Failure of Containment: Israel’s Gaza Withdrawal After 20 Years

Israel’s 2005 disengagement from Gaza is increasingly remembered as a failed peace initiative. Recently, Israeli commentators have even argued that the policy directly precipitated the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023. Such interpretations are historically inaccurate and are designed to advance the Israeli far right’s contemporary goals in the West Bank and Gaza. The disengagement was never supposed to promote a two-state solution. On the contrary, it sought to freeze the peace process while consolidating Israel’s control over the West Bank. In the event, the disengagement did contain the conflict and entrench the status quo. While current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu resigned in protest as minister of finance over the disengagement in 2005, he perpetuated its strategic logic after he became prime minister in 2009. This led Israel to 7 October.