How will victory in the Gaza Strip look? Will we be able to fight Hizb’Allah at the same time? How will we deal with American political pressure? What are Israel’s red lines in this war? Brig. Gen. Avivi in an interview with the Sovereignty Movement.
Brig. Gen. (res.) Avivi, Director of IDSF, was also a guest in the series of Zoom interviews held by the Sovereignty Movement on the events and lessons of the Swords of Iron War.
Relating to the meaning of victory in the present war, Avivi says that this time victory is clear, because the political echelon has defined the goals precisely, in contrast to previous wars.
“Very clear goals have been defined – the elimination of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, dismantling their governmental control and operational capabilities, dismantling all the terror infrastructure in the Gaza Strip and assuring that they will not be able to build these capabilities anew.
Victory will be the implementation of these goals.
According to him, there must never again, under any circumstance, be a threat to the Jewish communities of the Gaza Envelope from the Gaza Strip.
Regarding the population of Gaza, Aviv believes that the war dynamic will cause many of them to leave and they will choose to emigrate or flee to Sinai.
In his opinion, as the army moves southward, there will be no choice, from the humanitarian point of view as well, but to open a passage to Sinai and allow them to go there.
Brig. Gen. (res.) Avivi was asked about the American pressure on the Israeli government to place Abu Mazen in the leadership position in the Gaza Strip following the collapse of Hamas. In answering, he says that his movement has submitted to the Prime Minister a detailed document touching on the course of the war as well as steps to take after the war. In this document, it is explicitly stated that “the IDSF movement will fight vigorously any idea of bringing the Palestinian Authority to Gaza”. This is not going to be acceptable to us. Any government that tries to take such steps will not survive”, he says, adding: “We will not allow the south to be endangered again”.
Avivi states with total confidence that the scenario of a Palestinian state arising in Judea and Samaria and Gaza, as the U.S. is trying to promote, “will not happen”, in his words.
On the question of whether Israel will be able to withstand such American pressures, in light of the broad support that Israel has received from the administration, Avivi is convinced that no one in Israel would agree to such dangerous ideas to the future of Israel.“ A very large part of the public has been disillusioned”, he says, particularly excluding a minority that, according to him, does not allow itself to be confused by reality and retains the same positions that endanger the future of Israel.
And what about the northern sector, which is also heating up? Can the IDF conduct a multi-front war? Avivi answers that the war effort is indeed focused on the Gaza Strip, and this is convenient for Israel because of the complexity of the task, which could take months or even more than that, “but taking a comprehensive view, there will be no choice but to deal with Hizb’Allah as well. I don’t foresee a situation where the residents of the north will be willing to return to their homes while Nukhba on steroids is on the other side the fence, in the form of Radwan, which is larger, stronger and better equipped but with the same murderous, ISIS ideology that seeks to slaughter all the Jewish residents. We cannot live with this threat, therefore we must deal with it”.
Avivi does not draw a definite line south of which no terrorist entity can exist, but according to him, the principle is that we cannot allow such a presence in south Lebanon. “It is quite clear that there must not be any capability to threaten our villages and cities within a range of many kilometers.”
On the matter of humanitarian aid that is given to Gaza and the concern that it may interfere with the release of the hostages, Avivi says that Israel is dealing with a situation where there is a superpower standing by its side with the best of military forces and that we must understand its interests in the events, interests that touch on, among other things, the approaching elections in the U.S. and the internal party pressures acting on the American president. “We must find the balance point between what we are wiling to accept and what we are not”, says Avivi, who is convinced that if it was up to us, there would be no humanitarian aid at all to the Gaza Strip, as long as the hostages were not returned.
“This is not our situation, so we have to define our red lines - for instance, we will not agree under any circumstances to a delivery of fuel. Fuel is a Hamas war tool that they use to control the tunnels, run cars and go from place to place. Another thing is ceasefires, unless they are requesting a ceasefire of a few hours in order bring out the hostages. A ceasefire in any other situation would endanger our soldiers and this is not something that the State of Israel should agree to.”
Regarding the situation after the war and the chance of re-establishing Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, Avivi says that he published an article on the distant future of the Gaza Strip and his scenario includes communties. “I explain it not from the point of view of the Sovereignty Movement, which is important - the ideological-faithbased point of view, which is the Land of Israel - but from the security standpoint”, says Avivi, explaining:
“We have experienced three different models and we have seen what works and what does not. This is not theory.
The first model is separation, “they ( the Arabs) are there and we are here”. We saw this in Gaza , in Oslo and the Disengagement in Judea and Samaria as well. Each time we carried out this idea of withdrawal and separation, it cost us many dead. Therefore, separation is not an option.
The second model is the example of south Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan, a model of military presence only. Here, there is a phenomenon common to every place in the Middle East where there was only military action. In these situations, we have seen that there is no legitimacy in the long run. When there is no Jewish settlement, it is not clear why our people should be there and might be killed. It is a problem of legitimacy, which is often internal.”
He continues, describing the situation in those same places with no settlement. When you have no communities of citizens, you only have army bases and to move from one base to another base, massive and violent deployment of tanks, personnel carriers, scouts, etc... is required.
Compare that to Judea and Samaria, where there is life, it is possible to travel as a civilian undisturbed.
“The thing that maintains the roads and the life of the area is not the army, but the residents. The fact that there are a half million residents in Judea and Samaria is what gives vitality to the roads, so there is no need to open roads in Judea and Samaria. The residents open the roads every morning when they travel on them.
Therefore, this is the only model that can work", states Avivi.
“If we understand that in order not to have terror in Gaza, we have to settle the Gaza-Egypt border and control it so that an endless supply of weapons does not enter and that we need operational freedom, which the Defense Minister also speaks of, without settlement it will not last and there will not be responsibility for the roads. There is logic to the matter of settlement and I am speaking about the national security aspect, even before the aspects of faith, Judaism and the connection to the land and the aspect of the price that the other side must pay for what it has done to us.
Arab Deaths do not matter to them because they want to die. Land does interest them, and that is the price they must pay”.