Follow us on social

The ghost of Ariel Sharon hovers over the Gaza Strip

The ghost of Ariel Sharon hovers over the Gaza Strip

Washington offers little but ineffective bromides as Israel shapes 'the day after.'

Analysis | Middle East

Ariel Sharon, more than any other Israeli or Palestinian leader, has defined the terms and the context of the war in the Gaza Strip.

There are two decision points in this narrative that exercise a decisive influence on the current situation.

The first is the IDF’s reoccupation of the entire West Bank beginning in April 2002 –Operation Defensive Shield. This military operation effectively ended the bargain sealed at Oslo, eliminating Israel’s interest in empowering the PLO in the West Bank and indeed in the Gaza Strip as well. Like the current conflict, Defensive Shield was a military operation with wide-ranging political and security ramifications.

The second is Sharon’s decision to evacuate all settlers and soldiers from the Gaza Strip in September 2005. This surprising policy, was taken by an aging leader anxious to establish principles that would survive his passing. Redeployment marked Sharon’s recognition that settlements and occupation by the IDF—at least in Gaza -- were not sufficient guarantors of Israel’s security. By removing settlers and the IDF from Gaza proper, Sharon hoped to force Egypt to police Gaza and to make Gaza into a foreign country for which Israel’s responsibilities as an occupying power – responsibilities that constrained its freedom of military action against potential security threats– no longer applied.

On this important point however, Sharon’s intentions were partially thwarted. Egypt continues to resist becoming Gaza’s jailer. And Israel’s foreign ministry ruled that because Israel, after its redeployment, remained in “effective control” of Gaza, Israel could not disavow its responsibilities as an occupying power.

Nothing that has happened since Israel’s redeployment in 2005 — including the electoral victory of Hamas in elections or the movement’s subsequent assumption of power in Gaza, or indeed the current war itself, contradicts this view. The current war offers considerable evidence that Israel has indeed been able to conduct policy in Gaza according to the rules of war — a policy supported as self-evident by Washington and others.

The new reality Israel is creating in Gaza is the product of blood and fire rather than negotiation or diplomacy, certainly during the critical period when the territorial outlines of the future are being established. Israel will not easily permit the intrusion of considerations other than those it deems vital in the conduct of its operations. The war’s first month offers ample evidence attesting to its success in this regard.

Just as the Second Intifada signaled the end of Oslo, the model for Gaza imposed by Sharon after 2005 has failed. It will not be resuscitated. In tomorrow’s Gaza, the IDF sees no value in empowering the PLO, or indeed any Palestinian actor, to exercise anything but the most nominal governing and security powers — under an ever-present Israeli eye. From now on, Israel will go back to the future — attempting to reinvigorate a model used in the first decade of occupation in which Israel exercises exclusive security control while empowering strictly local authorities to conduct day to day life.

The international community finds itself woefully unprepared and indeed uninterested in confronting the faits accompli that have always been the hallmark of Israel’s policies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. A particular responsibility falls upon the US in this regard. Yet the policy bromides offered by the Biden administration reflect this ambivalence.

Today US policy has given Israel the space to wage war against Gaza. Washington offers clichés about Gaza’s future and options for the day after that have little relationship to the facts that Israel is creating on the ground. For Benjamin Netanyahu, there is no win-win solution, but rather only one dictated by Israel, the peace of the victor.

This article has been republished with permission from Geoffrey Aronson.


Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Army Chief of Staff General Shaul Mofaz (L) arrive for a meeting with army officers at the Nahal Oz military outpost on the border with the Gaza Strip. April 10, 2001. (Reuters)

Analysis | Middle East
Israel’s foreign influence is the most unrelenting in US history
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., right, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, arrive to address the media after a meeting in the U.S. Capitol on Friday, February 7, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Sipa USA)
First order of House business: Protect Israel’s Netanyahu?

Israel’s foreign influence is the most unrelenting in US history

Washington Politics

In his farewell address to the nation, George Washington included a special pleading:

"Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government."

keep readingShow less
Azov Ukraine
Top photo credit: Servicemen of the Azov battalion are attending a ceremony to remember the victims of the Olenivka camp explosion, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on July 28, 2024, (Photo by Maxym Marusenko/NurPhoto)

Far-right Azov quietly grew to tens of thousands in Ukraine military

Europe

Over the last several weeks, Russia’s 51st Combined Arms Army has achieved a penetration of the Ukrainian defenses northeast of Pokrovsk, seeking to isolate the Ukrainian forces defending the city.

To seal off the penetration, Ukrainian forces committed a large number of formations, spearheaded by the 1st “Azov” National Guard Corps.

keep readingShow less
Donald Trump Vladimir Putin
Top image credit: President Donald Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin speak backstage before they participate in a joint press conference after their meeting at the Arctic Warrior Event Center at Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, Friday, August 15, 2025. (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok)

Why is Putin OK with Ukraine joining the EU?

Europe

Lost amid the focus on summit pageantry, land swaps, and security guarantees last week was an issue even more central to a diplomatic resolution of the Ukraine war: whether Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to accept Ukraine’s membership in the EU as part of a settlement deal.

That concession was an important element of a peace deal that Russian and Ukrainian negotiators drafted under Turkish mediation in 2022, which Ukraine subsequently abandoned.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.