The condition for loss by the Resistance is clear: Palestinians are ethnically cleansed further, ideally (from the Israeli point of view,) out of Palestine entirely.
How does the resistance win? It’s unlikely to be marching thru Tel Aviv, although I don’t think that’s necessarily impossible given how small Israel is and how incompetent its military at everything but aerial bombardment.
Collapse of the Settler Project: Israel currently has about a quarter million internal refugees. The settlements near the Lebanese border have been evacuated. People say Hezbollah is doing nothing or little, but in fact they’ve cause the Israelis serious problems. Without settlers, Israel cannot complete the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, plus a lot of the economy is based on settler expansion.
Tourism Collapse: Israel relies a lot on tourism. Strangely war is bad for tourism, and they’ve lost 80% of their tourists.. If this war goes on for another year or more (the way Sharon is talking), well…
Too Many Dual Citizens Leaving: About 10% of the Israeli population has dual citizenship, but these are often the most economically important citizens, especially engineers and scientists. If they don’t feel safe, they don’t have to stay.
Military Mutinies: Israel’s military is reliant on calling up civilians when they expect mass combat. Those civilians don’t want to stay in the military for long periods, and their families don’t actually want them shot up.
Budgetary and Economic Problems. If Israel can’t pay its bills, well its got problems.
Historically states collapse when the violent enforcers refuse to work or are defeated.
Basically, the Israeli project requires people to trust the Israeli government and the IDF to keep Israel safe. If people don’t feel safe, well, those who can leave, the settler project collapses and companies outside Israel are far less willing to set up business in Israel or to even contract with Israeli businesses.
Israel seems to be skating towards war with Hezbollah, with both sides angling to be able to say the other side started it.
But Israel can’t “win” a war with Hezbollah. It’s impossible. In the last war when Hezbollah was much weaker, Israel was never able to stop the missiles, and Hezbollah has far more and better missiles now and more troops, plus a huge drone fleet. The missiles have the range to hit anywhere in Israel. Tel Aviv will get hit. Yes, Israel can flatten large chunks of Lebanon, but it can’t stop Hezbollah from doing the same to Israel.
Fundamentally, Israel has lost much of its deterrence. Yes, it can still stop a full invasion, but it can’t stop constant missile attacks.
Pretty hard to run a prosperous country people who have other options want to live in if you’re constantly being hit by missiles.
The only way to get out of this would be to make genuine peace: but genuine peace can only be made by giving up the settler project and the idea of Israel as a Jewish supremacist state, and that’s a loss condition to both Israel’s leadership and most of their population.
Feral Finster
“Israel seems to be skating towards war with Hezbollah, with both sides angling to be able to say the other side started it.
But Israel can’t “win” a war with Hezbollah. It’s impossible. In the last war when Hezbollah was much weaker, Israel was never able to stop the missiles, and Hezbollah has far more and better missiles now and more troops, plus a huge drone fleet. The missiles have the range to hit anywhere in Israel. Tel Aviv will get hit. Yes, Israel can flatten large chunks of Lebanon, but it can’t stop Hezbollah from doing the same to Israel.”
Israel is certain that it’s American thug and its various buttbois will fight Hezbollah on Israel’s behalf.
And war with Hezbollah is not the real goal. Israel’s real goal is war with Iran. With the bulk of the fighting to be performed by….guess who.
mago
It’s a shame and a pity that those Zionists and their supporters never learned nothing about country ways.
Thank you Country Joe McDonald.
And it’s 123, what are we fighting for?
Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn
Next stop’s gonna be Iran.
Apologies to the Fish.
Never mind, you’d have to be born in a certain time and place to get the references.
Gonna post it anyway.
And it’s 567 open up the Pearly Gates
Ain’t got time to wait. . .
What are we fighting for? Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn. Next stop’s gonna be Iran . . .
Forecasting Intelligence
Wrong Ian.
Israel has already created the conditions for success. Why? Gaza is in physical ruins following the Hamas terroristic attack that shattered the unofficial ceasefire that had been on-going for years (Israel encouraged Qatar funding of Hamas, it allowed Gaza workers to find work in Israel that provided crucial income for the Gaza economy etc).
Now, there were pragmatic elements within Hamas who probably thought that this was paving the way for a effective deal where Hamas basically accepted Israel wasn’t going anywhere and quietly relations would develop – certainly there were many in Israel and beyond who hoped that was the case. We now know the core military leadership of Hamas was never interested… whatever their Doha based political leaders may have thought.
So, the outcome is Gaza is in physical ruins and will cost tens of billions to rebuild. The only people with the finances and maybe the will are the Gulf States, principally Saudi Arabia but they will demand two things 1) a pro-MBS/Saudi political government in return for Gulf cash and most importantly Palestinian validation for a future Saudi-Israel peace deal down the line.
Now, if for whatever reason there isn’t a Saudi brokered deal along the lines of the above, Gaza remains in ruins and is unliveable for most of the residents. They will remain in their tents.
Nobody in the Arab world wants them, Egypt has made it clear (they consider Hamas radicalised Palestinians security risks and already have a serious insurgency issue which they don’t want adding to).
A few years in tents, getting sick and relying on patchy UN aid and either the Arabs give way and the Palestinians move to other places, or the Palestinians effectively agree to whatever the Saudis demand.
Either way the Israelis win.
Gaza itself lacks the resources to provide its own food. It is entirely reliant on imports (that in turn rely on the acceptance of the Egyptian and Israel militaries). Israel has the Gaza population by the balls and Egypt for historical reasons wants nothing to do with Gaza or its population.
You are right that Hezbollah are a major military threat but if I was Israel, I would strike them HARD when the Americans are still in the region (e.g. next few years), clear them from southern Lebanon and create a giant security buffer zone with the Israeli state.
Thanks to their successful operation in Gaza they can also do the same their, create vast zones where no Palestinians are allowed to provide additional security to the Israeli state.
Where you are on stronger ground – and something John Greer has also written about – is the dangerous reliance Israel has on the United States. That is a huge long-term challenge for them with no easy answers.
Ideally they would want to end their reliance on US military inputs and create a self-sufficient military industry, become financially independent and create alliances (as they are already) with key partners in the region.
Those might be insurmountable options which is why, long-term, I am pessimistic about the Israel state. But that doesn’t mean I’m pessimistic short term with the right choices strategically and even medium term.