“Israeli Military Wins Back Stature Lost on Oct. 7,”

– The New York Times, October 4, 2024.

“A military asserts itself as an ‘anchor of strength’.”

– The New York Times, October 4, 2024.

Several days after the Washington Post bogusly declared that Israel has recovered the “military primacy” that it lost a year ago, the New York Times goes one step further.  It obscenely proclaims that the Israeli military has regained its “stature.”  We’re are talking about a sophisticated and lethal military force that has been facing Arab adversaries who lack air power and air defense for the past 57 years.  Israel, a superpower in the Middle East, has been facing Arab states that have not threatened Israel since Egyptian President Anwar Sadat capitulated in Jerusalem 45 years ago.  As a result of that decision, Sadat lost his life to an assassin.

The Times argues that “Israel’s display of military and technological prowess has most likely helped to reestablish itself as an ‘anchor of strength’ in the region and as a balance against Iran and its proxies.” But this has been the case since Israel’s war of independence 76 years ago.  For this entire period, Israel has held air superiority throughout the region.  Air power was the key to victory in the Six-Day War in 1967; the October War in 1973; and of course the pummeling of Beirut in 1982.  The bombing of Beirut was particularly significant because Israeli leaders had told their Arab counterparts privately over the years that they would never attack an Arab capital because of the vulnerability of their own capital in Jerusalem.

Is it possible to use the word “stature” when you confront the nature of Israel’s genocidal and scorched earth campaign in Gaza, where more than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children; the use of fighter aircraft against the occupied territory on the West Bank, which violates a series of Geneva Conventions; and now the obscene bombing of Beirut, which is beginning to resemble the Israeli bombing campaigns in Gaza over the past year.  Israel has reduced Gaza to rubble, making nearly two million internal refugees.  Israel threatens to do the same in Lebanon in its so-called “limited” and “targeted” operation that already has displaced more than one million Lebanese. These are the so-called achievements that have made Israel an international pariah, and have exposed U.S. hypocrisy in condemning Russian war crimes in Ukraine but ignoring Israel’s genocidal campaign.

Let’s look more closely at Israel’s military “stature” in terms of innocent lives lost, including infants who never reached their first birthday.  As of October 4, 2024, the Committee to Protect Journalist’s preliminary investigations showed at least 127 journalists and media workers were among the more than 42,000 killed since the war began, making it the deadliest period for journalists since CPJ began gathering data more than 30 years ago.  More than 885 healthcare workers have been killed in Gaza and the West Bank since 7 October 2023. This includes nurses, paramedics, doctors, and other medical personnel.  Numerous physicians with Doctors Without Borders, whose teams have had to flee 14 different health structures and endure 26 violent incidents since the start of the war, have been killed.  Several days ago, the Israelis bombed a health clinic because it was operated by Hezbollah, which is responsible for a large segment of the health infrastructure throughout Lebanon. Stature?

In a particularly obscene event in April, missiles from Israeli drones operating in Gaza struck a clearly marked convoy of the Washington-based World Central Kitchen one of the few organizations able to get supplies to starving civilians.  Seven people were killed, including aid workers from the United States, Britain Poland and Australia, along with their Palestinian driver.  The convoy had reported its travel and its coordinates to the Israeli Defense Forces, which is customary for such aid convoys.

An outraged President Joe Biden said once again that Israel “has not done enough” to protect aid workers and civilians from its attacks.  The Biden administration has emphasized to Israel that it must follow international norms in protecting civilians, but Netanyahu’s government has demonstrated that it is unable or unwilling to do so. Secretary of State Antony Blinken states that there is no evidence that Israel is blocking aid to reach Gaza, although the internal reports of the Agency for International Development have documented Israeli hindrance of food and fuel.

Once again, Israel should be faced with the task of transforming its so-called military victories into long-term diplomatic settlements, but Netanyahu has never been interested in territorial or diplomatic compromise.  Israel has never acknowledged Palestinian “right of return,” although it is part of international law, and Palestinians are specifically guaranteed that right by UN Resolution 194. This has been the problem that Israel has faced since the easy successes of the Six-Day War and the occupation of the Sinai, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank.  But Israel hasn’t been able to achieve diplomatic success since 1967, and now it is even further from achieving regional stability.

The current Israeli leadership is particularly uninterested in diplomatic success, and there is no reason to believe that there are successors to Benjamin Netanyahu who are willing to address Palestinian sovereignty.  Netanyahu has focused on prolonging the war in Gaza, extending it to Lebanon, and avoiding a cease-fire deal with Hamas—even at the price of abandoning the remaining hostages in Gaza, who are dying in Gaza’s tunnels.  Ironically, Netanyahu’s brother lost his life in a rescue mission to release Israeli hostages being held in Uganda in 1976.

The United States provides defense guarantees to Israel and warns against escalation, but the Israeli Defense Forces conduct massive operations without giving the United States any warning.  Israel has become a pariah nation for good reason, and it has dragged down the credibility and influence of the United States in the process.

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