← History As It Happens
History As It Happens
Sharon's Disengagement (Gaza 2005)
00:45:09
In 2005 Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza, forcing out thousands of Jewish settlers. Peace did not follow in their wake. Rather than a resolution to Palestinian statelessness, Israelis and Arabs received 18 years of violence, defined by the...
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- [00:01]
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Martin DeCaro
Vote history as it happens March 4, 2025 Sharon's Disengagement the soldiers that you.
- [01:15]
Aaron Bregman
Have seen are the last ones to leave the Gaza Strip. The mission is completed. An era has ended. We are taking this step from strength and not from weakness. We started to come to agreements with the Palestinians that will lead both nations to a path of peace. I think that it is important that world will know that we want not only to leave Gaza, but to go for a permanent solution. After this withdrawal, Israel and Hamas have.
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Martin DeCaro
Agreed to a three day break in.
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Aaron Bregman
The war to give negotiators. The Israelis say that there were many.
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Advertiser 1
Hamas rocket launchers near here, not here.
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Martin DeCaro
We don't have Hamas here.
- [01:56]
Unnamed Speaker 1
They took out all the Israelis. They turned the keys over to the Palestinian people. And what happened? Hamas took over Gaza.
- [02:09]
Martin DeCaro
20 years ago, Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza, forcing out thousands of Jewish settlers. Peace did not follow in their wake. Rather than a resolution to Palestinian statelessness, Israelis and Arabs received 18 years of violence leading to October 7, 2023. Why did disengagement fail? That's next as we report history as it happens. I'm Martin DeCaro.
- [02:34]
Aaron Bregman
Israel has stopped all humanitarian aid from entering Gaz. Very ironic, but the person who provoked the second Intifada ere Sharon, was then elected by the Israeli people in 2001 to become the Prime Minister and his task was to end the Palestinian uprising, which he did quite well. And by 2005 the second intifada was more or less over. And in between 2000 and 2005, Erna Sharon came up with the idea of a disengagement from the Gaza Strip.
- [03:31]
Martin DeCaro
September 2005. Palestinians take to the streets to celebrate the withdrawal of the last Israeli forces from Gaza, where they'd been protecting some 8,000 Jewish settlers. The celebration did not last. The Israeli military remained in control of most of Gaza's borders, enforcing a land, air and sea blockade. Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other smaller militant groups fired rockets from Gaza into southern Israel, a harbinger of the next two decades leading up to the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack that triggered the current war.
- [04:09]
Aaron Bregman
More than 700 Israelis are now feared dead after unprecedented attacks.
- [04:16]
Unnamed Speaker 2
More than 1,000 civilians slaughtered, among them.
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Unnamed Speaker 1
At least 14American citizens.
- [04:21]
Martin DeCaro
In 2006, just a year after Sharon's disengagement, Hamas won a majority of seats in the Palestinian election. Israel and the US then cut off aid to the Palestinians because Hamas refused to renounce violence and recognize Israel. From 2008 to 2022, Israel launched five major military assaults on Gaza, a pattern that came to be known as mowing the grass. Short, sharp military operations to maintain control over Gaza without committing to a long term political solution. Like hacking weeds periodically when they grow unruly, these bouts of violence were usually triggered by Hamas rocket attacks or kidnappings, followed by massive Israeli retaliation that killed thousands of Palestinians.
- [05:06]
Aaron Bregman
Nearly 1900 Palestinians and 67 Israelis have.
- [05:11]
Martin DeCaro
Been killed since the fighting.
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Aaron Bregman
Many people who now can finally come home are realizing that they simply don't have a home to come to.
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Martin DeCaro
But it wasn't supposed to be this way. Not when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon disengage from Gaza in 2005.
