Gaza – victory or defeat?

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By JEAN MARC VON DER WEID*

The war nit's not over and it's notthe endso soon, regardless of what will happen in Gaza

1.

The world is celebrating the truce between Hamas and the Israeli government, halting the massacre of the Gaza population, which has been going on for 15 months of horror. The concrete part of the agreement is limited to the prisoner exchange process, which began a few days ago.

This is no small feat for those most directly concerned, the non-combatant civilians subjected to daily bombings, expulsion with or without destruction of their homes, hospitals, schools and other essential social infrastructure, lack of food, water and medicine and many other commonplace things in normal daily life, even in impoverished communities. For this reason, the very fact of the interruption of the “fighting” (a euphemism for the clash between, allegorically, the slingshot and the cannon) should be celebrated. But what can we expect for the present and the future?

As in every episode of conflict between peoples and/or states, the present and future of the process depend on how much each side considers it has achieved through the confrontation. Who is claiming victory and why?

The answer to this question is fraught with ambiguity. As expected, leaders on both sides claim to have won the day. I read in several articles that Hamas “forced” Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to negotiate and suspend the offensive. Some even claim that Hamas achieved a military victory, exhausting the operational capacity of the Israeli army. Other arguments are more down-to-earth and speak of a political victory, although they do not admit that there was a military defeat.

There are many examples of this type of misunderstanding in history. As early as the times of the Roman Republic, military defeats against Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, cost the victor so much that they foreshadowed his future destruction. In modern times, the best example of a military defeat largely offset by a political victory was the Tet Offensive in 1968, in the war between the United States and Vietnam (the people of the South and the states of the North). Although the left has long claimed that the Viet Cong offensive was a military victory, this thesis has not held up and has been quietly abandoned.

The prevailing view is that the price paid by the American empire in its military victory was very high, not so much in terms of casualties among its soldiers, but in the willingness of American voters to keep fighting. On the other hand, the military defeat did not diminish the will to fight of the Vietnamese, both North and South. As war theorists from Sun Tzu to Clausewitz and Mao Tse Tung have said, the aim of every war is to eliminate the enemy's will to fight.

It is hard not to consider that these 15 months of fighting have not been a military defeat for Hamas (and for its allies, Hezbollah and the governments of Syria and Iran). Estimates from the Israeli army indicate the death or imprisonment of more than 15 Hamas fighters. Let us assume that there is an inflation of deaths, injuries or prisoners in the announced figures. Even assuming that among the approximately 70 victims of the bombings and fighting (calculation by humanitarian organizations, including Jewish ones) no more than 20% are fighters, we will be close to the TAHEL figures.

In a strictly military assessment, in addition to the dead, wounded and imprisoned fighters, weapons and infrastructure were destroyed, reducing Hamas' firepower. And one cannot fail to note the elimination of the political and military leadership of the Palestinian organization. To complete the picture, the destruction of Hezbollah's political and military structure, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria and the humiliation of the ayatollah regime in Iran in the exchange of bombings between the territories, lead to the military isolation of Hamas, which will have difficulty rearming.

It is argued that all this is nothing more than a tactical defeat for the Palestinian cause (and for Hamas) and that TAHEL has not succeeded in eliminating Hamas in Gaza, either militarily or politically, and that “the fight continues”. There is some truth to this statement and some analysts point to the recruitment of around five thousand young men to join the approximately seven thousand survivors among the Hamas military at this stage of the war. In fact, for the confrontation to continue, the essential thing is the state of mind of the Palestinian population.

2.

In the long run, it all comes down to the prevailing sentiment among the oppressed: the feeling of suffering and oppression, or the revolt and the will to fight. The brutality and inhumanity of the TAHEL and the Netanyahu government have profoundly affected the lives of 2,4 million people. The fact that only XNUMX young people have joined the Hamas fighters indicates that either there is a lack of capacity to organize and arm new recruits in the face of a much larger potential turnout, or that the great mass of Palestinians are exhausted by suffering and pray for peace, any peace.

