What is it to win a war? Well, it’s for the war to have achieved its objective. The objective of Israel’s neighbours in the wars of ’48, ’56, ’67 and ’73 was to push the Israelis back into the sea. The objective of the Israelis was to prevent that. Hence by definition the Israelis won those wars.

But as often than not, in the course of a war, the objective of that war changes. So in all four of these cases, what began as a war of defence morphed into a war of expansion. In the case of ’48 and ’67 of permanent expansion.

But expansion entails either extermination, expulsion, occupation, or some combination of the three. All three – extermination, expulsion and occupation – severally or together, invite resistance. Resistance invites pacification. The occupation of the West Bank produced the PLO (and its successors), the occupation of Gaza produced Hamas, and the occupation of south Lebanon produced Hezbollah. So for nigh-half a century now Israel has been engaged in wars of pacification on all three fronts.

Some observers think the Israelis have given up on occupying Gaza and the West Bank and are now turning their efforts to extermination and expulsion. If so, it’ll hardly be the first time in human history. Borders change. And people either die or move. Think of the partition of the Indian sub-continent in ’47, to which the scale of the current genocide and/or expulsions of the Palestinians pales by comparison.

Scale is one thing. Implications are another. No one, save the combatants themselves, gave a damn about India and Rwanda. But Bosnians and Israelis are white. They’re us. And Persians and Russians have oil. So Palestine and Ukraine matter, in precisely the way Rwanda and Sudan do not.

More instructively, all over North America and Europe, synagogues and mosques are only a few blocks from each other. What would happen if – I don’t say when, but if – the resistance accepts that neither the IDF nor the Israelis are soft enough targets, but synagogues in America and Europe are? I say if rather than when for two reasons. Moslems in diaspora are loathe to forfeit their place in the West. And Christians are committed to the protection of the Jews living down the street. But that could change.

Categories: Everything You Wanted to Know About What's Going On in the World But Were Afraid to Ask, Social and Political Philosophy

Tags: expulsion, extermination, Gaza, Hamas, Hezbollah, Israel, Lebanon, occupation, Palestine, West Bank