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Ariel Sharon
It was with a heavy heart that the government of Israel made the decision regarding disengagement and the Knesset did not easily approve. Is no secret that I, like many others, believed and hoped that we could forever hold on to Netzerim and Kfarderom. However, the changing reality in this country, in the region and the world, required another reassessment and changing of positions. Gaza cannot be held onto forever. Over 1 million Palestinians live there and they double their numbers with every generation. They live in incredibly cramped and refugee camps, in poverty and squalor, in hotbeds of ever increasing hatred, with no hope whatsoever on the horizon.
- [06:13]
Martin DeCaro
A move some Israelis angrily opposed.
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Unnamed Speaker 2
The message is that as Jews, we live our life according to the Torah. And in Torah it states clearly that the land of Israel belongs to the Jews. And that is the statement we want to send to the entire world and to the United nations that the Jews are not going to give it back one inch because it's not ours to give back. The land was given to us by God and therefore we have a right to live there and we want to be there.
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Martin DeCaro
Yet in 2004, Sharon's senior advisor, Dov Weisglass, explained the meaning of disengagement. He said the significance of the plan is the freezing of the peace process. And when you freeze that process, he said, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. The peace process is the establishment of a Palestinian state with all the security risks that entails. The peace process is the evacuation of settlements. It is the return of refugees, the partition of Jerusalem and all that has now been frozen, said Dov Weisglass, Sharon's senior advisor. You know, just two years before that, President George W. Bush tried to reignite the peace process with his Roadmap to Peace. Drafted by the so called Quartet, the us, the un, Russia and the eu. The roadmap made demands of both sides.
- [07:40]
Unnamed Speaker 1
For the sake of all humanity, things must change in the Middle East. It is untenable for Israeli citizens to live in terror. It is untenable for Palestinians to live in squalor and occupation. And the current situation offers no prospect that life will improve.
- [08:05]
Martin DeCaro
But it ran into obstacles. The Israeli government said the Palestinians did not rein in the suicide bombers and gunmen of Hamas during the second Intifada. The Palestinian said Israel wasn't committed to ending settlement expansion. Sharon's disengagement did raise hopes that the roadmap process could be revived after 2005. But as we'll hear from our guest in this episode, it had the opposite effect in the long run. Aaron Bregman teaches history at King's College, London. He is an IDF veteran who participated in the siege of Beirut during the second Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. During the first intifada against the Israeli occupation, Bregman objected to serving in the IDF to crush that uprising. He is the author of many books on the Israeli Palestinian conflict, including Israel's a history since 1947, which he is now updating to include the ongoing war. Our own Bregman. Welcome back.
- [09:01]
Aaron Bregman
Thank you, Martin for having me again.
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Martin DeCaro
So let's start by having you generally describe the situation in Israel, Gaza, the West bank in 2005. The second intifada is coming to an end. This was a disastrous uprising for the Palestinians. The Oslo process has Been derailed. Right. Why don't you pick it up from there?
- [09:20]
Aaron Bregman
You know, Martin, the person looking over over our shoulders while we are doing this chat is obviously Eryl Sharon. Erel Sharon was a military man, a genius if you want. And in 2000 he was the opposition leader, the Likud opposition leader in Israel. And he triggered the second Intifada by doing a controversial march on the Temple Mount, Haram al Sharif in Jerusalem. It provoked the Palestinians and the second Palestinian uprising started. You have to remember why they had moved the visit of Sharon to our very important and religious place. For the whole Muslim.
- [10:22]
Unnamed Speaker 1
While I understand the anguish Palestinians feel over the losses they have suffered, there can be no possible justification for mob violence. I call on both sides to undertake a cease fire immediately.
- [10:37]
Aaron Bregman
It sounds very ironic, but the person who provoked the second Intifada, ere Sharon, was then elected by the Israeli people in 2001 to become the Prime Minister. And his task was to end the Palestinian uprising, which he did quite well. And by 2005 the second intifada was more or less over. And in between 2000 and 2005, Elder Sharon came up with the idea of a disengagement from the Gaza Strip.
