Thoughts on Gaza and Israel: Will Israel Survive this?

 

I follow Alon Mizrahi on X, (formerly Twitter).   It’s not always easy to determine a person’s political views accurately or any other views, through association on these Internet platforms. But I do know that brother Mizrahi, who is an Israeli Jew living in Israel, is on the right side of history and beyond that, a courageous individual.

Below, is one of his posts from Twitter and in it he refers to a previous post that is here.  I have at times found his analysis, similar to conclusions I have drawn but I do not get the impression he is a socialist or sees the working class and its role in the transformation of world relations and society in general as central; I am a little more optimistic, but I am not in his situation. I am, after all, a judge from afar. I also always make the point that European Jews, the Ashkenazim are also victims of European/Western colonial powers. I thank Alon for his humanity and courage. Richard Mellor

Alon Mizrahi
@@alon_mizrahi

Let's make it even more interesting, shall we?

If you really really (really) need to find it in anything critical, and if that's your world and your range of motions, you'll find 'hate' in my previous post, that's becoming a little viral ('Israel isn't surviving this'). If that's not what you're looking for, and not what you're about. you won't find a grain of hate in what I said (or generally say. My hate is always directed at specific powerful figures and ideologies, not large groups of people). -

But there's a different context altogether to my dire prediction for Israel, and one which is not commonly spoken of. I'm going to state it simply:
Israel never accomplished what it set out to achieve in any of its wars. It always, and without exceptions, failed.  

In 1948, the nestling Zionist state set out to completely eradicate from geography, culture, and memory, every remnant of the existence of Palestine. It failed. The seeds for Palestinian resistance were planted, Palestine became an internationally recognized ambition, and both Palestinian refugees and 1948 Palestinians never forgot their identity. That's failure.

In 1956 Israel set out to take over Egypt and the Suez Canal (and Gaza) in a conspiracy with France and Britain. It failed, and Egyptians became sworn haters of Israel.

In 1967 Israel tried to expand its borders, imagining Palestinians no longer exist and will not be a problem. So it took Gaza from Egypt, the West Bank East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. It failed. No one recognizes Israel's claim to sovereignty over any of those territories, despite 50 years of American dominance and relentless onesidedness on Israel's behalf. Israel is more stuck than even with the Palestinian issue, and the age of American global dominance is coming to a close. That's a major failure.

In 1973 Israel attempted to show it could dismiss Arab demands for recognition and peace effortlessly. It failed and lost almost an entire generation of young Israeli men. It was forced to make peace with Egypt after that and promise Palestine autonomy. That's a failure.

In 1982 Israel tried to take over Lebanon, create a puppet government and there and destroy the Palestinian resistance. It failed. It lost a bloody war, was driven out of Lebanon by force, PLO survived, and Israel ushered in the era of Hezbollah - Israel's fiercest and most capable enemy, right on its border. That's failure.

In 2006 Israel tried to destroy Hizbollah. It failed, and the organization today in 100 times stronger than it was 20 years ago, when it had not a single drone and but a precious few heavy precise rockets and missiles. Now it has tens of thousands of both, plus the world's most deadly anti-ship cruise missiles (Russia's 'Yakhont'). That's failure.

In repeated campaigns in the Gaza Strip, Israel attempted to destroy Hamas. It failed.

Israel has been trying to destroy, sabotage, and obstruct Iran's military capabilities for 40 years. Now it has hypersonic missiles, one of the world's largest and most sophisticated drone fleets, and an entire network of trained and equipped proxies, and it is on the brink of creating an atomic weapon. That's failure.

So what's going to be different this time around, when the US is sinking, Israel's international support is dwindling rapidly, the Global South is rising, the IDF is battered from 8 months of loss, injury, and attrition, and, last but not least, when Israel is led by the dumbest, most deluded and impotent figures in all its (admittedly short) history?

Will this 'war of wars', managed so poorly, with this little international support, with crumbling societal cohesion inside Israel, can finally and miraculously achieve everything all of Israel's previous ward failed to do, namely erase the name of Palestine from existence? Can Israel go back to normalcy from the depths of depravity to which it let itself succumb? Will it be able to recover from losing 50,000 young men (and that's a conservative estimation in case of an all-out war with Hezbollah, not to mention Hezbollah+Iran)?

What will it do with Palestine after that? Will it be able to keep oppressing it?

People who will want to see this as 'hate' will find just that. People with any sense of history, psychology, a bit of military understanding, or simple pragmatic thinking will understand that Israel's (historic and current) leadership has put it in a position from which even a miracle won't be able to save it.

It was never thinking strategically. It was never thinking about tomorrow. And tomorrow is so right around the corner. Soon we're going to find out that for all the braggadocio, very little, as always, has been prepared in the way of real answers.