Palestine Tet – 50 – The American-Israeli Quagmire: all is not well either for Washington or Israel in Gaza or the Middle East.

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I know, the headline sounds strange: both Israel and the United States are losing the war in Gaza against Hamas? Strange as it sounds, it’s accurate.

When Lloyd Austin speaks about a strategic defeat, and saying that Israel might suffer that strategic defeat, yes, he’s probably right actually in talking about Israel, but the strategic defeat that Lloyd Austin is actually worried about is a strategic defeat for the United States and for this administration especially, a strategic defeat for itself, an electoral defeat in the United States and a larger geo-political defeat in the Middle East.

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1.

I know, given the reports in the U.S. media,the headline sounds strange: both Israel and the United States are losing the war in Gaza against Hamas? Strange as it sounds, it’s accurate.

Let me try to explain.

Here is Israel is literally pounding Gaza to  smithereens with U.S. weapons, U.S political covering for Israel in the United Nations Security Council, US funding. Virtually all of Gaza has been turned into a wasteland; No food, medicine, energy (or hardly any) going into the area; 1,2oo,000 of the 2,300,000 Gaza residents made refugees, 20,000+ deaths the majority of them women and children and who knows how many more probably going to die of exposure, starvation, lack of medical care.

The Gaza health ministry said 18,205 people had now been killed and 49,645 wounded in Gaza in just over two months of warfare – hundreds since the United States vetoed a proposal for a ceasefire at the United Nations Security Council on Friday. Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes and residents say it is impossible to find refuge or food in the densely populated coastal enclave. Many, probably thousands, maybe more, will soon starve to death.

How could Israel (and the United States) possibly be losing?

You’d think – given such a report that Israel is “winning” the war but the reality is far different; both Israel and the United States are in a pickle, a quagmire in the making. As with so many other recent cases. They have no Plan B and they are stuck in the Gaza sands. They can’t withdraw: Israeli public opinion and much of American p.r. doesn’t permit it. At the same time the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) can’t move forward much either. Any further escalation could bring Hezbollah even more into the war than it already is.

Israeli can slaughter civilians at will – and is doing just that – but militarily the Gaza operation is not going well. Hamas and other guerilla groups remain strong. Their fighters and infrastructure remain in tact. Israel’s plans to “annihilate”, to “totally destroy” the guerilla movement through “surgical strikes” are not going well. Civilian casualties resulting from Israeli missile attacks are soaring, but Hamas military capabilities remain strong. The destruction of so much infrastructure through missile attacks has created an excellent terrain for Hamas guerillas to operate. The latter are taking out many more Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles than the Israeli media is admitting. Same goes for IDF military casualties which are seriously under-reported.

Israel has tried to make considerable public relations hay out of the capture of some Palestinian Gazans which they have stripped nude and paraded before the world. But a day later it turns out that only 10-15% of them are Hamas fighters, the rest civilians.

But the bottom line is that with the fighting now going into its third month, the much vaunted IDF has been unable to defeat what amounts to a ramshackle army of guerillas who are giving Tel Aviv a bloody nose. The intense pressure which is Israel is placing on Hamas militarily might have triggered one of the biggest humanitarian disasters in modern times, but destroying – even weakening Hamas – is not working. Nor are attempts to pressure Hezbollah in the north.

No matter what Israel is reporting, Hamas is hitting the IDF left, right and center. A few days ago a Hamas missile strike from Gaza closed Ben Gurion Airport with international flights temporarily canceled.

The war has caused significant damage to Israel’s economy; there are questions as to just how long it can remain on the military offensive economically. Israel’s internal refugee problem, which grows daily, has generally been underreported in the Western media. It grows daily with hundreds of thousands displaced from Gaza border towns in the southwest and Lebanon border towns in the north. These Israeli refugees are living in tents; they are adamant about not returning to their homes until the security situation stabilizes, signs of which are non-existent.

Furthermore Israel and the United States have lost the public relations war. Too much blood in the soil: too many dead and wounded women and children blown to pieces before the eyes of the world. Israel might claim it is targeting Hamas but overwhelmingly its victims are Palestinian civilians, a large portion of which are women and children. Israeli plans for population expulsion, Nakba II as it has been claimed, have been thoroughly exposed as has the frequent cowardice and militarily unpreparedness of so many IDF fighters.

