Between the declared and real goals of the war on Gaza

On the eighteenth of last October, two weeks before the start of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, US President Joe Biden’s plane landed at Lod Airport in what was the first visit by an American president to Israel during a time of war. Contrary to the well-known expressions of support and bias, which were later repeated by all American officials, Biden warned his recipients of the necessity of thinking about the day after the war, defining its goals precisely, and not rushing behind desires for revenge, as the United States did in the war on Afghanistan and Iraq.

This position represents an implicit acknowledgment that the declared Israeli goals of the war, namely the elimination of Hamas and the recovery of prisoners, and later the goal of eliminating the threat coming from Gaza, are completely unrealistic, and even contradict each other. Because eliminating Hamas or the resistance is equivalent to eliminating the Palestinian people, and continuing the operations of genocide, destruction, and bombing every square meter of the Gaza Strip, which necessarily leads to endangering the lives of the prisoners.

Fifty days of war of extermination, displacement, ethnic cleansing, and collective punishment failed to bring back a single prisoner. What guarantees that the continuation of these brutal operations (supported by the American administration under the shameful and false pretext of the right to self-defense) can bring back the rest of the prisoners?

It is certain that the goals of the Israeli war of annihilation on the Gaza Strip differ radically from those declared, and to know and verify these goals, we do not need to follow and analyze what politicians and generals say. Rather, what the war machine carries out in terms of daily mass massacres and the destruction of homes, infrastructure, and landmarks is sufficient for us. This war is part of the well-known campaign and plans to liquidate the Palestinian national issue and resolve the conflict, a campaign whose translations we have witnessed in the West Bank over the past two years. In addition to this is the goal of getting rid of the Gaza Strip, which has haunted many Israeli leaders over the past decades, and which is sometimes translated in a “soft” manner as the idea of separating Gaza from the West Bank and removing it from the equation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and at other times it is implemented in a brutal and harsh manner, as is happening now, or through plans of displacement, which sometimes disappears and then reappears with every war or crisis, and the concept that removing Gaza from the conflict means getting rid of two million Palestinians, the resistance, an important part of the refugee issue, and even the unity of the Palestinian people, all at the same time.

In the foreseeable future, this aggressive war aims to inflict a heavy price on the Palestinian people that is tens of times greater than the price incurred by Israel in the October 7 operation. This is an approach that Israel has continued to practice even in its daily operations of repression and the series of small wars it launched against Gaza. This matter can be called the blood balance, or the killing counter, which we saw in every invasion of the cities and camps of the West Bank, where wanted persons were executed, and those who were near them or on the way to carrying out the operation, and even passers-by who were found by chance at the site of the operations. This blood counter indicates the killing of At least ten Palestinians for every Israeli, and the Palestinian victims are often civilians, especially children, women and the elderly, as is the case during the current massacres in Gaza.

Inflicting a price on the Palestinians also aims to dull their awareness and create a firm conviction for generations of the impossibility of confronting Israel, or of the enormous cost of such attempts. Some Israeli officials, such as Minister Gideon Sa'ar, believe that paying the price must include cutting off a significant portion of the already small area of the Gaza Strip. Most generals and politicians agree with him, some of whom call for the return of settlement to Gaza, and some of whom went so far as to demand that the Gaza Strip be turned into a park. An Israeli nationalist, former Minister Ayelet Shaked even called for turning the city of Khan Yunis into a football stadium.

The atrocities of genocide and destruction also aim to restore the deterrence power lost on October 7, in a blood-stained message not only to the Palestinians but to everyone who thinks about harming Israel. This was repeated by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant, who vowed to turn Beirut into a new Gaza if Hezbollah thought about escalating the skirmishes against Israel into open war.

The goals of the brutal war on the Gaza Strip are moving in light of the results of the field confrontations and regional and international reactions. At the beginning of the war, Israeli leaders called on Gazan citizens to leave the Gaza Strip to save themselves. Some members of the Knesset, especially Danny Danon (Likud) and Ram Ben Barak (There is a Future), called on the countries of the world to absorb the Palestinian refugees so that each country takes a share of these refugees. This "genius" solution was praised by extremist Minister Bezalel Smotrich. In parallel with the call for the displacement of Palestinians, old and new settlement and expansionist ideas reared their heads, such as the Ben Gurion Canal project, and ambitions for gas fields off the coast of Gaza, both of which assume that salvation from Gaza and its people has become possible.

But the firm position of Egypt and Jordan in rejecting displacement, and then the adoption of a similar position by many major countries, including the United States, led to a decline in these demands, and replacing them with internal displacement, which aims to cram two million people into large camps without any necessities for life, thus putting pressure on the international community to intervene to end this humanitarian disaster through displacement.

Israel plans whatever it wants based on its ambitions and American support for it, but it is not alone on the battlefield. The Palestinian people are steadfast on their land, the resistance is doing its duty, and protest movements are spreading across the world’s cities and capitals and shaking the pillars of the unjust international system and its double standards that are detailed according to the victim’s identity, color, race, and religion. .