Qassam Muaddi & Faris Giacaman
Mondoweiss / August 23, 2024
The real reason Netanyahu refuses to end the genocidal war on Gaza is because his short-term political interests have perfectly lined up with Zionism’s long-term goal — the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Much has been made of the “narrow” political interests that push Benjamin Netanyahu to insist on achieving “total victory” in Gaza, which in practice means continuing to carry out genocide and ethnic cleansing while attempting to eradicate the resistance. This view has been most prominently put forward by Netanyahu’s political opponents. A random selection of virtually any article from Haaretz today will produce a number of examples. What this view gets wrong is that the Israeli interest in continuing the war is far from narrow. In fact, while it is clear that Netanyahu has a short-term political interest in continuing the Gaza genocide, it is the combination of these short-term interests with the long-term goals of the Zionist movement — the ethnic cleansing of Palestine — that have led to a unique historical confluence: Netanyahu’s political interests have now lined up with Zionism’s colonial imperative.
Netanyahu’s political opponents, many of whom are calling for a Gaza ceasefire, point out that his political fate is currently held in the hands of his messianic right-wing allies, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, who have repeatedly threatened to withdraw from Netanyahu’s coalition government in the event of a ceasefire. This would cause his government to collapse, open the way for fresh elections, and hold Netanyahu accountable for having allowed Hamas to build up its power all these years as part of his perceived strategy of entrenching Palestinian political divisions, let alone for the security failure on October 7. Netanyahu’s opponents would have us believe that his machinations are driven solely by the authoritarian delusions of a hardline despot — and that he is willing to push Israel over the edge in order to do it. For instance, Maj. Gen Yitzhak Brik has hysterically claimed that “if the war of attrition against Hamas and Hezbollah continues, Israel will collapse within no more than a year.”
This criticism has elements of truth, but it is also dishonest. If Netanyahu’s opponents were in his shoes, they also would have wanted to “solve” the “Gaza question,” a fulfillment of the Zionist dream of conquering all of Palestine and eliminating the natives. The difference lies in the constraints faced by Netanyahu’s opponents in actually realizing that objective; they now call vociferously for a ceasefire deal because they believe that signing a deal, even if it allows Hamas to maintain a presence in Gaza, is worth bringing back the captives, who are part of the social base that Netanyahu’s opponents represent. More importantly, the reason they are calling for striking a deal at this point in the war is that they know it will cause a breakdown of their opponent’s coalition. Political opportunism is driving their policy prescriptions just as much as strategic considerations regarding Israel’s ability to weather a war on multiple fronts.
Netanyahu, on the other hand, is in a historically unique position. The current structure of incentives is pushing him to continue with the war at all costs, even if it means giving up on the captives. The reason for this is that for the first time in recent Zionist history, the political incentives of the Jewish state’s current leader make a strategy of continuous brinkmanship the only logical course of action. Even establishing a Vichy-like administrative Palestinian presence in Gaza is not acceptable to Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, and they will continue to wield the threat of dissolving the government against any conciliatory measure.
In charting this maximalist path, Netanyahu is playing with fire, since a broader war with Hezbollah may get Israel mired in a quagmire that offers little more than the chance of a pyrrhic victory. But it also, in his view, presents an opportunity.
For decades, Netanyahu has believed that a major war could provide Israel with the cover to conduct the mass expulsion of Palestinians, not only in Gaza but also in the West Bank and within Israel’s 1948 borders. He was quoted as explaining this precise idea in 1977 by the British historian Max Hastings. At the beginning of the current war, Netanyahu actively attempted to push Palestinians out of Gaza before being confronted by Egypt’s refusal to play along. Meanwhile, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, along with the settlement movement, have been ramping up settlement expansion and supporting settler violence in the West Bank, ethnically cleansing at least 20 Bedouin communities under the cover of war.
Netanyahu’s critics do not consider him an ideologue like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir — and they may be right — but it is also irrelevant. Even though he has certainly expressed a commitment to the Zionist ideal of full territorial conquest, the point is that today, even if pushing for “total victory” might invite a war that will harm his state, he has no alternative given the current balance of power within Israeli politics. This has turned Israel’s genocidal war into Netanyahu’s war of necessity.
Netanyahu hopes to accomplish this by dragging the U.S. into a war with Iran, ensuring Israel’s position as the sole regional power in the Middle East. This is a scenario he has been advocating for decades, including before a congressional committee in 2002, where he also urged the U.S. to invade Iraq.
Dangers and opportunities
But things have changed since then. Iran is not a minor military power, and neither is Lebanon. Both Iran and Hezbollah have accumulated enough force over the past years to build up deterrence against Israel, ensuring that any regional war would not only be destructive for them but for Israel as well. That is why Netanyahu’s hope is that the U.S. will be forced to step in and side with Israel.
The Israeli army and economy are also not ready for a major war after 10 months of losses. Earlier in July, the Israeli army said that it was suffering from a shortage of tanks as a result of the high number that were damaged and put out of service during the war, while the Israeli war ministry said that some 10,000 soldiers and officers have been wounded, and 1,000 soldiers continue to join rehabilitation programs every month. This shortage in military personnel has led Israel to pass a law forcing the orthodox Haredim to enlist for service, overturning an exemption that has lasted for 76 years. Economically, Israel’s credit rating was downgraded by the Fitch agency to “Outlook Negative” earlier in August as a result of the war. On the whole, it appears that the Israeli economy is facing a catastrophe.
Netanyahu has decided that he is prepared to bear this cost, against the will of his domestic political opponents and the desires of the U.S. government, simply because there is no alternative for him. Unlimited U.S. support despite such brazen behavior has only served to embolden Netanyahu.
Netanyahu ordered the assassinations of Fouad Shukr in Beirut and Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran after his speech at Congress, where he received nothing but standing ovations. Following the assassinations and the retaliation threats, the U.S. increased its forces in the Middle East in preparation to defend Israel from any retaliation. At the same time, the U.S. rushed to try to contain the situation with a new proposed deal. This included new conditions put forward by Netanyahu, which served to move the goalpost for what was considered an acceptable deal, against the consideration of Israeli negotiators. Yet the U.S. has only pointed fingers at Hamas, saying that the ball is in its court.
Netanyahu has been getting everything he needs from the U.S. at every step of the way, allowing him to pursue his dangerous endgame with barely any reproach. He is hoping that his gamble will pay off by providing a final solution to the “Gaza question,” thus emerging as a Zionist national hero. But even as this presents the opportunity of snatching a historic achievement for the Zionist project, it also opens up the possibility that Israel will suffer a historic setback that could usher in a new era of resistance for the indigenous peoples of the region.
Qassam Muaddi is the Palestine Staff Writer for Mondoweiss
Faris Giacaman is the Managing Editor for Mondoweiss.
