January 17, 2025
Nasser Kandil
• Strategic trajectories for entities, states, and nations are not shaped by the surface-level rapid events, especially in times of war. Instead, they settle deep within the ocean, beneath the waves, laying the groundwork for transformations in tides, gravitational rhythms, and eventually leading to earthquakes, volcanoes, or tsunamis. While decision-makers may delude themselves into thinking they can escape catastrophe with cleverness, history shows it spares no regard for tricksters and only plays with the truly wise. What is unfolding in Palestine and the region at the conclusion of the Gaza war – and what is yet to unfold – is a testament to these profound strategic shifts.
• All of the occupying entity’s wars in the region, regardless of their scale or the victories or setbacks they produce, remain secondary in the broader context of its future. Palestine is the epicenter, its wars the original and existential struggle – transcending mere strategy. Amid the confusion caused by political dust and media fog regarding Israeli failures in Lebanon and Yemen, Gaza emerges victorious, delivering a decisive blow to those who believed they could win through incremental gains.
Palestine, as the geography where the entity’s future is decided existentially, is also the front from which all other wars have branched under the banner of supporting its defense. It is here, alone, that the Americans, Israelis, and NATO leaders declared at the war’s onset their goal to uproot the resistance and eliminate Hamas. Despite subsequent retreats from this rhetoric by many, Washington and Tel Aviv maintained it as the standard for victory. Today, by all measures, both Americans and Israelis admit failure – not merely the absence of decisive victory, as they claim in Lebanon, but outright failure in achieving their strategic goals.
• This strategic failure to eradicate the Gaza resistance forces a reevaluation of the concept of Israeli national security in the aftermath of the Al-Aqsa Flood. The prevailing consensus is that the coexistence of a stable entity with an existential sense of security alongside armed resistance in the south or north is impossible. After reconciling with the failure to achieve this goal in the north – hidden under the guise of the buffer zone south of the Litani River enforced by the Lebanese Army and UNIFIL – the greater failure in Gaza has reintroduced the existential question posed since the Al-Aqsa Flood.
• The current divisions within the entity, and their potential expansion, are manifestations of this existential failure. As Foreign Affairs predicted, the end of the Gaza war without a decisive victory leaves the entity facing three post-war scenarios: The first is the division of the entity into two governments, with settlers declaring an independent government. The second a unified entity descending into civil war between settlers and urban populations, backed by the entity’s institutions. The third is a “Somalisation” scenario of economic collapse, mass reverse migration, and the emergence of a failed state resembling a banana republic at the bottom of the global hierarchy.
• In 2010, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned at an AIPAC gathering of the bleak future awaiting Israel. She pointed out that the entity could not simultaneously remain Jewish and democratic while controlling all of historic Palestine between the river and the sea. The demographic balance does not favour Jewish dominance. Granting Palestinians voting rights would strip the state of its Jewish identity, while insisting on its Jewishness would eliminate its democratic character. Attempts to shift this balance through immigration have failed, and the entity cannot outpace Arab population growth. Coupled with the growing prominence of missile warfare, the possibility of achieving decisive victories has become increasingly elusive. That bleak future now looms closer.
• With the entity’s failure across the Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen fronts, the notions of “Greater Israel”, “Mighty Israel”, and “Glorious Israel” have collapsed. What remains is an open door to a reality the entity’s leaders are not yet prepared to accept: Lesser Israel. The current struggle among the entity’s patrons centers on producing leaders willing to accept this under the guise of a two-state solution, while broader conflicts fuel scenarios aligning with the forewarnings of Foreign Affairs – all signs of a fading empire.
