The Biden peace deal that had raised hopes of a halt to the bloodletting in Gaza is now all but over. It appears to have fizzled out like many other such moves, despite an all-out effort by US officials to get it off the ground.
There seems little likelihood of an end to the war as Israel refuses to stop military action until Hamas is completely wiped out and all the hostages are back home. Hamas is an idea and cannot be obliterated. For every Hamas fighter killed, five other young men will spring up to take his place. The killing of fathers, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts and friends by Israeli bombardment and military action will make the next generation of fighters even more committed. Can a small nation like Israel continue an indefinite war? Can even a downright military victory without a final political solution make Israel safer for its citizens?
“It is going to be a long-drawn-out war. In the last eight months there have been no positive signs, despite mediation efforts by Qatar, Egypt and, of course, the US. There has to be an out-of-the-box solution. Instead of moving towards a resolution we see further escalation in the north, with Hezbollah—the Iranian-backed group in Lebanon—threatening to join the war,’’ says Prasanta Kumar Pradhan, Research Fellow at the West Asia Centre, Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi.
Nine months into the war and the number of people killed is 37,718, many of them women and children. At least 21,000 children are missing, and this includes 17,000 unaccompanied children or kids separated from their families. About 4,000 kids are buried under the rubble. The number of injured is over 86,000. These are the latest figures released by Save the Children, a well-known charity.
Gaza is today a bombed out hellhole. No water, no electricity, no food and no medicines. Aid is coming in dribs and drabs as the movement of trucks is dependent on the IDF, which halts all movement during military operations. In the IDF’s bid to hunt down the Hamas fighters, no place has been spared—refugee camps, schools, mosques and churches have all been hit. UN aid workers, doctors and nurses and journalists, no one has been spared. And there are near-famine conditions prevailing in Gaza. The UN has been warning the world for months. But Israel has remained adamant about not allowing the free flow of aid that could hamper its military operations.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has threatened Israel that if the conflict were to slide to war, the Israel Defense Forces would face a more powerful enemy than it has in the past.
Israel is being accused of genocide by the International Criminal Court (ICC), after South Africa brought the case to the ICC. Yet nothing has deterred Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he continues to back the war till Hamas is stamped out. He dissolved the six-member war cabinet set up soon after the Hamas attack of October 7, following the resignation of centrist leader Benny Gantz. Netanyahu’s far-right orthodox partners are pushing to expand Israel’s frontiers and send Jewish settlers to occupy the land taken over from Palestinians in Gaza. These orthodox and extremely religious hardliners believe in the Biblical ‘promised land’ that incorporates Gaza and the whole of the West Bank. Netanyahu is playing along with the hardliners because it suits him politically to do so.
The day the fighting stops, questions will be asked and the knives will be out for Netanyahu. No one can touch him as long as the war continues. The corruption case against him will be taken up and Netanyahu can be convicted and face imprisonment. The daily demonstrations against the government by the families of hostages reveal the anger at the fact that the rescue of the remaining hostages—one of the two goals of starting the war—appears to have receded as the military campaign has taken over. Yet it would be wrong to assume that Netanyahu and the war in Gaza does not have support from the general public. Anger and shock at what happened on October 7, have turned a large majority of citizens hostile, and to believe that the Palestinians have brought the war on themselves by supporting Hamas.
Netanyahu is a consummate politician as well as an astute diplomat. He has played his cards deftly against US President Joe Biden and forced him into a corner. Israel is USA’s most important ally in the region and Netanyahu is dependent on both American arms and diplomatic support. Yet the way the situation is panning out, Netanyahu appears to have the upper hand.
With the US presidential elections in November, Biden cannot afford to ignore the pro-Palestine campus protests, and the anger of the American youth that powered him to victory last time. A peace deal before the polls will help him immensely. Biden had publicly said that the large number of civilian casualties was not acceptable and warned Israel against a ground invasion of Rafah. He stopped a single shipment of bombs to Israel to prove his point. Netanyahu turned this into a major issue, saying publicly that Biden has stopped arms flow to Israel. The Biden administration countered Netanyahu by disclosing to The Washington Post that since October 7, the US has transferred security-related aid of around $6.5 billion to Israel. Much of it was delivered last month.
Israel paid no heed to Biden’s warning on Rafah. It continued its campaign, attacking refugee camps, killing and maiming people. Al Jazeera reported this week that Israel’s warplanes and artillery strikes across densely-populated civilian areas in Gaza’s north, centre and south killed dozens of people. Israeli ground troops were seen to be systematically demolishing residential homes in Rafah. “The bodies of thousands of the missing children remain buried under the rubble,” UNICEF informed the UN Security Council.
Netanyahu’s relations with Biden may have soured, but support for Israel is entrenched in the Congress. He is travelling to Washington where he will address a joint session of the US Congress on July 25. The Biden administration initially said Netanyahu will not be entertained in the White House. But it later relented and a meeting is due.
The Jewish lobby in the US is powerful. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is one of the largest pro-Israel lobbying groups, having nearly three million members and a vast pool of donors. The group has massive resources to fund the US Congress members, both Democrats and Republicans, to look after Israel’s interests. They provide funds for elections. According to reports, the AIPAC spent as much as $15 million to defeat Democrat Jamaal Bowman, a vocal critic of Israel’s war, in a primary in New York. The winner, George Latimer, is an ardent supporter of Israel and was persuaded to enter the race by local Jewish leaders in New York. Bowman’s defeat is a blow to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, is a close friend of Netanyahu. It was during Trump’s presidency that the US transferred its mission from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. So a change of government in Washington will make no difference to Israel.
(This appeared in the print as 'The War So Far')