- [11:20]
Martin DeCaro
He first proposed it in 2003. Let me just note that Sharon's history with Gaza goes back a way. Quoting Jean Pierre Fillu, the historian, he wrote this superb essay in Foreign affairs that I keep going back to, why Gaza matters. Israel's second occupation of Gaza started in June 67 after the Israeli triumph in the Six Day War. The local population nonetheless supported for four years a low intensity guerrilla war until Ariel Sharon, the Israeli commander for the region, bulldozed parts of the refugee camps and broke the back of the insurgency. Again, this is after 1967. Today, writes Fil you, the Israeli army is using the very same map that Sharon did to distinguish the so called safe areas from the combat zones in the ongoing offensive. And he put safe areas in quotes. In 1974, Sharon proposed resettling tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees in Israel to address Palestinian grievances, at least symbolically. But once again the idea was rejected. So what was disengagement? What was the policy and what were its consequences?
- [12:33]
Aaron Bregman
You see, the word used by the Israelis or by Ere el Sharon at the time was disengagement. Because you see, Martin, and I'm a little bit sarcastic now. The Israelis never withdraw, they never pull out and therefore they disengage, meaning we are in control, we are not running away, we are not withdrawing, we are not pulling back. We are disengaging. Everything is under control. And the idea of Erea Sharon was to get out of the Gaza Strip to move out the settlers who were there and the military which were there. This idea emerged, as you mentioned, in.
- [13:19]
Martin DeCaro
Around 2003, how many Jewish settlers were in Gaza and how many military people were there needing to defend them?
- [13:28]
Aaron Bregman
Let me just add something else. In line with the Osra courts which started back in 1993, the Israelis in 4th of May 1994 withdrew from most of the Gaza Strip. People don't know that, but in 1994 the Israelis are not fully deployed in the Gaza Strip. What remained in the Gaza Strip after 1994? 21 Jewish settlements with about 8,000 settlers, most of them in the southern western part of the Gaza Strip in an area called the Muasi. The Mowassi were, by the way, where during the Gaza war, the current Gaza War, most of the Palestinians were moved to this area by the Israeli army. Now back to Gaza. To your question, Martin. We are talking about 22 Jewish settlements with about 7,500 to 8,000 settlers and some military bases in the south along what we call the Firadel Firouch, which is the route 13 km separating the Gaza Strip from the Sinai and some Israeli forces in the northern part of the Gaza Strip in the so called.
- [15:06]
Martin DeCaro
Netzerim route, the Philadelphia route, that is near the border with Egypt. And were these settlements separated from Palestinians like cities unto themselves?
- [15:18]
Aaron Bregman
The problem, the practical problem with these settlements was that most of them were very close to the sea. And therefore if say a settler wanted to go to a wedding in Israel, you needed a military convoy to take him out because you had to cross to the east to cross about 10 kilometers into Israel. So they are in the western most of the, in the western part of the Gaza Strip, close to the sea and away from Israel. So they are quite isolated, surrounded by, in 2005, 1.8 hostile Palestinians.
- [16:03]
Martin DeCaro
1.8 million.
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Aaron Bregman
1.8 million, yes, Palestinians. Yeah.
- [16:08]
Martin DeCaro
So I do want to return to the purpose of disengagement and its consequences in a moment. But one other question as to why Israeli Jews wanted to settle Gaza. So Israelis who subscribe to Greater Israel ideology, they refer to the west bank as Judea and Samaria. Biblically, it is theirs. Right? This is revisionist Zionism. All the land belongs to us. Gaza has never really been as important as the West Bank. Right. In those terms. So why did Jewish settlers want to go into Gaza?
