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Israel's Path of Peril
Simplicius
Aug 26
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Last night Hezbollah carried out another large-scale attack on Israel, billed as their ‘retaliation’ for the death of commander Fouad Shukr. The usual occurred: Israel’s night sky bloomed with constellations of Iron Dome rockets and panicked citizens packed airports to flee the country.
Israel claimed to have carried out a large preemptive attack that destroyed much of Hezbollah’s rocket stock before it was used.
An IDF Dvora-class boat was even hit by what appeared to be a guided Hezbollah missile off the coast of Nahariya in northern Israel, with at least one crew member stated to have been killed:
What’s most remarkable is that we are now approaching the one year anniversary, this October, of the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, and yet Israel has still not been able to entirely defeat a tiny Hamas force. Russia gets criticism for taking what’s now over two years to defeat Europe’s largest military force, while the country previously billed as having “the world’s most advanced military” cannot defeat a tiny guerilla force in a year’s time.
This fact is backed up by many official sources:
https://archive.ph/WAUv8The first, from NY Times above, states:
Israel has achieved all that it can militarily in Gaza, according to senior American officials, who say continued bombings are only increasing risks to civilians while the possibility of further weakening Hamas has diminished.
…a growing number of national security officials across the government said that the Israeli military had severely set back Hamas but would never be able to completely eliminate the group.
Also:
Israel’s most recent military operations have been something of a Whac-a-Mole strategy in the eyes of American analysts. As Israel develops intelligence about a potential regrouping of Hamas fighters, the Israel Defense Forces have moved to go in after them.
They go on to admit that Hamas’ tunnel network has turned out to be far more vast and stronger than Israel anticipated, and while many tunnels were damaged, many remain unharmed from which Hamas continues to operate.
Current and former Pentagon officials complain that Israel has not yet demonstrated that it can secure all of the areas in Gaza that it has seized, particularly after its forces pull back.
But a recent CNN article refutes even the modest claims of Israeli success given above:
https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2024/08/middleeast/gaza-israel-hamas-battalions-invs-intl/Right up front they state:
Netanyahu, who faces growing international pressure to agree to a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza, has repeatedly said that Israeli forces are nearing their stated goal of eliminating Hamas and destroying its military capabilities. Addressing a joint meeting of Congress on July 24, he said: “Victory is in sight.”
But forensic analyses of Hamas’ military operations since it led attacks against Israel on October 7, which draw on Israeli and Hamas military statements, footage from the ground and interviews with experts and eyewitnesses, cast doubt on his claims.
Despite having its leader assassinated and taking all the other ‘blows’ Israel has claimed to have dealt, Hamas, CNN writes, continues to make a comeback:
And yet, the research, which covers Hamas’ activities up until July, shows that the group appears to have made effective use of dwindling resources on the ground. Several units have made a comeback in key areas cleared by the Israeli military after pitched battles and intensive bombardment, according to the new analyses, salvaging the remnants of their battalions in a desperate bid to replenish their ranks.
In a stunner, CNN states that the military wing of Hamas, Al-Qassam, had 24 battle-ready battalions, and that the IDF has only degraded a miniscule 3 of them:
Hamas’ military wing, known as the Qassam Brigades, is divided into 24 battalions spread throughout the territory, according to the Israeli military.
One year of “the world’s most advanced military force”, and they can only degrade 3 enemy battalions? Meanwhile, Russia destroys that many Ukrainian battalions on some days.
They do go on to clarify that 8 of the 24 battalions are considered fully “combat effective”, while the remaining 13 have been somewhat degraded but continue to function in a more sporadic, guerilla style. But they admit that Hamas is actively working on reconstituting all of the degraded battalions.
While Israel naturally dismissed these findings, US military figures continue to poke back:
“If the Hamas battalions were largely destroyed, Israeli forces wouldn’t still be fighting,” said retired US Army Col. Peter Mansoor, who helped oversee the deployment of an additional 30,000 US troops to Iraq in 2007 – a counterinsurgency strategy known as “the surge.”
“The fact that they’re still in Gaza, still trying to rout out elements of the Hamas battalions shows me that Prime Minister Netanyahu is wrong,” he added. “The ability of Hamas to reconstitute its fighting forces is undiminished.”
The article quotes Palestinian civilians fleeing from the north of Gaza, who said that Hamas there is stronger than ever and is actively rebuilding their forces.
