Calls from Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and others to “reoccupy” the Gaza Strip reveal a dangerous nostalgia for one of the most disastrous chapters in Israeli history—a longing that commanders in the Israel Defense Forces, with bitter experience, do not share. Yet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears willing to disregard their warnings and order troops back into a no-win situation in which the hostages may be sacrificed, the nation’s moral standing further eroded, international pressure for a Palestinian state intensified, and Israeli citizens left insecure.

Let’s recall what those good old days of occupation looked like. Unlike Judea and Samaria, Gaza was not part of the biblical Land of Israel; it was taken from Egypt in 1967 and considered by most Israelis a

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