Israel should put forward its own ceasefire plan calling for the exile of Hamas leadership and military wing in exchange for the release of the hostages, United Right Party leader Gideon Sa’ar told The Jerusalem Post as he laid out three mistakes Israel has made in conducting the Gaza war.
“We always return to the same ineffective ideas wrapped in bombastic statements that won’t lead to victory. The time has come for new ideas,” he said.
The veteran politician, who is a fierce opponent of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, quit the government this week, after making a failed bid to be included in the war cabinet.
He had entered the government together with the National Unity Party at the start of the war to make a difference, but once he understood that was not possible, he left, in a move that was symbolic of the political turmoil, but which barely dented the coalition’s governing capacity, bringing it down from 76 to 72 seats.
“We are stuck in every direction. We are stuck in Gaza. We are stuck on the Lebanese border. We are stuck with the hostages, and we are stuck in the international arena,” Sa’ar explained, as he sat in his office in the Knesset wearing a suit and tie.
He arrived late to the interview due to a vote in the plenum and left in the middle to participate in a second vote. He spoke in a week of high tension between Israel and the United States and amid increased international pressure on Israel to agree to a permanent ceasefire, and if not, to at least pause hostilities until the end of Ramadan on April 9.
“It’s clear that the world wants [Israel] to end the war. It’s clear that the US administration, for all kinds of reasons, wants the war to be over. So Israel has to stand [alone] against everyone.
“But you can minimize the dispute with a better handling of the issues that cause us problems and with [the initiation of] more proactive policies,” he stated.
Three errors Israel should correct in Gaza
SA’AR FOCUSED on three errors Israel should correct in Gaza, now that the war sparked by Hamas’s invasion of Israel on October 7 will soon hit the half-year mark.
The first, he said, he put on the table already in October. He called for the “surrender and exile of the Hamas military wing and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad from Gaza to countries friendly to them: Syria, Turkey, Qatar, and Iran.”
The hostages would be freed in conjunction, and the deal could also include an Israeli agreement to release some Palestinian security prisoners and terrorists, he said.
The framing of the idea, he said, should be that it is Israel’s ceasefire proposal, rather than perpetually being in the position of appearing to object to a halt to the war.
It also works as an answer to the international objections to Israel’s pending military operation in Rafah to destroy the remaining Hamas battalions.
The “argument against it would be that Hamas won’t agree to it. That is probably correct,” he said, “at least not at this moment.
“But at least we can tell the world and say, ‘We want to enter Rafah, but we do not have to.’ If this [Hamas surrender and exile plan] happens, then we can end the war. You say you want a ceasefire. You want to end Hamas’s governance [of Gaza]. Well, here is a pragmatic idea that also ends the humanitarian suffering caused by the war,” he stated.
This framing helps put the onus on Hamas for the failure to achieve a ceasefire, he explained.
“It gives us more legitimization with our friends, and then, if there are no other options,” Israel can explain that it has to finish the war because Hamas won’t agree to end it, Sa’ar said.
His second issue dealt with the failures around the delivery of humanitarian assistance, for which Israel did not provide options effectively and quickly enough.
Sa’ar spoke amid a bitter dispute between Israel and the international community on the issue of humanitarian assistance, with the United Nations and the European Union accusing Israel of creating starvation conditions in Gaza.
Israel has said that more than enough aid enters Gaza, but that the UN and international organizations have failed to properly distribute it.
The army should have seized control of the situation from the start and created a humanitarian administration to ensure the distribution of food and the provision of water and basic sanitation, Sa’ar said.
The international community would still provide the aid and be involved, but the army would have oversight to make sure that delivery is successful.
“I know the army doesn’t love this,” Sa’ar said, acknowledging that there are some risks with the plan, which could lead to increased friction between the IDF and Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
It’s a plan that also tackles some of the governance vacuum created by the IDF’s military campaign against Hamas, which partially but not completely eliminated the terrorist group’s forced rule of the enclave.
Until Hamas is destroyed, there can’t be an alternative government in Gaza, Sa’ar said, adding that IDF control of the distribution of basic services, in partnership with international organizations, is the only smart option that can prevent the terrorist group’s return.
