Israel’s grand strategy for Gaza

What Tel Aviv’s massive bombing of Gaza tells us about that country’s actual intentions for Palestine

THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | Nothing has recently occupied my mind more than Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza: the merciless violence of it, the brutality with which it bombs that tiny space of land, its heartless disregard of Palestinian civilian life; the destructive scale of its military campaign. Only Adolf Hitler’s Operation Barbarossa compares in its sadistic disregard of the civilian population. Yet I don’t think Israel is indulging in senseless violence out of sheer sadistic preoccupations, even though sadism is playing a part. What I see is a rational military strategy to achieve particular political aims.

How can we decipher Israel’s political aims? First, statements by its leaders stating their objectives. Second, the military strategy adopted to fight in Gaza. In September 2023, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a map before the UN General Assembly. It presented what is referred to as “Eretz Israel” or greater Israel, which is historic Palestine or Mandate Palestine. The map had deleted both Gaza and the West Bank, thereby clearly stating that the prime minister of Israel sees them as part of Israel. The problem, however, is that both Gaza and the West Bank are populated by about 5.8 million Arab Muslims and Christians, while Israel proper has about 2 million of them. If one state is created, then there would be a 50/50% share of the population between Jews and Arab Muslims.

It is the founding doctrine of Israel that for it to exist as a Jewish, yet liberal democratic state, 80% of the population must be Jewish. Eretz Israel cannot be created when there are still so many Arab Muslims. The only way Eretz Israel can exist with such a demographic is by being an apartheid state where Arab Muslims are denied basic citizenship rights. Therefore, a serious Israel strategist must find a way to cleanse Palestine of its Arab population by all means possible – bombing, mass starvation, diseases and epidemics all of which would also cause mass exodus of survivors out of Gaza.

This is why Hamas is every important for Israel’s political aims. Its uncompromising stance on Israel, its indiscriminate violence against Israel civilians creates a pretext for Israel to launch a massive bombing campaign to depopulate Gaza. Once Gaza is done, the Israel will shift to the West Bank. If there is no extremist group whose ideology and methods justify Israel’s military incursions, it will create one. There is a belief in Israel that the founding fathers of that nation made a mistake in 1948 by not occupying the entire Eretz Israel and evicting most of its Arab population. The 1967 war created conditions for Israel to achieve this aim. However, the leaders of the time did not pursue a Nakba – a catastrophe that would force Palestinians out. There is a consensus across Israel’s political landscape that the entire Palestine should be taken over. The events of October 7, 2023, have created a good opportunity.

This takes us to grand strategy. I would define grand strategy as a state’s theory of how it can achieve its strategic objectives that is intentional, coordinated and implemented across multiple means of statecraft – military, economic and political. Clausewitz’s most famous dictum that war is politics by other means is essential to understanding strategy. Understanding its political aims takes war away from mindless violence. Of course this is not to say that war is always a sensible expression of policy. Rather it is to explain the often hidden intentions of the actors. The challenge for analysts therefore is to explain the rationality of that which appears irrational in terms of the dogged pursuit of a state’s political aims.

Great military strategists such Clausewitz and Antoine-Henri Jomini understood that the objectives of war come from outside the military sphere. They are primarily political. Yet while a military victory is measurable, a political victory is not necessarily so. The forms of resistance and disaffection a defeated people may show could soon compromise the apparent achievements on the battlefield. This is the situation the USA found itself in, in Iraq and Afghanistan; Uganda and her AMISOM partners face in Somalia. Although it seems the very situation Israel’s proclaimed war to destroy Hamas will inevitably face, I am inclined to believe that Tel Aviv has a very different political aim than it claims.

Israel’s incursion into Gaza looks like ant warfare. Ants are the most warlike creatures. Lawrence Freedman described the foreign policy of ants as “relentless aggression, territorial conquest, and genocidal annihilation of neighboring colonies whenever possible.” If ants had nuclear weapons, they would probably destroy the world in a week. Ant warfare is in no sense strategic. As Freedman explains, it relies on ruthless and relentless attrition through brute force: ants stick together; build up a superior mass; and wear down the enemy defenses by constant, vicious and no-holds-barred attacks. There is no scope for bargaining and negotiation. While ant warfare lacks strategic sense, I think Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza has a grand strategy to achieve an important political aim.

Israel has blocked food and water from entering Gaza, essentially slowly starving the people there. It has also bombed and destroyed everything that can sustain life in Gaza: 80% of all homes, every hospital, clinic, water treatment plant, sewage system, bakery, kiosk, power grid, school, kindergarten, university – everything. Most people are focused on the number of those who have died through bombing – about 30,000 today. But that is slightly about 1.2% of the population of Gaza. This may not seem genocidal to many people. But the death by bombing is the smallest part of Israel’s strategy. The real strategy is in death and forceful evictions that will result from bombing and blocking food, water and medical supplies.

Because all water supplies facilities have been destroyed, Gazans are now forced to drink untreated, dirty and poisonous sea water. This will cause many waterborne diseases. And because hospitals have been bombed, medical supplies blocked and medical staff killed, there will be no health facilities and personnel to save the sick. And because food has been blocked, many people will starve to death and others suffer from malnutrition. It is this health and food crisis, more than the military assault, that will kill the largest number of people and force may others to go into exile in Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan. And that is Israel’s main aim – to depopulate Gaza, bring in Jewish settlers and change its demography such that only about 20% of its population will be Arab-Muslim and Christian.

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amwenda@independent.co.ug