“We began to notice a resurgence in Hamas less than a week after Israel withdrew from northern Gaza in January,” said Carter from CTP. “We saw this effect continuing throughout the strip ... This has been the defining process from the Hamas battalions.”
One ‘high ranking Israeli soldier’ told CNN that Hamas’ statements on rebuilding are true, and that they have recruited ‘thousands’ of new members in the past few months.
Expert Robert Pape tells CNN that Israel’s actions are only making Hamas stronger:
“Israel is generating exactly the kind of additional political anger, the additional grief, the additional emotion that will lead additional people to become fighters,” said Pape.
“The actual strategic power of Hamas is growing,” he said. “The power of Hamas is in its power to recruit.”
In essence, it reflects the Empire’s typical hubris, now seen so often the world wide:
What’s most remarkable is the fact that many increasingly believe the situation is leading to Israel’s eventual dissolution. In some ways, it can be argued that Netanyahu and his racist rightwing clan is deliberately fostering a Hamas renewal because their plan B is to use the Hamas specter as an excuse to continue devastating Gaza indefinitely until all Palestinians are purged, one way or another. It would be a win-win scenario for Israel, if it weren’t for the fact that Israeli society itself is facing extreme pressures from the ongoing tensions.
In the CNN article above, a high ranking Israeli officer states:
In fact, more and more observers believe that Israel is in a kind of ‘death spiral’:
While israeli general Yitzhak Brik dropped a bombshell the other day on Haaretz, declaring that Israel will collapse in less than a year:
Yitzhak Barik has reportedly been called ‘The Prophet of Wrath’ in Israel for accurately predicting the Al-Aqsa Flood operation. Now, in an Oped for Haaretz, he accuses the Israeli government of ‘throwing dust in the eyes’ of the public by lying about their destruction of Hamas.
I assume that Defense Minister Gallant already understands that the war has lost its purpose. Israel is sinking deeper into the Gazan mud, losing more and more soldiers as they get killed or wounded, without any chance of achieving the war's main goal: bringing down Hamas.
The country really is galloping towards the edge of an abyss. If the war of attrition against Hamas and Hezbollah continues, Israel will collapse within no more than a year.
He cites dissolution and polarization of Israeli society, economic losses, and Israel’s slow unwinding toward pariah state status. He further states that Hamas’ new leader Sinwar understands the situation and is deliberately dragging it out to further bleed Israel as a nation; in short: “the war of attrition is working in his favor.”
He saves his gravest condemnations for Netanyahu himself:
Netanyahu decided to "die with the Philistines" – in this case, the citizens of Israel – only to retain his power.
He has lost his humanity, basic morality, norms, values, and responsibility for Israel's security. Only replacing him and his cronies as soon as possible can save the country. Israel has entered an existential tailspin and could soon reach a point of no return.
He concludes:
He’s right in how absolutely feral Israeli leaders have become in their frustrations at the world community not backing Israel’s cruel and wicked terror. Just take in the recent video of Israeli ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan’s recent comments from his car, as he leaves the UN HQ in NYC:
Though the video appears dubbed, his words were confirmed by many outlets, including Jerusalem Post.
Now, Haaretz also reports of a letter sent by Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar to Netanyahu and Minister of Defense Gallant stating that “Jewish terror” is now threatening the very existence of the state of Israel.
https://archive.ph/zLS7Z❗️Israel's Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar said in a letter to Netanyahu, Gallant and other ministers published by Channel 12 that "Jewish terror" by settlers in the West Bank and Ben Gvir's incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque are doing "indescribable damage to Israel."
In response to his warnings about settler terror in the West Bank, Ben Gvir reportedly demanded Ronen Bar's dismissal, and withdrew from the ministers' meeting, according to the Israeli army's radio station.
They go on to write of the unrestrained terror of Jewish settlers in the West Bank:
In any normal country, there would be no hesitation in doing the right thing. They would remove the radical right from the government and instruct security services to treat Jewish terror with the same gravity they do with Palestinian terror.
But as long as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich remain in the government, it will be impossible to fight Jewish terror. As long as the former is in charge of the police and the latter is in charge of the occupied territories, Jewish terror will know that it has the backing of higher authorities.
If Israel continues to deny the bitter truth that a Jewish wild weed that has grown in the territories is now out of control, Jewish terror will bring Israel down. "The 'hilltop youth' phenomenon has long grown into a platform for committing violence against Palestinians," wrote Bar.
