December 18, 2024
Nasser Kandil
• Benjamin Netanyahu seeks a media spectacle in the Syrian arena alongside the strategic purposes served by Israeli aggression. These aggressions aim to expand territorial ambitions and dismantle the Syrian army’s professional capabilities, reducing it to a collection of armed factions. This would facilitate rebuilding the army within the Western framework, severing its ties to Eastern alliances. Consequently, the Syrian army, like others shaped by Western influence in the region, would be oriented solely toward internal control rather than defending against Israeli aggression. Netanyahu’s media maneuvers also serve to divert attention from the reality that the wars in Gaza and Lebanon are ending without eliminating the resistance.
• At the core of the occupying entity’s strategic mindset lies the existential threat posed by the resistance in Gaza and Lebanon. This threat does not stem from a concrete project to dismantle the Israeli entity – resistance movements in Gaza and Lebanon have neither held nor claimed a practical approach for such ambitions. Instead, the existential threat arises from the resistance forcing Israeli withdrawals from Lebanon and later Gaza, shattering the myth of invulnerability. “Israel” had marketed these withdrawals to its settlers as a strategic necessity to reduce friction and prevent attrition, claiming that the presence of armed resistance on its northern and southern borders could be managed through deterrence.
• However, “Israel’s” failure to defeat the Lebanese resistance during the 2006 war, and its repeated failures in Gaza, exposed the limits of its deterrence theory. To maintain internal stability, Israeli narratives emphasised that these military challenges could be contained – whether by burdening Gaza’s resistance with governance responsibilities or exploiting sectarian conflicts in Lebanon. Yet, al-Aqsa Flood operation and the support from Lebanon’s resistance shattered this narrative. They forced Israel to confront the reality that it must either wage a war capable of eliminating these forces or accept coexistence with armed resistance on its northern and southern borders. This resistance retains the ability to launch attacks on 1948-occupied territories, shake settlers’ existential security, trigger mass displacement, expose “Israel’s” weak deterrence, and undermine the credibility of its army. This is the very essence of an existential threat.
• “Israel” labelled its wars on Gaza and Lebanon as existential with full awareness of their stakes. Despite Netanyahu’s attempts to highlight the destruction inflicted on resistance capabilities and leadership in both arenas, he cannot claim to have ended the resistance in Lebanon under the ceasefire agreement. Likewise, no matter the terms of any Gaza agreement, he cannot assert the eradication of Gaza’s resistance. This brings “Israel” back to square one: coexistence with armed resistance capable of launching attacks at any moment based on its calculations, further eroding “Israel’s” deterrence, displacing settlers, and exposing the fragility of its military.
• “Israel’s” dilemma lies in understanding the roots of its failure. The core issue is the loss of spirit within its army – a terminal condition reflective of the very existential crisis it faces. This condition is a symptom of decline and an indicator of looming collapse. Netanyahu also knows that the opportunities exploited in the recent Gaza and Lebanon wars are unlikely to present themselves again. Globally, “Israel’s” reputation has suffered irreparable damage, particularly among Western populations. As Foreign Affairs predicted, what awaits “Israel” after these wars is the collapse of the far-right religious project – whether through the declaration of a separatist government in the West Bank, civil war, or a gradual economic and demographic decline that renders it a failed state.
Moreover, “Israel’s” celebrations over events in Syria are futile, as the resistance in Gaza and Lebanon has developed the intellectual and technical capacity for self-reliance, particularly in the production of small, effective weapons that require no supply lines. These include drones, Hezbollah’s modified Kornet missiles, Gaza’s Shawaz explosives, Ghaul sniper rifles, and Yassin anti-tank grenades – all of which have the potential to shift the course of any future war.
