Archived Asia 

Israel seeks the collapse of the Hamas government

3 min read EUGENIO GARCIA GASCON

EUGENIO GARCIA GASCON

Many wonder what exactly Israel is after in this war and how far it is willing to go. There may be no single definitive answer, and Benjamin Netanyahu may seek several things at the same time, including the expulsion of a considerable part of the Palestinian population from the Gaza Strip, which until now numbered 2,3 million. .

The confusion is general and does not exclude the Hebrew media, where these days everything has been read when it comes to interpreting Netanyahu's threat to change today's Middle East for a different one, a threat he launched on the second day of the war, that is, October 8, without being more explicit, although other politicians around him have reiterated it in the same vague terms.

The respected Yediot Ahronot analyst Ron ben Yishai published an article this Thursday in which he points out that the war cabinet chaired by Netanyahu has finally set an objective or mission for the military operation: the total collapse of the Hamas government in Gaza.

The most interesting thing about what Ben Yishai says is that what the Israeli executive wants is to end the Hamas government, that is, not Hamas, probably because the Israeli leaders know perfectly well that it is not possible to end the Islamic resistance movement. which was founded in 1987 giving rise to the first intifada.

But what specifically does it mean to end the Hamas government? For this to be possible, one of the following three things must happen: 1) that Israel expels the entire population of the Strip to Egypt. 2) That Israel expel all, or almost all, Hamas Gazans. 3) That Israel completely invades the Strip for a prolonged period of time and puts in charge an alternative puppet government to Hamas, like the one in the West Bank chaired by Mahmoud Abbas.

In the first case, certainly expelling the entire population of Gaza is surely the wet dream of more than one Israeli leader. On the second day of the war, Egypt said that it will not welcome a large mass of refugees, but that has not prevented systematic bombings from already pushing almost half a million people from the north to the south of the Strip. However, we are seeing that a large number of Palestinians are staying in the areas devastated by Israeli aircraft with American bombs. The Israeli Army asks them to go south, while Hamas asks them to stay even if their homes are destroyed. The Nakba of 1948 is in the collective memory and not all Palestinians are willing to leave their homes, not even the rubble of the places where they have lived, for a second time.

The second case, that is, Israel expelling all or almost all Gazans from Hamas, is an unworkable idea, unless the first case of expelling the entire population is fulfilled. In Gaza, Hamas has very large support that will undoubtedly grow substantially after the October 7 attack. It is not possible to easily identify and discriminate Hamas followers, who are legion and are everywhere and at all levels, from the top of the government to the lowest lumpen.

The third case, that Israel invades the Strip completely and puts a puppet government in charge, is an option that is too complex. If Israel does not invade the Strip, a government of this nature will not be able to be established, but if it invades and stays inside, there will be enormous resistance with a constant trickle of dead soldiers, since the resistance will not sit idly by. Furthermore, it is doubtful that a puppet government could maintain itself for long in Gaza, even with the presence of the Israeli Army. In the West Bank, where this situation exists with President Abbas, as time goes by it becomes more and more evident that he will not be able to sustain himself for much longer. Abbas turns 88 in November and his puppet government's days are numbered.

Furthermore, taking into account these three contexts, ending the Hamas government as Israel intends will not solve the problem, as the brutal blockade of the Strip for several decades has not solved it. In fact, we know that Israel neither has the capacity to end Hamas, nor the ability to end the idea of ​​Hamas, and that it has only a dubious ability to end the Hamas government, regardless of the enormous destruction it may cause.

Eugenio Garcia Gascon has been a correspondent in Jerusalem for 29 years. He is a Cirilo Rodríguez journalism award winner.

 

 

EUGENIO GARCIA GASCON
Contributor

Posts

The lost years

RAFAEL POCH-DE-FELIU

RAPHAEL POCH
Instead of undertaking the necessary international concertation to face the challenges of the century, the global elites, and in the first place the Western powers, mobilize their societies to fight against their geopolitical rivals. In the great context of the relative decline of the Western power in the world and the transfer to Asia of a good part of that power, there is no other strategy than a reflex of panic, consistent with the well-known saying "the thief thinks that everyone belongs to him". same condition”. 

OLEKSANDER RATUSHNIAK

The Ukrainian tragedy

RAFAEL POCH-DE-FELIU

RAFAEL POCH-DE-FELIU
One of the problems with the war in Ukraine is that we are not facing one war, but several. There is a reactionary war of Russia against Ukraine, open since the invasion of February 2022. There are elements of civil war between Ukrainians since the spring of 2014, caused by the non-recognition of the valuable internal diversity of Ukrainians in their different regions, without which the Russian invasion would have been very difficult, if not impossible. There is a war of hegemonism between NATO and Russia, without which the two previous ones surely would not have come to fruition, sponsored by the United States with its expansionist pressure towards the East since the false closing of the cold war thirty years ago. And there is a warming up of a great global war with China to neutralize its rise as leader of a non-Western pole in the world and of which the war in Ukraine is the prolegomenon.

Marx as a solution to the climate crisis

PASCUAL SERRANO

PASCUAL SERRANO 
“Are you taking any action against global warming? Have you bought ecological bags to reduce the use of plastic ones? Do you always carry a canteen to avoid buying drinks in PET containers? Have you changed your old car for a hybrid one?
I will tell you clearly: only with that kind of well-intentioned measures you will not get anywhere; what's more, they could even be counterproductive”.

With these provocative words begins the book by the Japanese Kohei Saito "Capital in the era of the Anthropocene" (Editions B, 2022), an era in which the footprint of human activity completely covers the face of the Earth.

Israel cannot imprison two million Gazans without paying a cruel price

GIDEON LEVY

GIDEON LEVY
Behind all this is Israeli arrogance. The idea that we can do whatever we want and we will never pay for it or be punished. We will continue undisturbed.

We will arrest, kill, harass, dispossess and protect the settlers engaged in their pogroms. We will visit the Tomb of Joseph, the Tomb of Othniel and the Altar of Joshua in the Palestinian territories and, of course, the Temple Mount: more than 5.000 Jews on Sukkot alone.

We will shoot innocent people, gouge out their eyes and smash their faces, expel them, confiscate them, rob them, tear people out of their beds, carry out ethnic cleansing and, of course, continue the incredible siege of the Gaza Strip , and we will assume that everything will be fine.

Erdogan is once again unbeatable at the polls

RICARD GONZALEZ

RICARD GONZALEZ 
Istanbul
Neither a battered economy with an inflation rate close to 50%, nor a devastating earthquake that exposed government corruption, nor a united opposition for the first time have been able to defeat Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is consolidating his hegemony of more than two decades. Certainly, this time the "sultan" could not seal his victory on the fast track in the presidential elections and will need a second round. However, having stayed at the gates of 50%, against 45% of his great adversary, Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, only an electoral cataclysm could prevent his victory on May 28. In the legislative elections, his coalition did obtain an absolute majority of the 600 deputies in the Turkish Parliament. 

Ben Gvir and the unstoppable drift of Israel

EUGENIO GARCIA GASCON 0

EUGENIO GARCIA GASCON
On October 13, Deputy Itamar Ben Gvir drew his pistol against a group of Palestinians who were protesting, some throwing stones, against the Israeli military occupation in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, in the Arab sector of Jerusalem.