It is difficult
to imagine how Israel can declare, and relish, a victory after a three-week war
against Gaza. What would that victory look like? Would it be the destruction of
Hamas’s military wing and the killing or capitulation of its top leaders? The
cost for both Israel’s military and the Gaza population would be unbearable.
Or, will it be a picture of a convoy of tanks pummeling through the skeletal
streets of Gaza City? A few square kilometers of a buffer zone in the northern
Gaza Strip may also suffice. The war will go on as long as US and Western
backing of Israel’s devastation of Gaza cities, towns, and refugee camps is
allowed.
اضافة اعلان
At one-point,
Israeli leaders will be told to call it quits.
What is unlikely,
though, is for Israel to manage to drive 2.3 million Palestinians into the
Sinai desert. An exodus of that magnitude would not be construed as a victory
but as the most extensive human calamity in the 21st century. Moreover, it
would not bring security to Israel, or end its decades-old attempt to bury the
Palestinians and their cause.
Israel’s
so-called victory would become its stigma. It is already a bungled operation in
terms of the horrific cost to human lives. If Israel is allowed to continue
with its indiscriminate bombing of Gaza, the world will have to deal with tens
of thousands of casualties, the vast majority of which will be women and
children.
The carnage may
also come to a sudden halt. More than 230 Israeli hostages and their families
are putting unprecedented pressure on beleaguered Benyamin Netanyahu and his
divided war cabinet. The Israeli public is furious and wants a victory, a
hostage return, an inquiry, Netanyahu on the stake, and the destruction of
Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran. It will not get all that.
Whether Hamas
chose this particular moment in history to launch its October 7 offensive, or
not, we will never know.
But that moment
had become a crucial. Israel was divided and weak internally over
Netanyahu’s Far Right government’s controversial judicial amendments and the
rise of an ethno-religious cult that was determined to dismantle Israel’s
secular identity. The West had become exhausted over pouring billions of
dollars into an endless war in the Ukraine. The socio-economic conditions of
ordinary citizens in the West had deteriorated. People had become frustrated
with a ruling clique associated with corruption and self-serving interests.
And then you have
the social media platforms; a relative newcomer in the war of narratives and
the antithesis of everything that the traditional mainstream media was
peddling.
A perfect storm
was forming, resulting in a poly-crisis; chaos where many parts were moving in
all directions simultaneously. Who could have imagined that the Zionists
would lose the narrative a few days after the October 7 debacle? Israel’s
barbaric bombardment of residential towers, houses, mosques, churches,
hospitals, medical staff, ambulances, journalists, and the entire
infrastructure of a home of millions of civilians could only be compared to
World War II obliteration of cities. And it was all posted on social media.
But that moment had become a crucial. Israel was divided and weak internally over Netanyahu’s Far Right government’s controversial judicial amendments and the rise of an ethno-religious cult that was determined to dismantle Israel’s secular identity. The West had become exhausted over pouring billions of dollars into an endless war in the Ukraine. The socio-economic conditions of ordinary citizens in the West had deteriorated. People had become frustrated with a ruling clique associated with corruption and self-serving interests.
Israel and its
allies had hoped to run the playbook of previous rounds of violence: That
Israel was the victim—ironically, it was at the onset of this war—and that it
had the right to self-defense at any cost.
But as its
initial allegations of beheaded babies and raped women were debunked, the world
saw what Israeli shelling had claimed: Thousands of Palestinian babies and
children killed along with many more innocent civilians.
This is a 1960s
moment for the US and Europe and not a 1982 photo op—when Israeli tanks
screeched their way across downtown Beirut—for Israel: The double standards by
Western officials have been exposed. Fury and condemnation had become a public
issue for millions of people around the globe. It was not sympathy for
Hamas—yes many did—as much as people’s associations with Palestinian yearn for
justice. Justice had turned into anger against capitalism, class struggle,
racism, colonial wars, corrupt elites, and much more. In response, a new
McCarthyism by the deep state will never be accepted.
“Free Palestine”
became the mantra of anyone with a grudge against the status quo. This was a
significant moment. The status quo is collapsing. Much more is coming.
The world can never return to the pre-Gaza war phase. The resurgence of the
Palestinian cause has been beyond belief. A “Free Palestine” has become the
mother of all causes!
The 1960s
anti-Vietnam war, anti-ruling class, and anti-warmongers had spread like
wildfire across the Western world. Youth demanded social justice,
accountability, the rule of law, and an end to despotism in all its forms. The
Gaza war has triggered a counterculture movement, whose reverberations will be
felt in Western democracies for years to come, and at the ballot box!
Meanwhile, Israel’s image as the constant victim is no more.
Netanyahu has
already lost, no matter the outcome. Israel will go into a long and painful
soul-searching phase that may, in the end, produce a new class of politicians
that will accept the inevitable truth that Palestine will have to be shared
with the Palestinians and that Israel must distance itself from its colonial
genesis and accept that fact that it cannot remain a forward military garrison
of the West in the heart of the Middle East.
The tremors of
the October 7 failure will resonate for years. This was a breaking point that
Israel never anticipated, which it wholeheartedly created. There cannot be an
apartheid state in historical Palestine. The Zionist, ultra-religious,
ultra-nationalist mantra of an Eretz Israel is doomed to failure. To pursue
such an insane scheme is to drag the region into a nuclear war. The extremists
in Israel must be contained, and Zionist terrorism must be acknowledged as a
threat to humanity.
So, where do we
go from here? The West must change. Israel has become a liability to an
equitable world order because of its impunity and exclusivity. Both must end.
The status quo has collapsed. The world will be a different place after the
Gaza war. Zionism and its apologists must be defeated.
Regardless, if
whether Hamas is defeated or not, questions will be asked, and answers will be
needed. The current world order is enduring labor pains, and a new order must
emerge. The West can no longer claim to occupy the high moral ground.
On another note,
those who supported war crimes in Gaza must be questioned once the dust settles.
Gaza is in ruins, but that is not the issue. What is at stake is the
credibility of a world order that has been tested with the first casualty of an
innocent Palestinian child. Nothing can redress the loss of a child, and
nothing can exonerate its killers.
Palestinians may
never be compensated for the death of thousands of innocent civilians, but a
just closure of their century-old plight is still possible.
Osama Al Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman.
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