{"id":1436458,"date":"2024-01-10T06:55:44","date_gmt":"2024-01-10T06:55:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/?p=310297"},"modified":"2024-01-10T06:55:44","modified_gmt":"2024-01-10T06:55:44","slug":"gaza-what-is-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2024\/01\/10\/gaza-what-is-victory\/","title":{"rendered":"Gaza: What Is Victory?"},"content":{"rendered":"\"\"<\/a>\n
\"\"

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair<\/p><\/div>\n

\nIt\u2019s now three months since Hamas\u2019s vicious attack on October 7th<\/sup>\u00a0and, sadly, there appears to be no end in sight. It was a well-planned attack that effectively provoked Israel\u2019s horrendous and ongoing assault on Gaza.\u00a0\u00a0As has been endlessly reported, around 1,200 Israelis, many of them young people attending a music concert. 240 others were taken hostage.<\/p>\n

Shortly after the attack Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u00a0lamented<\/a>,\u00a0\u201cThis war was imposed upon us by a despicable enemy \u2014 by savages who celebrate the murder of women, children, and the elderly.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0And he then\u00a0declared<\/a>:\u00a0“This is a moment of genuine struggle against those who have risen up against us to destroy us. Our goal is victory \u2013 a crushing victory over Hamas, toppling its regime and removing its threat to the State of Israel once and for all.\u201d<\/p>\n

On December 26th\u00a0<\/sup>at a Likud party meeting,\u00a0Netanyahu\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0he was actively working to ethnically transfer Palestinians out of Gaza.\u00a0\u00a0“The world is already discussing the possibilities of voluntary immigration,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u00a0Adding, \u201cIt has strategic importance for the day after the war.” An Israeli newspaper\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0government officials were in negotiations with\u00a0Rwanda, Chad and the Congo\u00a0<\/em>regarding the possible reception of Palestinian \u201cmigrants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s response to Hamas\u2018s attack was, sadly, predictable. Not\u00a0unlike\u00a0Pres. George W. Bush after \u201c9\/11,\u201d the Israelis went to war.\u00a0\u00a0So far, more than 22,000 Palestinian have been killed \u2013 approximately half of them women and children \u2013 and furthered the great displacement of over one million Palestinians; it is\u00a0estimated<\/a>\u00a0that\u00a0more than 7,000\u00a0Palestinians<\/em>\u00a0— mostly women and children — are reportedly\u00a0missing<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0In addition,\u00a0506<\/a>\u00a0Israeli military personnel have died.<\/p>\n

Today \u201cvictory\u201d seems no closer than when Israel launched its counter-offensive. Laura E. Adkins recently\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0The Forward<\/em>, \u201cIsrael, still reeling from Oct. 7, is single-mindedly focused on defeating Hamas. But it will never do so if all parties involved can\u2019t provide a hopeful vision of what comes next.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0She, along with others, identify the two most discussed likely war outcome \u2013 a one-state or a two-state solution. But what if these are mere chimera, best-case wishes impossible to achieve?\u00a0\u00a0What if \u201cvictory\u201d involves something very different?<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s current military campaign is distinguished by an effort to turn the\u00a0Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) —\u00a0<\/strong>encompassing the Gaza Strip and\u00a0West Bank\u00a0(including East Jerusalem) —\u00a0into what can best be conceived of a \u201cconcentration territory<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since its founding 75 years ago, the Israeli government has moved systematically to transform the\u00a0OPT into an ever-shrinking concentrated territory.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

This has involved a two-fold, complementary strategy of (i) reducing the Palestinian population through a campaign of \u201cethnic cleansing\u201d and (ii) shrinking the territory into an ever-smaller land mass.\u00a0\u00a0This two-phased strategy seems the unstated goal of the current Israel war effort \u2013 and what \u201cvictory\u201d really means.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mouin Rabbani dates Israel\u2019s effort to<\/strong>\u00a0shrink the Palestinian population from before the state of Israel was established.\u00a0\u00a0As he\u00a0notes<\/a>,<\/p>\n

As early as 1895, Theodor Herzl, the founder of the contemporary Zionist movement, identified the necessity of removing the inhabitants of Palestine in the following terms:\u00a0\u201c<\/strong>We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country \u2026 expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the wake of the establishment of the state of Israel, the UN\u00a0identifies<\/a>\u00a0the first phase of the formal \u201cexpropriation and the removal\u201d\u00a0as the\u00a0Nakba<\/em>\u00a0which \u201cmeans \u2018catastrophe\u2019 in Arabic, [and] refers to the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.\u201d<\/p>\n

