Israel’s sadistic war on Gaza, the culmination of a long series of criminal policies, may well prove suicidal in the long term and lead to the demise of the powerful “Jewish state.”
Indeed, the deliberate and large-scale assassination of the Palestinian people by Israel under the pretext of “self-defense” will not strengthen their security or ensure their future. On the contrary, it will produce more insecurity and instability, further isolate Israel and undermine its chances of long-term survival in a predominantly hostile region.
In truth, I never thought that Israel could have a great future in the Middle East without getting rid of its colonial rule and adopting a normal state. For a short period in the early 1990s, it seemed that Israel was changing direction toward some form of normalcy, albeit dependent on the United States. He engaged the Palestinians and regional Arab states in a “peace process” that promised mutual existence under favorable U.S. auspices.
But Israel’s colonial nature dominated its behavior at every turn. It has squandered countless opportunities to end its occupation and live in peace with its neighbors. To paraphrase Israeli diplomat Abba Eban’s famous quip, Israel “never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”
Instead of ending its occupation, it has doubled down on its colonization project in the occupied Palestinian territories. He multiplied the number of illegal Jewish settlements and settlers on stolen Palestinian land and networked them through special bypass roads and other planning projects, creating a dual system, a superior system, dominant for the Jews, and an inferior system for Palestinians.
While one apartheid was dismantled in South Africa, another was erected in Palestine.
In the absence of peace and in the shadow of colonization, the country slid further toward fascism, enshrining Jewish supremacy in its laws and extending it to all of historic Palestine, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. In a short time, fanatical and far-right parties have grown and taken the reins of power under the opportunistic leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, undermining Israel’s own institutions and any chances for peace. based on coexistence between two peoples.
They rejected compromise and began devouring the entirety of historic Palestine, expanding illegal Jewish settlements on stolen Palestinian land across the occupied West Bank in an effort to oust the Palestinians. They also strengthened their siege of the Gaza Strip, the world’s largest open-air prison, and abandoned any pretense of allowing the Strip to unite with its Palestinian hinterland in a sovereign Palestinian state.
Then came the October 7 attack – a stark wake-up call reminding Israel that its colonial enterprise is neither tenable nor sustainable, that it could not lock up two million people and throw away the key, that it must address the root causes of the conflict. with the Palestinians, namely their dispossession, occupation and siege.
But the Netanyahu regime, true to its nature, turned the tragedy into a rallying cry and doubled down on its racist dehumanization of the Palestinians, paving the way for a genocidal war. He declared war on “evil,” meaning not only Hamas, but also the people of Gaza. One Israeli leader after another, starting with the president himself, implicated all Palestinians in this horrific attack, claiming that there were no innocents in Gaza.
Since then, Israel has become vengeful, tribal and adamant about destruction and expansion, in total disregard of basic human decency and international law. Israel’s colonial war has become a war against hospitals, schools, mosques and residential buildings, financed, armed and protected by the United States and other Western lackeys and killing thousands of Palestinian civilians – children, doctors, teachers, journalists, men and women, old and young, as if they were enemy combatants.
But this foreign tribe has no chance of surviving among all the natives of the region, more united than ever against the bloody intruder. Israel can no longer use its fanciful theological claims to justify its violent racist practices. God does not allow the killing of innocent children. And neither should Israel’s American and Western bosses.
As Western public opinion turns against Israel, its cynical leaders will also change course, if not to preserve their moral standing, then at least to safeguard their interests in the greater Middle East. The change in French position, demanding that Israel stop killing children in Gaza, is an indicator of things to come.
Israel has no good options after its bad war ends. This may be his last chance to step back from the brink, to stop the war, to embrace US President Joe Biden’s vision of a two-state solution, impractical as it is today , and to accept the American red lines for Gaza: no to reoccupation, no to ethnic cleansing and no to the shrinking of its territories. But Netanyahu and his fanatical coalition, who have long taken America for granted, have once again ignored – even rejected – American advice, to the detriment of both camps.
Long before the war on Gaza, a prominent Israeli journalist, Ari Shavit, predicted the demise of Israel “as we know it” if it continued on the same destructive path. And last week, Ami Ayalon, former head of Israel’s Shin Bet secret service, warned that war and the government’s territorial expansion would lead to “the end of Israel” as we know it. Both have written books warning Israel of the dark future that awaits it if it continues its occupation.
Like all other violent intruders, from ancient crusaders to modern colonial powers, this latest colonial entity, Israel, as we know it, is doomed to extinction, no matter how much Palestinian, Arab and Israeli blood she pours.
The war in Gaza could prove to be the beginning of the end, but not for Palestine. Just as South Africa’s bloody supremacist apartheid regime imploded, so will Israel’s, sooner or later.