But it is overwhelmingly the utter cruelty and savagery of the Israeli Gaza bombardments which has shocked the world and which try as they might, neither Israel nor the United States can downplay or keep hidden. Israel’s claim that it is engaging in a defensive operation in Gaza convinces no one (or hardly anyone but its more hardcore supporters). It finds itself increasingly isolated as never before among the Global South; Russia and China’s criticisms of Israeli behavior are becoming increasing sharp. Israeli ability to point a finger of responsibility on Iran is falling flat (outside a small circle of neocons and Zionist supporters in Washington).

And Washington is becoming increasingly nervous about the long term repercussions to its influence in the Middle East and beyond as the world, correctly it must be noted, sees the martyrdom of Gaza as not merely an Israeli plan but as a U.S.-Israeli plan. There are worries being expressed that as a result of its all out support for Israel that U.S. influence in the Middle East has been shattered for decades as its erstwhile allies – the Saudis, the Egyptians, the U.A.E. turn look increasingly eastward for economic and political support. Chinese, Russian and Iranian influence grow by the day.

2.

Yes, the Biden Administration is becoming increasingly dismayed about how Israel’s war on Gaza is going, a nervosity publicly expressed recently by Secretary of Defense (and former Raytheon board member, Lloyd Austin) who a few days ago suggested that if Israel  continues fighting the  Gaza war in the brutal manner it has, especially with regards to the death of civilians in Gaza, then Israel is heading towards strategic defeat.

While once again giving Israel the green light to pursue its murderous war against Gaza – which furthers U.S. geopolitical goals, Washington wants to see this Gaza war somehow wound up or slowed down to a snail’s pace. Having encouraged Israel, actually given it a green light to attack, now Washington finds itself incapable of ending the Israeli offensive, or even slowing it down.

Netanyahu on the other hand wants this military campaign to continue (and has the support of his cabinet to this end). It’s important for him if only to insure his own political survival as he risks facing all kinds of prosecutions if or when he steps down.

U.S. and Israel interests are heading in somewhat different directions, and seriously so. The  conflict between the Administration and the Israeli government is now intensified.

Although Lloyd Austin is correct to suggest that Israel is heading towards strategic defeat, he leaves out an even bigger part of the equation: the Biden Administration, itself is looking at a political disaster.  The President’s ratings of the United States are still slipping, in part as a result of repeated foreign policy disasters (Afghanistan, Ukraine and now Palestine).

The Biden Administration is  conscious that many people within their coalition that makes up the Democratic Party are becoming antagonistic and alienated by these events, by the horror of it all. Even in Britain the Labor Party’s position is now cracking and that they are becoming more critical of what Israel is doing; they are now talking about a cessation of hostilities.

When Lloyd Austin speaks about a strategic defeat, and saying that Israel might suffer that strategic defeat, yes, he’s probably right actually in talking about Israel, but the strategic defeat that Lloyd Austin is actually worried about is a strategic defeat for the United States and for this administration especially, a strategic defeat for itself, an electoral defeat in the United States and a larger geo-political defeat in the Middle East.

Also under-reported (for obvious reasons) – U.S. bases throughout the Middle East, in Syria and Iraq, are being hit by missile attacks. Little Yemen – at east that part of it controlled by Ansar Allah – has been able to threaten shipping to and fro the Suez Canal in the Red Sea causing a number of ships to divert their travel plans around Africa and hitting several ships with missile strikes. The U.S. embassy in Bagdad was recently hit. Washington fears that too strong a military response (either by Israel or itself)to these (admittedly pin prick) attacks on U.S. installations will trigger a regional war. They are probably right.

The Administration is now trying to find some way out of that. It’s proving very, very difficult for them as was with Afghanistan and Ukraine, they have no Plan B. Joe Biden’s embrace of Netanyahu on his recent hurried trip to Israel made it glaringly clear that the United States is going to back Israel all the way: its ability to be some kind of uninterested, neutral broker (always more illusionary than real) evaporated.

Its plans to regain its political momentum in the region are also in trouble. Plans to use the crisis for attacking Iran are shrinking; moves to neutralize Hezbollah in Lebanon, its demented political wet dream to bring down the Assad government in Syria, break the recently formed Iranian – Saudi rapproachment – all these are going up in smoke.

All of this is playing out domestically as the Biden Administration looks worrying at opinion polls. The president is losing support raising questions as to his re-electability. The spectre of a Donald Trump second electoral victory haunts them.