Nothing But Pyrrhic Victory Left to Pursue
What is going on in Gaza is a profound tragedy and both the Gazan people and Israelis, are paying a terrible price.
While I bristle at the terms “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing”, I can no longer deny that, whether as a strategic plan, or as the defacto result of Israel’s tactics in its pursuit of Hamas, this is what is taking place in Gaza. No matter how strident the defense, it is undeniable that Gaza has become unlivable and there is a humanitarian disaster of vast proportions taking place. Men, women, and children are homeless, starving, dying, and utterly lacking in medical care. All of this while Israel has full control of Gaza’s borders.
While this also serves Hamas’s purposes, it is a reality created by Israel which they are content to perpetuate and make use of. Hamas is complicit. It holds its population hostage and perpetuates the status quo while reveling in the worldwide condemnation of Israel’s moral collapse. Hamas, as much as Israel, could put an end to the situation by accepting an agreement and releasing the hostages who have been living, for going on 2 years, under inconceivably dire circumstances. And we should not forget that it was Hamas who initiated the conflict with its barbaric massacre of innocent Israelis on October 7th. Yet none of this can be used to absolve Israel of its responsibility for the humanitarian crisis that is unfolding in front of our eyes.
The spiritual anguish that the majority of Israelis are feeling, the suffocating, utter grief over the incalculable suffering of the hostages as well as the people of Gaza, cannot be overestimated. Not to mention the ever growing toll of military casualties and suicides as the result of a war for the sake of war with no plausible, achievable goal other than the complete occupation of Gaza. And then what?
The entire Israeli public are held hostage by a government led by a man with a genius for political survival but no moral compass. Some go along willingly and others, I would argue a majority, are merely trapped in his infernal web. Many, with crushing sadness, fantasize of a life outside of Israel, a country we no longer recognize. Those with the means are increasingly likely to pursue it.
Some are so disheartened that they feel helpless to bring change. Others, bravely rage in the face of what are often the government’s violent tactics of suppression—perpetrated even against the demonstrating families of hostages—imposed by a police force controlled by the right wing devotee of Meir Kahane, Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir.
While Gaza and Gazans are being obliterated, Israeli society, always fractious, is gradually disintegrating. I’m not sure that the Jewish community outside of Israel recognizes how broken and fragile Israel and its democracy have become. Hamas, however, certainly does. At a time when Netanyahu is intending to broaden the war into the whole of Gaza, there is nothing but a Pyrrhic victory left to pursue. It’s time to end the war and release the hostages. 70% of the Israeli public agrees. Time is running out.
