PNN – Seventy days have passed since the war, and Israel, which started a ground battle amidst the wave of American and European support, has been so isolated in the diplomatic field that it needs the votes of countries like Nauru, Micronesia, and Papua, without success in the military field.
Since its founding, Israel has had at least 9 major wars and several smaller wars. But international observers do not remember Israel suffering such a multifaceted defeat as it did in the October 2023 war.
This is not a slogan. If we summarize all aspects of the defeat in two dimensions, it should be said that Israel has been defeated both in the military field and in the diplomatic field, until today, until the 70th day of the war, and we must wait and see the end of this war as well.
Defeat in the military field
The equation of two unequal powers
At the very beginning, before we need to review the details of the field process along the Gaza strip (which is 41 km), it should be accepted that in a war between two forces of disproportionate power, the weaker power is victorious if it is not destroyed. In the sense that one side is the classical and well-armed Israeli army, which has modern equipment and advanced technology, as well as air, sea and ground support, and has a 24-hour airlift of American weapons. On the other hand, it is a people’s liberation group that does not have an air force or a navy, makes its own weapons and equipment, and is deprived of support. In such a situation, when the superior power enters the scene with all its energy and officially declares that its goal is to destroy the weaker power, but it does not succeed, from a military point of view, that is, the defeat of the superior power and the victory of the weaker power, because it has maintained its existence.
Now in the field of the Gaza strip, not only is Hamas not in 100% danger of its existence after 70 days – or at least there is no such assessment so far – but thanks to the tunnel city and precise war strategy and tactics, it has succeeded in trapping the enemy in Gaza.
In the past week, the Israeli army has fought in several battle axes, including the Shujaiyeh neighborhood in the east of Gaza City (north of the Gaza Strip), which brings back the bad memories of 2014 for Israel. At least two of them were battalion commanders.
A three-stage ambush in Shujaiyeh
Among the failures in the field, we only mention the example (67th day) when four Israeli forces were ambushed in Shujaiyeh and killed in a building. A support and rescue team enters the building to help them. They also ambush and kill, and communication with a force is cut off. Suspecting that one person has been captured, the battalion commander attacks with the next rescue team, but in disbelief, they ambush the third and the third group is also killed. Such ambushes might have been justified if they had been in the first week of the war, but when the forces are caught like this after two months of war and at least two commanders are killed, something is wrong. According to the Wall Street Journal, criticisms have increased in the army and the meaning of these criticisms is that the process in the field is going badly.
The casualties of Israeli soldiers since the beginning of the ground battle – according to the official statement of the army – until the 69th day, are 116 people (445 people since the beginning of the war). No area of ​​Gaza is under the control of the army yet. The army has infiltrated several areas along the 41-kilometer length of the Gaza Strip, but it has not controlled or cleared any area in the military sense. In a word, the two goals of the ground war, namely the destruction of Hamas (or at least the removal of Hamas’s military power and the removal of its leaders) and the second goal of liberating the prisoners, have not been achieved.
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So, the result of the 70 days of war is that the stronger force (that is, the Israeli army) has failed and, to put it better, has failed. This result clearly belongs to the war “until today” and it is not clear which way the field process will go tomorrow or the days after tomorrow, and at any moment there is a possibility of changing the scene in favor of one of the parties to the conflict.
At first, we summarized all dimensions in two dimensions: field and diplomatic. If we sum up all the sub-branches of the second (diplomatic) dimension, it can also be divided into two fields: the political field of war and the field of public opinion.
To explain that Israel has also failed in the second dimension, first, let’s look at two pictures from the political field:
The first panel; When the world saw the 7th of October and Israel still did not digest the blow and was confused, unprecedented support from the West, especially some Israel-friendly countries, poured into Tel Aviv. According to Alan Feld, a member of the Israeli institute “Vintage Investment Partners” (with more than three billion dollars in capital), “world leaders expressed their unprecedented support, and the Israeli flag was raised over public centers around the world.” Alan means that US President Joe Biden, Israeli Prime Minister Rishi Sonak and German Chancellor Olaf Schultz personally went to Israel to express solidarity and support for Tel Aviv.
the second panel; Two months have passed since the war. Nearly 20 thousand civilians were massacred in Gaza. (To be more precise, it was a genocide). Israel killed a person so boldly that his friends were also heard. Israel’s friends, including America, Germany and England, advised with diplomatic language, fight and kill so that we can continue the support. The hospital was bombed. The place where the refugees gathered was bombed. Schools and centers belonging to the United Nations where people gathered to be safe were bombed. Therefore, friends of Israel such as Joe Biden and others in Europe, fearing domestic public opinion and for various legal and political reasons, intensified their criticisms, and today we are witnessing a sharp decrease in diplomatic support for Israel. According to the Israeli newspaper “Calcalist”, “Today, Israel is seen as killing the civilian and weak residents of Gaza, and Israel is the killer of Palestinians.” On the other hand, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who said at the beginning of the war in a precise speech that Hamas’ action on October 7th “did not come from a vacuum”, for the first time since 2006, activated Article 99 of the UN Charter to stop the war in Gaza to warn about the danger of world peace; An act that upset Israel. As the comparison of these two panels shows, Israel has also given up the field of diplomacy.
If there were no particle countries!
It is quite clear that the level of global solidarity with Israel is increasingly decreasing at both the political and public opinion levels. The best indicator in the political field is the combination of votes on the recent draft resolution that America vetoed in the Security Council in favor of Israel. In the draft of this resolution that Egypt and Mauritania presented to stop the war; First: They rejected the request and insistence of the United States to enter the sentence of Hamas. Second: 153 countries voted for it and only 10 negative votes were given, two of which were the United States and Israel. 8 countries that voted against it, or in better words, voted to continue the war, include a few small countries that many may not even have heard of; These eight countries agree to: Nauru, Micronesia, Papua New Guinea, Liberia, Guatemala, Paraguay, Austria and the Czech Republic. Only two European countries are on the list of supporters of Israel, and if we ignore three minor countries, in fact only five countries supported Israel. 5 against 153. Even countries that had abstained in the previous draft that was given on October 27, this time voted in favor of Israel, such as Canada, Japan, South Korea and Australia. In the recent draft, countries such as Great Britain, Italy, Hungary, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Slovakia and even Ukraine and Germany abstained. This means that Israel does not expect any European country, it expects 100% support from Germany and Ukraine.
Although the Security Council did not go anywhere with the US veto, the General Assembly on Tuesday approved the non-binding resolution against Israel with the same 153 votes in favor and the same 10 votes against. The resolution itself may not have operational value, but it is a good indicator to show the sharp decline in the level of support for Israel in the current diplomatic arena.
Israel has lost public opinion so far
It is the same at the level of public opinion. Demonstrations continue in America, England, Italy, Germany, France and other countries. These pressures have changed the positions of the leaders of America, England and other countries. To the extent that Biden – even for electoral reasons or any other reason – has changed his tone towards Israel and the British Foreign Minister has told Tel Aviv to round up the extremist settlers who are endangering the security of Israel and Palestine at the same time, or else the responsible Israeli authorities In this case, he will be banned from entering the UK.
Therefore, what is now clear is the field and diplomatic defeat of Israel until the 70th day of the war; A defeat that did not need seventy days to see, but happened on the very first day, October 7th, and even the killing of two million innocent people in Gaza will not be compensated.