ARAB AND WORLD

Sat 04 Nov 2023 10:26 pm - Jerusalem Time

News analysis | The deteriorating popularity of Biden and Netanyahu may constitute a reason to stop the war

It seems that Netanyahu's internal crisis and Biden's internal crisis, in addition to the hostage issue and the heavy losses incurred by the Israeli army during its advance into the heart of Gaza, constitute decisive factors in getting off the tree of impossible goals set by the Israeli and American leaderships for the war.


Whenever the war progresses or comes closer to achieving a military solution, as they imagine, the political question that stands behind it becomes the issue of a people who were displaced, killed, uprooted, and whose national entity was destroyed and torn apart for 75 years. The destruction in Gaza becomes clear as part and continuation of the war of extermination to which the Palestinian people are subjected, with the aim of concealing it from the eyes of the Palestinian people. The geopolitical map as a condition for expanding and stabilizing the Zionist colonial project in Palestine, as well as the organic relationship that links it to the colonial West, which has lined up its leaders and fleets, and whose generals are even leading a war of extermination against this “rebellious” part of the Palestinian people with the aim of subjugating it.


In an article published by Haaretz, Abraham Burg sheds light on the official and popular Israeli discourse accompanying the war. He says that victory in the past was represented by bringing the enemy’s severed head and displaying it in the squares, or bringing the king in chains in a procession of humiliation and rape of his women in front of the people and the sale of his subjects in the slave market. As long as we listen to the voice of the Israeli public and its echo in the government, we do not find it far from the ancient Torah, “Erase the mention of Amalek - the Palestinian, from under the sky,” “Raising Gaza to the ground and turning its ruins into parks,” “Next year in level Gaza,” “Let us expel the Palestinians and settle.” “In their place,” “to cauterize their consciousness with rivers of blood,” all of this in a way of completing the tasks of the Nakba that we were unable to complete in 1948, as he put it.


Burg says that this discourse, which ignores the Palestinians, began with the saying “a people without a land for a land without a people,” and was continued by the majority of prime ministers, all the way to Ariel Sharon and the unilateral exit from Gaza, and the bypass street network and the walls separating the Israelis from reality, but all of that did not change From the reality and fact that they are here.


It is clear that with all the Israeli aggressions and wars against the Palestinians, especially those that ended with a military victory over them, who are the majority, Israel was unable to erase their existence and their political cause, so they would bury their dead and rise from under the rubble of war, so that the banner of their cause would rise again and become louder. This is what happened after The Lebanon War, the siege of Beirut, after the Second Intifada, the “Defensive Wall” War, and the repeated aggressions against the Gaza Strip, which Rabin wished would sink into the sea, and which Sharon was unable to erase from existence, so he was forced to withdraw from it, but it continued to resist to regain a homeland that constitutes 1% of its area.


Poll: An Israeli majority holds Netanyahu responsible for the security failure and demands that he resign

We say this regardless of the results of the “global war” that Israel is waging against Gaza, knowing that Israeli military analysts themselves talk about valiant resistance and fierce battles that hinder the progress of the Israeli army and are likely to prevent it from achieving its military goals as well, as military analyst Alon Ben David says, “Hamas fighters show a stubborn fighting spirit. They did not surrender in any location and fought to the death, which means that the challenge facing our forces will be more difficult in the heart of Gaza,” he said.


Despite his reference to the difficulty of ending the battle by eliminating the military and political leadership of Hamas, the weakest link on the Israeli front is represented, in the opinion of the political analyst in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, Nahum Barnea, by Benjamin Netanyahu, who does not want a resolution in Gaza because after him the investigation committee will come. The process of dismissing him, and for this reason he prefers a long and inconclusive process that will be halted by the Americans at a certain stage.


In the meantime, talking about the next day after the war, in Israeli terms, is too early because Hamas is very far from surrender, says military analyst Amir Rappaport, who believes that the idea of removing Hamas leaders from the Gaza Strip in exchange for the liberation of the Israeli hostages is nothing more than a desire. Israeli, because the end of the war does not seem to be on the horizon, while Israel loses on the three important criteria: time, money and credibility, according to Nahum Barnea, who believes that the first stage of the war required freedom from the shock and the rain of fire on top of Gaza from the air, land and sea, while it was The ground operation in Gaza is the second stage, and the third stage is supposed to be settling the issue of authority in Gaza, for which the Israeli government does not have a crystallized plan, nor is it able to explain the path by which the second stage leads to the third stage.


This is despite the emergence of many indicators indicating that the duration of the green light that America and the West are giving to Israel to end its military operation to eliminate Hamas at any cost is approaching exhaustion, especially since the Jewish communities in the world are concerned that the spread of images of Israeli killing and destruction from Gaza has begun to take on the character of genocide. Collectively, it will make Jewish community centers legitimate targets, says journalist Orly Azoulay of Yedioth Ahronoth.


Azoulay points to a decline in Biden's popularity within his party, after the liberal left wing became angry at him because of his absolute support for Israel and his disregard for Gaza's distress, which prompted the White House to prepare a political plan in cooperation with Europe and with the participation of Saudi Arabia, which seeks to conclude a joint defense treaty with the United States.


This plan, according to the Israeli journalist, includes in its first phase a ceasefire to facilitate a prisoner exchange, after which comes the phase of a temporary political solution in which the administration of Gaza will transfer to a multi-factional Palestinian body, as Washington hopes, which constitutes the basis for a future solution based on two states and being implemented. Within its framework, Gaza will be linked by air bridge to the West Bank.


In summary, it appears that Netanyahu's internal crisis and Biden's internal crisis, in addition to the hostage issue and the heavy losses incurred by the Israeli army during its advance into the heart of Gaza, constitute decisive factors in getting off the tree of impossible goals set by the Israeli and American leaderships for the war.



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News analysis | The deteriorating popularity of Biden and Netanyahu may constitute a reason to stop the war

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