Israel nourishes its internal cohesion with the blood of the Palestinians
Dr. Abdullah bin Musa Al Tayer
No one tells them (Israeli soldiers) the depressing truth: “War is not a means to an end. War is the goal. Why? Because controlling a state in a state of war is much, much easier. During it, everything is very sacred. forbidden. secret. (not now). (Only when you’re done). But it won’t end, forever. War is our life. We don’t exist without it. With God’s help – forever we will eat bayonets, forever we will feed bayonets, and forever we will sell bayonets to everyone who wants them. Thus wrote B. Michael in the Arabic version of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. He added: “Since its first day, the state (Israel) has been fighting one long war. Why? Because that’s what we like. Because if you take the war away from us, we will disintegrate into our components, immediately.”
Israel is not fighting in Gaza to defeat Hamas. It knows how to defeat it, and it is experienced in assassinating resistance leaders and liquidating them one by one wherever they are, and in friendly or enemy countries, printed or not. It is waging a futile war, one of whose direct goals is to destroy the place and the people, and force the Palestinians to seriously think about leaving, even though it knows the dangers of the Palestinians’ departure, and deprive Israel of the attractiveness of war that keeps it a cohesive state.
The direct logical explanation is that Israel will not repent of the war once the situation stabilizes for it in Ramallah and Gaza, because in order to survive, it is required to launch a war, but rather futile expansionist wars, to maintain its discordant components in a state of fear and forced solidarity.
A state may engage in war to achieve other indirect goals, including promoting internal cohesion. Historically, we have seen cases in which governments have resorted to external conflict as a way to distract from internal problems or to unite populations behind a common cause. However, this approach is risky, carries serious moral and political consequences, and usually does not survive for long, but only once its short-term goals are achieved. The war stops, but the Israeli situation is intractable. It has been in a state of war for eighty years, and it regurgitates its outdated sayings that it is surrounded by Arab enemies. Its politicians know very well that since Camp David in 1978, there has been no room for war between the Arabs and Israel, in addition to the tendency of the countries of the region to peace and stability, provided that the Palestinians have a share in that by establishing their independent state.
Israel, regardless of the ruling party, wants to maintain its belligerent behavior in order to divert attention from internal problems. In times of economic crises or political turmoil, governments attempt to shift the focus of public opinion towards an external enemy to relieve pressure on them. Creating a common enemy for all Israeli political spectrums unites the population against an external threat, and leads to strengthening the sense of national identity and eliminating internal divisions, in addition to demonstrating strength and determination, which may enhance its popularity and strengthen its legitimacy among different groups, especially chauvinist nationalists or extremist ideologues. The government of Benjamin Netanyahu has personal and doctrinal motives beyond just the traditional indirect gains of the war, because the opportunity for the far-right that makes up the government to remain in power is this ongoing war that destroyed Gaza and began to destroy Ramallah, in a war for the sake of war that serves personal goals, which keeps Likud and its allies are in power for as long as possible.
They do not think about the kidnappers, nor about the human and material losses, and they do not care about regional security and stability, because they are the only losers in it as a military and religious doctrine that governs to fulfill biblical prophecies that regional stability serves nothing. Israel is also different from all countries in the world, as it does not care about the erosion of its international reputation, nor about the loss of confidence in it by the international community and its organizations, and is not afraid of being isolated on the international scene. In its effort to employ war as a means to achieve internal political goals, it does not stop at serious moral questions about the legitimacy of such actions and their impact on innocent civilians.
Israeli newspaper headlines warn of an imminent danger to the region, and not just to the occupied Palestinian territories. There are Israelis writing and warning, and they understand each other’s mentality as no observer or analyst from outside the Hebrew state understands it. Their state fights wars for the sake of wars because it is the only way to protect the entity. It bribes its components by feeding the inside with the meat of Palestinians and Arabs in general. So that these enemy components remain together, after America took care of protecting it from foreign enemies.