We do not know what the reality of this population's feelings are. I believe that if they had somewhere to go, most of them would already be on their way. In my opinion, Benjamin Netanyahu's government entered a dead end when it turned on the people-grinding machine in that small territory, without leaving an escape valve or an exit door.

The strategy of successive Israeli governments, since its founding and by the Zionist movement before it, has been ethnic cleansing. This has been done in successive outbursts of overt and covert terrorism against Palestinian civilians. In the first wave, in the months following the founding of the state of Israel, more than two million fled their homes and flocked to Lebanon, Syria or Gaza. But in the current offensive, Gaza has been surrounded on all sides, with no way out. The Tahel has pushed the population towards the border with Egypt, hoping that the pressure would eventually force its neighbor to open the door.

It was even said, without this being confirmed, that Benjamin Netanyahu's government offered to create a mega infrastructure of refugee camps in Egypt, in the middle of the Sinai desert, which would allow the “cleansing” of Gaza and its future reoccupation by Jewish settlers. The plan failed due to resistance from the Egyptian government, fearful of the creation of a radicalized enclave in its territory that could lend a hand to the Islamic extremists of the Muslim Brotherhood, who are strong in the country.

The now-revealed “Trump Plan” to achieve peace in Gaza is nothing more or less than the dream of the most radical right-wingers in the Israeli government: to empty Gaza of its Palestinian inhabitants, taking them to Egypt and Jordan. Donald Trump mentioned 1,5 million people participating in this exodus, forgetting another 900, but for the megalomaniac this difference of almost one million must not be important. Although he has not said so, it is assumed that he would be willing to assume the costs of the undertaking. All that is left is to “arrange with the Russians”, that is, the governments of Egypt and Jordan, not coincidentally the most dependent on American subsidies after Israel.

The Israeli alternative to promoting ethnic cleansing in Gaza was and is the Holocaust, that is, killing more than two million inhabitants through hunger, thirst, disease and bombs. There is no data on the total number of Palestinian deaths from different causes in these 15 months. Assuming that the casualties from other causes are twice as high as the 70 directly caused by the fighting and bombings, the total would be 210 deaths. At this rate, it would take another 14 years of massacre to eliminate the Palestinian population.

Or, alternatively, adopt even more radical and horrendous solutions to speed up the process. A recent news report pointing to Donald Trump's decision to authorize the delivery of a large arsenal of two-ton bombs to Tahel shows that the American government is also working on a plan B, that of extermination.

Despite the radicalization of a significant portion of the Israeli population, I still have doubts that the majority of Jews, both inside and outside Israel, will support this dehumanizing option in the long term, which would make it a mirror of the Nazi extermination machine used against its own people. However, the movement of growing and intense mutual hatred (which has already spanned three generations) is leading to an increase in the Israelis’ self-defense reflex, which is being added to the idea of ​​the religious determination of the “right to the promised land.” This feeling could lead to the acceptance of the extermination of non-Jews as a historical necessity.

3.

Many believe that this option for a Holocaust is already being implemented in Gaza and that reaching ethnic cleansing is only a matter of scale or time. The merciless massacre of Palestinians is being carried out more openly than Hitler’s “Final Solution.” The latter was implemented by the Nazis in Germany and conquered countries in a much more discreet manner, but I find it hard to believe that Jews in Israel and the diaspora can swallow this horror indefinitely.

Among the many factors to consider when assessing the losses and gains for both sides, it is very important to remember the impressive dismantling of the image of the Jews in world public opinion. Many Jewish friends will criticize the use of this ethnic concept in place of Israeli, but in this case it makes sense. The people who were targeted for extermination under Nazi rule were Jews, as were the victims of the pogroms in Tsarist Russia. Of course, being Jewish and being Israeli are not identical things.

