[POST] Israel's eradication of Gaza nears the end-stage
The inevitable endpoint comes into view
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This has been my prediction throughout:
Israel cannot destroy Hamas, so …
Israel destroys Gaza instead, eliminating it as a threat vector, requiring …
Israel to destroy most of the buildings and infrastructure, essentially making the Strip unlivable except for aid flows, which …
Israel curtails to the point of starving out the residual population, allowing …
Israel to ultimately annex all of Gaza, displacing virtually all of the Palestinians still there and replacing them with Jewish settlers.
Everything and anything we’ve seen or heard from Israel regarding its plans to do anything other than follow this path have been a complete smokescreen, as this was Netanyahu’s plan all along. As this keeps Israel in long-term crisis, it serves Netanyahu’s firm desire to remain in office and out of jail for the foreseeable future.
For Netanyahu to stay in power is to align himself with Israel’s ultra-religious right and that group is all-in on eliminating both Gaza and the West Bank. While Gaza will consume all the crisis “oxygen” for a couple more years, Israel’s incremental annexing of the West Bank will continue to accelerate (as it has during the last year) during the Strip’s complete eradication, and, when that is done, the Bank will be targeted/provoked by Israel to the point of fighting back big-time, and then we’ll watch a rerun of the Gaza eradication — just on a bigger and bloodier scale because the Bank is home to 4m Palestinians whereas the Strip is home to only 2m or so (90 percent of which have already been displaced within the Strip — most, many times over).
[SIDENOTE: Yes, I do acknowledge the awkward math there, as in, 2m + 4m = 6m — a hugely symbolic number for Jews the world over. Just keep in mind the distinction I always offer: this is not genocide, even if it is most definitely ethnic cleansing. And no, I’m not sitting upon some high horse here: White America’s treatment of Native Americans is legitimately described as both ethnic cleansing and genocide. So, I won’t be offering any moral judgments here even as I note the disturbing historical analogies.]
But understand this: Israel will seek to set in motion the West Bank’s similar eradication before Trump leaves office, knowing that his administration will give it a completely free hand to do so. At that point, the only remaining question for Israel is how much diplomatic pain it may have to endure if the Democrats retake the White House in 2029 — a far from guaranteed outcome.
Why is Israel doing this?
Israel is doing this because it can militarily and because the two-state solution was never going to happen — much less work.
The two-state solution remains a fantasy for a variety of reasons — namely, the peace process has failed; the Wall option has failed; the open-air prison option has failed; and the mowing-the-grass security strategy has failed. That’s why we (the wider world) — and Israel — are where we are on this subject — three quarters of a century after this tragedy was initially set in motion as the world’s atonement for largely standing by while the Holocaust unfolded. You know, six million dead.
With permanent ownership of that moral high ground, Israel is secure enough in its support from the Trump Administration to know it can — and should — go all the way on this through January 2029, and that there’s a good chance it’ll enjoy another four years of total support after that.
Israel knows that the Saudis and Emiratis - what with their larger ambitions as well-endowed power brokers operating across the region and throughout much of Africa — will ultimately concede this outcome, despite all the public posturing. There has always been bigger fish to fry and that is even more true looking ahead.
Israel has beaten back Iran’s Axis of Resistance and feels confident it can continue to do so with US support.
Israel is ready, willing, and able to take the military fight to Iran across this timetable, knowing — again — that it will have active US military support.
In sum, it remains a “go” for Greater Israel’s formation, so now is the time for Jerusalem to finish off Palestine in full. Ideally, this project is completed in all but name before 2030.
The evidence of this trajectory’s unfolding is everywhere.
Israel’s reduction of the Strip continues apace:
Since breaking the cease-fire with intensified bombing on March 18, the Israeli military has pushed Palestinians in Gaza into smaller and smaller enclaves, expanding “no go” military or evacuation zones to about 70 percent of their territory.
The AP reports now that Israel is ramping up for another major capture of Gazan territory::
Israeli officials said Monday that Cabinet ministers approved the plan to seize Gaza and remain in the Palestinian territory for an unspecified amount of time — news that came hours after the military chief said the army was calling up tens of thousands of reserve soldiers.
The goal is nothing less than the complete occupation of the Strip (i.e. the two-thirds not currently under Israel’s military occupation):
Israel's security Cabinet has unanimously approved a plan to seize all of the Gaza Strip in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said would be an intensive military operation aimed at defeating Hamas.
