For at least two months, perhaps into next year, the IDF will be buffeted by accusations of incredible cruelty and opacity.
Regardless of whether you think it’s fair (I don’t) and justified (it’s not), Israel’s reputation in the West has taken a beating over the last several weeks. In Israel, the transition from the triumphalism that followed the staggering successes accompanying Operation Rising Lion to apprehensive uncertainty as the long war in Gaza plods along amid deteriorating global patience for it must be disorienting. But even as Israel’s Sunni neighbors join calls for Hamas to lay down its arms and abandon the Gaza Strip, Israel’s Western partners are pressuring Jerusalem into accepting the distasteful prospect that Hamas will survive the war it started on October 7, 2023.
Israel’s security cabinet rejects that premise. This week, the body approved a plan that would see Israel briefly take de facto control of much of the Gaza Strip, beginning with densely populated Gaza City. Benjamin Netanyahu, like most Israelis, does not want to return to the status quo ante 2005, prior to the bitter withdrawal of all Israelis, including the dead and buried, from Gaza. He’s promised to transfer the territory to “Arab forces that will govern it properly.” Eventually, at least. For now, the plan will compel all Gaza City residents to evacuate before October 7 of this year, when they will be redirected toward the Mawasi humanitarian zone in Gaza’s south.
Amid the evacuation, “Israel will significantly expand the humanitarian aid effort at the beginning of the first phase,” CNN reported. But humanitarian aid and services will be located outside the city as a means of “encouraging Palestinians to evacuate.” And the United States will reportedly contribute to this effort. “US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee told Bloomberg News Wednesday that there was a push to quickly add 12 aid sites to the four currently operated by the Israel- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation,” the Times of Israel reported:
The expansion would be funded by approximately $1 billion in donations from the US and other countries, Channel 12 said, adding that the goal would be to enable Gazans to access aid that bypasses Hamas while Gaza City falls under Israeli control.
In phase two, Israel will launch a final military assault on Hamas’s remaining redoubts. The whole plan is “expected to take up to five months.”
It is a plan, but plans tend to fall apart upon first contact with the enemy. Jerusalem should expect that the international press will do its utmost to reinforce the narrative promulgated by Israel’s critics, that it is engaged in “ethnic cleansing” in Gaza. The Netanyahu government must know by now that Israel could host a star-studded telethon for Gaza, and it would still never find an audience in legacy media outlets. For at least two months, perhaps into next year, the IDF will be buffeted by accusations of incredible cruelty and opacity (Israel’s transparent civilian mechanisms that investigate accusations of battlefield impropriety, notwithstanding). Millions will believe it. They want to believe it. And the ranks of the credulous seem to be growing by the day.
Israel is in an incredibly difficult position. The existence of the Jewish state and the preservation of its people against the genocidal terrorist sects on its borders demand that Hamas be destroyed, not only to ensure that it is never again capable of an operation like October 7 but to convey to other would-be genocidaires that this is the fate that awaits you should you attempt to follow in Hamas’s footsteps. However, Israel must also cultivate goodwill in the West — particularly in America. Even if the response is wholly unjustified, Israel’s pursuit of its security objectives is contributing to the Democratic Party’s rapid evolution into an anti-Israel party. That must worry the Netanyahu government; Democrats will not be out of power forever.