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The paradoxical phrase “running away forward” is one of the most apt descriptions of the state of Israeli affairs right now. It seems that everything that Israel has done in the past year or so has been a mere attempt to deny, distract from or escape imminent scenarios — all of which are bleak.
Indeed, the last year has repeatedly proven that Israel’s military supremacy is no longer enough to win wars or decide political outcomes.
Moreover, the in Gaza and the rapid of Palestinian land in the West Bank have exposed, like never before, the ugly face of Zionist settler-colonialism. Only those who are wholly indoctrinated or are paying no attention still argue that Israel stands for any kind of moral ideals or is a “light unto the nations.”
Also, incessant attempts by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to marginalize, if not entirely erase, the Palestinian cause have completely failed. The suffering, resistance and pride of the Palestinian people have made their cause a global one and, this time around, irreversibly so.
Yet, despite all of this, Israeli leaders continue to drag their people into endless quests toward arbitrary destinations, making of “total victory” and the like.
The last year has repeatedly proven that Israel’s military supremacy is no longer enough to win wars or decide political outcomes
Dr. Ramzy Baroud
Monitoring the statements made by Israeli leaders and conversations in the right-wing Israeli press would leave one bewildered.
While more than 55,000 Israeli soldiers have over the course of several weeks to finally subdue northern Gaza, Israeli settler leaders are busy plans to auction real estate, envisaging new settlements and beach resorts inside the destroyed Strip.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz last month that Israel wants to build several settlement blocks inside Gaza. But how would Israel protect these areas when they could not protect southern Israel itself just a year ago?
In the West Bank, where an armed rebellion has been but is yet to actualize on a mass scale due to the between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Netanyahu’s right-wing government is speaking of full annexation.
“The year 2025 will, with God’s help, be the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria,” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich last week, referring to the West Bank. Whether or not Israel turns its de facto annexation of the West Bank into a de jure annexation, it will not alter its international as an illegally occupied Palestinian territory. The same applies to the Palestinian city of East Jerusalem, which was officially by the Israeli Knesset in 1980 under the so-called Jerusalem Law.
Not many in the international community are willing to accept Israel’s scheme in the West Bank anyway, as they — save for Washington — still refuse to recognize Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem. In fact, the opposite is true, as determined by the International Court of Justice in July. Its ruling, which was backed by international consensus, that “the state of Israel is under the obligation to bring an end to its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible.” The UN General Assembly subsequently fully the court’s decision.
That aside, by annexing the West Bank, Israel would have fired a mercy shot at the PA, thus turning the entire territory into a platform of Palestinian popular resistance. How could Israel withstand that new war front when it is already struggling, if not outright failing, to secure any victories in Gaza and south Lebanon?
By annexing the West Bank, Israel would turn the entire territory into a platform of Palestinian popular resistance
Dr. Ramzy Baroud
In a recent article, Israeli historian Ilan Pappe about “Fantasy Israel” — a decades-old political construct that believes that the “West supports Israel because it adheres to a Western ‘value system’ based on democracy and liberalism.” This fictional Israel has been collapsing for years, long before the current war on Gaza, though the genocidal conflict accelerated the process. The collapse of “Fantasy Israel” “has exposed cracks in the social cohesion and in the readiness of many Israelis to devote as much time and energy to military service as they did in the past,” Pappe argued.
Israel is now under the control of a different breed of politician, one that is armed with a massive and growing super-structure of an equally closed-minded and extremist intellectual base. These people are struggling with a whole different set of illusions, as they continue to convince themselves that they are winning when they are not; that they can impose their will on the Palestinians and the rest of the world when they cannot; and that the continuation of the war would allow them to finish a job — the total destruction of the Palestinian people — that, in their minds, should have been finished a long time ago.
Since this crowd is motivated by extremist religious ideologies, they are unable to abide by any form of rational thinking, even if it emanates from well-regarded Zionist figures inside Israel itself. “This war lacks a clear objective and it’s evident that we’re unequivocally losing it,” former Mossad deputy chief Ram Ben-Barak in May.
None of this matters to Netanyahu and his right-wing ministers, of course. They continue to reference and recycle old religious dogmas, while fervently praying for miracles. In doing so, they insist on constructing a new “Fantasy Israel,” which is also set to collapse, as fantasies often do.
- Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and author. He is editor of The Palestine Chronicle and nonresident senior research fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs. His latest book, co-edited with Ilan Pappe, is “Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak Out.” X: @RamzyBaroud