Al Jazeera<\/em>\u00a0reports<\/a>, \u201cBetween 1947 and 1949, at least 750,000 Palestinians from a 1.9 million population were made refugees beyond the borders of the state,\u201d It adds, \u201cZionist forces had taken more than 78 percent of historic Palestine, ethnically cleansed and destroyed about 530 villages and cities, and killed about 15,000 Palestinians in a series of mass atrocities, including more than 70\u00a0massacres.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to one\u00a0study<\/a>, \u201cthe Nakba has made Gaza Strip the most crowded place on the World.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0It found the following:<\/p>\n

The population density of historic Palestine in 1948 reached 73 individuals\/km\u00a0of Arabs and Jews compared to 389 individuals\/km\u00a0in 2007. The population density in the Palestinian Territory reached 625 individuals\/km\u00a0of which 415 individuals\/km\u00a0in the West Bank and 3,881 individuals\/km\u00a0in Gaza Strip. In Israel, on the other hand, the population density reached 317 individuals\/km\u00a0of Arabs and Jews in 2007.<\/p>\n

Two decades later, the\u00a0Nakba<\/em>\u00a0was followed by a second concentration, the\u00a0Naksa\u00a0<\/em>or \u201csetback,\u201d that further shrunk the OPT\u2019s population.\u00a0\u00a0It was a result of the Six-Day War that pitted Israel against Egypt, Jordan and Syria.\u00a0\u00a0Israel\u00a0seized<\/a>\u00a0the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and 300,000 more Palestinians fled, mostly into Jordan;<\/p>\n

Two leading Israeli authorities identified this as a critical step in the process of turning the OPT into a concentration territory.\u00a0\u00a0In 2003, Baruch Kimmerling, a sociologist at the Hebrew University,described<\/a>\u00a0Gaza as \u201cthe largest concentration camp ever to exist.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0In 2004, Israel\u2019s National Security Director Giora Eiland\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0that Gaza was a \u201chuge concentration camp.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2018, the Norwegian Rufugee Council (NRC)\u00a0found<\/a>\u00a0Gaza to be \u201cone of the world’s most densely populated areas, with more than 5,000 inhabitants per square kilometre. The Gaza Strip is smaller than the city of Oslo but is home to three times as many people.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0It notes, \u201cToday many refer to the Gaza Strip as the world\u2019s largest open-air prison, where the prison guard is Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

A similar process of concentration took place in the West Bank. The\u00a0New Yorker<\/em>\u00a0recently\u00a0reported<\/a>:<\/p>\n

There will be a number of Palestinian Bantustans, Gaza-style, all over the West Bank. And each one of these Palestinian enclaves is already surrounded and gradually will be more surrounded by this mix of measures, whether it be Israeli infrastructure such as roads or military bases or walls or fences or settlements and so on.<\/p>\n

Whether in Gaza or the West Bank, Israel\u2019s unstated goal has been to concentrate the\u00a0Palestinian territory and population.<\/p>\n

Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur of human rights in the Palestinian Territory\u00a0identified<\/a>Israel\u2019s action as a form of \u201cethnic cleansing.\u201d \u201cIsrael has already carried out mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians under the fog of war,\u201d she said.\u00a0\u00a0Adding, \u201cAgain, in the name of self-defence, Israel is seeking to justify what would amount to ethnic cleansing.\u201d<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Historically, containment within the OPT has been implemented in multiple ways. They included\u00a0restrictions<\/a>\u00a0of movement in\/out of the Gaza and the West Bank;\u00a0restricted access to areas within 300 meters of the Gaza side of the perimeter fence with Israel; restrict access off the Gaza coast (e.g., fishermen have access to only 50 percent of the waters allocated under the Oslo Accords);\u00a0periodically blockades of crossings into Gaza<\/em>, preventing the flow of people (including medical cases) and essential commodities (including food).<\/p>\n

To enforce Gaza\u2019s status as a \u201cconcentrated\u201d area,\u00a0in December 2021 Israel completely encircled it with a 20-foot-high wall that spans 40 miles.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most egregious form of concentration is arrests and imprisonments.<\/p>\n

