The Only Real Option for Israel in Gaza
October 7th fundamentally changed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Our paradigms must change too.
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Yesterday, Egypt and Qatar (the so-called “mediators” in the Israel-Hamas negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage deal) have made yet another dubious proposal for a yearslong truce and full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza alongside a hostages-for-prisoners swap, a “Hamas source” told the BBC.1
That the BBC has sources in Hamas, a mega-terrorist group which seeks the destruction of the West (including the BBC), and takes these terrorists at their word is both dumbfounding and alarming — but that’s another issue for another day.
The reported proposal from Egypt and Qatar includes a ceasefire of between five and seven years, a formal end to the war, a complete IDF pullout from Gaza, and the release of “all Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.”
In other words, Egypt (which supposedly has peace with Israel) and Qatar (the most two-faced regime on this planet) are pining for a Hamas victory.
First things first: A five-to-seven-year ceasefire is not peace and calm. It’s desperate, senseless procrastination — a political fig leaf that covers nothing and fools no one. It’s a chance for Hamas to rearm, regroup, and re-indoctrinate another generation of children to hate Jews and dream of martyrdom.
How do we know this to be true?
Hamas’ military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, has recruited around 30,000 young people from Gaza to join their ranks, according to a Saudi Al Arabiya channel report on Sunday, which cited Palestinian sources.
We’ve seen this movie again and again and again, like a bad Spotify playlist on repeat. The 2014 ceasefire gave Hamas time to dig more tunnels and develop longer-range rockets. The “hudnas” — Arabic for temporary truces rooted in Islamic jurisprudence — are not acts of goodwill; they are tactical pauses in violence meant to buy time to regain strength and prosecute more violence.
The classic historical example comes from the Prophet Muhammad himself. In 628 CE, he signed the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah with the Quraysh tribe of Mecca, a 10-year truce meant to ensure peace between the Muslims of Medina and the Quraysh of Mecca. But just two years later, once Muhammad had amassed enough military power, he broke the truce and marched on Mecca, taking the city by force.
Islamic militants today, including Hamas, study that playbook with reverence. They don’t hide it. For them, a truce (hudna) is a tool — a deception allowed, even encouraged, when weak, to buy time for jihad when strong.
So when Hamas offers “unprecedented flexibility” and a multi-year ceasefire, we should hear it for what it truly is: Hudaybiyyah 2.0. The calm before the next storm — not because we misread them, but because we did read them, and chose to ignore it.
Thus, agreeing to a time-limited lull while leaving the architects of genocide in power is not just naïve. It’s suicidal. It doesn’t end the war; it just sets the stage for the next one, with more casualties, more hostages, and more international crocodile tears when Israel is forced to act again.
True peace doesn’t come from pretending your enemy wants it too. It comes from removing the threat — fully, decisively, and for good.
Let’s be clear: Any “peace deal” that leaves Hamas standing — politically, militarily, ideologically — is not peace. It is a reprieve for a death cult. A breath of air before it reloads. October 7th was not a “one-off,” not a deviation, but the logical continuation of what Hamas has always been. It wasn’t a protest gone too far; it was the manifesto made manifest.
And so, the conclusion is simple: Israel must remain in Gaza. Permanently. October 7th fundamentally changed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Our paradigms must change too.
The international community’s fever dream — that Gaza will somehow become a Singapore on the Mediterranean if we just give it “space” and “respect” — needs to be put out of its misery. Every version of Palestinian self-governance in Gaza has led to the same outcome: terrorism, repression, and genocidal obsession with Israel’s destruction.
Let’s recall that Hamas won elections in 2006, violently expelled the Palestinian Authority from Gaza (including throwing Palestinian Authority members off buildings and dragging their dead bodies through the streets as a warning to dissidents), and then promptly turned the Strip into a Islamist launching pad for endless war.
Before Hamas, the Palestinian Authority ruled and, true to form, embezzled foreign aid, taught children to hate Jews, and quietly armed itself. Now we’re told Hamas is willing to “cede control of the Strip to any agreed Palestinian entity, whether the Palestinian Authority or a newly formed administrative body,” and that the terror group has shown “unprecedented flexibility.”
This is the same “flexibility” that longtime Palestinian leader (and mega-terrorist) Yasser Arafat purportedly showed when he agreed with Israel on the Oslo Accords — including handshakes and a Nobel Prize — all while planning the Second Intifada behind the scenes. Palestinian “flexibility” is just terrorism dressed in a suit. And much of the world, as always, is ready to be duped.
