[News] Failed experiment: Three reasons why Israel fears a major war on Gaza

[Anti-Imperialist News]

middleeastmonitor.com
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20230206-failed-experiment-three-reasons-why-israel-fears-a-major-war-on-gaza/>
Failed experiment: Three reasons why Israel fears a major war on Gaza
Dr Ramzy Barou - February 6, 2023
------------------------------
[image: image.png]

Though Israel's past wars on Gaza have often been justified by Tel Aviv as
a response to Palestinian rockets or, generally, as acts of self-defence,
the truth is different. Historically, Israel's relationship with Gaza has
been defined by Tel Aviv's need to create distractions from its own
fractious politics, to flex its muscles against its regional enemies and to
test its new weapons technology.

Though the Occupied West Bank – in fact, other Arab countries, too – has
been used as a testing ground for Israel's war machine, no other place has
allowed Israel to sustain its weapon experimentation for as long as Gaza,
making
<https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-israel-ranked-as-worlds-10th-biggest-arms-exporter-1001407631#:~:text=Israel%20exported%202.4%25%20of%20the,Institute%20(SIPRI)%20in%20Sweden.>
Israel, as of 2022, the world's tenth largest weapons exporter.

There is a reason why Gaza is ideal for such grand, albeit tragic
experiments.

Gaza is a perfect place for gathering information once new weapons have
been deployed and used on the battlefield. The Strip is home to two million
Palestinians who live squalid lives
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/01/01/un-predicted-gaza-would-be-uninhabitable-by-heres-what-that-actually-means/>
with virtually no clean water and little food, all of them confined within
365 km² (approx. 181 mi²). In fact, due to Israel's so-called safety belts,
much of Gaza's arable lands which border Israel are off limits. Farmers are
often shot <https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/132792> by Israeli
snipers, almost at the same frequency as Gaza's fishermen are also targeted
<https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/132709#:~:text=GAZA%2C%20Sunday%2C%20January%208%2C,shore%2C%20according%20to%20local%20sources.>,
should they dare venture beyond the three nautical miles allocated to them
by the Israeli navy.

"The Lab", an Israeli award-winning documentary released
<https://www.gumfilms.com/projects/lab> in 2013, discussed in painful
detail how Israel has turned millions of Palestinians into actual human
laboratories for testing new weapons. Gaza, even before, but especially
since then, has been the main testing ground for these weapons.

Gaza has been 'the lab' for Israeli political experimentations as well.

*OPINION: The world has forgotten the Palestinian prisoners
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20230206-the-world-has-forgotten-the-palestinian-prisoners/>*

When, from December 2008 to January 2009, then-Israel's Acting Prime
Minister Tzipi Livni decided
<https://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/12session/A-HRC-12-48.pdf>
to, in her own words, "go wild" by unleashing one of the deadliest wars on
Gaza, the Israeli politician was hoping that her military adventure would
help solidify support for her party at the Knesset.

Livni, at the time, was the head of Kadima, which was established in 2005
by former leader of the Likud, Ariel Sharon. As Sharon's successor, Livni
wanted to prove her own worth as a strong politician capable of teaching
Palestinians a lesson.

Though her experiment then won her some support in the February 2009
elections, it backfired badly following the November 2012 war, where Kadima
was nearly destroyed
<https://www.haaretz.com/2013-01-24/ty-article/.premium/final-results-right-has-slim-majority/0000017f-f428-dc28-a17f-fc3f3c380000>
in the January 2013 elections. Eventually, Kadima vanished altogether from
Israel's political map.

This was not the first, nor the last time that Israeli politicians have
attempted to use Gaza as a way to distract from their own political woes,
or to demonstrate, through killing Palestinians, their qualifications as
protectors of Israel.

Yet, no one has perfected the use of violence to score political points as
much as Israel's current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Returning as
the head of Israel's most extremist government in history, Netanyahu is
keen to stay in power, especially since his rightwing coalition has more
comfortable support margins in the Knesset than any of Israel's five
governments in the last three years.

