In October 2023, the Jewish people endured their darkest day since the Holocaust.
The devastating blow was delivered by Hamas, the ruling power in the Gaza Strip—an organization long perceived as a secondary threat compared to the far more formidable fronts in the north and in Iran. For years, Gaza had been regarded as a kind of chronic ailment: unpleasant, occasionally flaring up, but one that could be managed—or at least tolerated—while maintaining a semblance of normal life.
Almost every Israeli prime minister has despised the Gaza Strip, viewing it as a curse to get rid of, or at the very least, to be contained. Yitzhak Rabin wished that “Gaza would sink into the sea” and embraced the “Gaza First” approach during the Oslo Accords. Menachem Begin, Ehud Barak, and Ariel Sharon each, in turn, proposed that Egypt resume control over Gaza—and were flatly opposed. Sharon, one of the architects of Jewish settlement in the Strip, was also the one who dismantled it. Levi Eshkol conceived an ambitious plan to empty the Strip of its inhabitants. Benjamin Netanyahu believed the best way to minimize the Gaza problem was through economic incentives and through maintaining a fragile status quo with Hamas’ rule. Only two leaders—David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Shamir—sought to hold on to Gaza, though each for entirely different reasons.
No one foresaw that Israel’s gravest blow would come from this very place.
This book examines the relationship between Israel and the Gaza Strip through a blend of historical analysis and a close look at the process that led to the events of October 7, 2023—a process rooted in Gaza’s Islamization in the 1970s and culminating in the blindness that overtook Israel’s leadership beginning in 2014.
Dr. Or Lavi holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Haifa and lectures at the Open University of Israel. His research focuses on conflicts between states and terrorist organizations. He is the recipient of the Inbar Foundation Prize for Counterterrorism (2017).
