Where do we go from here?
A year since Israel first struck Gaza—in Khan Younis, killing 18 members of one family, including five children—the bombs have not ceased, and neither has the dehumanising death toll. For a year, 365 days, Palestinians in Gaza have suffered war crimes, with thousands dead, families shattered, children orphaned and hearts broken forever. Never in the history of wars between the Arab world and Israel has there been such an unspeakable level of crimes against humanity that have been committed, while people around the world watched on screens. The same extent that the "Operation Al-Aqsa Flood" caused military, moral, and economic damage to the occupation state, it provided Benjamin Netanyahu with the right climate to prolong the war to escape accountability for his own charges of financial crimes and corruption. There is no doubt that he capitalised on the attacks by Hamas on October 7, and spun it quickly to turn the Israeli society towards revenge, entrenched dehumanisation, the abhorrent normalisation of killing and destroying everything in Gaza, then the West Bank, and now, Lebanon.
We are here today because of decades of impunity for Israel by the world and allowing it to become the apartheid state that it is today, and the formation of a fascist government under Netanyahu. Israel's success since the massacre in Gaza in 2009 to the present day, in consolidating the construction of an extreme right-wing Israeli society in which any force that classifies itself as "democratic" while weakening real secular or leftist groups, has become an asset to the likes of Netanyahu, Likud Party, and to the right-wing spectrum within the state of occupation from a national right or religious vantage point. Netanyahu's journey in becoming a leader whose name will go down in history for sheer selfishness—in ignoring the hostages of his own country and killing thousands and thousands, is one to reconcile with as we look back on this horrid year.
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Netanyahu has been successful in containing both the Republican and Democratic administrations in the United States. With regards to the Republicans—he understands the colonial mentality of President George W Bush, which is compatible with Netanyahu's own mentality as well as Trump's. In case of the Democrats, Netanyahu has a good sense of the weakness of President Obama and the Democratic Party, which he has utilised, and is still utilising with President Joe Biden to this day, and will continue to do so if Kamala Harris enters the White House. The result of years of Netanyahu's politics with the US has led to a problematic relationship at this point, where it's confusing who the superpower is within the two.
Netanyahu is invested in the US elections—less than a month away now—with clear preference for the Republican Party and Donald Trump, and is exerting great pressure against the Democratic Party, especially President Biden and his successor Vice President Harris. Another Trump presidency will help Netanyahu obtain his main personal goal, which is to continue as president of the Israeli government until 2026. That will enable him to achieve what he called "absolute victory," sadistically making him the "new King David" and consecrating him as an unprecedented leader in the history of the occupying state. Despite a year of his abhorrent leadership, we found ourselves with the same question: what is Netanyahu thinking? And what is the absolute victory he is talking about?
By expanding the war goals to Lebanon, launching airstrikes and now aiming to annihilate Hezbollah, after the goal to eliminate Hamas—all of which are impossible as these are ideologies of resistance—Netanyahu succeeded in reaching his strategic goal of making Iran the biggest security threat the world faces, under multiple pretexts. And it can be argued too, that he succeeded in dragging Washington in one way or another into a confrontation with Tehran and trapping it to respond to Tehran.
Netanyahu is working to maintain the moment of crisis, which he "designed." To achieve the "absolute victory" he wants, he is currently working to expand the scope of the confrontation militarily with all regional forces of resistance—in Gaza and the West Bank, passing through Lebanon, Syria and Iraq to Yemen and Iran. This move does not necessarily achieve victories on the ground, but it is important for him to plant this idea in the minds of the public of the occupying state—that he faces and fights on several fronts. This will undoubtedly result in unlimited support from a bloodthirsty right-wing audience, and it is simply a successful manipulation tactic by a "dictator" for a country that believes it is a "free and democratic state."
And with the blessings of the US, Netanyahu has managed to achieve certain objectives that, in a world where international law functioned objectively, would result in accountability. Netanyahu's goals are summed up, as he calls it, in a "new map of the Middle East." The roadmap to this goal includes: first ending any form of resistance in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen; secondly imposing open and economically viable normalisation, especially in the entire East Mediterranean region, and consolidating Israeli economic hegemony in the region. The third is to allow the besieging of any state in the region that does not "imprint" with the occupation, which will be classified as a hostile state unless it recognises Israel as a state so as not to become a country classified as "an anti-Semitic state" in the West—the green light which allows Israel this card to kill Palestinians mercilessly.
By expanding the war goals to Lebanon, launching airstrikes and now aiming to annihilate Hezbollah, after the goal to eliminate Hamas—all of which are impossible as these are ideologies of resistance—Netanyahu succeeded in reaching his strategic goal of making Iran the biggest security threat the world faces, under multiple pretexts. And it can be argued too, that he succeeded in dragging Washington in one way or another into a confrontation with Tehran and trapping it to respond to Tehran. This means that Netanyahu introduced the territory within the book of Isaiah, which talks about the destruction of all those who do not believe in "Israel or God's chosen people." Abusing religion, and abusing his own people, the tyrant Netanyahu and his occupying state have been allowed for over a year now to do away with international law and humanity in general. People in Palestine mourn today, as they mourn every day. But a day must come when the world realises the inhumanity that is becoming sealed in civilisation every day as this barbaric genocide goes on—every day that people are killed as though their lives, as though Palestinian lives don't matter.
Yousef SY Ramadan is Palestinian Ambassador to Bangladesh.
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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