- [16:39]
Aaron Bregman
Well, it was more the initiative of the government and under Sharon, as A military man and later a minister, not a prime minister. The government, Israeli government in the 1970s, wanted to build settlements in the Gaza Strip in order to turn Gaza similar to the west bank, where they separate the different areas of the Gaza Strip. So strategically not to have the Gaza Strip as one unit where there is continuity. So it was in the 1970s that it was ere Sharon, in fact, who started building settlements all over the Gaza Strip. In the north, in the center, in the south. Now, about the settlers themselves, many of them, and it is very interesting, again, it is Sharon looking over our shoulder. Martin, in 1982, the Israelis withdrew from the Sinai following the peace with Egypt. In the Sinai there were Jewish settlements, most of them just south of the Philadelphia route in the sinai. It was Ere Chiron, as defense minister of Israel in April 1982, who was tasked with removing the Sinai settlements. He brought in heavy machinery. He ordered the military to drag out the settlers from the houses. He flattened all the settlements in the Sinai and the settlers who lived there, most of them moved to the Gaza Strip and became settlers there. These settlers, by the way, many of them started in the Sinai between 1967 and 1982. After 1982, many of them moved to the Gaza strip. And in 2005, many of them moved to the west bank.
- [18:41]
Martin DeCaro
And in 2005, the military had to be called in to remove the settlers. Right. They didn't want to go voluntarily.
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Aaron Bregman
Exactly. Exactly. Because it is true, you are absolutely right, that the Gaza Strip is not as important for the settlers as the West Bank. It's not biblical. But the settlers resisted the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip because they were concerned that if Israel start in the Gaza Strip, it will later do the same on the West Bank. So in order not to have this principle of settlers removal, the settlers really fought very hard not to be removed from the Gaza Strip. And in fact, the removal to remove the settlers from the Gaza strip in August September 2005 was quite a violent affair. They wouldn't go. And the military had to use a lot of, you know, force in order to remove them.
- [19:44]
Martin DeCaro
And we need to note that disengagement in 2005 was done unilaterally. There was no negotiation with the Palestinian Authority, with Arafat. I forgot which year Arafat died. Was it 2004? Yes. This process, as you noted, as we noted, started in 2003. The idea was it meant to revive the peace process or sideline the peace process?
- [20:10]
Aaron Bregman
I want, Martin to qualify what you've just said, that it was a unilateral move. It was and it was not. It was unilateral in the sense that Sharon never negotiated it with the Palestinians, but he negotiated with the Americans. So from this point of view, it was not unilateral. You see, around this time, this so called Quartet, which was made of the Russians, Americans, the European Unions and the United nations, came up with a new idea. They called it the road map. The road map was a roadmap to a Palestinian state. It was supposed to lead to a Palestinian state. Sharon objected it. Sharon wanted to kill the road map of 2003. He thought hard and decided that the best way to kill this road map, which the Europeans and the United nations and the Americans and the Russians wanted to impose on him, was to come up with a big idea. And therefore his big idea of disengagement was meant in order to kill the roadmap, which will force him to negotiate on Jerusalem. It will force him to allow Palestinian refugees to come into Israel. So he, Sharon decided to negotiate with the Bush administration, W. Bush. And he got from the Americans, from Bush promises which helped Israel. For example, in the negotiations with Americans, it was said that the Palestinian refugees will not return to Israel, but to the future Palestinian state. In the negotiations with Americans, Bush agreed for Sharon to keep some land of the West Bank. And therefore it was meant to kill the road map. And to get from the American promises and from Sharon's point of view, it worked very well because he was right in hindsight. The road map was killed.
- [22:33]
Martin DeCaro
April 30, 2003. The roadmap proposed by the Quartet, as you said, United States, Russia, UN and European Union was based on an outline from President Bush's speech in 2002, laying out a plan for peace based on Palestinian reforms and a cessation of terrorism in return for an end to Israeli settlements and a new Palestinian state. But isn't it always about the settlements? Referring to the settlements in the west.
- [23:02]
Aaron Bregman
Bank here, Bush gave Sharon a lot. He promised him that the Palestinians will not go back to Israel if Sharon gets out of the Gaza Strip. He promised Sharon to keep some land on the west bank if Sharon agrees to get out of the Gaza Strip. But he also asked Sharon. And Sharon agreed to withdraw from four settlements on the west bank just to give the Palestinians some hope that it is not going to be only an engagement, a disengagement from the Gaza Strip. But there is a future. And it brings us to the question why Sharon disengaged and was the idea to proceed with the disengagement and also to disengage from the West Bank.