But the effects of the actions of the Israelis or their government and army affect the image of all Jews, both inside and outside the State of Israel. This is all the more significant because Zionism seeks precisely to link the identity of the Israeli population with that of the entire “Jewish people” worldwide. Whatever the reason, the fact is that the capital of empathy and solidarity acquired by Jews due to the Holocaust is being deeply eroded by the policy of ethnic cleansing adopted by the State of Israel.

We can debate whether the crematoria in the Nazi death camps are equivalent to the indiscriminate bombings in Gaza, or whether the scale is comparable. I still think there are significant differences between the Nazi methods and those of Benjamin Netanyahu's government, especially in the scale of casualties, but one cannot help but notice the striking similarities.

Faced with this loss of positive identity, the reaction of Benjamin Netanyahu's government is to double down and mobilize Jewish organizations around the world to ensure a propaganda machine that covers up the growing horror of the quest for total occupation of the promised land, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River.

While prisoners are being exchanged from one side to the other, we can see the outline of a future conflict in the partial maintenance of the blockade of northern Gaza by Tahel troops, in the expansion of the arsenal of high-powered bombs, and in the rest and rotation of troops in the Gaza region. But the most important thing is happening elsewhere, with the intensification of aggression against Palestinian residents of the West Bank, both by authorities and by civilians organized into militias.

Since Israel occupied the West Bank after the Six-Day War in 1967, the proportion of Jews and Palestinians has reversed, with the majority now living with the former, with 700 settlers. There are still around 400 Palestinians living under Israeli rule and without any rights, as second-class citizens in a more than obvious apartheid.

Hundreds of thousands have been expelled from their homes and villages over the past 58 years and have had to emigrate to Lebanon, Syria or… Gaza. But the number of Palestinians living in Israeli territories is still significant. For this reason, Zionism and the vast majority of the Israeli electorate do not accept granting equal citizenship rights to Palestinians living in the lands ceded at the time of the creation of the State of Israel in 1947, as well as those subsequently occupied in successive wars with their neighbors.

The logic is simple mathematics: since the origin of the State of Israel, the majority of the inhabitants were Palestinians in almost all the territories handed over by the UN. If all of them had political rights equal to those of the Jewish population, they would have a majority in the government of the new State.

The UN resolution spoke of the creation of two states (including a Palestinian one), but the fate of the non-Jewish inhabitants of the granted lands was not defined. Even with the large migration of Jews to Israel and the even greater expulsion of Palestinians, the numbers still speak against the effort of ethnic domination by the Jews. In fact, Zionist strategists have never stopped pointing out the so-called “population risk, or threat,” represented by the higher fertility rate among Palestinians.

The UN resolution spoke of two states, but only one was created in 1947. The problem is that the Arab states voted against the resolution and were followed by the Palestinian movements, which were much less organized at the time than the Zionist organizations, which even had armed (and terrorist) wings. Only in much more recent times, in the Camp David Accords, did the Palestine Liberation Organization, the PLO, come to admit the creation of two states, also accepted by Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon.

But time has passed and the sham state in Gaza and the West Bank, the latter under Israeli government control, has undermined the proposal and strengthened the radicalism of Hamas, Hezbollah and a host of other smaller but no less extremist organizations that propose nothing less than the elimination of the State of Israel and the retaking of lands occupied by the Zionists. It is another ethnic cleansing with the wrong signal.

4.

The burning question is: why did Benjamin Netanyahu accept the truce, against the position of the military leaders and the intelligence services? Neither the real objective (ethnic cleansing of Gaza) nor the declared one (military and political destruction of Hamas) were achieved, although great progress was made. On the other hand, many people believe that Netanyahu needs the war to remain in power and that this personal objective is what defines the conflict. I have always disagreed with this position, although I agree that the president of Israel does indeed need a permanent state of war to avoid seeing his government overthrown in parliament.

Some believe that the Israeli fascist followed the orders of the greater fascist, the American one, who was elected on the grounds that the war in Palestine would end before he took office. This does not seem like a reasonable analysis to me either. After taking office, Donald Trump halted all US economic and military cooperation around the world, with the exception of Israel, Egypt and Jordan.

