Marc Lynch

And the Israeli is saying, go, go to the army.

And they're sitting next to each other.

What do you think is going to happen to them?

Well, first of all, with regard to October 7, obviously it's a horrific attack, and there's nothing justified.

I mean, we can analyze it politically.

We can analyze it.

And explanation, justification, not one and the same thing.

A lot of people kind of conflate the two sometimes when you talk about it.

But, you know, control doesn't mean you have to be there physically.

Certainly, Gaza didn't have sovereignty.

Gazans couldn't go in and out without Israeli permission.

So when you're controlling the water, when you're controlling the electricity, when you're controlling the trade, when you're controlling the movement of people, when you're controlling the money even that goes in and out, I know that many Israelis buy that.

It's an easy way out.

But in reality, this was not the case.

Yeah, and I think also Gaza doesn't have

for all Israelis, doesn't have the same status as the West Bank.

Now, it's true that Ben-Vir, and some people like Ben-Vir, who is now the chief of police, who comes out of a very far-right party, did say he wanted to, at some point, have essentially ethnic cleansing in Gaza.

They should be removed somewhere else.

But in general, I think, if you look even among the right, Likudniks, the Likud party of Benjamin Netanyahu throughout Gaza,

there were voices that kind of wanted maybe Gaza not be part of the overall Israel.