published on Workers World, by Editor, May 22, 2024
“The war in Gaza is aimless, and we are clearly losing it. We are forced to return to fighting in the same areas, losing more soldiers, losing on the international stage, damaging relations with the United States, and causing the economy to collapse. Show me one thing we have succeeded in,” stated Knesset (Israeli parliament) member Ram Ben-Barak, the former deputy director of the Mossad and director general of the Ministry of Intelligence Services and the Ministry of Strategic Affairs stated on Israeli Army Radio. (english.almayadeen.net, May 18)
Meanwhile, former Zionist war minister Avigdor Lieberman stated: “There is no victory in the north or the south, and we are like a ship without a destination. We have completely lost our way.” (reddit.com/May 18)
Straight from the horses’ mouths! These two representatives of the apartheid Israeli regime have confirmed what top Zionist leaders Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant and National Security Minister Ben Gvir won’t say publicly: that U.S.-backed Israel is losing the war politically, morally and militarily.
The Council on Foreign Affairs stated on its website that the U.S. has made over 100 military aid transfers to Israel since October 7. These transfers have resulted in the mass slaughter of over 35,000 Palestinian civilians — including over 15,000 children — and the wounding and disappearance of close to 90,000 others due to unrelenting Israeli airstrikes. Gaza’s entire infrastructure, including housing, schools, hospitals, roads, mosques, electricity and more, have either been totally destroyed or severely damaged.
Humanitarian aid for more than 1 million starving Gazans has been obstructed by the ongoing genocide, including the sabotage of food and other life-saving measures by armed fascist, Zionist settlers, who live on stolen Palestinian lands.
And despite all of the military firepower the terrorist Israeli repressive state has at its disposal, its occupation forces continue to suffer loss of life and other casualties, as well as the destruction and capture of military equipment, at the hands of a united Palestinian resistance of many factions, mainly using small arm weaponry.
The Israeli regime has reported that thousands of soldiers are in need of psychological therapy for post traumatic stress syndrome from battle fatigue, and a growing number of them are committing suicide.
And the Spanish government just announced that it will not send any more weaponry to Israel. Hezbollah continues to assault Israeli settlers and the Israeli military bases from southern Lebanon. The Yemeni Naval Forces continue to patrol and stop any Israel-bound ships and U.S. military carriers in the Red and Mediterranean Seas.
A doomed regime
That the Israeli Occupation Forces have been unable to conquer Gaza has caused an ever growing schism within the Israeli war cabinet and throughout Israeli society. Some cabinet members have threatened to resign unless the Israeli government negotiates with the resistance to bring about a permanent ceasefire to guarantee the release of the October 7 hostages, alive or dead.
There are mounting protests in the streets demanding the resignation of Netanyahu for not prioritizing bringing the hostages home through a negotiated agreement. Stones were thrown at Gvir on May 18 by Israeli settlers, which prompted him to draw his gun.
On the political front, the worldwide student Intifada continues to take the lead with its unwavering solidarity and pressure on universities to divest parts of their endowments from companies, especially military industries, that do business with Israel. There are growing demands to ban Israeli sports teams from international competition, such as the upcoming FIFA soccer tournament and even the Paris Summer Olympics Games.
The pro-Palestinian masses of Egypt and Türkiye, whose reactionary regimes have a sordid history of complicity with Israel, have pressured those regimes to distance themselves from the Zionist state. That’s why Egypt and Türkiye joined the case South Africa brought before the International Court of Justice in late 2023 that charged Israel with committing genocide in Gaza.
All of these developments and more show that the days of the illegal Israeli state, built on the backs of the massacres, mass displacement and racist settler colonialism for the past 76 years, are numbered. And there is nothing the Israeli regime can do — even with the support of their biggest imperialist ally — to reverse this escalating trend of isolation and resistance on all fronts.
*Featured Image: Egyptians Muslims brotherhood supporters demonstrate to condemn Israel’s air strikes on the Gaza Strip at al Azhar mosque in Cairo on Nov. 16, 2012. (KHALED ELFIQI/EPA)