Emma Graham-Harrison, Julian Borger and Ruth Michaelson in Jerusalem
For two weeks Israel has pounded Gaza with missiles, as it gathers tanks and troops for a ground invasion with one stated goal, to destroy Hamas. It is a deceptively simple target, one which sounds urgent and necessary to many in a nation profoundly traumatised by the massacres of 7 October, hoping to reclaim their sense of security, and a military determined to restore its damaged authority.
“Now we have a lot of pressure from the Israeli population,” a senior Israeli security official said. “We are really trying in headquarters here not to be emotionally irrational in every decision. “The only conclusion is that we have to go in. We have to go in and clean it and to eliminate Hamas from the roots, not only militarily, but also economically, its administration. Everything should go away.”
But destroying Hamas is a political objective, not a military one. Even if Israel claims success after assassinating senior Hamas figures, destroying their arsenal and tunnels, and dismantling their administration, they have not said what they will do the day after “victory”.
The Gaza strip will still be there, albeit mostly in ruins. The population who survive the war will still be there, mourning new losses of loved ones and their homes. And the poverty and other deprivations that fed Hamas will only have intensified. The national rage, the massing of military might, looked disturbingly familiar to US president Joe Biden, who warned Israel last week: “Justice must be done. But I caution this – while you feel that rage, don’t be consumed by it. After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.”
He did not say which mistakes, perhaps because there are so many devastating ones to choose from. In Afghanistan and later Iraq, the US won the initial battles – as Israel is likely to in Gaza – because of overwhelming military and financial resources.
Yet American agents didn’t reach Osama Bin Laden, architect of the attacks, for a decade. In that time the war in Iraq killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, turned the country into a sectarian bloodbath, and sowed the seeds for the rise of Islamic State. The Taliban fought for 20 years and eventually returned to power, humiliating Washington in the process. US politicians and military whether from arrogance, naivety or blind optimism, had given dangerously little thought to what might come after they humbled their enemy.
Israel appears to be heading down a similar road, with a leadership that has not defined what victory looks like and has made no plans for how the enclave might be run when any military campaign ends. It will be in ruins, with thousands dead at least, possibly tens of thousands, and the surviving population deeply traumatised…..
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United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
No Path to Ending Bloodshed If Palestinian Rights Continue to Be Denied
Some information for Israelis (and the rest of us)
We’re anti-Zionist Jews and we see genocide unfolding in Gaza
Standing up for Palestine is also standing up to save the west from the worst of itself
Netanyahu’s deliberate extremism has failed
Haaretz Editorial: Netanyahu Bears Responsibility for This Israel-Gaza War
Israel imposing apartheid on Palestinians, says former Mossad chief
Belgian Minister Says What Biden Won’t: Israel Is Wiping Entire Palestinian Villages Off the Map
After the truth-shower 