- [23:53]
Martin DeCaro
So let me share then something that Ian Black wrote in his marvelous history book, Enemies and Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017. And when I mentioned this book, as we connected here, you told me that the author, Ian Black, passed away last year. I did not know that. So that is sad news. But the purpose of this, because I think it's so important to understand what was going on here, because while we can't draw a straight line from 2005 to October 7, 2023, the preceding 18 years before 2023 are very, very important. And it begins with disengagement and then Hamas winning the elections the year or so afterward, and then winning a brief civil war against Fatah. Ian Black writes, Palestinians saw Sharon's disengagement plan as a ploy to promote the idea that Israel was no longer an occupier. Although under international law, the west bank and Gaza were viewed as a single entity, as Israel had recognized at Oslo, underlying motives included shedding responsibility for one and a half million Palestinians and cutting Gaza off from the west bank, where four small and isolated settlements near Jenin were also to be evacuated. Along with the construction of the separation wall was another blow to the already fading idea that there would ever be a viable contiguous Palestinian state in the occupied territories. Above all hovers the cloud of demographics, commented Ehud Olmert, Sharon's Likud colleague. Population growth projections showed that within a few years there would be roughly equal numbers of Jews and Palestinians living in Israel, the West bank and Gaza Strip.
- [25:31]
Aaron Bregman
Two things I want, first of all to say that I believe that there were two reasons why Sharon wanted to get out of the Gaza Strip. Number one, he wanted to kill the roadmap of 2003, which will ask him to do many things he didn't want to do. And number two, Sharon came to the conclusion that it would be very difficult to keep 8,000 settlers, Jewish settlers, surrounded by so many Palestinians, 1.8 million Palestinians by now. By the way, Martin, there are 2.2 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. So he believed that it would be impossible to stay in the Gaza Strip for a long time. And these were the two reasons why he decided to get out. It might be that in his head, he did want to also withdraw from parts of the west bank and to promote a Palestinian state. Somewhere in the future, I don't know and we will never know because he died before he was able to implement. Maybe. Sharon came to the conclusion that Israel had no other option but to separate from the Palestinians. Maybe ere Sharon believed that this is the future for Israel, a two state solution. And that's why he also agreed, as I mentioned, to withdraw from four small Jewish settlements on the West Bank. But symbolically, it was important before Hamas.
- [27:18]
Martin DeCaro
Wins the election in Gaza in 2006. So disengagement is fulfilled. In August 2005, the Israeli settlers leave Gaza. At that point, were there genuine hopes within Israel that the Palestinians would build a, let's call it a statelet in Gaza? The Palestinian Authority was very corrupt, though I'm not sure.
- [27:40]
Aaron Bregman
I think that Sharon again, it's Sharon again. He's, you know, he's so dominant in our conversation. I think that Sharon suspected that this is not going to be the case. I believe that Sharon thought that Hamas might come to power in the Gaza Strip. And why I'm saying that because just before leaving the Gaza Strip, Sharon ordered the military to assassinate the entire Hamas. And the Israelis, just before leaving, assassinated Ahmed Yassin while he was pushed to the mosque, four or five o'clock in the morning. A missile killed him. And shortly after that the Israelis assassinated his deputy Rantisi, who was dressed as a woman sitting in a taxi. And therefore, because of these actions, I believe that Sharon probably suspected that there is a real danger that Hamas will come to power in the Gaza Strip. That's why he took these actions, to eliminate them before leaving. But as you said, they in 2006, 2007, they came to power.
