Military analysts will certainly be coming out with new facts and impact of Israel’s recent war on Gaza, some of which may shed light on new developments on the ground in the wake of the fighting with Hamas fighters.
Analysts are bound to notice that Israel has lost for good its ‘poor me’ image of the innocent victim surrounded by deadly Arab and Muslim enemies trying to snuff its life. Israel’s carnage in Gaza, targeting women and children, showed its aggressive, apartheid nature to the entire world to see. The deceitful ploy of using the holocaust to extort aid and support for Israel, the only colonial racist power left in our world, no longer works.
Moreover, Israel has lost during its so-called Operation Protective Edge its offensive and deterrent edge and is left with a defensive status that really does not offer any protective edge for its civilian population. According to the Haaretz newspaper: “Ninety per cent of Israeli applicants wishing to join the Israeli military designate the air force and high-tech jobs and do not wish to join the infantry or tank brigades.” The Israeli infantry lost many of its foot soldiers in fighting with Palestinian resistance men, which led the Israeli air force to ‘exact revenge’ on Palestinian civilians sleeping in their homes.
Also, threats made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against Iran and Hezbollah in view of the very poor performance of the Israeli military in the war are being ridiculed in the Israeli media. A Haaretz headline on August 27, said: “Netanyahu saw his chance in the ceasefire to run away from Gaza and he took it at just about any price.” But the most devastating shock of all was delivered by Yediot Ahronot newspaper that published on September 5, a report quoting senior Israeli military sources saying that “The Israeli army in its present condition has no ability to conduct successful campaigns against Hezbollah because it lacks funds, training and the military means to wage guerrilla warfare against an enemy that is well trained and very well equipped”.
Another report on Israel Channel 10 revealed a hopeless feeling among young Israeli professionals driving them to leave Israel for good. More than 800,000 have already left and a popular song expressing their state of mind goes like this: ‘My grandmother and my grandfather did not come to Israel searching for Zionism, but came running away from death. Now it is very clear that life in Israel is not a life because it is filled with fear.’ On September 13, the Israeli media reported “the resignation of 43 Israeli officers in the Israeli Reserve serving, in the most important Unit 8200, because of guilty conscience for the crimes committed by the Israeli military against defenceless Palestinians”.
In an article, Gideon Levy wrote in Haaretz that Israel lost its claim as “the last refuge for Jews”. He said: “Israel represents the biggest threat against Jews. Israel does not represent a house of security for Jews, but the very cause generating hate and violence against Jews around the world.” Another fact that analysts will find is that Israel has lost its designated role as the guardian of western interests in the Middle East and has become a big burden upon the West by drawing deadly enemies to target western cities with devastating weapons that can render these cities unfit for human habitation for many, many years to come.
Wikileaks released, in this regard, official documents on the internet saying that “reports sent to Washington from American embassies reveal the growth of nuclear smuggling rings, with radioactive materials trafficked across Europe, Africa and the Middle East”. Another document revealed that Younis Al Mauritani, a man handpicked by Osama Bin Laden, was designated to plan terror targets in the US. Mauritani was later arrested in Pakistan with his computer and Blackberry and “Time Square in the city of New York was ground zero for a dirty bomb”.
Meanwhile, international reactions to Israel’s Protective Edge were summed up recently by the Christian Science Monitor, a highly respected American journal. Its report initially mentioned that “The US Congress unanimously passed a resolution to show support for the state of Israel against unprovoked rocket attacks from Hamas terror organisation”. But the same report quoted some members of the British House of Commons criticising Israeli policies. Sir Nicolas Soams, a conservative said: “This is not a just war about rockets from both sides, but it is actually a war about illegal (Israeli) settlements [colonies] and (Palestinian) stolen lands.”
Former British foreign secretary Jack Straw said: “We all condemn the killings of those Israelis and the burning of the Palestinian youth. But it is very clear that the Israeli government has no regard for international humanitarian law when they place a much lower value on Palestinian life. Their actions in Gaza are completely outside the UN Charter.” Martin Haywood, a Liberal Democrat, commented that “too many Palestinian civilians are dying daily. Will the foreign secretary consider whether or not, the favourable economic and political relations between us, Israel and the European Union, should now be reconsidered in the light of the Israeli government’s actions”?
One more outcome of the war could be a change of the Israeli leadership. Yet, it may be one that will bring about more hatred, harm and bloodshed in the Middle East.
Professor As’ad Abdul Rahman is the chairman of the Palestinian Encyclopaedia.
