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Source: https://jewishinsider.com/2024/06/gaza-postwar-plan-israeli-government-netanyahu-hamas-education/
The Day-After Plan for Gaza on Israeli Leaders' Desks
(Jewish Insider) Lahav Harkov - "From a Murderous Ideology to a Moderate Society: Transforming and Rebuilding Gaza after Hamas" is a 28-page paper circulating around the upper echelon of Israel's government and security establishment, outlining four academics' recommendations for ensuring Hamas and Gaza are no longer a threat to Israel. According to the document, "Israel's ability to achieve its goals depends not only on the military and diplomatic campaign taking place these days, but also on its ability to rehabilitate and transform a nation that was led by a murderous ideology, to produce stable institutions and an Arabic culture that does not educate for jihad, a culture that accepts the existence of the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people." The authors analyzed post-World War II Germany and Japan as successful cases. The first precondition is the total defeat of Hamas. "If there is no total defeat, there is no point in starting the attempts at deradicalization, rehabilitating systems, building new governing infrastructure and so on. History teaches us that rehabilitation under fire will fail." They point to three parameters for total defeat: A loss of territory, a loss of sovereignty - meaning no Hizbullah-like situation where Hamas maintains de facto control - and public trials for Hamas leaders and Oct. 7 perpetrators. The public trials are "critical for the long-term and historic memory in Israel and internationally," said Netta Barak-Corren of Hebrew University, one of the authors. "One cannot totally defeat ideologies, but ideologies can be either very central or very peripheral. We see the Nazi idea hasn't passed away - it's still out there - but it isn't what it was in World War II." The authors recommend leaving Hamas' middle management in place to run Gaza. "The 'technocrats'...who will be willing to accept the new reality will not be harmed and will be rewarded." The authors say "successful transformation requires the creation of a positive horizon for the defeated nation," while "the option of Israeli military rule must float in the background." If Israel makes clear that it will leave Gaza at some point regardless of its progress, Gazans will have less of an incentive to come up with an alternative to Hamas. As such, the goals Gazans need to meet must not have a rigid schedule attached to them. The new narrative would "lean on Sunni Muslim Arab tradition...in its moderate versions in education and culture and grant the Palestinians a concrete, positive vision to latch onto for demilitarized Palestinian self-rule at the end of the process." The paper discourages Israel's leadership from setting a goal of democratization for Gaza, saying that this is "a move that has failed in every place it was tried in the Arab world. The goal should not be turning Gaza into a Western democracy, but an Arab-Muslim entity that is moderate and not jihadist."