meaning that Palestine is geographically and politically divided into two de facto sub-states.
Under the Oslo Accords, the West Bank is also divided into three zones. Zones A and B are under the civil control of the Palestinian Authority, with the latter zone also being jointly controlled by the Israeli armed forces at the security level. Together, however, they account for 18 and 22 percent of the West Bank's territory, respectively.
The rest – Zone C – is under the complete occupation administration of Tel Aviv, and this is precisely where Jewish settlers are building illegal settlements. The difference becomes clear when using English terminology: the term “settlement” refers to settlements that have legal status under Israeli law, while the word “outpost” refers to illegal settlements.
It should be remembered that, from the perspective of international law, all settlements in Zone C are illegal. The reason for this is that the Oslo Accords clearly stipulate that this area will be “gradually transferred to Palestinian self-rule,” which was to be completed in 1999.
Extremists on both sides protested against these agreements. Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas blew up buses in the cities of Afula and Chadera in northern Israel, and on February 25, 1994, American-Jewish doctor Baruch Goldstein opened fire on Muslims praying in the city of Hebron.
One consequence of this was the assassination of then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was shot dead in November 1995 by Zionist extremist Yigal Amir. Rabin's widow Lea accused the then opposition leader, who she said had resisted the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. That man was Benjamin Netanyahu.
However, it should be remembered that the widow's statement was also made in the context of political struggle. To date, she has not presented any evidence of the Likud party's involvement in the assassination. However, Amir himself, who was apparently driven by a sense of Jewish superiority, also admitted to having links to the far-right scene.
Neither side in the endless conflict seems willing to cooperate in maintaining the status quo. The war in the Gaza Strip did not break out in a vacuum – Hamas continued to attack Tel Aviv and other cities in 2021. The long-time leader of the movement in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, was among the prisoners exchanged by Israel in 2011 for the release of Sergeant Gilad Shalit.
The Hamas leader in the enclave was born under Egyptian administration in Gaza to parents who had been expelled from nearby Ashkelon by Israel. He was thus a prime example of the collective anger of Palestinians who have been displaced for several generations and long for revenge against the Jewish state that robbed them of their homeland.
Israel will almost certainly win
These scenarios are basically the only ones that are reasonably realistic. As proclaimed in Hamas' founding charter, the movement's goal is the “destruction of the Zionist regime,” which is highly unlikely given the Jewish state's superiority in all areas.
Following economic reforms—led by Netanyahu as finance minister—Israel has experienced an incredible boom in all sectors, including digital and defense technology. Last year, Slovakia also signed a contract with Israel Aerospace Industries to purchase Barak air defense systems.
However, economic and military superiority offers Israel the opportunity to achieve a goal that the first Zionists probably did not even dare to dream of – Israel as a major power in the Middle East.
Since the founding of the state, governments in Tel Aviv [in fact, Jerusalem is the seat of the Israeli government, editor's note] have also invested large sums in lobby groups in the US to win over the American public. It should be remembered that the status of Jerusalem is one of the central issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with both sides claiming the city as their capital.
In addition to the Israel lobby, which secures billions of dollars annually for the Israeli arms industry, the Mossad intelligence service is also involved, which, according to recently declassified files on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, has been given permanent “back door” access to the CIA's counterintelligence operations.
This was ensured in 1961 by the then director of the department, James Jesus Angleton, who had maintained close and cordial contacts with the secret services since the 1950s – not only with Mossad, but also with the Shin Bet internal security service.
These advantages give Israel a power advantage over its neighbors. Lebanon has long struggled with Hezbollah, which is part of the pro-Iranian axis of resistance against Israel. Since December 8, Syria has been under the patronage of pro-Turkish jihadists led by Ahmad Husajn Schara, while the terrorist organization Islamic State is gradually returning to the scene.
Iraq has been largely destroyed since 2003, when it was attacked by American and British troops, and its Shiite government is threatened by Shiite militias loyal to Tehran. Iran itself, however, is a weakened power, kept on course mainly by the theocratic regime of the ayatollahs.
A good example of this is that instead of investing in their own civilian infrastructure, they have invested in arming Hamas or Hezbollah, which has recently led to a catastrophic decline in drinking water supplies. By comparison, Israel also extends partly over a desert, but does not struggle with water shortages.
So how will it end?
The defeat and destruction of Israel are just as unlikely as the maintenance of the status quo. The last remaining option is a definitive victory for Israel, which will probably also include the annexation of the Palestinian territories.
However, this will trigger a series of further terrorist attacks by the defeated and betrayed Palestinians, who once again find themselves in a situation where they have “nothing to lose.” Even if these attacks will no longer be on the same scale as before—since the Israeli army and Mossad have destroyed most of the armed capabilities of the militant movements in the wider region—they will still take place, leading to a further tightening of security measures.
The Zionists and their European supporters are relying on the surrounding Arab states to take in the Palestinians. But it was the League of Arab States that founded the PLO in 1964 with the aim of controlling the West Bank in accordance with the British Mandate.
The only country that has granted the Palestinians the right to representation and naturalized some of them is the neighboring Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Palestinians make up just under a fifth of the country's 11 million inhabitants. The rest of the Arabs are mainly Bedouins, who often cross the Jordanian-Iraqi border and are difficult to distinguish from the Sunnis living there.
Israel thus has the option of expelling Palestinians from the West Bank to Jordan, while it wants to resettle those from the Gaza Strip to Egypt. Although Cairo regularly protests and expanded the security zone on the Sinai Peninsula in February 2024, Egypt is one of the target countries of the plans of Israel's American supporters.
The Humanitarian Foundation for Gaza (GHF) has reportedly drawn up plans to create “humanitarian transit zones” to which Palestinians will be relocated during the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. In addition to Egypt, such zones are also to be set up in Cyprus, according to the Reuters news agency, citing the plans.
The GHF denied any connection to the plans, which were presented at the US Embassy in Jerusalem earlier this year. Trump and Netanyahu discussed the “resettlement” of Palestinian civilians during their meeting at the White House on July 14, and the result of these efforts is likely to be the Middle East Riviera.
Another of the stated goals is South Sudan, where humanitarian aid from Israel has also been flowing since its secession in 2011. The infrastructure projects that Tel Aviv is planning or already supporting there are also supposed to benefit the local population.
Netanyahu admitted in mid-August that Israeli and South Sudanese representatives had negotiated these plans. “I think that even according to the laws of war that I am familiar with, the right solution is to allow the inhabitants to leave and then to throw all our forces at the enemy that remains there,” he told the i24 television station.
According to special envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump wants to end the war in Gaza “by the end of the year.” Theoretically, Israel could carry out a new withdrawal similar to that of 2005, when it dismantled all Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, although after the wars of 2021 and the current war, it does not appear that they will take the same path.