Estimates vary considerably as to the number of Palestinians arrested since October 7th<\/sup>.\u00a0\u00a0Al Jazeera\u00a0estimated<\/a>\u00a0\u201cmore than 5,000\u201d have been arrested; PBS\u00a0places<\/a>\u00a0it at \u201cover 2,000.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s containment campaign is also documented in the systematic bombings that have devastated much of Gaza.\u00a0\u00a0The Israel Defense Force (IDF) appears to have two \u201cenemies\u201d or targets \u2013 (i) \u201cidentified\u201d targets and (ii) \u201cgeneral\u201d targets.\u00a0\u00a0Identified targets include alleged sites of Hamas leader and other nebulous critical \u201cmilitary\u201d locations; general targets include the vast number of non-military homes, hospitals, schools, religious centers, farms and highways as well as ordinary street life.\u00a0\u00a0Every Palestinian is an IDF enemy.<\/p>\n

As vividly\u00a0displayed<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0satellite imagery\u00a0analyzed<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0Jamon Van Den Hoek (Oregon State University) and Corey Scher (CUNY Graduate Center) of\u00a0the\u00a0Decentralized Damage Monitoring Group (DDMG), between 41.3 percent (118,000) to 51.3 percent (147,700) of buildings in the Gaza Strip were damaged as of December 34, 2023.\u00a0\u00a0In all likelihood, a goodly proportion of these building are no longer habitable.<\/p>\n

No one know when the war will formally end.\u00a0\u00a0IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi\u00a0admitted<\/a>, \u201cThis war has necessary and not easy goals to achieve, it takes place in complex territory. That\u2019s why the war will continue for many more months \u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

As\u00a0Prime Minister Netanyahu\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0Meet the Press<\/em>\u00a0on November 12th<\/sup>,\u00a0“If you want peace, destroy Hamas. If you want security, destroy Hamas. If you want a future for Israel, the Palestinians, the Middle East, destroy Hamas.”<\/p>\n

Netanyahu\u00a0insisted<\/a>\u00a0that once the war ends, Israel\u2019s IDF will remain in control of Gaza.\u00a0\u00a0He said that Israel will have \u201coverall security responsibility\u201d over the Gaza Strip.\u00a0\u201cIDF forces will remain in control of the Strip, we will not give it to international forces.\u201d In addition,\u00a0Netanyahu has, in the\u00a0words<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>, \u201cmade clear he has no intention of resigning after the war in Gaza ends.\u201d<\/p>\n

Control signifies victory.\u00a0\u00a0Such control\u00a0involves the further \u201cconcentration\u201d of a shrinking Palestinian population and habitable land area.\u00a0\u00a0Israel may likely be forced to establish a quasi-permanent military presence \u2013 an unofficial \u201coccupation force\u201d \u2013 in preserve \u201csecurity.\u201d This also assumes, for example, that the U.S. will not cut a deal with\u00a0Egypt<\/a>\u00a0to absorb the forced displacement of, say, one million Palestinians or those of the West Bank to\u00a0Jordon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Oxford English Dictionary<\/em>\u00a0defines<\/a>\u00a0a concentration camp as \u201ca place in which large numbers of people, especially political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate\u00a0facilities, sometimes to provide forced labor or to await mass execution.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the war plays out in Gaza, a campaign of expropriation of Palestinian lands and the shrinking of its people is occurring in the\u00a0West Bank and East Jerusalem.\u00a0This will help to further consolidate large sectors of the OPT into a concentration territory.\u00a0\u00a0Sadly, the concentration camp of old has morphed into the 21st<\/sup>\u00a0century, post-modern concentration territory.<\/p>\n

The post Gaza: What Is Victory?<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s now three months since Hamas\u2019s vicious attack on October 7th\u00a0and, sadly, there appears to be no end in sight. It was a well-planned attack that effectively provoked Israel\u2019s horrendous and ongoing assault on Gaza.\u00a0\u00a0As has been endlessly reported, around 1,200 Israelis, many of them young people attending a music concert. 240 others were taken More<\/a><\/p>\n

The post Gaza: What Is Victory?<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":670,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436458"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/670"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1436458"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1436459,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436458\/revisions\/1436459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1436458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1436458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1436458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}