Just Smile and Call It a Victory. What Matters Is Getting Out of Gaza - Opinion - Haaretz.com
Say cheese to create a forced smile. Call it a win to present a fabricated victory. The main thing is to get out of Gaza. According to reports, Israel is planning in the next few days to declare that it has wiped out the military wing of Hamas in Gaza and has won the war. A victory? If you say so. The main thing is to get out of Gaza.
The plan to declare that Hamas' army is finished is intended to enable the withdrawal of most of Israel's forces from Gaza and their transfer to the northern border to launch another glorious victorious campaign in Lebanon, just like the one in Gaza. This victory will be more terrible than its predecessor. Therefore, we must hope that Israel will announce everything that will proudly fill the hearts of its government, its army, its journalists, and its citizens. The main thing is to get out of Gaza.
Every passing day there only deepens the depths to which we've sunk. Say you've crushed all Hamas' battalions in Rafah, which were the only thing keeping us a hair's breadth away from total victory; conceal everything that's happened to Israel from within and overseas and declare victory. The main thing is: Leave Gaza.
Obviously, no victory has been achieved in Gaza and no victory will be achieved in Gaza. But if Israel needs the pretense in order to climb down the blood-soaked tree it has ascended, a tree it shouldn't have climbed in the first place, it's better to fake a victory. Hamas has sustained a military blow, but has won in every other aspect. Israel has been routed diplomatically, socially, morally and economically. But let local media sing Israel's praises; it likes to engage in deception and tell you about the "excellent work" the Israel Defense Forces is doing in the Gaza Strip.
Israel's situation at the end of the war is incalculably worse than it was at the start of its most redundant war. Not that there was no justification, but war is assessed by its results, and these were known in advance: pointlessly being bogged down, a shedding of Palestinian blood as though it were water, as well as the blood of many soldiers, the transformation of Israel into a pariah state, and all for nothing.
Behind this war stood Israel's perennial narrative: a lack of choice. There was no choice after October 7 and there is no choice now. Currently, this lie is moving to the north: we have to act in Lebanon to restore security and return displaced Galilee residents to their homes. Obviously, everything must be done to achieve this, but another front, more horrific than the last one, will not do it. It is not the only option.
The scene of an attack, near Gaza City, on Saturday.Credit: Ayman Al Hassi/Reuters
There are three options in Gaza: the continued rule of Hamas (albeit enfeebled and monitored), Gaza becoming like Somalia, or a permanent Israeli occupation. There is no fourth option. The lesser evil is the first one. It is an exasperating one, bad for Israel and for Gaza, but its alternatives are worse. If that's the situation, it's obviously time to leave Gaza through an agreement with Hamas that will end the war and lead to the release of the hostages and thousands of Palestinian prisoners.
Such an agreement can be made tomorrow, which is better than the day after tomorrow. We must swallow our pride, absorb the insult of leaving Hamas in power and take the risk, knowing that it is the least bad option. We must hurry to make this happen.
This is the only way of avoiding an all-out war in the north. We must do everything possible to avoid it. Israel now faces no greater disaster than a war in the north. Only an agreement with Hamas will prevent it. There is no ending the war without the last of Israel's soldiers departing the Gaza Strip, and only such an agreement may prevent an all-out war in the north. It's not what the generals and the swaggering commentators in TV studios promised us, it's not what most Israelis believed should happen, but that is the reality of the situation.
When the person in charge of Israel's power supply warns that after 72 hours without electricity, it won't be possible to live in Israel, and when the minister of religious affairs discloses that his office is preparing for mass burials, it would be best to halt the beating of the war drums and ask: is this what we want? Will we be able to hold out? Will the IDF of October 7 and Gaza bring us another "victory"? Just don't say there is no other choice. There is one. An agreement with Hamas and a total withdrawal, in spite of everything else.