The Philadelphi Trap

By the time Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, 83 Israeli civilians and 179 members of the IDF had been killed there. The last few years of the conflict were particularly bloody. Soldiers in tanks or armored personnel carriers knew it would be the luck of the draw if their turn came to drive over a buried IED ready to blow by remote control as soon as the front treads rolled over the device. The Philadelphi corridor, running along the border with Egypt, was a particularly blood-soaked deathtrap.

It was no accident. IDF forces patrolled this narrow strip between Gaza and Egypt because it was a porous border, with arms flowing into Gaza through Sinai. When the so-called Philadelphi Accord handing responsibility for preventing arms smuggling to Egypt was signed in 2005, there were Israeli strategists who wanted to retain this border region, but international pressure and the weary desire to end Israel’s Gaza settlement adventure prevailed. As the pull-out was unilateral, the Palestinian Authority was not party to the plan, but it was understood that if they played nice, we would do so as well.

Except, of course, the Hamas never agreed to play by the rules, Egypt did place some soldiers at the border but not in a way that prevented smuggling, Qatari money funded the buildings of tunnels under the border and Iran supplied the Hamas with enough munitions to blow the whole place sky-high. The siege imposed on Gaza when Gilad Shalit was abducted was never completely lifted, giving us the illusion of control but handing smugglers increasing incentive to get creative. The Philadelphi corridor moved, to a great extent underground.

Thus, you might be forgiven for thinking it is a good idea to keep our grip on this 9-km-long broom handle that connects to our country at one small point, the Mediterranean at the other. After all, if history is telling us anything, it is that we can’t trust that today’s partners will be around tomorrow, or even that today’s will continue to abide by their promises in the future.

To claim we need Philadelphi, though, is to ignore the rest of our history with this particular border. It would be asking us to return to the useless waste of life that entailed patrolling it day and night. And, lets, face it, our control of the border might not have a long-term effect on arms smuggling. Gaza has also taught us that if there is money to be made or power to be earned running arms and other contraband, smugglers will find a way. Our continued control there would not help us “win” the war, and, as the army leadership has already pointed out, our physical presence could be less effective than technological means of prevention.

That is, the Philadelphi story is, quite literally, a trap. It’s a snare for the negotiators in Cairo this week – a signal of bad faith from the start. “Yes, I’ve agreed to the American proposal, including a permanent cease-fire in the near future. Oh, but we need to hold on to a piece of your land, including regular army patrols.” Somehow, they’ll need to skirt this pitfall – one of the larger ones they’ll face.

Our prime minister has tried to lure us in by promising the international community it’s only temporary, but, again, honestly, our leaders are capable of renewing our stay indefinitely, keeping the army trapped there for years. And the idea itself has apparently trapped some of our leaders into 20-year-old thinking. The current reality on the ground in Gaza today is vastly different from that in 2005. We need to plan a new strategy for the end to this war, and that requires some forward thinking, not a retreat to advice that was already dated when it was originally put forward.

But the argument over whether Philadelphi is a strategic necessity should truly be moot. The real trap is a booby-trap Bibi has sprung on the entire country, apparently in an attempt to prevent a hostage-cease-fire deal. Philadelphi is simply the brand name stamped on the jaws of the trap.

We need to ask ourselves: Is this border – one that is not our own – such a strategic asset that it is worth the lives of the hostages, the lives of soldiers who will surely die there, and the chance of an all-out war with all of our neighbors? If, in 2005, the logic of holding it for ourselves did not stand up to reality, the fallacy is even more stark today.

We need to ask ourselves: Is there any way out of this trap, and, if so, is it too late to free our collective selves from its jaws?