Greater Israel, Weaker Army: Netanyahu’s Myth Meets Reality.

By Elijah J. Magnier – 

In the last two years, Israel has waged a cold-blooded war in Gaza, a massacre sanctioned at the highest levels of government, designed to leave deep scars for generations to come. It stands on par with the 1948 Nakba, when massacres in Palestinian towns and villages paved the way for mass expulsion. Today, the plan is no less brutal: to force a second displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, this time under the rubble of their own destroyed cities.

Israel has already seized more than 70% of the Strip. Its forces are now massed less than a kilometre and a half from the heart of old Gaza City, preparing a full-scale assault aimed at driving out 750,000 inhabitants. Yet amid this relentless destruction, Israel is confronting a truth it has long denied: military superiority does not equal political victory.

For nearly two years, Gaza has been reduced to ruins under unrelenting bombardment. Less than a quarter of a million Palestinians have been killed or wounded, entire districts erased, hospitals and schools obliterated. And still, the resistance endures. The Israeli army — once mythologised as an invincible force — has failed to subdue even 360 square kilometres of besieged land or rescue its own soldiers held captive. This humiliation comes despite unprecedented support from the United States and Britain, who have poured in real-time intelligence, advanced weaponry, and even embedded military advisers alongside Israeli units.

What was trumpeted as a swift and decisive campaign has instead become a grinding war of attrition that has laid bare the limits of Israeli power. In Tel Aviv, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clings to office by prolonging the conflict, caught between Washington’s calls for de-escalation and his far-right partners’ demand for total domination. Abroad, allies look on with unease as Israel squanders its military prestige and moral capital. At home, Israelis are waking up to a reality they never imagined: their army, given licence to act without restraint, has still failed.

This failure may shield Netanyahu in the short term by distracting from his personal responsibility, but it carries lasting consequences for the reputation of Israel’s military machine. For decades, its aura of supremacy rested on swift aerial campaigns and lopsided victories. Yet when forced into prolonged ground battles against determined resistance, the pattern is very different: the army stalled in Lebanon in 2006 and 2024, and today it struggles to advance only a few kilometres inside Gaza. Worse still, it has failed to prevent Yemen and Iran from striking deep into Israeli territory with missiles and drones, exposing cities to a scale of destruction unseen in the state’s history. Netanyahu may boast of reshaping the Middle East through his endless wars, but the reality tells another story: Israel unable to achieve a total victory even when the United States is effectively fighting at its side.

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