There are, it seems, two reactions to the latest Israeli iniquity. The first is a deathly silence, a pretence that the outrage committed just didn’t happen, so as not to offend the USA. The second is loud squawking, making the right noises, but doing nothing, so that the national interest is not harmed. Now that Israel has finally announced that it will use the Israeli Defense Force to take over the entire Gaza Strip, it seems that this was a step that provoked the second reaction, with Pakistan joining the chorus of voices condemning it as a fresh war crime. It is worth noting that even Saudi Arabia, which has been increasingly soft on Palestine as it moved towards recognition of Israel, was moved to express immediate condemnation.
The problem with what Israel wants to do is not just that it is reprehensible, but impractical as well. It seeks to do what it has been unable to do since 7 October 2022, which is eliminate Hamas.This failure in turn reflects the failure of the Israel project. The UN called for a two-state solution, but Israel is not willing to accept that, because it means putting a state on top of at least a portion of another, which is already in place. Israel wants it all, which is why it occupied in 1967 the rest of the former mandate of Palestine, which it had not captured in 1948, when it had come into being by imposing itself on as much of the mandate as it could grab. The hope it has of expelling Hamas is actually a d desire that the Palestinian people should accept their servitude as some sort of second-class Israeli citizen, and give up all hope of freedom.
This is a key moment in the Palestinian nightmare. The Israelis are going to reverse the clock to 2004, when Hamas took power. Indeed, the reversal is going to take Gaza back to 1967, when the IDF occupied the Strip after taking it from Egypt. The concern of the Netanyahu government is to prolong the war, so that it may stay in office. If this comes at the cost of dead and maimed ISareli children, then so be it. The paradox is that this step is being taken to stop the starvation that is threatening to kill off the Gazan population, even though the famine is being caused by the IDF stopping food going through.
