What follows is an article, in full, about the murderous Gaza campaign by way of Standing Together, a Jewish and Palestinian movement of citizens of Israel organizing in pursuit of peace, equality, and social and climate justice.
The author, Dr. Guy Laron, is a lecturer in the Department of International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Bringing about the collapse of Hamas isn’t one of the goals of the war in Gaza
If we judge the military operation in Gaza by the goals that the government presented to the public, it is obviously a complete failure. After six months of combat, the IDF hasn’t reached its primary goal: destroying Hamas’s control in Gaza. The assessments are that thus far the IDF has disabled a third of Hamas’s combat force and destroyed about twenty percent of the organization’s tunnels. This is a hard hit but not a fatal blow and Hamas is alive and kicking. Not only that, but Hamas has managed to take control of areas that the IDF withdrew from and shoot rockets from those areas to the towns in the Gaza Envelope.
Moreover, the other declared goal of the operation - bringing back the hostages - hasn’t been achieved either. The absolute majority of hostages that were released thus far were freed as a result of a deal in which they were swapped for Palestinian prisoners. In contrast, only three hostages were released as a result of a military operation. Even worse, three hostages were shot dead by the IDF and an unknown number of hostages were killed as a result of the IDF’s indiscriminate bombings (according to what Hamas ordered the Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg to say in a recently released video, Hamas estimates that 70 hostages died this way).
The cabinet that decided to go to war included two retired Chiefs of General Staff, one retired Major General and a Prime Minister, who has approved and supervised many military operations. Moreover, the current Chief of Staff pushed and pressured the cabinet to approve the military ground operation in Gaza. These people knew full well the limits of what could or could not be achieved by the military plans they were approving. Proof of this can be found in the interview that Gadi Eisenkot gave to Ilana Dayan. The experienced General explained well to the senior journalist why the operation has no chance to free hostages: the hostages aren’t held above ground in an isolated object like a plane or a bus, he said, but are hidden in tunnels that the IDF will struggle to reach. Therefore, it’s easy to conclude that the goals of the operation as they were presented to the public were meant to recruit public support for it, but were never the real goals that the cabinet aimed for.
What then are the real goals of the operation?
The first real goal of the operation - and it is valuable to the current coalition - is protecting the settlements in the West Bank. The settlers’ movement’s leadership has gained representation in key offices in the current administration: The ministries of Finance, Security, and National Security which is in charge of the police. The judicial reform that the coalition was promoting was also meant to enable a unilateral annexation of the West Bank without providing civil rights to the Palestinians living there. If implemented, this reform would have enshrined the property rights of the settlers.
In the decade and a half preceding Hamas’s attack, Netanyahu did all he could to convince the Israeli public that the occupation comes at a low cost. Israel, Netanyahu claimed, could become a high-tech powerhouse and forge ties with countries in the region despite the expansion of the settlement project in the West Bank. The key to that, the Prime Minister explained, is to keep the divide between the West Bank and Gaza, as a result of the two areas being controlled by opposing and competing Palestinian organizations. Netanyahu also seems to have thought that Hamas had an interest in becoming a collaborator to the Jewish colonialism in the West Bank as a result of the money they received from Qatar.
Hamas’s attack on October 7th destroyed all of these assumptions. Hamas used the money from Qatar to build a sophisticated war machine, making a laughing stock of Netanyahu in Israel and around the world. Had Israel limited its response to the attack, focused on rebuilding the security fence and on a hostage deal, the public would have had time to discuss the collapse of “the Bibi doctrine” and demand snap elections. By deciding to start a military operation, the government bought itself time and postponed a public debate over the true costs in money, blood, and reputation, of the settlements in the West Bank.
By rejecting another hostage deal, the government is taking off the table the question of the “day after”, and any agreement or peace accord which would ensure a long- term calm along the borders. This is because the government is afraid that any formal agreement with the Palestinians will require an evacuation of some of the settlements.
In addition, the government isn’t only acting to protect the settlements, but also working on expanding this project through activity that is meant to destabilize the West Bank. For example, the government is refusing to allow Palestinian workers from the West Bank to return to work within Israel and it’s trying to hurt the Palestinian Authority (PA) by refusing to transfer money that the PA deserves according to the Paris Agreements.