If the IDF had taken charge of issues of food, water, medicine, and sanitation, Israel would have a better “standing in the international community,” Sa’ar stressed.
His third point, Sa’ar said, is that the war has to proceed at a quicker pace for the sake of Israel’s economy, its international standing, and the looming threat of an all-out war with Hezbollah in the north.
“We have always known that we needed to wage the war as quickly as possible,” he said. “It is hard for us to wage long-term wars.”
Some thought that the international community would lose interest in the war as time went on, Sa’ar explained, adding that he always believed Israel had a tight timeline for the war.
“It was clear from the start that this idea was mistaken. We can’t drag on the war forever,” he said.
“As long as you haven’t ended the Gaza war, you can’t deal with Hezbollah,” he added.
Hezbollah has to withdraw from the border, he said, as he referenced diplomatic efforts to ensure that it complies with Resolution 1701, which set out the ceasefire terms that ended the Second Lebanon War in 2006.
Only then can the residents in communities along that border, who were evacuated at the start of the Gaza war when violence broke out simultaneously with Lebanon, return home.
In the end, they will return home. “It has to happen,” Sa’ar stressed, but that he hopes Israel will do it through diplomacy and not through a full-scale war.
Sa'ar: A Palestinian state is a danger to Israel
SA’AR, WHO began his political life in the Likud in 2003, and formed his own party, initially called New Hope, in 2020, does not disagree with all of Netanyahu’s policies.
He has always been opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state, even more so now in the aftermath of October 7.
“A Palestinian state is a danger to Israel, to its security, and it is not a ‘maybe’ danger; it’s a clear danger. The creation of a Palestinian state would allow them to continue their war to destroy Israel from an improved position.” It would “strengthen those Palestinian forces who believe that war brings results.”
Israel has to work to prevent Palestinian statehood, he said. It can take a positive stance on other issues regarding the Palestinians, but it can’t allow itself to go in this direction.
Should the Palestinian Authority be reformed, such that it stops its monthly payments to terrorists jailed by Israel and the incitement in its education system, then it could be possible to advance in certain areas, he said.
Sa’ar said he stands with Netanyahu in opposing the return of the PA to Gaza. He has also supported many of the stances Netanyahu has taken in the international arena, including in his relationship with the United States.
“Netanyahu is acting to preserve Israel’s international interests in this war, and in most of the situations when he fought with the US, I thought he was right,” Sa’ar explained.
“Historically, prime ministers have been at odds with supportive US presidents during a war,” Sa’ar said, as he recalled the diplomatic battles between former prime minister Menachem Begin and former US president Ronald Reagan during the First Lebanon War.
He pointed to the most recent battle between Jerusalem and Washington over the Biden administration’s failure on Monday to veto a UN Security Council resolution that called for a temporary pause to the war, without tying it to the release of any of the remaining 134 hostages in Gaza.
Before the UNSC vote, Netanyahu threatened that if the US didn’t use its veto, he wouldn’t send a high-level delegation to Washington for a scheduled meeting. After the vote, Netanyahu held to his word but has since backed down and is looking to dispatch the delegation to the US next week.
It was a mistake for Netanyahu to attempt to back the US into a corner, and it didn’t increase the chances of a veto, Sa’ar said.
Netanyahu should have kept his objections private, but essentially he was correct that the vote was bad for Israel, Sa’ar said.
The issue here is one of style, he explained.
Netanyahu has “to know how to stand strong with friends, but to do it when it is essential, and to do it in a respectful way,” Sa’ar said.
He himself has a long history of standing on principle and was one of the group of what was known as the “Likud rebels” who opposed former prime minister Ariel Sharon’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 and the destruction of the 21 settlements there.
Sa’ar recalled how he had argued with former foreign minister Tzipi Livni, who was then in Sharon’s government, about the Disengagement. She had contended that the withdrawal would legitimize Israel’s right to self-defense against the Palestinians, Sa’ar recalled. He had disputed that.
History has shown, Sa’ar said, that “I was correct.”