With a rightwing, pro-war constituency that is far more interested in
illegal settlement expansion and 'security' than economic growth or
socio-economic equality, Netanyahu should, at least technically, be in a
stronger position to launch another war on Gaza. But why is he hesitating?

On 1 February, a Palestinian group fired
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/02/israel-carries-out-air-strikes-on-gaza-strip>
a rocket toward southern Israel, prompting an Israeli response that was
intentionally limited.

According to Palestinian groups in the besieged Strip, the rocket was fired
as part of the ongoing armed rebellion by West Bank Palestinians. It was
meant to illustrate the political unity between Gaza, Jerusalem and the
West Bank.

The West Bank is living its darkest days. 35 Palestinians were killed
<https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/133125> by the Israeli army in
January alone, ten of whom perished
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/26/israeli-raid-kills-three-palestinians-in-jenin-fighting>
in Jenin in a single Israeli raid. A Palestinian, acting alone, responded by
killing
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/27/gunman-wounds-at-least-5-people-in-east-jerusalem-attack>
seven Jewish settlers in Occupied East Jerusalem, the perfect spark of what
is usually a massive Israeli response.

But that response has been confined, thus far, to the demolition
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/29/israel-prepares-to-demolish-family-home-of-palestinian-gunman>
of homes, arrest
<https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230128-new-gun-attack-in-east-jerusalem-after-synagogue-mass-shooting>
and torture of the attacker's family members, military sieges
<https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/133158> on various Palestinian towns
and hundreds of individual assaults by Jewish settlers on Palestinians.

An all-out Israeli war, especially in Gaza, has not yet actualised. But why?

[image: When the International community and the Palestinian politics are
abandoning Gaza, but it will rise up! - Cartoon [Sabaaneh/Middle East
Monitor]]

When the International community and the Palestinian politics are
abandoning Gaza, but it will rise up! – Cartoon [Sabaaneh/Middle East
Monitor]

First, the political risks of attacking Gaza through a long war, for now,
outweigh the benefits. Though Netanyahu's coalition is relatively secure,
the expectations of the Prime Minister's extremist allies are very high. A
war with an indecisive outcome could be considered a victory for
Palestinians, a notion that could alone break down the coalition. Though
Netanyahu could launch war as a last resort, he has no need for such a
risky option at the moment.

Second, the Palestinian Resistance is stronger than ever. On 26 January,
Hamas declared
<https://www.palestinechronicle.com/fighting-back-gaza-unleashes-new-weapon-in-fight-against-israel-video/>
that it has used surface-to-air missiles to repel an Israeli air raid on
Gaza. Though the Gaza group's military arsenal is largely rudimentary, much
of it homemade, it is far more advanced and sophisticated compared to
weapons used during Israel's so-called "Operation Cast Lead" in 2008.

*READ: 13 Palestinians injured in Israeli military raid in Jericho
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20230205-13-palestinians-injured-in-israeli-military-raid-in-jericho/>*

Finally, Israel's munitions reserve must be at its lowest point in a long
time. Now that the US, Israel's largest weapons supplier, has tapped into
its strategic weapons reserve – due to the Russia-Ukraine war – Washington
will not be able to replenish the Israeli arsenal with constant supplies of
munitions the same way the Obama Administration did during the 2014 war.
Even more alarming for the Israeli military, the New York Times revealed
<https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/17/us/politics/ukraine-israel-weapons.html>
in January that "the Pentagon is tapping into a vast but little-known
stockpile of American ammunition in Israel to help meet Ukraine's dire need
for artillery shells …"

Though Israeli wars on Gaza are much riskier nowadays compared to the past,
a cornered and embattled Netanyahu can still resort to such a scenario if
he feels that his leadership is in peril. Indeed, the Israeli leader did so
in May 2021. Even then, he still could not save himself or his government
from a humiliating defeat.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not
necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
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