Israeli Failure after 100 Days of Killing in Gaza

After 100 days of indiscriminate bombing, Gaza has essentially been reduced to rubble, yet Israel has not managed to wipe out the Palestinian movement known as Hamas. Instead, Israel is facing an unprecedented trial before the International Court of Justice on charges it is committing genocide.

President Joe Biden’s administration has also failed to achieve the basic objectives of its policy of absolute agreement and active support of Israel by providing logistics, information and weapons at a cost of billions of dollars.

And it was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself who told U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken last Saturday that the brutal campaign in Gaza, which has killed more than 24,000 Palestinians and wounded and maimed nearly 61,000, is not only an Israeli war, but also an American war.

“[T]he war has destroyed America’s credibility abroad,” wrote Charles W. “Chas” Freeman, former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, as quoted in Al Jazeera. And that is abundantly clear. There have been massive protests in Europe, Asia and in the United States itself against the Israeli massacre and in support of the Palestinian people.

Several governments have withdrawn ambassadors and even broken off their relationships with Israel. Washington was isolated in the last Security Council vote on the humanitarian crisis.

U.N. Secretary General António Guterres can no longer find words to describe the tragedy. At an equal loss for words is the World Health Organization, which is forecasting famine, epidemics and death due to the appalling conditions in Gaza.

“This is not only our war, it is also yours. This is the war of the sons of light against the sons of darkness,” Netanyahu told Blinken. That sinister image appears to make a connection between the trail of death of Netanyahu’s campaign in Gaza to some high-tech death ray produced by the criminal American war industry.

According to a statement issued by the Zionist prime minister’s office, “This is a war against the axis of evil led by Iran and its three proxies: Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis.”

And that is much more serious than anything that has happened so far. Netanyahu appears convinced that Biden will allow the conflict to extend to Lebanon, to Yemen (as is already happening) and, eventually, to Iran. Syria and Iraq, in fact, have also taken costly hits from both Israeli aircraft and U.S. artillery.

Moreover, Netanyahu has once again challenged the international community represented at The Hague, which will judge whether evidence presented by South Africa supports a judgment against Israel for genocide.

“No one will stop us, not The Hague, not the axis of evil, not anyone else,” Netanyahu said. A decision on genocide may be delayed, but given the abundance of evidence, the court may preliminarily order an immediate halt to Israel’s military operations.

Even in Israel, at least within the more sensible and less fanatical sector, the Zionist defensive arguments are facing resistance. As an opinion column in the influential Haaretz newspaper noted, “Let’s assume that Israel’s position in The Hague is correct and just, and that Israel committed no genocide or anything like it. So what is this? What do you call mass slaughter?”

As he becomes increasingly more involved in the presidential campaign, Biden needs an exit plan from the war without further delay. He needs to seek an agreement that will allow Israel to save face and that will rule out extremists’ plans to expel Palestinians from Gaza, emptying the strip for occupation by Jewish settlers.

According to Al Jazeera, Washington wants a “revitalized” Palestinian Authority to take over Gaza. The Palestinian Authority has conditioned its return to the besieged enclave on the creation of an independent Palestinian state comprising Gaza, the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, a state that would be open to a national unity government.

Netanyahu rejects these proposals — the clearest sign of his failure. Any exit plan that would be acceptable to the Palestinians and the Arab environment would include the creation, once and for all, of an independent Palestinian state.

What’s more, it is evident that Hamas will not disappear.