Netanyahu will never accept peace: Where will his perpetual war take us?

Source: The Guardian
Translation: Telegrafi.com

The first and last rule of Benjamin Netanyahu’s perpetual war doctrine is brutal and straightforward: peace does not work and must not be allowed to last. As the deadly and unrestricted fire falls once again on the defenseless people of Gaza, unleashed at the behest of Israel’s warmongering prime minister, a pitiful cry is heard: Is the two-month ceasefire with Hamas finally over? The answer to that question is heartbreaking: it doesn’t really matter. That ceasefire, now falling apart into a million pieces, was only a brief and deceptive pause in a war that never stops.

It does not stop, because Netanyahu is kept in power by the ongoing state of national emergency that he and his supporters have nurtured and prolonged since the terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023. The war does not stop, because Netanyahu’s overarching goal – the destruction of Palestinian hopes for statehood – is doomed to failure. It does not stop, because those who criticize the actions of the Israeli government, inside and outside Israel, face exclusion and abuse, accused of acting with ill intentions and not out of concern for human loss, but out of anti-Semitic motives.

Above all, perhaps, the war that terrorists ignited 18 months ago continues and threatens to expand even further because Netanyahu and his ultra-nationalist Jewish and ultra-religious allies have found in it a means to pursue the larger goal of a greater Israel. They and their violent settler allies use it as an excuse to expand land seizures and intimidate Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank. New areas of the Golan Heights in Syria have been seized. Repopulating Gaza is another stated objective.

The perpetual war can only continue if the “other side” keeps fighting. Hamas forces are so degraded that they seem incapable of fighting. The lack of an immediate armed response to the Israeli attacks, which began on Monday evening, indicates relative weakness. And yet Hamas has not been defeated. Every time a hostage was released, its fighters put on a grand show of militant defiance. As long as there is no clear and agreed-upon plan for the “day after”—and as long as there is no full-scale ground invasion and a long-term, large-scale occupation—Hamas will remain in effective control of Gaza. And so the war goes on.

Netanyahu didn’t want a ceasefire in the first place and has been constantly looking for a problem he can blame on others. He agreed to stop the attacks on January 19 only under pressure from Donald Trump and his envoy, Steve Witkoff. Trump, who was to be inaugurated the next day, was desperately seeking an end to the conflict that his predecessor, Joe Biden, had failed to achieve. In order not to spoil Trump’s party and to curry favor with him, Netanyahu agreed, fingers crossed behind his back.

Yet even then, with more than 48 Palestinians killed, tens of thousands injured or traumatized, and most of Gaza’s two million residents homeless, Netanyahu was not about to stop. He knew that his far-right ministers would not tolerate peace for long. One of them, Itamar Ben-Gvir, had already resigned in protest. Others were threatening to do the same, jeopardizing the stability of his government. He also knew – although for him this had been a secondary issue all along – that many Israeli hostages still remained in captivity: 59 in number, alive and dead, according to the latest figures.

Netanyahu never seriously intended to respect the second phase of the ceasefire, which was supposed to begin on March 1 and required the full withdrawal of the Israeli army. He blocked humanitarian aid, cut off water and electricity supplies, delayed the implementation of the second phase, and obstructed negotiations to get it back on track. He continued the war by other means. And when these provocations failed, he insisted, in violation of the ceasefire agreement, that Hamas unilaterally release more hostages, while he, in return, offered only limited prisoner releases and a temporary extension of the ceasefire.

Permanent war, even undeclared, is difficult to justify, and Netanyahu, indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court and widely condemned in Europe and the Arab world, is left with few supporters. His position has deteriorated recently. Accused of growing authoritarianism, he has become embroiled in a conflict over his attempt to dismiss the head of Israel’s Shin Bet internal security service, Ronen Bar. A new corruption scandal involving money from Qatar is also linked to him. In this context, a “distraction” through Gaza might seem appropriate.

“Netanyahu is fighting to buy time on every possible front – against early elections, against a state investigation commission [into the October 7 attacks], against a deal that would return the remaining 59 hostages, alive and dead,” wrote Amos Harel of Haaretz"The Prime Minister is acting like someone who has nothing left to lose. Escalating the conflict, to the point of chaos, serves him."

With over 400 Palestinians killed so far, most of them civilians, and with Israel threatening to continue and expand its attacks, the cries of anger, horror and despair from Palestinians, the UN, international aid organisations and foreign governments echo like ghostly cries over the shattered ruins of Gaza. They are as familiar as they are futile and ignored.

An unrepentant White House, proudly confirming its cooperation in the Israeli attacks, seems eager for them to continue. The January ceasefire process seems dead. Trump’s absurd plan for a “Gaza Riviera” is now nowhere to be seen or heard. Thwarted, he retaliates indirectly, prodding Netanyahu. And yet it would be naive not to see a broader and more thoughtful Trump connection. In recent days, he has threatened Iran, demanding that Tehran resume negotiations to limit its nuclear program or face military action. At the same time, he has launched massive airstrikes against Iran’s allies, the Houthis in Yemen.

In Trump’s simplistic, zero-sum world, everything is part of the same deal. “As President Trump has made clear, Hamas, the Houthis, Iran — all those who seek to terrorize not only Israel but the United States — will pay a price, and all hell will break loose,” said White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt. Is Yemen an early warning? Is Trump moving to defend Israel against an Iranian attack — an opportunity Netanyahu has repeatedly used to justify his perpetual state of war? Or, as many in Tehran believe, is Trump preparing the ground for a joint Israeli-US attack in the opposite direction?

Like several previous American presidents, and utterly insensitive to history, Trump believes he can rebuild the Middle East almost by an act of imperial will. But unlike Barack Obama, who dreamed, in Cairo in 2009, of a democratic renaissance, Trump is rebuilding it through dictate, backed by the use or threat of force. Palestine is the dark place where Trump’s messianic complex and Netanyahu’s doctrine of perpetual war are clashing. But now, where will this war clash next? And who will help those who cannot help themselves? /Telegraph/