In assessing Israel’s post-October 7 military campaign in Gaza, it helps to recall Clausewitz’s dictum that war, though horrific, isn’t ultimately about killing and destruction for the sake of it but a means for states to achieve their political goals. Seen in this light, Israel’s war has already failed. Never has the Jewish state been so isolated internationally. Never has this nation, founded following the Holocaust, had to face formal allegations of genocide at the International Court of Justice.
Worse, Israel’s standing in the United States, its most stalwart supporter, has suffered, its popular support fallen and falling. More broadly, the war has led to an unprecedented erosion in support for Israel above all among Democrats and young people, including American Jews. For the first time, an American president seeking re-election worries that his support for Israel, typically an asset in any political campaign in the United States, could contribute to his defeat. His campaign rallies have been interrupted by hecklers yelling “Genocide Joe” and berating him for abetting war crimes. According to recent survey, nearly a third of American adults believe the Gaza war amounts to genocide. And now, American university campuses are roiled by anti-war protests, which some Jewish students have joined.
More pertinently for the immediate situation in Gaza, Israel’s government appears to lack any post-war plan. And that matters. Even in the unlikely event that Netanyahu achieves all his started objectives in Gaza—freeing the hostages while also destroying Hamas seems impossible—more than nine million Israelis and more than five million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are fated to live cheek-by-jowl. Neither community plans to depart, nor can they be expelled. The dreams of the most radical Palestinian movements of destroying the Jewish state and the calls from some within Israel’s hard-Right to expel Gazans en masse are equally fantastical. So, what can we expect after the war ends?
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