Israel captures Gaza, Rafah, and El-Arish in 1949

[Deleted member 109224]

The Israelis were days away from taking Gaza, Rafah, and El-Arish in the 1947-1949 war when the armistice was called.

What if Israel had captured these places? The terms of the armistice OTL involved Israel withdrawing from Egypt, but I imagine they'd still hold on to the Gaza strip.

 

[Kotka]

There wouldn't have been a Gaza Strip.
And either Gaza would’ve become like northern Israel with mixed Jewish and Arab towns or most of the Arabs would’ve fled to Egypt and you would have refugee camps in the El Arish area.

 

[raharris1973]

However, Hamas would break from this line in 1989 when they murdered two soldiers. In retaliation, Yassin was arrested and sentenced to life in prison, with 400 Hamas members deported to Lebanon, where they would form a relationship with Hezbollah, with Hamas forming it's own paramilitary wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades in 1991, which would fight in the Second Intifada, leading to the deaths of 3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis.

Between Feburary-March 1996, Hamas would carry out a terror campaign against targets such as buses on Jaffa Road and the Dizengoff Centre in Tel Aviv, the latter being the fourth suicide bombing in Israel in nine days.

When did they first do a suicide bombing? 1996 after Oslo II? After the assassination of Rabin? How many Israeli casualties did Hamas inflict after the two soldiers in the 1989-1991 era, and in the era between the 1991 Qassam Brigades and Oslo I in September 1993?

Not too many I think. After having mostly sat out the fighting of the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, they get started when the Israeli-PLO deals are under way. The timing is important and kind of proves that they were oppportunists, political vacuum-fillers, a leverage tool for their own cult leader, and spoilers more than defenders of their people.

 

[Petros >Peter Fergus<]

It might be better off, but who for? The people who were living there wouldn't have been able to remain. We can assume that 90% would be expelled, that's the policy Israel had in the other places they conquered. By 1949 it had a population of 60,000, which would have been reduced to 6,000 by the invasion. The people who would then migrate to the area would make it mostly Jewish within a few years, assuming it was subjected to the same level of deliberate and free range settlement as the rest of the country. The Gaza people who would have been members of resistance groups since then would have instead been in Egypt or elsewhere, not in a version of Gaza that was conquered by Israel in 1949.

The Gaza Strip just doesn't exist in this scenario. There is some other refugee camp in Egypt that is famous for housing their Palestinian refugees, and it may be famous for being later administered and settled by Israel following a later war, or having some other reason to be a focus for Palestinian nationalism. The area of Gaza is only famous for being near the early border of Israel, with an asterisk that it had a Palestinian population until very recent history.

 

[Deleted member 109224]

The Gaza Strip just doesn't exist in this scenario. There is some other refugee camp in Egypt that is famous for housing their Palestinian refugees, and it may be famous for being later administered and settled by Israel following a later war, or having some other reason to be a focus for Palestinian nationalism. The area of Gaza is only famous for being near the early border of Israel, with an asterisk that it had a Palestinian population until very recent history.

Maybe? There are basically three categories of Arabs from the lands that are in Israel today ... (1) The ones that stayed, (2) the ones who left because they were driven out, and (3) the ones who left because they were encouraged to leave under the expectation that they'd be able to go out after the Jews were driven into the sea.

Odds are Rafah and El Arish in Sinai would be bigger cities/encampments with larger Palestinian populations. But it's also likely that Gaza and Israeli Rafah could be somewhat like Acre or Galilee.

 

[Petros >Peter Fergus<]

Maybe? There are basically three categories of Arabs from the lands that are in Israel today ... (1) The ones that stayed, (2) the ones who left because they were driven out, and (3) the ones who left because they were encouraged to leave under the expectation that they'd be able to go out after the Jews were driven into the sea.

Odds are Rafah and El Arish in Sinai would be bigger cities/encampments with larger Palestinian populations. But it's also likely that Gaza and Israeli Rafah could be somewhat like Acre or Galilee.