Do they really think that we Israelis are that stupid? That we have the memory of a goldfish and the strategic foresight of a toddler? That we’ll shake hands with a butcher one day, and let him babysit the next?
Many Diaspora Jews may keep Israel in the distance, but Israelis are on the literal frontlines. We remember the buses blown to bits in Tel Aviv. We remember the pizzerias turned into war zones. We remember the rockets, the tunnels, the kidnappings. And now, we will remember October 7th — the day the masks came off (yet again), and the world asked us (yet again) to put ours back on.
Thanks but no, thanks.
Some will scoff at the notion of Israeli control in Gaza. They’ll label it a “far-Right” opinion, wring their hands, and cry “occupation” and “forced displacement.” But slapping superficial terms on strategic necessity is not going to solve much in this world, no less the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
If securing Israel’s border, preventing rocket fire from Islamist extremists, and dismantling terror tunnels is “far-Right,” then the term has lost all meaning.
What we’re talking about isn’t ideology. It’s about self-preservation and survival. It’s not about “Right” or “Left,” but about right or wrong. And it is wrong — morally, historically, and strategically — to hand Gaza back to the very people who turned it into an open-air fortress for jihad.
If the people of Gaza need to be relocated, so be it. Why? Because war has consequences. And when a population enables, elects, and embeds a genocidal terror regime, the resulting fallout is not just unfortunate; it’s inevitable.
The world needs to stop treating the residents of Gaza as passive bystanders in a tragedy they helped script. Hamas didn’t take power in a vacuum. It was voted in. It was harbored. Its rockets have been launched from apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, and mosques with the tacit, and often explicit, cooperation of civilians.
Yes, many in Gaza suffer. But suffering does not absolve responsibility. If maintaining long-term security for Israel, one of the beacons of the free world, requires the evacuation of areas densely populated with terrorist infrastructure, then that is what must happen.
If that means relocation under international supervision, so be it. If that means resettlement in areas away from military targets, so be it. The safety of Israeli citizens cannot and must not be held hostage to the idea that every square inch of Gaza must remain exactly as it was before October 7th. There is no moral logic in saying that the aggressor’s living conditions must remain sacrosanct while the victim’s very existence is negotiable.
The post-October 7th reality requires new thinking, renewed courage, and fresh policies that don’t bend over backwards to preserve the status quo that led us to that day in the first place.
October 6th was one world. October 7th was another. The old logic (that stability could be outsourced, that Israel could retreat and peace would blossom) has been buried under the rubble of the Nova music festival and the burning kibbutzim.
The people who burned babies, raped women, kidnapped the elderly, and live-streamed it for the world to see, are not interested in “unprecedented flexibility.” They don’t want a state beside Israel. They want one instead of Israel. And now, with Western liberalism’s help, they’re being rebranded as victims of “disproportionate force.”
There’s a reason the world is always eager to “move on” from Jewish suffering. There’s a reason Hamas is being invited to participate in ceasefire talks while Israeli hostages rot in tunnels. The moral compass is broken. But Israel cannot afford to be confused by it.
That’s why there is only one choice: Israel must control Gaza.
Not because we Israelis are chomping at the bit to control the Strip, but because we have no other realistic option. It is a matter of national security, regional stability, and basic morality.
The IDF must remain. Terror infrastructure must be dismantled. UNRWA (the UN agency for Palestinian “refugees”) must be ejected. The educational system must be rebuilt from scratch. The mosques must stop preaching genocide. The borders must be watched with the vigilance of a nation that remembers October 7th not as an aberration, but as a warning.
Control isn’t colonialism. It’s sanity. And in the face of madness, sanity is the most radical (and necessary) stance of all.
“New Israel-Gaza ceasefire plan proposed, Hamas source tells BBC.” BBC.
Israel should not occupy Gaza. It should annex it as part of Israel. It should do that only after Hamas has unconditionally surrendered, it's leaders executed, and every last Arab given a one way ticket to anywhere in the Arab world. Israel needs to obliterate the concept of "Palestine", so that every Arab knows that they have irreversibly been defeated. Israel should then move on to the West Bank and repeat the process. Only when there are no Palestinian Arabs anywhere near Israel will there be peace. If the Arab world doesn't like that solution, they can go fuck themselves.
Excellent piece. Thank you. I’m under attack by colleagues who view anything commonsensical like this piece as “anti-Palestinian rhetoric.” It’s pathetic.