According to mainstream political discourse, the ongoing genocide in Palestine, now dragging into its second year with no end in sight, is still technically a “war.” A lack of political will to force Netanyahu’s government to the table and the resiliency of the resistance ensures that the violence will continue.
If the Israeli government were interested in saving face and in long-term self-preservation, they would have declared victory after Yahya Sinwar was killed in action. A simple PR victory, while ultimately hollow, would have allowed them to appease many of their supporters by claiming the supposed “architects” of Oct. 7 were killed and that the Hamas power structure was dismantled. They will never have a better opportunity.
According to the IDF’s own intelligence veterans, they will not be able to defeat Hamas and, by extension, other resistance groups in Gaza. In fact, there is only one way to defeat the resistance, and that is to kill, displace, and starve every Palestinian in Gaza, turning the land into an apocalyptic, skeletal wasteland. The IDF is attempting just that in the north with its declaration of a military zone.
Since Oct. 1, the Israeli military has ordered nearly half a million people in northern Gaza to leave their homes and has blocked aid from reaching them. Forced displacement and the use of starvation as a weapon of war make it clear that they will bulldoze headlong over international law and the law of land warfare to achieve their stated goal of cleansing and reoccupying the Gaza Strip, either in part or in whole. It is also clear that the Biden administration, along with Vice President Harris, will not impose any checks or conditions on Israel to conform to international law and end the violence.
Tonight on “State of Play” on MintPress News, we discuss how these ongoing Israeli military operations in Gaza, the West Bank, and southern Lebanon do not constitute the waging of war, with former Special Forces operator and Green Beret Alan Shebaro, who has recently returned from the occupied West Bank. The tactics employed by the IDF are not meant to defeat resistance forces, as the resistance will never cease to exist. This “war” has, from the start, been an opportunity to seize land, displace people, and destroy infrastructure, all under the political cover of the United States and its Western allies.
The failure to implement moral consistency in foreign policy and the blithe disregard for the rules-based order will have long-term ramifications for the United States and Israel. The world is a less safe place after a year of unmitigated violence. All those who apologize for the genocide and use the conduct of U.S. and coalition forces during the “Global War on Terror” to justify the actions of the IDF are being intellectually dishonest. This is not a war.
Join us for a conversation between two U.S. Special Operations veterans about the conduct of Israeli forces, their failure to achieve tactical and operational objectives, and what this headless violence means for the future of modern warfare.
Greg Stoker is a former US Army Ranger with a human intelligence collection and analysis background. After serving four combat deployments in Afghanistan, he studied anthropology and International Relations at Columbia University. He is currently a military and geopolitical analyst and a social media “influencer,” though he hates the term.
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