The Gaza War seems finally to be reaching its climax. On one side, Israel’s opponents are accusing it of genocide and of trying to starve the Palestinians into surrender and Britain, France, and Canada are recognizing the completely discredited Palestine Authority as a sovereign government of “Palestine.” On the other, Israel is finally assaulting the citadel of its terrorist opposition, the intense complex of tunnels and redoubts at the centre of the City of Gaza. There will obviously be a profound inquiry in Israel into every aspect of this war, once it is over, and particularly into why Israel was taken by surprise as it was, and why it has taken until now for the Israeli Defense Forces finally to assault the ultimate strong point of Hamas. The implicit assumption of most of Israel’s critics that the October 7 incident was merely another skirmish in a long-standing border dispute between the Jews and Arabs towards an eventual demarcation between a Jewish and an Arab state is bunk. This was not just another border incident, following Britain’s cavalier promise of 1917 of making Palestine a homeland for the Jews without compromising the rights of the Arabs.