After over 20 days since the “2023 Gaza War” erupted, I can confidently assert that the balance on the battlefield in this asymmetric conflict seems to favor the Israeli forces. Indeed, we have the materialization of events and developments that many, including myself, had anticipated.
Among these developments is that the United States and most Western countries have fully endorsed the Israeli perspective and narrative.
Another is Washington's persistent push to “absolve” Iran and its regional allies of responsibility and “leave them out of it.” This seems to be a strategic move to isolate groups like Hamas and the Islamic Jihad movement. The aim seems not only to dismantle their military and security structures but also to diminish their demographic base in the Gaza Strip as (the Israelis and Western backers) explicitly pursue a “transfer.”
Additionally, the coalition of countries opposed to Washington spearheaded by Moscow and Beijing seems incapable of “rein in” the US as it makes its strongest push since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. This “restraint” now concerns how the objectives will be realized... against a backdrop of provocation, vilification, allegations of treachery, and a severe curtailment of civil liberties, both in the United States and major Western European nations.
Although hundreds of thousands of Americans and Europeans - who refuse to consider sympathy for the suffering of Gaza's civilians to be an expression of support for Hamas's policies and methods - have "defied" restrictions and ignored pressures... taking to the streets with their flags and raising their chants, the price for this courage has yet to be paid. If the developments that unfolded after 2003 are anything to go by, they will probably eventually pay the price for this brave “defiance” in one way or another, especially since we live in an era of electronic surveillance, phone tapping, and hacking of personal data... not to mention unbridled fanaticism.
I said that the US, the West, and Israel have the “advantage on the battlefield.” That is a patent fact attested to by the figures and the course of the current war. However, Hamas and those behind it have yet to lose politically. I do not think that the current Western approach to what happened on October 7 and what will happen after it... will leave one side “victorious” and another “vanquished” in the foreseeable future.
Rather, imagination can lead a commentator here and an analyst there to say that the mere fact of dividing the world into “two camps”... namely, “those with us” and “those against us” means there can be no talk of victor and vanquished.
Indeed, whether Hamas and those with it wanted to “divide” the world in this way or Israel and the forces supporting it wanted this outcome, the “split,” at least psychologically and politically, is now a matter of fact.
Yes, today we are faced with a psychological schism, as this war has given rise to immense disappointment and a total loss of confidence as the voices of reason, moderation, and consensus have faded in the West. Meanwhile, the tone of superiority, racist abolition, and selective and incendiary populist rhetoric have grown louder.
Many acquaintances we thought we knew... turned out to be very different from what we had thought they were.
The emerging rhetoric of Western military spokesmen and political commentators seems very different from what we had been accustomed to just a few months ago.
Sober capitals, respectable media outlets, and responsible leaders - or how they had seemed to be - have all terrifyingly justified any step or action... regardless of the immediate human cost and the long-term political cost.
Much of what we hear is disturbing, and most of the rhetoric disregards the dimensions of the words being uttered and the narratives being pushed. Moreover, it seems as though those making these statements do not want to think about what the coming days will bring as rivers of blood flow, hatred is stoked, opportunities for settlements collapse, and the political impasse hardens.
This is not to downplay the continuing Palestinian suffering and Israel’s perpetual defense from the front, but yes, what happened on October 7 was wrong: first, civilians were deliberately targeted, and second, because it was a gamble whose consequences had not been taken into account.
I say this because I do not personally rule out the possibility that some of the fanatics on the Israeli right were genuinely hoping for an attack of this kind that targets civilians and allows them to uproot the population and grant its “transfer” project local and international support, which would not have been easy to secure under any other circumstance.
On the other hand, reason compels us to assume that the planners of the October 7 attack must have taken the Israeli reaction into account. Thus, the question becomes whether they had been promised some kind of regional or international support... Or have they - without knowing it - embroiled themselves, their organization, and their people in a battle that appears, from the international mobilization that we see against them, to have been “predictable?” Indeed, without going too deeply into “conspiracy theories”, perhaps it was “sought” to redraw the maps of the region: liquidating the Palestinian question and dividing and sharing the Levant!
The exoneration of Iran and the silence of its proxies, who have launched nothing more than carefully calibrated attacks, is by no means a coincidence, and neither is the worsening disintegration of the countries around the occupied Palestinian territories or the insistence on exporting the crises to their territory.
But what of today? Particularly with the commencement of the ground offensive?
Indeed, it is sensible for the West to condition a ceasefire upon the release of civilian hostages. However, is this feasible? Can one realistically expect that a group that has taken hostages would willingly let them go, especially if a decision to eliminate them had already been made?
Isn't it in the best interest of all – without exception – to approach the situation with caution and composure? Reducing casualties should be the paramount concern. There's an urgent need to genuinely pursue a political solution founded on UN resolutions. This would alleviate tensions and pave the way for constructive solutions rather than ushering in chaos and devastation.
