Prolonging the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip without action towards the future of the Palestinian cause constitutes a suicidal strategy for both Israel and the West. Such an approach carries all the chances to bolster the popularity of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) among the Palestinian populace, particularly, and all Islamic nations broadly.
This is how journalist Reno Girard opens his column in "Le Figaro", questioning whether the Israeli government's repeated claim that Gaza's residents are hostages of Hamas can justify the systematic destruction of infrastructure and residential buildings in this territory. Spanning an area of only 365 square kilometers and home to two million Palestinians, Gaza has been under Israeli occupation since 1967.
The writer points to the immense human and material damages (22,000 dead) in Gaza, to such an extent that Palestinian civilian life, with nowhere to flee, is fraught with peril. This raises the question of whether the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has consciously or unconsciously unleashed a vengeful desire on a population trapped behind mechanized fences.
Collective Punishment
Following the failure of the security strategy undertaken by the Israeli government on October 7th, 2023, the politically frustrated government, feeling close to an exit, allowed itself to impose collective punishment on Palestinians. When has collective punishment ever succeeded since the post-World War II era? The author inquires.
While Netanyahu's three objectives—destroying Hamas, disarming Gaza, and eradicating "extremism" among its population—might seem legitimate following a Hamas attack, closer examination reveals only the second is achievable. The Israeli military is certainly capable of transforming the sector into a temporarily disarmed wasteland.
Yet Hamas embodies an ideology impervious to the force of bombs, and "eliminating extremism" from Gaza's populace is not as straightforward as it seems. Who can believe that the orphans left behind by the Israeli military's bombardment will cease to seek revenge for their parents, who perished under the rubble?
Reno Girard concludes that this Zionist invasion constitutes suicide for both Israel and the West backing it since real security is derived from a state in harmony with all its neighbors. The strategy of forcibly displacing people who have lived in Palestine for centuries will not gain acceptance from those neighbors and is the perfect recipe for perpetual war.
Moreover, the prolongation of the war also poses a suicidal move for the West. It presents Russian President Vladimir Putin with a double gift he could scarcely dream of: a demonstration of Western moral dual standards, thereby rallying "the South" towards the "Axis of Despotism" formed by Russia, Iran, and China.
