How Israel plans to continue the war without its army

As tanks retreat and the bombing slows, Israel extends its warfare done Palestinian militias turned against their own.

Israel’s warfare connected Gaza has not ended with the pullback of its tanks oregon the falling soundless of its warplanes. Tens of thousands person been killed, hundreds of thousands of homes reduced to rubble, and immoderate 2 cardinal radical driven from their homes. Yet the top information whitethorn inactive prevarication ahead, for Israel intends to proceed the warfare successful different form, 1 that nary longer requires its army.

In the vacuum near by Israel’s destruction, a grim caller world is unfolding. Armed militias are emerging, exploiting the illness of societal bid and the deepening suffering of the people. These groups, which erstwhile claimed the mantle of “resistance” to the occupier, are progressively turning their weapons inward. Rather than moving to assistance the defence of the homeland, they are seeking to enforce power done violence, turning Palestinian symptom into a currency for factional and governmental gain. Gaza, agelong nether siege, erstwhile lived successful suffocating isolation yet remained mostly harmless wrong its ain walls. People feared Israeli aerial attacks, not transgression gangs oregon the weapon of a neighbour. Today, fearfulness has multiplied, from the concern and from within.

The sidesplitting of writer Saleh Aljafarawi successful Gaza City’s Sabra neighbourhood stands arsenic 1 of the astir ominous signs of this caller phase. The 28-year-old reporter, who had agelong documented Israel’s atrocities successful Gaza and faced repeated decease threats for his work, was changeable dormant days aft the ceasefire, not by Israeli soldiers oregon drones but by Palestinian gunmen. His execution exposed the war’s continuation by different means: Israel has turned Palestinians against each other, spurring a rhythm of fearfulness and bloodshed that serves its concern adjacent successful the lack of its soldiers.

Israel’s logic present is clear. It has agelong relied connected an aged assemblage strategy: Divide and rule. A nine consumed by interior unit cannot basal agreed against its occupier. By cynically fostering the rise of militias, Israel achieves 2 aims: Weakening Palestinian unity and reducing the load connected its ain army. It avoids nonstop costs and planetary scrutiny, portion Gaza continues to bleed from within.

The equipped gangs present spreading fearfulness successful Gaza are not defenders of the homeland but Israel’s collaborators, serving its concern nether a antithetic name. They were empowered during the warfare to enactment wherever Israel could not ever enactment openly. Yet Israel’s past with Palestinians who service its interests is clear: It uses them, past discards them. Once their intent is fulfilled, collaborators are formed aside, disarmed oregon destroyed, near with neither honour nor protection. He who turns his weapon connected his ain radical whitethorn deliberation himself powerful, but his destiny is ever the same: Rejection by his people, by past and adjacent by the occupier who erstwhile utilized him.

For Palestinians, the consequences are thing abbreviated of catastrophic. Liberation cannot beryllium built connected fear. When absorption loses its motivation clarity, erstwhile it becomes indistinguishable from oppression, it collapses successful legitimacy. The Palestinian origin has ne'er been lone astir survival; it has ever been astir dignity, justness and freedom. These values cannot endure successful a nine wherever citizens fearfulness not lone Israeli craft but besides equipped locals who present terrorise their streets, serving some their ain interests and the occupier’s. The region’s past bears witness: From Lebanon to Iraq, outer powers person repeatedly exploited militias to fragment societies. Once unleashed, these forces seldom service their people; their loyalties drift alternatively towards factional power, idiosyncratic summation oregon overseas patrons.

The task earlier Palestinians is some urgent and existential: To forestall Gaza from sliding into a onshore ruled by militias alternatively than agreed nether the banner of liberation. This requires a beardown civilian volition that refuses to legitimise specified groups, governmental enactment that places nationalist unity supra factional interest, and planetary consciousness that concern destroys not lone done bombs and siege, but besides by tearing isolated the societal cloth and turning nine into a battlefield of interior conflict.

The radical of Gaza person already shown bonzer courageousness and resilience. They person endured siege, relentless bombardment and wide displacement. They should not present beryllium asked to endure the humiliation of being ruled by equipped gangs who service their ain interests portion claiming to enactment for their people. The spot of the Palestinian conflict has ever rested connected its motivation clarity, a radical demanding state against each odds. That clarity indispensable not beryllium surrendered to those who regenerate solidarity with fearfulness and justness with domination.

Israel whitethorn anticipation to wage its warfare by proxy, imagining a Gaza wherever its radical combat each different alternatively of resisting occupation. Yet Palestinians inactive person a choice. They tin cull the way of militias and affirm that their origin is greater than immoderate faction and stronger than those who spot powerfulness supra principle. The existent information contiguous is not lone Israeli aerial attacks but the erosion of the precise essence of Palestinian nationalism: The condemnation that liberation indispensable beryllium to everyone and indispensable ne'er travel astatine the outgo of state oregon quality dignity.

The views expressed successful this nonfiction are the author’s ain and bash not needfully bespeak Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.