- [28:56]
Martin DeCaro
One other observation from Ian Black's book here to your point, on the immediate issue of Gaza, pro Israeli commentators suggested that the challenge for the Palestinians was now to build a decent mini state, a Dubai on the Mediterranean, whose success would determine whether Israel might be prepared to surrender the west bank at a later date. Achieving that would clearly not be easy for Palestinian Authority ministries that were handicapped by corruption, fragmentation, a lack of funds and resistance to reform, as candidly described by one US diplomatic cable. Sharon's intention, his critics argued, was simply to reshape the occupation without ending it. Slicing off Gaza is just a diplomatic nose job, quipped one US pressure was a major factor. The relationship of the disengagement plan to Bush's roadmap was unclear, though both Palestinians and Israelis had their suspicions. Sharon has proposed his plan to bypass the roadmap and to serve as a substitute for it. Dov Weissglass, the Prime Minister's advisor, appeared to confirm these fears when he famously explained that the aim was to preserve the peace process in Formaldehyde implying that negotiations would never be pursued so that Israel would not have to make any difficult decisions until Palestinians become Finns.
- [30:11]
Aaron Bregman
Well, Martin, this could be the case. We don't know. Again, Sharon died before the project ever completed. But for sure, and what Ian Black says here confirms it for sure. The idea was to kill the roadmap. The roadmap Sharon believed was bad for Israel because it will have to compromise on Jerusalem, it will have to to accept refugees, and maybe Israel was not ready for a Palestinian state. So we agree on this point. It combined probably with his understanding that staying in the Gaza Strip is just too complicated, too difficult, very few settlers, too many hostile Palestinian. As for the question whether or not he wanted to stop the peace process or in fact to continue it, we will never know.
- [31:01]
Martin DeCaro
January 2006, Hamas wins a majority of seats in a Palestinian legislative election. Israel and the US cut off aid to Palestinians because Hamas refuses to renounce violence and recognize Israel. Six months later, Hamas militants capture Israeli army conscript Jihad Shalit in a cross border raid from Gaza, prompting Israeli airstrikes and incursions. Shalit is finally freed more than five years later in a prisoner exchange. And then we'll fast forward to June of 2007. Hamas takes over Gaza in a brief civil war, ousting Fatah forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is based in the West Bank. So we get disengagement, Hamas wins an election, Hamas wins a civil war against Fatah. And this sets the stage for the next, what, 17 years of what was called a mowing the grass strategy. I guess what I need from you, Aaron Bregman, is explain how we get from this situation in 2007 to October 7, 2023. Who in Israel decided to come up with this idea that instead of settling the Palestinian issue, they would just have this tenuous status quo where there would be outbreaks of violence and then you'd have to go in there and mow the grass.
- [32:13]
Aaron Bregman
I think that the key moment is 2009, over my shoulder, over our shoulders. Martin is a new person. Sharon is dead, or he's very unwell. He's not the Prime Minister of Israel any longer. And the new person is Benjamin Netanyahu. And in 2009 he is elected Prime Minister of Israel. And in fact, he likes this idea that on the west bank you have Fatah, the pa, Mahmoud Abbas, Abu Mazen, and in the Gaza Strip you have Hamas. Yes, I know that many of our listeners will be surprised, but Benjamin Netanyahu love this situation where the two areas west bank and Gaza Strip are in competition because then Benjamin Netanyahu can tell the world, look, I cannot offer them a Palestinian state because they are so divided. Because here you have Hamas, the terrorists, there you have the corrupt Abu Mazen. And I cannot give them a Palestinian state. And I don't want a one state solution. I want a sustainable, peaceful, two state solution. But for that, circumstances have to change. And since 2009, what Benjamin Netanyahu is doing is basically to try and weaken Abu Mazen and to support Hamas. He allows money to go into the Gaza Strip, money that came from Qatar, but the money came with Benjamin Netanyahu's permission. So the idea was to divide or to keep the division and rule. The only problem is that after a while, Hamas, instead of behaving itself, attacked Israel. But the turning point again, and the key person here is Benjamin Netanyahu, who wants Hamas in the Gaza Strip. And therefore what you see under Benjamin Netanyahu is the Israeli troops attacking the Gaza Strip from time to time in response to Hamas provocations, or sometimes not in response to Hamas provocation, but never, never trying to topple Hamas, never trying to get rid of them, never trying to kill Yaya Sinwar, the leader. Because what Benjamin Netanyahu wants is Hamas in the Gaza Strip. And to show to the Israeli people that he, Benjamin Netanyahu, is responding to Hamas provocation.