In essence, what they’re saying is that Israel is now openly ruled by radical extremists who are taking the entire country down with them. Saner heads in Israel are calling for a more moderate government which can acknowledge that unbridled terror and genocide is not a winning long term strategy. Unfortunately, the Netanyahu, Ben-Givir, and Smotrich types are too strongly entrenched at the top of the ruling pyramid. After all, some of them like Ben-Givir are open Kahanists—an openly racist ideology that outright views all Arabs as enemies and works to deprive them of any rights within Israel.
For another interesting take on this, read MoA’s latest, which describes the genocidal end-times cult which secretly controls Israel’s ruling class:
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/08/dire-warnings-as-israels-fascists-are-taking-the-rein.htmlI see people continue to refer to Israel as “America’s greatest ally”, yet they cannot name a single thing Israel offers America as an ‘ally’.
When prodded to name something, they demonstrate their inability to differentiate between an “ally” and an “interest”. Tell them to name one thing Israel brings to the U.S., and they respond with things like:
“A secure outpost for power projection in the Middle East.”
That’s called an interest—Israel facilitates the protection of America’s imperial interests in the Middle East, which makes Israel itself an American geostrategic interest, not an ally.
Additionally, people consider Iran’s lack of reaction to the assassination of Haniyeh on their territory as weakness or cowardice. I have expressed that I think it’s a smart move—Iran sees that Israel is slowly choking from the pressure. Hundreds of thousands of essential Israeli farmers and citizens from the north have fled, many of them stating openly they will never return. Israel’s economy is in freefall, with its only port on the Red Sea, Eilat, has been in complete shut down for months with the port operator announcing the lay off of most of the workers.
https://www.seatrade-maritime.com/ports/attacks-red-sea-shipping-bankrupt-israeli-portOn 7 July 2024, the port's CEO told told the Knesset Economic Affairs Committee that there had been no activity at the port in the past eight months, and he was requesting financial assistance. Later the CEO said "It must be acknowledged that the port is in a state of bankruptcy".
Analysis continues to be churned out heralding the end of the Israeli economy:
https://mondoweiss.net/2024/07/the-end-of-israels-economy/The economic indicators speak of nothing less than an economic catastrophe. Over 46,000 businesses have gone bankrupt, tourism has stopped, Israel’s credit rating was lowered, Israeli bonds are sold at the prices of almost “junk bonds” levels, and the foreign investments that have already dropped by 60% in the first quarter of 2023 (as a result of the policies of Israel’s far-right government before October 7) show no prospects of recovery. The majority of the money invested in Israeli investment funds was diverted to investments abroad because Israelis do not want their own pension funds and insurance funds or their own savings to be tied to the fate of the State of Israel. This has caused a surprising stability in the Israeli stock market because funds invested in foreign stocks and bonds generated profit in foreign currency, which was multiplied by the rise in the exchange rate between foreign currencies and the Israeli Shekel. But then Intel scuttled a $25 billion investment plan in Israel, the biggest BDS victory ever.
It’s difficult to guess the future without going overboard with recency bias, but as the article above states, many figures have now proclaimed that the age of Zionism itself has come to an end, and a slow outflow from Israel, a kind of anti-Aliyah, will continue to take place until Israel itself falls apart and dissolves.
I’ve professed before that I can see Israel’s end resembling that of former Rhodesia. The only saving grace might be if Trump wins the presidency and manages to “save” Israel by negotiating some settlement, which would then result in some of the radicals eventually being outed, then Israel would likely continue hobbling along for quite some time. But the country would be greatly weakened internationally, as the damage done to its image has gravely wounded Israel’s future prospects.
Furthermore, the rise of BRICS and the Global South in general means that Iran and other adversarial countries will continue gaining power and ascendancy while Israel’s allies are steadily weakened on the world stage. It was recently stated that even Saudi Arabia’s bin Salman was threatened with assassination due to talks of his reconciliation with Israel, showing that trends have turned against Israel in the region.
I’ve stated before that Netanyahu and Zelensky are two birds of a feather with the same desperate goals: they need to drag the US into a wider global war to save their regimes and their country. But what they don’t know is: they are doomed whether that happens or not. That’s because the US does not have the power to win a wider war against either adversary, and both Ukraine and Israel would be doomed to their fates, with US merely sacrificing itself in the process as well.
There’s good chance that by 2050-2075 Israel goes the way of Rhodesia, or at least won’t exist in its current form. The only thing that could save it, or at least buy it time, is the one thing its leadership would never allow: a two state solution.