Israel now seeks control over all aid flows into Gaza:
Israeli authorities are floating a new plan to allow desperately needed international aid into Gaza, under their control, after blocking the deliveries for more than two months.
But many of the humanitarian groups that would have to work under the proposed system say Israel’s conditions would turn aid into a military pressure tactic and violate the groups’ principles of neutrality.
The interim goal is to concentrate the remaining Palestinians living there into a single refuge:
Plans for the operation call for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to flatten any buildings that remain standing and displace virtually the entire population of 2 million people to a single "humanitarian area."
Israel has no intention of giving any part of Gaza back to Hamas’ control:
In a video statement released Monday, Netanyahu said the IDF will no longer “enter and then withdraw” from combat zones in Gaza as it has in the past, a strategy that allowed Hamas to move back into cleared areas.“We’re not doing that anymore — that’s not the intention,” Netanyahu said. “The intention is the opposite.”
Trump’s approval is touted by Israel as justification for Gaza’s destruction:
The alternative to remaining in the humanitarian zone is for Palestinians to leave the enclave "voluntarily" for other countries "in line with President Trump's vision for Gaza," an Israeli official said.
The Trump Administration isn’t lifting a finger on any diplomacy to re-install a cease-fire in Gaza, giving Netanyahu a clear green-light.
“The administration is involved only to the extent that the president does not wish to be seen as a loser on an issue that he declared he would resolve,” said a person familiar with the deliberations.
The US pro-Israel press is likewise signaling its support for this latest invasion of Gaza, with the NY Post stating:
The escalation is understandable; indeed, almost inescapable: What other choice does Israel have?
Hamas won’t agree to any serious deal short of a permanent end to the war that allows it to survive and maintain its death-grip on Gaza — which it has vowed time and again to use to stage more Oct. 7, 2023-style attacks on the Jewish state.
So Israel can’t permanently halt the war with Hamas in control of Gaza, yet no other nation has offered a realistic plan to end the Hamas threat, nor to govern Gaza.
Israel’s far right sees the strategic opportunity here and wants to seize it:
On Monday, Netanyahu’s finance minister, the settler leader Bezalel Smotrich, said conquering all of Gaza should be the war’s primary objective.
There will be “no retreat from the territories we have conquered, not even in exchange for hostages,” Smotrich said at a conference in Jerusalem. “Once we stay in Gaza, we can talk about [declaring] sovereignty.”
Resistance within Israel to these plans is minimal:
Some Israelis are also opposed to the plan. Hundreds of people protested outside the parliament Monday as the government opened for its summer session. One person was arrested.
Yes, there are polls indicating that Israelis want the remaining hostages (or just their corpses) released, but that stopped being a priority for Netanyahu a while ago:
The “highest goal” of the expanding operation in Gaza, according to the military’s top spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin, is returning the hostages, not defeating Hamas. His comments come just a week after Netanyahu said the war’s “supreme goal” is the defeat of Israel’s enemies, not the return of hostages.
There is no stopping this train. Yes, there will be plenty of friction, but with American colleges and universities already on their back foot trying to avoid being targeted by Trump for “anti-Semitism,” these next steps will not result in any intolerable student protests here in the States. So long as Trump rules here, any and all anti-Zionism equates to unacceptable anti-Semitism.
That enforced reality doesn’t obscure the fact that American popular support for Israel is at a serious low and is likely to further erode generationally for the foreseeable future. All that really says — yet again — is that now is the time for Israel to wrap things up with all possible speed.
Such growing popular disapproval here in the States also means you can file Israel’s current activities in the same range as Americans’ disapproval of Trump — meaning, pointed but largely meaningless in the near term. Unlike in the US (or so we still hope), there is no “high court” in Israel or the world capable of curtailing this trajectory. With this much at stake, Israel is perfectly comfortable being in the international doghouse for an extended period of punishment.
Meanwhile, Israel has every reason to pick up the pace while the getting is good, and so it shall. The rest is all political theatre and — admittedly — righteous anger.
As for me? I’m just amazed that we’re still balancing the scales from World War II — eight decades later.
i must say its been remarkable seeing this unfold in the headlines very much in a fashion you called from nearly the start of the saga... appreciate the analysis as always.