Although I suspect that he carries a good dose of visceral anti-Semitism and that he sees the Jewish colony in the US as a support for the Democrats, he is certainly more averse to the Palestinians and, above all, the Iranians, with whom he has already promised to “settle accounts”. On the other hand, except for rare and generally very brief moments, no Israeli leader has paid much attention to the occasional pacifist outbursts of American presidents. Despite protests and occasional pressure, foreigners have always ended up supporting Israeli expansionism since the founding of the State.

The most likely explanation for Benjamin Netanyahu’s acceptance of the truce is the combination of several pressures, the greatest of which is that of public opinion in Israel, calling for the return of the hostages. Add to this Donald Trump’s “ultimatums” and the pressure of international public opinion, although these seem to me to be secondary factors. The truce does not interfere with the long-term plans of the Tahel and Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and takes the focus off the ethnic cleansing operations in the West Bank.

 After all, once the hostages have been exchanged, the war could start again under any pretext. The risk of the government falling has not been confirmed, despite the departure of the far-right war minister. As long as the negotiations continue, the right-wing parties and even part of the center will support the government, and this was already negotiated by Netanyahu before he declared a truce.

Will the military defeat of the “axis of resistance” and the strong shock represented by the killing of the most prestigious and historic leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah favor a viable agreement for the future?

This is certainly not the case. Israel is far from its historical goal: a territory occupied exclusively by Jews, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan. Assuming that non-combatant Palestinian movements, such as the PLO, manage to gain support from the population for the creation of a Palestinian State accepted by the UN and the Israeli government, some crucial questions remain unanswered: (i) what territory would that be? The fake State included Gaza and the West Bank. The former is devastated and the latter is mostly occupied by Israeli settlers. Both are occupied by the Tahel. I do not see the Israeli government, even a less extremist government than Benjamin Netanyahu's, removing the settlers from the West Bank and the army from Gaza. If Trump were to force an agreement from Egypt and Jordan to take in 2,4 million Gazans, there would still be a few hundred thousand left in the West Bank and many more in Israel itself. In the wake of the exodus from Gaza, the rest will suffer the same fate.

(ii) What to do with the Palestinian minorities in Israeli territories? If ethnic cleansing is not possible, how can an institutional solution be achieved that respects the rights of all interested parties? The most correct proposal, theoretically, would be the creation of a single multi-ethnic Palestinian/Jewish state, with equal rights for all in a democratic and secular regime. There is at least one example of the successful application of this type of solution: the end of the regime of apartheid in South Africa.

There are several similarities (and many differences) between the two cases. There was no ethnic cleansing in South Africa, but black buffer states were created under the control of white armed forces. apartheid It is not very different from the current regime in the occupied territories and in the State of Israel itself. Like the State of Israel, the South African regime had to face both armed and unarmed opposition, the latter more widespread and efficient than the former. Racial hatred was a feeling as powerful or even more powerful than in Palestine, although without the religious component.

The most significant difference between the two cases is the ability of the Jewish diaspora to promote the interests of the State of Israel in the international arena, while the South African regime was politically isolated throughout most of the world, with a highly effective economic boycott to convince the white elite to reach an agreement. As in the case of Israel, the US government was among the last to engage in the movement for regime change in South Africa. As always, imperial diplomacy saw these regimes as a bulwark of its hegemonic interests, both in the Middle East and in Southern Africa.

The South African solution came about in the wake of the defeat of extremists on both sides and the rise of political figures (Mandela and de Klerk) who simultaneously had enormous pragmatism in reaching an agreement and enormous leadership capacity in getting their followers to accept this agreement.

These conditions are far from being reproduced in the present and foreseeable future of the Palestine/Israel imbroglio. The war is not over and will not end any time soon, regardless of what happens in Gaza.

*Jean Marc von der Weid is a former president of the UNE (1969-71). Founder of the non-governmental organization Family Agriculture and Agroecology (ASTA).


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