The ones that were driven out by force (2) were more than four-fifths of the total civilian population that ended up under Israeli administration. The numbers who were allowed to remain (1), or who left for some kind of unusual reasons (3), were negligible, they can't be listed like they're equivalent.

If Israel had driven out fewer Gazans than average, it would be more like the other areas where they chose the policy of fewer expulsions, the exceptions you listed in Acre and Galilee. If they drive out an average amount of Gazans compared to their practice in the whole country, it will be like most of the rest of the country, the other areas where a large number of Palestinians were driven out. That's up to the Israeli forces on the ground, so it's up to the scenario. Otherwise we should assume they'll act how they did in OTL, outside the specific scenario.

 

[Orko]

It might make the Jordanian option more viable. It’s been the preferred solution for Israeli policy makers since the 70’s-80’s (advocated by Peres), could find some support in the Arab world, and judging by some polls I’ve seen isn’t entirely objectionable to many Palestinians in the West Bank. Jordan of course renounced all claims to the West Bank in 1989 after the PLO declared a Palestinian state, but without Gaza that might be butterflied away. But the main obstacle to the Jordanian option IOTL is that it leaves Gaza entirely out, so it’s only a partial solution at most, and additionally leaving Gaza out is quite unacceptable to the Palestinians (and rightfully so). Doesn’t mean of course that the Jordanian option would be the one agreed on ITTL necessarily, since there would still be the thorny issues of the refugees and Jerusalem.

 

[Petros >Peter Fergus<]

At least if the Palestinians are in a refugee camp, they could have the potential for mobility outside of the camp's conditions, which probably won't happen under Nasser. Anwar Sadat is likely to ignore the issue of Palestinian refugees in the name of peace with Israel and will most likely encourage them to become assimilated into Egyptian society, similar to how dozens of Palestinians have chosen Jordanian citizenship rather than languish in a refugee camp, waiting for a return to Palestine which will never happen.

I assume they'd be treated like how they were treated in OTL. The difference is where those Palestinian refugees would have to go, in this case they'd be totally expelled from the territory of Mandatory Palestine, rather than forced into a no-mans-land as non-citizens in an unrecognized state, and then maintained in this refugee status for twenty years by an intransigent Israeli government.

If they're more completely removed from their homeland, then they might be less likely to believe that one day Israel would allow them to return, or that the international community could put pressure on them to do this. It's obvious to us NOW that Israel was never going to allow any refugees to return, but at the time most people seemed to think they'd make some kind of compromise there.

 

[Masked Grizzly]

Somewhat related though had the Altalena Affair been resolved in ATL without violence with the weapons on the ship being transferred to the fledgling IDF as allegedly intended instead of Yitzhak Rabin ordering the ship be destroyed. etc, does this additional POD help further accelerate the process of ATL Israel capturing Gaza, Rafah and El-Arish in the same way have read it being commonly assumed the critical weapons shipment would have allowed Israel to prevent the West Bank coming under Jordanian rule and Jerusalem being divided?

 

[Deleted member 109224]

Somewhat related though had the Altalena Affair been resolved in ATL without violence with the weapons on the ship being transferred to the fledgling IDF as allegedly intended instead of Yitzhak Rabin ordering the ship be destroyed. etc, does this additional POD help further accelerate the process of ATL Israel capturing Gaza, Rafah and El-Arish in the same way have read it being commonly assumed the critical weapons shipment would have allowed Israel to prevent the West Bank coming under Jordanian rule and Jerusalem being divided?

If the Right-Zionists had tried to invade the West Bank, Jordan doesn't abide by its agreement with the Jewish Agency and goes full force against the Zionists. That's very bad for Israel.

 

[Masked Grizzly]

If the Right-Zionists had tried to invade the West Bank, Jordan doesn't abide by its agreement with the Jewish Agency and goes full force against the Zionists. That's very bad for Israel.

No, meant that the Irgun surrenders and has the weapons from the ship transferred to the IDF in ATL.

Or was it the case of ATL Israel only being able to focus on either Gaza, Rafah and El-Arish or the West Bank in 1947-1949 yet not both even with the weaponry / ammo from the Altalena?