In this way, financial suffocation is created in the West Bank and the ability of the PA to pay officials and police officers is curtailed. The activity of settler militias who damage Palestinian property and expel Palestinian farmers has also continued after October 7th.
While the fighting continues, the government is acting to promote the second real goal of the war, which is the continuation of the government's judicial reform. This continuation is meant not only to reduce Israel’s democratic space but to completely privatize all government services. The government is working towards total privatization relying on sectorial politics to garner support. These are, in fact, complementary steps. Reducing the freedom of speech and the freedom of assembly are tools to suffocate the protests over the collapse of the welfare state. Those who are working most ardently to promote these goals are the ministers of the Religious Zionist party.
For example, the Minister of National Security continues the task of appointing the police’s senior ranks, turning it into a political party’s militia. Furthermore, Itamar Ben Gvir is privatizing national security by doling out tens of thousands of weapon permits. Thus, the police is losing its status as the keeper of order and security, to a host of local militias. Personal security turns into the mission of individual citizens rather than the state.
At the same time, the Minister of Finance continues to distribute money to sectors that are close to the government, the Ultra-Orthodox and the settlers. All of this is happening while the health, education and public transportation services are collapsing due to painful cuts that the Minister of Finance is forcing upon them. In this way, following the collapse of the education and health systems that belong to all of the public, the only route for citizens to get education and health services is by joining the settler or Orthodox sectors.
The third real goal of the operation is a live ammo demonstration of the army’s capabilities, combined with its attempt to recover its reputation. The guilt of the military establishment goes beyond the devastating defeat of October 7th. No organization internalized “the Bibi doctrine” to a greater extent than the army. The army wasn’t only securing the settlements, but creating bureaucratic and technological arrangements that turned the occupation and the settlements into a low-cost operation.
The army identified the unease of the educated bourgeoisie from the mission of policing in the West Bank, so it assigned the mission to the working class that served in specialized police battalions. The sons and daughters of the educated bourgeoisie were integrated into high-tech army units that were meant to allow the management of the conflict even with a small number of personnel. They got to serve in units that promised them profitable employment in the future, and along the way solved the army’s manpower shortage problem.
Thanks to this, the IDF could move most of its infantry to security missions in the West Bank and leave only a small number of forces along the northern and southern borders. The army convinced itself that the intelligence capabilities of the 8200 unit, as well as the robotic technologies that were deployed along the southern border, would ensure that the army wouldn't be caught unawares, and if it was, it could respond immediately.
The IDF believed in the “Bibi doctrine” to such an extent that the high-ranking officers in the Intelligence Corps refused to understand the obvious signs of an impending attack. Even when the lower ranks in the intelligence forces - like the field observers or non- commissioned officers in the 8200 unit - brought convincing proof of a coming attack, the colonels at the military intelligence branch shut their ears. Hamas’s surprise attack on October 7th exposed the incompetence of Israel's military leadership.
To deal with the fear and the shock of the Israeli public, the army is holding onto the military operation as an immediate solution to the hit its image took on October 7th. Since 2006, the General Staff of the IDF, which is usually led by officers from the ground forces, invested in technological capabilities that would allow the army to improve over its poor performances in the 2006 Lebanon war. The current "Iron Swords" war has given these generals an opportunity to check if the investment succeeded and test it on the battlefield.
When those generals understood that the ground operation wouldn't lead to the defeat of Hamas, the fourth real goal of the operation was born: the mission of revenge. Though they knew that it would create a difficult problem for Israel with the international judicial system, the generals in the General Staff and battalion commanders in the field allowed the soldiers on the frontlines to upload videos and photos that would satisfy the public’s lust for revenge and make them forget the fact that the operation won’t be able to destroy the Hamas.
That is how the ground operation in Gaza became a military failure and a political success. Under the guise of the operation, the army and the government are rehabilitating their public image and promoting their institutional interests. Their political egoism is expressed in their willingness to ignore the difficult problems that they create: the regional and global isolation of Israel, an eternal conflict in the Gaza Strip, an economic crisis, and political polarization in Israel. These ministers and generals lead to an endless war. After them, the deluge!
Editing: Tom Alfia
Translation to English: Tal Vinogradov
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