Our Wednesday News Analysis | The strategic cost of Israel’s endless wars

A displaced Palestinian inspects the damage to his home in Gaza City’s southern Al-Zeitoun on Feb. 9, 2025. (AFP)

Speaking at a conference organized by the Ministry of Defense, the Israeli army’s new chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Eyal Zamir, last week said 2025 would be “a year of combat.”

So, will 2025 be a year of combat for Israel?

Netanyahu faces a two-pronged challenge: if all war fronts officially end, his government will collapse; but if he returns to active war, he will fail to claim any decisive victories.

"If Israel persists in making 2025 a “year of combat” focused on the West Bank, the consequences could be dire, especially for an army that has already suffered unprecedented losses on multiple fronts.

If Israel continues on this path, an all-out uprising may become imminent and new, unexpected fronts could open up simultaneously.

Israel must be reined in.

It is acting like a wounded animal and …

It continues to kill Palestinians in the name of security
while destabilizing the entire Middle East.

Netanyahu must be stopped."

The exact sentence, translated from Hebrew, was: “The year 2025 will continue to be a year of combat.” The word “continue” is crucial, suggesting that Israel will resume its wars, despite the ceasefire agreements it signed with the Lebanese government in November and Palestinian groups in January. In other words, it seems that Zamir is signaling that Israel will reopen these two fronts, even in the face of the ceasefire deals.

Despite Israel’s insatiable appetite for war, it is hard to imagine what the Israeli army could achieve through renewed violence, when it previously failed to accomplish its objectives over nearly 14 months in Lebanon and more than 15 months in Gaza...

Read more: The strategic cost of Israel’s endless wars

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HYPOTHETICAL, BUT PLAUSIBLE: HOW TO END THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT FOR GOOD, RIGHT NOW

Source: Haaretz
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-01-23/ty-article-magazine/.premium/how-to-end-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict-for-good-right-now/00000194-9466-d9aa-afff-957f2a0d0000?dicbo=v2-

By Dahlia Scheindlin
Published January 23, 2025

Israel has a pattern of leveraging wars for annexation, but what if it seized on the Gaza cease-fire as a gateway to a comprehensive vision for ending the conflict by political agreement? And what if the Palestinians and world powers joined? Here's one scenario

A rainbow stretching across the sky as a man sits on the promenade in Haifa, on the day of the Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire in November.Credit: Francisco Seco,AP

“The Failure of existing rules is the prelude to a search for new ones." Peace may have become a bad word in the region, but paradigm shift is not.”

If Israel maintains its current path, it will soon complete the de facto annexation of the West Bank.

The cease-fire arrangement in Gaza will collapse after the first stage.

The hostages will die.

Fighting will resume.

Israel will establish a military government to occupy Gaza, with settlements to follow.

The Palestinian national movement is smashed.

Israel becomes a theocratic imperial actor.

Israel rules through subjugation of noncitizens, mounting permanent insurgency while suppressing residual dissent and opposition among its citizens forever.

All serious electoral polls for two years
show the parties opposed to Netanyahu dominating in the next general election.

If the security-oriented but nonfundamentalist right-wing wins,
someone like Benny Gantz or Naftali Bennett could lead
a significant policy and ideological shift."

This option should no longer sound shocking – and certainly not to readers of this column. Until recently, no global force proved willing or capable of halting this process as it has taken shape during the war. Over decades, Israel has had a well-established pattern of leveraging wars, even defensive wars, to conquer, hold, historicize, and annex territory. This pattern is so successful, that it has become a paradigm for Israeli policy.

But there are other trajectories and scenarios. In a parallel world, Israel and the Palestinians could seize on the cease-fire as a gateway to a comprehensive, long-term vision for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by political agreement. So the chances look like nil? So what?...

Read more: Hypothetical, but Plausible: How to End the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict for Good, Right Now
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TRUMP MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO TORPEDO THE PALESTINIAN RIGHT TO REMAIN

Source: Al-Jazeera
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/2/5/trump-must-not-be-allowed-to-torpedo-the-palestinian-right-to

By Naama Blatman and Neve Gordon

Published February 5, 2025

US president’s latest comments confirm Israel’s wholesale destruction of Gaza is aimed at permanently removing its Palestinian population.

A drone view shows Palestinians walking past the rubble of houses and buildings in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip on January 19, 2025 [Reuters/Mahmoud Al-Basos]

Before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the White House, United States President Donald Trump said Palestinians have “no alternative” but to leave Gaza. When the two leaders met in the Oval Office, Trump declared that after Palestinians from the Gaza Strip are moved elsewhere, the US will “take over”. The president also expressed his desire to transform the Israeli-occupied territory into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.

This is not a new thing. We have seen throughout history how settlers act to displace and eliminate Indigenous populations from their territories permanently.

Learning from these stories, we know that financial investment in rebuilding houses and infrastructure will not ensure the population’s right to remain.

Remaining requires self-determination. To enact their right to stay, Palestinians must finally gain their freedom as a self-determining people.

These surrealistic statements were uttered on Tuesday as Palestinians across the Gaza Strip are facing unprecedented destruction left behind by the Israeli army. Many of those who have been displaced and have managed to go back to their homes in the past two weeks have found only ruins. According to the United Nations, the Israeli army has bombed 90 percent of all housing units in the Gaza Strip, leaving 160,000 units destroyed and 276,000 severely or partially damaged.

As the dust settles and images of the extent of the devastation circulate on mainstream media, it has become clear that the genocidal violence Israel unleashed in Gaza was not only used to kill, displace, and destroy but also to undercut the Palestinian population’s right to remain. And it is precisely the possibility of securing this right that the Trump-Netanyahu duo is now bent on preventing...

Read more: Trump must not be allowed to torpedo the Palestinian right to remain