The Biden administration’s implicit policy regarding the Gaza Strip’s future is that Gaza must be free from Jews, writes constitutional scholar Eugene Kontorovich this Wednesday in his Wall Street Journal op-ed (Gaza Can’t Be Peaceful Without Jews).
On Tuesday, State Dept. Spokesperson Matthew Miller announced: “We have been clear, consistent, and unequivocal that Gaza is Palestinian land and will remain Palestinian land, with Hamas no longer in control of its future and with no terror groups able to threaten Israel. That is the future we seek, in the interests of Israelis and Palestinians, the surrounding region, and the world.”
Kontorovich argues that the very idea of imposing the Palestinian Authority rule on Gaza means that Biden’s vision for the area “isn’t one of a peaceful, deradicalized entity.”
Jews face restrictions from residing in the Palestinian Authority, and the act of selling land or housing to Jews is met with severe consequences, including the possibility of a death sentence. Some well-publicized instances of such transactions have garnered significant media attention. While Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has not officially endorsed death sentences in these cases, a notable incident occurred in December 2018 when a Ramallah court sentenced Palestinian-American Isaam Akel, an East Jerusalem resident, to life imprisonment with hard labor. His conviction stemmed from selling land in the Old City of Jerusalem to Jews.
Kontorovich compares the White House support for the inherently anti-Jewish PA to the denazification of Germany in 1945, and asserts: “Had the Germans turned on the Jews settling there after the war—as happened in Poland in the 1946 Kielce pogrom—it is likely that the Allies wouldn’t have been satisfied as quickly as they were that Germany was safe for the world.”
The clearest test for whether a clean break from terrorist violence has been achieved should be the test that was applied in post-WW2 Germany: could Jews establish communities there, writes Kontorovich.
He concludes: “The existence of safe Jewish communities in Gaza could eventually make Israel confident enough to withdraw. By contrast, as we’ve seen in recent months, if Jews aren’t safe in Gaza, they won’t be safe in Israel either.”
