Andrew Mitrovica<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I wanted to be wrong, but it turns out that I was right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since early October, I have been sure that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has had one aim all along: to erase Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Spurred on by a rabid cabinet that believes that Palestinians are worthless \u201cvermin\u201d, Netanyahu has done what I suspect he has always wanted to do: dispense with the incremental destruction of a people and a strip of land and, instead, engineer a genocide in Gaza with ruthless and oh so satisfying efficiency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By now, this fact should be clear. That is the \u201cvictory\u201d Netanyahu has and will continue to pursue until he has achieved it \u2013 to turn Gaza into dust and memory permanently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There will be no \u201cpause in fighting\u201d, no \u201clasting\u201d ceasefire, no truce, no end to the genocide because Netanyahu has no reason or incentive to stop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And Netanyahu knows that no one inside or outside Israel is prepared, willing or able to stop him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hope has been extinguished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every day, Palestinians hope, in vain, that the horrors and outrages will end. Every day, we hope, in vain, for a faint sign that the murderous madness will end, that reason and diplomacy will prevail, that the captives \u2013 on both sides \u2013 will be reunited with their aching families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hope is a fantasy, snuffed out by men and forces who thrive on causing chaos and despair in their \u201ckilling rage\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Netanyahu may be unpopular. Still, what he is doing and how he is going about doing it in defiance of proportionate scale, decency, and international law has the overwhelming support of Israelis who, apparently, would also be content to see Gaza reduced to dust and memory \u2013 permanently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Polls show that most Israelis want Netanyahu to use more force, more \u201cfirepower\u201d in Gaza and beyond. Damn decency, international law, and the mushrooming number of casualties day after dreadful day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pain and suffering of Palestinians is irrelevant. The right and duty of Israel to defend itself is the only thing that counts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s hardly surprising then that polls show, as well, that despite the rampant hunger, disease, and desperate need, most Israelis want fellow Israelis to continue blocking trucks carrying food, water, and medicine from reaching Gaza until the Hamas-held captives are released.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Palestinians are expendable. Israelis are not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As for the \u201cfuture\u201d of Gaza, 93 percent of Israelis reportedly agree with Netanyahu: the two-state \u201csolution\u201d is dead on arrival since all of the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River belongs to them. The intent is to have Israeli settlers take the place of Palestinians in Gaza. Another Nakba is already afoot \u2013 literally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am convinced most of Israel\u2019s confederates abroad \u2013 whether they admit it publicly or not \u2013 also embrace these egregious beliefs and subscribe, wholeheartedly, to Netanyahu\u2019s modus operandi and definition of \u201cvictory\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, far from being \u201cdamaged\u201d or \u201cweakened\u201d, Netanyahu has been emboldened as a \u201cwartime\u201d prime minister and by an \u201cinternational community\u201d that has encouraged him to do what he has done in Gaza and the occupied West Bank without remorse or restraint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Netanyahu will survive as prime minister for as long as Israel goes about doing what it is doing in Gaza and perhaps longer. Ever the calculating Machiavellian, he has rebuffed predictions of his imminent political demise or forced exit by wishful-thinking columnists, \u201cexperts\u201d, and former presidential candidates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Again and again, the \u201cinternational community\u201d has said it is \u201cconcerned\u201d by what their man in Tel Aviv is doing in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Again and again, these expressions of \u201cconcern\u201d have proven to be hollow bits of performative nonsense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On reliable cue, US President Joe Biden described what Israel is doing in Gaza as being \u201cover the top\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been pushing really hard, really hard, to get humanitarian assistance into Gaza. There are a lot of innocent people who are starving, a lot of innocent people who are in trouble and dying, and it\u2019s gotta stop. Number one,\u201d Biden told reporters earlier this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It won\u2019t stop. How can it stop when Biden and his complicit allies in London, Paris, Berlin, and Ottawa keep arming Israel to the brim and refusing \u2013 even in the blatant face of Israel\u2019s \u201cover the top\u201d onslaught and the deepening humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza \u2013 to demand an immediate ceasefire?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The calamitous course was set when Biden and the other presidents, chancellors, and prime ministers rushed to Tel Aviv in \u201csolidarity\u201d pilgrimages to \u201cstand firmly\u201d by Netanyahu\u2019s side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s too late to apply the stock, talking-point-ephemeral brake since Netanyahu isn\u2019t listening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He isn\u2019t abiding by the International Court of Justice\u2019s damning ruling which called on the Israeli government to stop what it is doing in Gaza after South African lawyers and diplomats made a persuasive and \u201cplausible\u201d case that Palestinians are victims of genocide and Israel is the perpetrator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rafah is in Netanyahu\u2019s crosshairs. The so-called \u201csafe haven\u201d and the more than a million Palestinians who have taken refuge there in tents and makeshift \u201chomes\u201d will endure the inevitable lethal consequences of the major Western powers\u2019 unconditional backing of Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Exhausted and petrified Palestinians, including mothers, wives, and their sons and daughters, will not be spared Israel\u2019s wrath. Their already precarious lives hang on the precipice of Netanyahu\u2019s \u2013 for the moment and only for the moment \u2013 delayed designs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biden et al may claim, at least publicly, to ask Israel to stop the looming carnage. Netanyahu will not be deterred by their empty, delivered-behind-a-lectern \u201cwarnings\u201d. He is calling the geopolitical shots, not Biden et al.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While America was preoccupied with a football game on Sunday night, Netanyahu gave Palestinians in Rafah a taste of the terror to come \u2013 firing a shower of shells that killed and dismembered dozens of sleeping children, women and men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, a cocksure Netanyahu understands the value of patience. Biden looks and sounds like an old man who is poised to become yesterday\u2019s man \u2013 gone, inconsequential and forgotten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The November presidential election approaches just on the horizon. Another doddering old man, Donald Trump, has a better than even chance of returning to the Oval Office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If that happens, Trump will enshrine Israel\u2019s licence to commit genocide without his predecessor\u2019s meaningless rhetorical \u201creservations\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Either way, America has morphed, in effect, into Israel\u2019s proxy. The dynamic has shifted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Israel will decide what will happen in Gaza today and tomorrow and America will salute in approval and help pay for the pleasure of doing its captain\u2019s bidding \u2013 happily, willingly, and enthusiastically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(Source: Al Jazeera)<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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