- [35:10]
Martin DeCaro
Yes, I should note, Sharon had a stroke in early 2006, around the time of the election that Hamas won that year, January of 2006. And he remained in a vegetative state for the rest of his life. He died in 2014. So this is the origin of the mowing the grass strategy that you're talking about here. Aron Bregman, number of outbreaks of violence. You might call these small wars. 2008, Israel launched a 22 day military offensive in Gaza after Palestinians fired rockets at the southern Israeli town of Estherot. 1,400 Palestinians, 13 Israelis are reported killed before a ceasefire is agreed. 2014. The kidnap and killing of three Israeli teenagers by Hamas led to a seven week long war in which more than 2,100 Palestinians were killed in Gaza and 73 Israelis were reportedly killed, 67 of them military. Palestinian protests began at Gaza's fenced border with Israel in 2018. Israeli troops opened fire on the protesters. There was even violence in August 2022, a year before October 7th. 44 people, including 15 children killed in three days of violence that begin when Israeli airstrikes hit a senior Islamic Jihad commander. So there was Hamas There was also Islamic Jihad.
- [36:26]
Aaron Bregman
Well, Martin, Martin, Look, Martin, what you have is. You are right, you have Hamas and Islamic Jihad too firing into Israel. But what they are trying to do, and I'm not justifying their firing into Israel, I'm not justifying it, but what they are trying to say, Israel and the world, we are here inside the Gaza Strip, 1.9 million of us, 2 million of us. We are locked up in the biggest jail. We want more food. We want access to the world. We want things. This is the way to say it. And another comment. All of these Israeli operations are limited. And the important thing is that they are not aimed at getting rid of Hamas. Israel under Netanyahu wants to have Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
- [37:24]
Martin DeCaro
In Israeli politics from 09 to present. Netanyahu's been in power most of that time. Not the entire time, but most of that time. Was there pressure in Israeli politics, Israeli society to resolve the problem rather than having to keep going in there to mow the grass every year or two or three?
- [37:45]
Aaron Bregman
Not really. Not really. I think that over the years the Oslo process became a bad word and Israelis moved to the right quite dramatically with settlers becoming more and more influential. And the idea of a two state solution and a separation from the Palestinians is not the flavor of the month or the flavor of the. Yes, but let me tell you that the only way that the Israelis could prevent the next 7th of October is by separating from the Palestinians. If the Israelis do not separate, there will be another 7th of October. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next year, but in 20 years time or in 30 years time. The only hope for Israel is to separate. And they must look in the mirror, the Israelis, and ask themselves what were the reasons Hamas attacked us, killed hundreds of our people, occupied our settlements or Villages, took 240 hostages into the Gaza Strip. What was the reason for that? And I'll tell you what the reason, the reason is the Israeli occupation. And the only way to stop another 7th of October is to give the Palestinians a horizon. Some hope a state.
- [39:27]
Martin DeCaro
Is Israel an apartheid state today?
- [39:30]
Aaron Bregman
That's an interesting question. That's an interesting question. You see, Martin, if they don't separate from the Palestinians, then within a decade, between the sea and the Jordan river, there will be about 10 million people, about 50% of them Palestinians or non Jews, and 50% Jews Israelis. The Israelis will then have to face a. Are we going to let these 5 million people participate in general elections? If the Israelis allow them to do that, there might be a Palestinian prime Minister. Now, if the Israelis Say, no, we are not going to allow them to participate in elections. Then Israel will become an apartheid state. And therefore, if Israel wants to survive not only another attack, but to survive the Jewish state in the Middle east, they must separate. They must do a state to state solution. It's not popular now, but in 10 years time they will have to do that. 10 years in history is a coma, is nothing.
