Remembering when the US pushed for Israel to annex the Gaza Strip - opinion

Amid the Biden administration’s intensifying browbeating of Israel over the war in Gaza, it will probably strike many as difficult to believe that there was once a time when Washington was in favor of the Jewish state annexing the territory.

But however far-fetched it might sound, it is a historical fact that 75 years ago this month, that is precisely what happened.

There is much to be learned from this largely forgotten episode, which came ever so close to resolving the status of Gaza and formally incorporating it into Israel.

After the 1948 War of Independence, the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine convened a conference in Lausanne, Switzerland, at the end of April 1949 with the aim of achieving a settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Delegates from Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the Arab Higher Committee, representing the Palestinians, took part, while the members of the commission hailed from the United States, France, and Turkey. Among the key issues were boundaries, Jerusalem, and the fate of Palestinian refugees. There were no direct negotiations between the sides, forcing commission members to serve as intermediaries.

In a bid to formulate a creative solution, the Israeli cabinet convened on May 3, 1949, to discuss the idea of annexing Gaza, which would have meant incorporating the 200,000 Palestinian Arabs living there as citizens. 

While foreign minister Moshe Sharett was opposed to the proposal, prime minister David Ben-Gurion was staunchly in favor, as were all of the other ministers present, and the government formally decided that “should the annexation to the state of the Gaza Strip with all its inhabitants be proposed, our answer will be positive.”

Later that month, Israel submitted a formal paper to the commission and reiterated its position in a letter that was sent on May 29, 1949, by the head of the Israeli delegation, Walter Eytan. Noting that “it is a point of general agreement that the Gaza Strip does not and cannot constitute an independent economic entity,” Eytan highlighted Egypt’s unwillingness to retain control over the area.

He then proceeded to argue that “[a]ll Gaza’s natural ties are with the territory that lies immediately to the north and east, in Israel.”

While underlining “the difficulties” of integrating Gaza’s Palestinians into Israel, “particularly in the social and economic spheres,” Eytan stressed that the annexation could “make a really constructive large-scale contribution to the refugee problem and, at the same time, settle a frontier question that would otherwise remain a sore point.”

It would, he concluded, give Gaza’s Palestinians “a hope of rebuilding their lives.”

Shortly thereafter, on June 4, the State Department notified the American delegation in Lausanne that the US would support the move if Egypt, the occupying power, consented to it.

America even sought assistance from Britain to press the Egyptians to agree, but Cairo effectively torpedoed the idea by demanding that Israel give up the entire Negev region in exchange for Gaza.

Nonetheless, US secretary of state Dean Acheson was undeterred, and he continued to press Egypt to embrace the Israeli proposal as a basis for negotiation, but to no avail. Eventually, the Lausanne Conference concluded in September 1949 with little to show for its efforts.

The potential of an Israeli annexation of Gaza

Clearly, there is no way of knowing how the Middle East might have looked had the Gaza proposal been accepted, no way of knowing the impact its acceptance would have had on subsequent events in the region.

On the one hand, it would have resolved questions surrounding the status of Gaza and its population. But it would also have set a precedent for granting Israeli citizenship to Palestinians, which could have posed an existential demographic threat to Israel as a Jewish state.

WHILE THE Gaza proposal was short-lived, its anniversary serves as a timely reminder of some notable Middle Eastern realities, chief among them that the Arab states, then as now, viewed the Palestinian issue as a useful tool with which to bash Israel.

Had they truly been concerned about the fate of Palestinian refugees, the Egyptians would not have killed off the Gaza deal by insisting that Israel turn over the Negev, which they knew to be a non-starter.

And rather than acknowledging the Jewish state’s readiness to absorb Palestinians, the Arabs dismissed it, in the process leaving Gaza to fester and condemning the region to decades of conflict and death.

In the intervening years, the number of Palestinians in Gaza, as well as their embrace of violence and terrorism, has surged, obviously making the prospect of absorbing them as citizens into Israel an absolute impossibility today or in the future.

But the fact remains that in 1949, even the US understood that Gaza’s rightful place is as part of Israel, something that is still true today.

With a little foresight and a lot less rigidity on the part of the Arabs, the question of Gaza could have been settled long ago, and countless lives might have been saved.

Just another missed opportunity in the Middle East, one that continues to haunt us all.

The writer served as deputy communications director under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his first term of office.