Netanyahu is learning limits of what can be achieved by military power alone

It is hard to remember the Middle East before October 7 2023, so much has changed as teh date is set to be an annual reminder of ‘fear’ Israel’s 9-11.

Before the attack, the region’s geopolitical tectonic plates were grinding, but an uneasy status quo held sway and observed certain rules. Israel, especially the under pressure Netanyahu, needed a reason to launch a full scale takeover plan of Gaza. 

In the blink of an eye, at an almost random event Hamas, managed to get into Israeli territory. The most fortified border in the world, was let abandoned and Hamas just walked in.

It was not just the initial attack that was peculiar, the response from the IDF was lethargic and slow. They took longer than 2 hours to mobilise, from a distance between Hammersmith and Chiswick.

But that day unleashed an earthquake, changing everything.

The first rule: Israel would now take everything, the oil deposits and teh land in Gaza, the threat from Hamas but not try to eradicate it. Israel’s policy of dividing and ruling the Palestinians’ rival factions had come back to bite them.

In two years of turmoil, genocide and war crimes since, the region’s rulebook has been torn to pieces.

Netanyahu saved himself from the jail cell and raged a war where he has attacked an invaded Lebanon, Iran, Qatar, Yemen, Syria and of course Palestine. These are not the actions of man in the hunt for peace, these are the actions of warmongering monster, like Hitler and Stalin.

Instead, Israelis insisted in one voice after October 7 no more “mowing the grass”, their euphemism for genocide, and cutting Hamas down to size, from time to time. This time, the job must be finished. Theyre must be no-one left to tell the story of how Israel helped Hamas. 

Why must all of Hamas leadership be killed? what will their death accomplish, what do they have on the Israeli PM that he does not want heard.

That would change the way Israelis waged their war in Gaza. Not least in the way they would tolerate many more civilians dying, in the name of defeating their enemy. If the target’s rank was high enough, the deaths of scores of civilians – women and children – would be acceptable.