Jakarta, IO – Before October 7 and the IDF’s siege of Gaza in its war against Hamas the future was shining bright for Israel. Its wealth of human capital and high-tech industries justly earned kudos from around the world. Even its erstwhile and fiercest enemies in the Middle East were ready to open a new chapter in their relations with Israel through the Abraham Accords. As one American foreign policy expert put it, there appeared to be a more promising future not only for Israel but the entire region, as well.
Sure, Israel had, and still has, its enemies such as Iran and its proxies, namely Hezbollah, the Houthi›s and of course Hamas, all of whom share a common vision of destroying Israel.
Yet in reality neither Iran nor its proxies have posed an existential threat to Israel. Iran›s mullahs have never been interested in engaging in direct combat with Israel since it knows that would draw the wrath of the United States and spell the end of their theocracy. Both Hamas and Hezbollah have been security threats but neither possess the manpower nor the types of military hardware that would be needed to defeat Israel›s military.
Unfortunately Israel›s chances of an enduring peace were dashed quickly on October 7, not because of Hamas› brutal attacks on Israel, but more so the ways in which the IDF has prosecuted the war in Gaza.
In the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attacks practically the entire world was sympathetic towards Israel. Netanyahu held the moral upper hand and rightly claimed Israel had the right to defend itself and wage war against Hamas.
Yet what started out as a necessary and just war for Israel very quickly became a living hell for Palestinians in Gaza. By most accounts roughly 30,000 Palestinians have died since the war began, out of which around a fourth were armed militants. Scores of others have been injured and have scarce access to medical care. Israel is impeding the flow of humanitarian aid including much-needed water, food and medicines . More than half of Gaza›s buildings and homes have been partly or fully destroyed, leaving 1.7 million Palestinians–more than 80 percent of Gaza›s population–displaced with no place to shelter except for overcrowded tent cities along the southern border. These near-apocalyptic conditions have brought Gaza to the brink of a full-scale humanitarian crisis that conjures up images of other places in crises such as Somalia.
Netanyahu and his extremist coalition partners have washed their hands of what is best described as an unfolding genocide–rather than changing the IDF›s rules of engagement to substantially lower the number of civilian casualties, Netanyahu and his like-minded coalition partners insist the entire mess is Hamas’ fault and continue to fall back on the now-stale refrain of Israel having the right to defend itself.
Israel surely has the right to defend itself, and nobody has insisted that it doesn’t have such a right. But along with that right comes the obligation under international humanitarian law to take all measures possible and care to keep civilians out of harm›s way. Yet it has been obvious even to the most casual of observers that Israel has blatantly disregarded those obligations, therefore losing the moral upper hand that it once had when the war first begun.
Read: March 11, 57 Years Ago
As long as Netanyahu stays in power the short-term prospects for a permanent ceasefire are scarce to none. Netanyahu and his political allies share a messianic vision of an Israel extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean which essentially means they intend to decimate not just Hamas militants but also the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza.
In the end, Netanyahu has turned Israel into a pariah state. Even after the war ends and Netanyahu is gone, it will take years before a new leadership can repair the damage done to Israel’s reputation. It will also take a long time before the wounds of the Palestinian people, now ever deep, can start to heal.