- [40:47]
Martin DeCaro
Gaza is destroyed and its short term future is who knows, right? I mean, who's going to rebuild it? What's going to happen to these people? President Trump has talked about ethnically cleansing Gaza of Palestinians.
- [41:00]
Unnamed Speaker 1
I don't want to be cute, I don't want to be a wise guy, but the Riviera of the Middle east, this could be something that could be so bad, this could be so magnificent.
- [41:08]
Martin DeCaro
Right now there's no homes, schools, hospitals, mosques, museums. Everything is in rubble. Everything is in ruins. Attention is now turning to the west bank and what some have called the de facto annexation of the west bank already underway. Are you concerned that Israel will pursue, if not diore, de facto complete annexation of the west bank, which would end a Palestinian state for the foreseeable future?
- [41:37]
Aaron Bregman
As for the Gaza Strip, the war will come to an end because all wars end. Gaza will rebuild itself. It will cost about 50, 50 to 80 billion dollars. I believe it will take about 10 to 15 years. And the important thing is who's going to pay? People who are going to pay are the waities, the Gulf states and other nations. The money is not the main problem. The question is who is going to rule the Gaza Strip? I believe that Hamas will not want to be in the front because they understand that the task of rebuilding the Gaza Strip is massive and they will not be able to recruit the money if they are leading the process. But Hamas will be there always. And the Israeli aim to topple Hamas, to get rid of Hamas will never work. And it cannot go. As far as I see it, Gaza is history now. For me, it's all over, because I can see that, you know, it will take a few more months and it is done. The war shifts to the West Bank. It's already started. People don't even notice it because they are still focused on what I call history, which is Gaza. But the truth of the matter is that there's a terrible war going on in the west bank, in the northern west bank, near a place called Jenin and Tulkarem. And this is the future. This war will take a long time, with the Israelis trying to annex at.
- [43:13]
Martin DeCaro
Least some parts of It I have noticed that thousands of Palestinians have been displaced. Jewish settlers murder Palestinians with impunity as the IDF stands there and watches. If anyone expected the current US Administration to raise a protest about it, that's not going to happen. But the Biden administration was terrible on this issue as well. It enabled the Netanyahu government to go ahead with all of this.
- [43:38]
Aaron Bregman
Look, Biden, because you mention it, will go down in history as the US President who allowed the Israelis to turn Gaza into dust. Now, I'm not a supporter of Trump. You look at me and you can see that I'm not a Trump man. But at least for now, Trump managed to push the Israelis, Netanyahu to proceed with a hostage deal in the Gaza Strip. Biden formulated it with his scheme with Blinken and others. Biden made the hostage deal, but he was not able to force Netanyahu to do it.
- [44:18]
Martin DeCaro
Well, it could be that Netanyahu is waiting for this. I mean, Netanyahu is an important agent here.
- [44:24]
Aaron Bregman
Yeah, Netanyahu. Netanyahu celebrated when Trump came to power. But who knows? With Trump, there are two prizes. The first is Saudi Arabia and the second is the Nobel Prize. And I believe that he will try to push the Israelis to finish with Gaza. Not finish Gaza, but finish the war in Gaza and then have a normalization with Saudi Arabia. But to have a normalization with Saudi Arabia, Netanyahu will have to spell out the words Palestinian state. It might be that Trump will be able to push him even in this direction.
- [45:07]
Unnamed Speaker 1
My vision is two states living side by side in peace and security. There is simply no way to achieve that peace until all parties fight terror. Yet at this critical moment, if all parties, parties will break with the past and set out on a new path, we can overcome the darkness with the light of hope.
- [45:40]
Martin DeCaro
On upcoming episodes of History As It Happens, we'll return our focus to Europe, Russia and Ukraine, the future of security. There we'll deal with comparisons to Yalta and the Trump Zelensky blow up. What about a European army? And who is AfD, the right wing party growing in popularity in Germany? All that and more coming up on History as it Happens. New episodes every Tuesday and Friday. My newsletter every Friday. Just go to History as it happens dot com.