As the Biden administration steps up pressure on Israel over the Gaza war, it perhaps seems hard for many to believe there was a time when Washington supported Israel’s annexation of the territory.
But no matter how outlandish it may sound, it is a historical fact that 75 years ago this month, that is exactly what happened.
There is much to learn from this almost forgotten event that came close to settling Gaza’s status and formally incorporating it into Israel.
Following the 1948 War of Independence, the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine met in Lausanne, Switzerland, at the end of April 1949 to seek a resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Representatives of the Arab High Committee representing Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine were involved, and committee members came from the United States, France and Turkey. The main issues were borders, Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees. No direct negotiations were held between the two sides, and committee members were forced to act as intermediaries.
In an effort to come up with 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.
Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett opposed the proposal, but Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion was adamant in favor, as were all the other ministers present, and the government formally decided that “if the annexation of the Gaza Strip and all its inhabitants to a state is proposed, we will respond in the affirmative.”
Later that month, Israel submitted a formal written statement to the Committee, reiterating its position in a letter sent by the head of the Israeli delegation, Walter Eitan, on 29 May 1949. Eitan stated that “it is generally agreed that the Gaza Strip is not and cannot constitute an independent economic entity” and stressed Egypt’s unwillingness to maintain control over the area.
He further asserted:[a]Gaza’s natural link is the territory immediately north and east of Israel.”
While underscoring the “difficulties” of integrating Gaza’s Palestinians into Israel “especially in the social and economic aspects,” Eitan stressed that annexation “could make a truly constructive contribution to the refugee problem on a large scale, while at the same time resolving border issues that would otherwise remain a sore point.”
He concluded that it would give Palestinians in the Gaza Strip “hope to rebuild their lives.”
Shortly thereafter, on June 4, the State Department informed the American delegation in Lausanne that the United States would support the move if occupying Egypt agreed.
The United States sought British help in pressuring Egypt to agree, but Egypt effectively killed the idea by demanding that Israel abandon the entire Negev region in exchange for Gaza.
Undaunted, US Secretary of State Dean Acheson continued to pressure Egypt to accept the Israeli proposals as a basis for negotiations, but to no avail: the Lausanne Conference ended in September 1949 with little to show for its efforts.
Possible Israeli annexation of Gaza
Clearly, there is no way of knowing what the Middle East would have been like if the Gaza Plan had been accepted, or how its acceptance would have affected subsequent events in the region.
On one hand, the agreement resolved questions about the status of Gaza and its people, but it also set a precedent for granting Israeli citizenship to Palestinians, posing a potential demographic existential threat to Israel as a Jewish state.
Although the Gaza proposal was short-lived, its anniversary is a timely reminder of remarkable realities in the Middle East, chief of which was, and remains, that Arab states viewed the Palestinian issue as a convenient tool to attack Israel.
If Egypt was truly concerned about the fate of Palestinian refugees, it would not have torn up the Gaza deal by demanding that Israel hand over the Negev, something it knew was impossible.
And rather than acknowledging a Jewish state’s readiness to absorb the Palestinians, Arab countries ignored it, degrading Gaza in the process and dooming the region to decades of conflict and death.
In the years that followed, the numbers of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and their penchant for violence and terrorism have soared, making it clear that the prospect of their acceptance as Israeli citizens is completely impossible, now or in the future.
But the fact remains that in 1949, even the United States understood Gaza’s rightful status as part of Israel, and that remains true today.
If the Arab side had shown a little more foresight and been less stubborn, the Gaza issue might have been resolved long ago and countless lives might have been saved.
Another missed opportunity in the Middle East. It continues to haunt us all.
The author served as deputy communications director for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his first term in office.
