Israel’s Unwinnable War

ISRAEL’S WAR IN Gaza is a war Israel cannot win. There are four reasons for this: historical, military, political and demographic. Consider each.

Historical: This isn’t Israel’s war. It is America’s. Without US military hardware, logistics and intelligence, the Gaza war wouldn’t just be unwinnable. It wouldn’t be prosecutable.

Why is this America’s war? Because as US President Joe Biden said as a young Senator in 1973 and repeated months ago: “I am not a Jew, but I am a Zionist. If Israel did not exist, the US would have to invent it.”

Christian Europe lost its foothold in strategically important Eurasia to the Ottoman Empire in 1517 under Selim I. Suleiman the Magnificent consolidated Ottoman power across Eurasia during his reign from 1520 to 1566.

But by the late 1800s, European Jews, searching for their promised Biblical homeland in what for centuries had been Palestine, saw an opening. The Ottoman Empire was declining. Zionism as a movement of ultra-nationalist Jews had taken hold in the 1880s. Zionists be­gan actively lobbying for an exclusive Jewish homeland in Palestine. The prob­lem: half-a-million Palestinians had been living there for centuries under Ottoman rule, praying at the Al-Aqsa mosque in Old Jerusalem. In 1917, Palestine had a population of 90,000 Jews and 5,50,000 Palestinians.

Pressure was now applied on the British government by influential Jews in Britain led by the prominent Zionist Lord Rothschild. The end of World War I presented an opportuni­ty. The Ottoman Empire had allied with Germany. After the US entered the war in April 1917, the British government be­lieved that the war would soon be won by the Allies.

Lord Rothschild recognised the significance of the mo­ment. If the Ottomans lost the war, the victorious British and French, aided by America, would be able to occupy Ottoman-ruled Palestine. Lord Rothschild now mounted concerted pressure on Britain’s political establishment to grant Jews a “national home” in Palestine once the Allies won the war and ended Ottoman rule. Showing fore­sight, Lord Rothschild convinced British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to issue what came to be known as the Balfour Declaration on November 2, 1917, at the height of the British Empire and months before World War I ended.

The Israel-Hamas war has already lasted longer than all previous Israeli-Arab wars. Israel’s embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu concedes that the war could last till the end of 2024. That would count as an Israeli defeat

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Balfour wrote to Lord Rothschild: “His Majesty’s Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people…and will facilitate the achievement of this object.”

In 1918, Britain assumed the mandate for Palestine and Jordan. The influx of European Jews into Palestine began. Between 1918 and 1948, Zionists from across Europe poured into Palestine. By May 1948, when Israel unilaterally de­clared itself a sovereign nation, the Jewish population in Palestine had swelled from 90,000 in 1918 to 8,05,000. The population of Palestinians, systematically forced out of their land, had fallen from 5,50,000 in 1918 to 1,56,000 in 1948.

The area around newly formed Israel was surrounded by hostile Arab states. But none of those Arab autocracies had the wit or weapons to fight the Israelis who had mi­grated from across Europe, including Russia, Ukraine, Poland, and Germany. They brought with them advanced tech­nology in agriculture, industry and weaponry. Israel was now the West’s outpost in the Middle East—an invalu­able strategic asset with a common European heritage.

Military: The Israel-Hamas war has already lasted longer than all previous Israeli-Arab wars. Israel’s embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (who has Polish ancestry) concedes that the war could last till the end of 2024. That would count as an Israeli defeat.

The brutal surprise terrorist assault by Hamas on October 7, 2023 exposed the myth of the Israeli army’s in­vincibility and questioned the competence of the country’s intelligence agencies, Shin Bet and Mossad.

Political: Plummeting support among US Democrats, shocked by the massacre of Palestinian civilians in indiscrim­inate Israeli bombing, bodes ill for Biden’s re-election pros­pects and continued US support for Israel as the war drags on.

Demographic: Between Israel and Jordan today live roughly seven million European Jews and seven million Palestinian Arabs. The Jewish population, with low fertili­ty rates, is falling. The Palestinian population is increasing.

That makes Israel’s war in Gaza unwinnable without a two-state solution. Arab sheikhdoms have so far paid only lip service to a sovereign Palestinian state co-existing beside Israel.

Most Israelis despise the idea of a separate Palestinian state. They may have no option. For Israeli Zionists and Arab sheikhdoms—and the US that protects both—time is running out.

About The Author

Minhaz Merchant

Minhaz Merchant is an author, editor and publisher

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