By Michael Pröbsting on April 18, 2024
One of the leading Israeli media confesses that they are losing the war, despite military superiority and genocide.
A few days ago, Haaretz – one of Israel’s most influential Israeli newspapers – published an extraordinary article. Under the revealing title “Saying what cannot be said: Israel has been defeated, a total defeat”, the author presents an absolutely pessimistic picture of Israel’s war in Gaza and its overall situation. As this is not an “opinion piece” but written by the newspaper’s “Political Correspondent”, it is fair to say that this paper represents the viewpoint of Haaretz.
Let us first reproduce the most important parts of this remarkable article.
“We have lost. The truth must be told. The inability to admit it sums up all that needs to be known about Israel’s individual and mass psychology. There is a clear, clear and predictable reality that we should begin to probe, process, understand and draw conclusions from for the future. It is no fun to admit that we have lost, so we lie to ourselves.
[…] We can’t say it, but we have lost. People have a tendency to believe for the best and be optimistic, hoping that tomorrow everything will be fine, that we will be in a process that will be more successful in the end. That is the most fundamental flaw in human thinking: the notion that the direction we are going is good, that we simply have to get there now, that in a little more time, with a little more effort, the hostages will be returned. Hamas will surrender and Yahya Sinwar will be killed. After all, we are the good guys and good will triumph.
It is the same mentality that leads to the notion that “the Iranian regime will soon implode” and other notions that have more to do with Hollywood scripts than with life itself. They are not the truth and relate to something that is uncomfortable. After all, it is uncomfortable to tell the truth to the public.
[…] No cabinet minister will restore our sense of personal security. Every Iranian threat will make us tremble. Our international standing suffered a severe blow. The weakness of our leadership was revealed to the outside world. For years we managed to fool them into believing that we were a strong country, a wise people and a powerful army. In reality, we are a village with an air force, and that is on condition that they wake up in time.
[…] Rafah is the latest bluff the spokesmen are plotting to fool us into thinking that victory is only minutes away. By the time they enter Rafah, the real event will have lost its significance. There may be an incursion, perhaps a small one, sometime, say in May. After that, they will peddle the next lie, that all we have to do is ____ (fill in the blank), and victory will be on the way. The reality is that the war aims will not be achieved. Hamas will not be eradicated. The hostages will not be returned through military pressure, and security will not be restored.
The more the spokesmen shout that “we are winning,” the clearer it is that we are losing. Lying is their trade. We need to get used to that. Life is less secure than it was before October 7. The beating we took will hurt for years. The international ostracism will not go away. And, of course, the dead will not return. Neither will many of the hostages. For some of us, life will return, with the petrifying fear of an imminent repetition. And for some of us, life will not get back on track. Those people will walk among us like the living dead. That’s what we voted for. That’s the way it is. We need to get used to the sad reality of our homeland.”
Basically, the article acknowledges that Israel has lost the war. Of course, Israel’s armies have not been eradicated. But in a war between the world’s fourth strongest official army against the guerrilla forces of the Palestinian resistance in the tiny enclave of Gaza (population 2.3 million), the standards for success are different.
It is true that Israel has “succeeded” in committing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza, massacring tens of thousands of people, destroying most of the homes and displacing most of the population. But despite all these horrible war crimes and despite the fact that Israel is waging the longest war in its history, it has not been able to defeat the heroic Palestinians!
In fact, Israel’s all-powerful army – with total superiority in air, sea and land, with artificial intelligence-driven killer programs, the latest missiles and bombs, and with unlimited financial, political and military support from US imperialism – failed to conquer the strip, failed to defeat the resistance forces and failed to bring back their hostages. What a remarkable achievement for the resistance forces, as my comrade Yossi Schwartz, an anti-Zionist Jew in Israel and a Trotskyist for six decades, pointed out some time ago.
Not only this: never before has Israel been so isolated in international politics, it has become a country hated and despised by the masses of people all over the world. The genocidal war of the Zionists has provoked an unprecedented pro-Palestine solidarity movement that continues to mobilize relentlessly against the Apartheid and Terror State. Several trade unions have already taken active boycott actions against military and economic supplies to Israel.
Under pressure from the masses, an increasing number of bourgeois governments feel compelled to criticize and distance themselves from the Zionist entity. The same pressure has pushed the ICJ to open an investigation into Israel’s genocide in Gaza and even the UN Security Council felt obliged to vote in favor of a cease-fire, against the furious resistance of Israel and its US masters.
This is not to deny all the difficulties and dangers ahead, not at all, as the murderers will continue to kill and the traitors will continue to betray. Still, it is fantastic to see the heroic Palestinian people inflict a political defeat on the Zionist state!
Unity – Struggle – Victory
Source: Cuba en Resumen