January 20, 2025
Nasser Kandil
Hamas acted wisely by deploying thousands of its fighters across the Gaza Strip, showcasing its strength and presence. This display forced those promoting the narrative that former U.S. President Donald Trump was the architect of victory to reconcile the stark contrast between the images coming out of Gaza and Trump’s singular public intervention in the conflict. During that intervention, Trump threatened Hamas with hellfire unless it released its captives before his return to the White House.
It is crucial to recall that the brutal war, which devastated Gaza and claimed the lives of tens of thousands of women and children, represents the one issue where the outgoing Biden administration and the incoming Trump administration find common ground. The primary objective of this war was to solidify the occupation of Gaza, while the secondary aim sought to displace its population – at least partially, according to the so-called “generals’ plan” for northern Gaza. These objectives enjoyed bipartisan consensus, endorsed by both presidents, the Pentagon, the State Department, intelligence agencies, and national security teams on both sides of the U.S. political divide.
Yet, these plans failed. Over the months following Trump’s election, the strategy faltered repeatedly, despite an unrelenting stream of American support in the form of weapons, ammunition, funding, and diplomatic and legal cover. Trump, after all, had criticised the Biden administration for withholding certain military supplies from Benjamin Netanyahu’s government – supplies he believed would have secured a decisive victory. Trump’s vision also hinged on the belief that “Israel”, geographically small, needed to expand, and he even advocated for punitive measures against International Criminal Court judges who dared to issue arrest warrants for the occupying entity’s prime minister and former defense minister.
“Israel” lost the war because the Palestinian people endured the onslaught of killing, starvation, and destruction. The resistance adapted to the realities of the occupation, reorganised, rebuilt its strength, and launched a protracted war of attrition against the occupying army. Over several months, this campaign inflicted approximately 200 fatalities among officers and soldiers. During this time, the entity’s leaders wagered on the resistance retreating and conceding to two outcomes: the displacement of northern Gaza’s population and its conversion into a security and settlement buffer zone, and the occupation’s continued presence at Netzarim Crossing and the Philadelphi Route.
However, the resistance proved resilient, as Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged, rebuilding its capacity and recruiting thousands to replace its losses. It has now become an unyielding force, impervious to defeat. The U.S., it seems, has run out of tools to reverse the tide of war. As experts within the occupying entity have admitted, displacement is unachievable, and occupation forces are unsustainable. Military leaders concurred that defeat is inevitable and unavoidable.
President Trump’s role in the Gaza war mirrors President Biden’s actions in Afghanistan – both distinctly American wars. Each leader recognised that prolonging these conflicts would yield nothing but mounting human and material losses. Just as Biden chose to end the Afghanistan war, Trump decided to bring the Gaza war to a close. The rationale was identical: there was no hope in persisting, only the certainty of further losses.
The true victor over the U.S. and its Israeli partner was the Palestinian people in Gaza, through their resilience and resistance. The scenes from Gaza tell the unvarnished truth: the resistance triumphed.
Biden admitted that even 20 more years in Afghanistan would not have altered the outcome, only increased the scale of losses. Similarly, experts from the occupying entity acknowledged their army had reached a breaking point in Gaza and needed American intervention to prevent collapse and pressure Netanyahu into ending the war. It was at this juncture that deep U.S.-Israeli interests converged, prompting Trump to tell Netanyahu: the time has come to end this unwinnable war, as its costs now far outweigh any potential gains.
The resistance emerged victorious, and Trump sought to distance his administration from the burden of defeat.
