Commentary
Permanent war: the Middle East according to Netanyahu
During the security cabinet meeting, the Israeli prime minister said he would continue to “promote Trump's plan” for “the voluntary departure of Gaza residents.” In short: conquest and ethnic cleansing.
When one day we finally see the Popemobile, gifted to the Palestinians by Bergoglio, enter Gaza, it might be the case that the Strip will no longer exist and the Middle East will once again be torn by war and chaos.
The plans for Israeli escalation are emerging on five fronts: Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Iran, the latter two accused of coordinating the rocket launch that managed to avoid Israeli defenses over Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport. Does anyone think Trump's “diplomacy” can stop the Netanyahu government? It is highly doubtful, given the record of the U.S. president and the U.S. governments that preceded him.
The Israeli plan for Gaza approved on Sunday night, which involves the recall of thousands of reservists, includes taking over the Strip and intensifying attacks against Hamas. During the security cabinet meeting, the Israeli prime minister said he would continue to “promote Trump's plan” for “the voluntary departure of Gaza residents.”
In short: conquest and ethnic cleansing. Palestinians will be driven out of the north and center and concentrated in the south of the Strip, which means worsening the humanitarian disaster already underway in what has become a living hell, where no aid has been coming in for over two months because of the Israeli blockade.
Gaza is on the brink of famine: “Not even a grain of wheat will enter there,” Finance Minister Smotrich said on April 7. He and this government do not care that using humanitarian aid as a weapon is a violation of international law. All this is not happening by accident, but is a plan strongly desired by the Israeli leadership that intends to drive Palestinians out of the Strip, dead or alive.
The humanitarian catastrophe on the Mediterranean shores is created on purpose to corner the international community and the Arab world, which will be forced at some point to do something faced with the images of starving Palestinians. But this is already an advanced stage of the crisis: first the Israelis plan to concentrate the population in refugee camps, called “islands,” where they will barely survive or slowly die off with no prospects for the future. We will stand by, and nothing will be left of the Gazawis but their bones: this is the endgame of Trump's “Gaza Riviera” plan, for those who still believe in his dangerous sideshow act.
Of course, all is not well for Netanyahu. The war, which began with the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023 and is ongoing on several fronts, is now the longest in the Jewish state's 80-year history, and an opposition movement with substantial popular participation is growing within Israeli society. To counter it, the premier is continuously ordering the mobilization of reservists: in his mind and in those of the far right figures in power, Israel must become a country in a state of permanent and effective mobilization. Have we reached the final stage of Zionism? A colonizing nation always up in arms but never secure, with a leadership that no longer even cares about the fate of its hostages. A message of death, not life.
To justify the permanent mobilization, new fronts are being opened. Among them, Syria is taking on an increasingly important role, with the deployment of troops on the ground who, according to the Jewish state, will be tasked with protecting the Druze after a series of violent incidents in the country. Some of the Druze have indeed turned to Israel after suffering attacks by radical Sunni groups, but others fear that Tel Aviv's involvement could drag Syria – and also Lebanon – toward the much-feared scenario of a partition of its territory. It is no coincidence that Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt just paid an unexpected visit to Damascus to meet with Syrian leader Al Jolani.
What is Israel’s strategy? To leverage ethnic-sectarian issues in order to reduce the Middle East to micro-entities that can be easily handled. Of course, things in Syria are not going exactly as Netanyahu would like – one need only think of the agreement between Erdogan and the Kurds and Turkey's own military presence. But the essential thing for Israel, and for the U.S., is continued destabilization in order to establish itself as a hegemonic power in the Middle East, avoiding any negotiations that might involve concessions on its part.
But even within the Israeli-American military-industrial complex, things don’t always go Netanyahu's way – at least on the surface. For now, Trump seems to want to curb a possible Israeli attack on Iran, as the latter can count on allies such as Moscow and Beijing, with whom the U.S. must also deal on the issues of Ukraine and tariffs. But Netanyahu is chomping at the bit: in his vision of escalation, he sees smoldering ruins throughout the Middle East, the ultimate demise of entire nations and their peoples. A war without end.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/guerra-permanente-il-medio-oriente-secondo-netanyahu on 2025-05-06