Almost immediately after the Hamas-led Palestinian invasion of Israel last Oct. 7, the Biden-Harris administration began demanding that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu present his “day after” plan for Gaza. Netanyahu insisted that the day after had to wait until the war was won.
But over time, Netanyahu began explaining contours of his post-war plans. They included the de-Hamasification of Gaza and permanent Israeli military control over Gaza. Since genocidal Jew-hatred and the goal of annihilating Israel is shared by Hamas and the U.S.-supported Palestinian Authority, Netanyahu insisted the P.A. cannot succeed Hamas in running Gaza.
The Biden-Harris administration didn’t like Netanyahu’s plans. But since they made sense to the vast majority of Israelis, and because 80% of Americans consistently told pollsters that they support Israeli victory, rather than fight Netanyahu, the administration maintained an outward stance of supporting Israel while using the U.S.’s formidable leverage over Israel to inhibit or block Israel from carrying out operations that would fundamentally change the strategic reality on the ground permanently, enabling the implementation of Netanyahu’s “day after” plans.
The administration’s demand for a “day after” plan wasn’t a request for an actual plan. The administration was demanding an Israeli commitment not to seek to use the war to fundamentally change the strategic realities on the ground that existed on Oct. 6, 2023. The U.S. wanted those conditions, which enabled Hamas to build its army of genocide, to continue to exist at the end of the war. And it wanted Netanyahu to accept this condition, which if accepted would block all prospects for Israeli victory.
From the administration’s position, the only acceptable “day after” plan would be one that reverted the strategic balance back to what it was on Oct. 6. Gaza would be a quasi-independent Palestinian statelet. The U.S. would use the momentum of international pressure and Israeli humiliation to compel Israel to accept the establishment of a Palestinian state in Gaza, Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, in keeping with the goals that both Vice President Kamala Harris, President Joe Biden and their advisers have repeatedly set out.
This was why the U.S. opposed Israel’s ground operation in Gaza; supported Egypt in blocking Gazans from fleeing Gaza for shelter in Egypt or third countries; opposed Israel’s takeover of Rafah and the border with Gaza; slow-walked the delivery of offensive weapons, including assault rifles, tank and artillery shells and bombs for the air force in an effort to compel Israel to adopt a defensive posture; and consistently sought to coerce Israel to accept hostage deals with Hamas that would precipitate its strategic defeat in the war. This is why the administration began sanctioning Israeli citizens who they claim obstruct their goal of establishing a Palestinian state in Gaza, Judea and Samaria. Likewise, the administration’s consistent, unswerving pressure on Israel to admit massive quantities of goods into Gaza, under the headline “humanitarian aid,” facilitated Hamas’s survival in power.
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