JERUSALEM, Israel – As fighting continues in Gaza with no ceasefire deal in sight, many wonder about the future of the region.
After studying similar situations over the past 100 years, one group of Israeli lawyers has a plan they believe is critical for Israel's security.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is insisting Hamas be destroyed by the end of the war. Others believe the priority is a peace deal, and that Gaza can be dealt with later.
Speaking to CBN News during a seminar on the war, attorney Yifa Segal with the Israel Defense and Security Forum described the dilemma.
"It's very clear to everyone who's paying, who's been paying, attention, that the situation in Gaza is untenable," she said. "You have a death cult of jihadist terrorists who literally wake up in the morning every day and try to figure out a way to bypass your defense mechanisms and to find a way to finally destroy you and kill and rape and destroy the state of Israel."
Segal believes October 7th serves as a prime example of what to expect if any remnant of Hamas leadership continues in Gaza.
"They will do it again, given the chance," she stated. So, it's very clear that we do not repeat the same mistakes over and over again. We can't allow them to remain in power and then plan again for the next opportunity that they have to do another October 7th, or – God forbid – something even worse than that."
Segal also argues that the Palestinian Authority should not have a leadership role.
What we have created at the end of the day is a corrupt entity also from day one – they've been funding terrorism, they've been inciting to terrorism. They've been paying rewards and stipends to terrorists and their families," she asserted.
Segal and other attorneys searched case studies from the last century to find any success in overcoming what she called "a crazy homicidal society that hates your guts."
"But it did work in Imperial Japan and in Nazi Germany, after World War II, " she explained. "And, within a few years, you see Germany – at least western Germany – went back into, you know, the being a very positive neighbor in Europe, (a) prosperous, economy."
Segal's group, along with the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, came up with the "Gaza Security and Recovery Program," which has four main principles.
"The first one is that Israel must have full military control over the Gaza Strip, full military control," she said, "because if we are there, we can prevent them from building terror tunnels, from, building more rockets and factories and everything that we have seen."
For decades, Israel had a clear presence in the Gaza Strip, as thousands of Israelis lived in communities there.
After the 2005 withdrawal, however, the Palestinian Authority – followed by Hamas – had free reign over the region.
"The second thing," Segal noted, "would be to make sure that we deradicalize the Palestinian society in Gaza. And so we have to look at what are the engines of indoctrination in the Palestinian society. So, first of all, it's the schools, right? It's the curriculum. It's the teachers. It's all the content, it's the mosques, everything that is being taught, you know, under the auspices of the radical Islamists, ideology in the mosques."
She contends it would be similar to the Marshall Plan implemented by the Allied powers after World War II in Nazi Germany.
The third principle would be to break up control of the Gaza Strip.
"Let's divide the Gaza Strip into five, six, seven or eight different districts, local governments, and then, you know, if you need to replace somebody, then you can," she noted.
The last point would be to put conditions on international aid and support.
"There are a list of benchmarks that we've suggested: cooperation, economic cooperation, social cooperation, getting rid of, you know, terror contact, the de-radicalization program," Segal told us. "And then, if you do better with that, you get more international aid support, infrastructure, money coming in."
Segal believes following this plan would enable those local governments who meet that criteria to build up their districts, while those supporting terror would not receive any outside funding to grow or improve infrastructure.
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