Iranian and Arab pundits, both radical and moderate (on state television), seem to agree that Israel will not win in Gaza. Arab loyalists to Tehran even claim they see signs of mass Jewish emigration from Israel. According to them, the entire land – from the river to the sea – would then become Palestine.
But although Israel has yet to achieve a definitive victory, trends suggest that the Jewish state is defeating its enemies.
Every Israeli “has a second nationality and has his bag ready,” Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said in Lebanon on Wednesday – citing the popular lie that there is no real Jewish people, just a collection of European settlers on Arab ones Country. “Turning back [Jewish] “Migration has begun, hundreds of thousands” have already left, he said. “If you are an Israeli with an American passport you go to America, with a British passport you go to England, with a French passport you go to France,” Nasrallah said. He added: “You Israelis only have this future, the land of Palestine from the sea to the river will only be for Palestinians.”
Not so fast. Israel has killed senior officers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Hamas and Hezbollah at such a pace that funerals and eulogies have deprived its enemies of the oxygen from public life.
“…while Israel cannot yet achieve a definitive victory, trends suggest that the Jewish state is defeating its enemies.”
Nasrallah made his remarks to mark the fourth anniversary of America's overthrow of IRGC top leader Qassem Soleimani. Nasrallah's speech came two weeks after Israel assassinated the IRGC's Syrian viceroy, Razi Mousavi, and six days after an Israeli airstrike reportedly killed 11 senior IRGC officers. In Gaza, Israel has eliminated at least a dozen senior Hamas leaders.
The day before Nasrallah's speech, Israel had surgically eliminated Hamas's number two, Saleh Al-Arouri, and six other Hamas leaders who were meeting in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold.
In addition, according to Nasrallah, since Hezbollah entered the war against Israel on October 8, the Jewish state has killed at least 150 fighters from the Radwan Forces, Hezbollah's “special forces.” The Lebanese Ministry of Health reported that fewer than 20 Lebanese non-combatants were killed in the ensuing fighting, a testament not only to Israel's surgical strike capabilities but also to its intelligence capabilities.
Iran's Islamist regime and its allied militias appear to understand that their conventional military power is no match for Israel's. Nasrallah justified his side's relative weakness by saying that without America, its military aid and the deployment of its feared aircraft carriers, Israel would have been finished.
With few resources left to respond to Israel's power, Iran and its allies began threatening “total war.” Nasrallah threatened to wipe out Gush Dan, the densely populated coastal strip around Tel Aviv, with his rockets.
However, Nasrallah's threats rang hollow when he blamed Israel for the escalation, signaling that he had no interest in it. Meanwhile, the leader of the Iran-led “Resistance Axis,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is said to have advised “strategic patience” to avoid a direct war with America. America's deterrence appears to be working.
Has Israel reaped the benefits of its military superiority in Gaza? Skeptics note that three months after the start of the war, the top Hamas leaders in Gaza, namely its leader Yahya Sinwar and his brother Muhammad, as well as Muhammad Deif, remain at large. Hamas has continued to fire rockets at Israel, suggesting that the organization's command and control function is still functioning.
But if you use Hamas' rocket frequency as a benchmark, you can conclude that Hamas has been weakened. When you consider the number of Hamas tunnels in Gaza that Israel has found and destroyed and the territory it has wrested from the Palestinian militia, it is clear that the Israeli military has succeeded so far, but at the cost of 170 soldiers have fallen since the invasion began on October 30th. Hamas does not disclose its losses, but the IDF estimates it has killed over 8,000 fighters.
The Gaza war is not over yet, but the trends are unmistakable: Israel continues to undermine Hamas's capabilities, so much so that the Jewish state feels ready for another front – in the north with Hezbollah – if necessary. If current trends continue, Hamas will be too weak to launch attacks as its leaders lose hiding places, making them more vulnerable to being caught or likely seeking refuge abroad, perhaps with their counterparts in Qatar.
“Israeli unity [suffers] the loss of confidence in its political leadership, its military leadership… all of this leads to weakness, negligence, discord and internal strife,” Nasrallah said in July. “All the Israeli arrogance and tyranny [and yet] You can see today where this being is: where is his army? “Where does the future of this company go?” asked the Hezbollah boss. “Forgotten,” he concluded.
Nasrallah, and with him Iran's Khamenei and Hamas, have confused Israel's peacetime demobilization with weakness. Nasrallah and Khamenei have not learned the lesson of one of the most famous Arabic verses: “When you see the lion’s canines, do not assume that the lion is smiling.”
Israel appears to be on its way to defeating its enemies in another round of fighting. However, for its victory to be fruitful, the government must hand the reins from its generals to its diplomats, with the aim of finding Arab and Palestinian partners willing to forge peace and create prosperity in Gaza, rather than a stronghold of terrorism Once again.