Israel's path to a dead end

Israel's path to a dead end

Bombs have been falling on Gaza for more than 660 days. Instead of cutting the Gordian knot, Israel has only tightened the noose with its ill-fated Gaza war.

It may be expedient, according to the terrible logic of war, to want to destroy one's enemies — but it is tragic that Israel is also endangering its own existence with its continued, inexcusable genocide in Gaza. In view of the increasingly hostile feelings this behavior is triggering among Muslims worldwide, and in view of a growing minority of members of this religion in its own country, the Israeli government will sooner or later have to transform the country into a totalitarian surveillance dictatorship in order to keep the seething hatred under control. The same applies to Israel's supporters, such as Germany. Lulled by a media that is biased in favor of Israel, the population does not seem to notice how world public opinion is turning against those who support mass murderers. So when people talk about “anti-Semitism,” it must be said that Israel is now its own worst enemy.

by Angelika Gutsche
[This article posted on 8/8/2025 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.manova.news/artikel/israels-weg-in-die-sackgasse.]

How Israel lost the media war

Do we still remember the front pages with the image of a frightened child fleeing, burned by napalm, trying to escape the US bombs during the Vietnam War? This iconic image contributed significantly to the inability to justify the Vietnam War to the US public.

The US was forced to admit defeat to the Vietcong. In all subsequent wars, the belligerent states took great care to prevent such gruesome images from reaching the public. This marked the beginning of the era of “embedded” war journalism. War as a video game.

This is no longer the case in the Gaza war.
Every day, journalists on the ground manage to send videos of burning refugee tents, completely destroyed cityscapes, killed children and women, injured, crippled, starving, desperate people to the outside world. A potentiation of the iconic Vietnam War photo—as irrefutable proof of the inhumanity of war beyond all human rights.

The Israeli government can no longer convince anyone that its army is waging a defensive war in Gaza, which it occupies in violation of international law. It is a campaign of destruction:
“More than 15,800 hours of relentless bombardment. More than 10 percent of Gaza's population has been killed, injured or is missing, and 100 percent is affected by food insecurity.”
Israel's references to its own tragic sacrifices in the Holocaust and the Hamas attack on October 6, 2023, which left 1,200 dead, are of no help here.

Since the beginning of Israel's war of annihilation, 232 journalists have been killed in Gaza — more than in any other war, many of them deliberately targeted. Nevertheless, Israel has been unable to prevent horrific photos and videos from being presented to the world's public on a daily basis. These images have not only been broadcast on a continuous loop in the Arab world, shocking the populations of the Global South, but thanks to the internet, they can also be transmitted to every Western living room. The journalists' commitment is heroic.

The Western world is also turning away
Last week, 28 countries signed an appeal to Israel to end the war immediately. Germany did not participate, even though 74 percent of people in Germany want the federal government to exert more pressure on Israel, as Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip are no longer acceptable. More and more countries and politicians are distancing themselves from the Israeli government, and more and more aid organizations and institutions are protesting against its actions. Even the Pope has said that we cannot stand idly by and watch Gaza being massacred. The organization “Doctors Without Borders” has stated that its medical staff is so weakened by hunger that it can no longer do its work.

There are reports of small demonstrations in Tel Aviv calling for a ceasefire—even from Israeli NGOs demanding an end to the war.

It can no longer be denied that the genocide and starvation of the civilian population in Gaza constitute war crimes. Anyone who still tries to relativize the crimes of the Israeli army is complicit in the most serious human rights violations.

Even Trump's health secretary and popular figure Robert F. Kennedy had to learn this the hard way. Even some die-hard Trump supporters turned their backs on him over the Palestinian issue. So even Trump had no choice but to admit that yes, there are hungry children in Gaza. Israel should show restraint.

Perhaps the peoples have instinctively understood that it is they and always will be they who are the pawns that are mercilessly sacrificed on the geopolitical chessboard of power and money.

The Arab world in turmoil
Something is brewing in the Arab world: Demonstrations were held in front of Egyptian embassies for the opening of the Rafah crossing, and in Yemen, threats were made that millions of people would set out to storm the borders and help their brothers. Former PLO fighter Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, who was released after 40 years in prison in France and returned to his homeland of Lebanon, called on the Arab people to take to the streets because of the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza upon his arrival in Beirut. Because: “The children of Gaza are nothing but walking skeletons, while millions of Arabs just stand by and watch!”

The people are rebelling against their governments, which are standing idly by in the face of the massacre of their fellow believers in Palestine. Where is the much-vaunted Dar al-Islam (House of Islam), where the Islamic world is supposed to gather? Is it not primarily in poverty-stricken Yemen that the Ansarallah are causing considerable damage to Israel by repeatedly making the Red Sea impassable for ships bound for Israel? Is Iran not enjoying ever greater popularity because it dares to stand up to Israel and the US?

Extreme Islamist movements are likely to enjoy great popularity in some countries thanks to their vocal support for their Palestinian co-religionists — much to the concern of ruling houses such as the Saudis and governments such as that in Egypt. This is a dangerous development, because there could be a completely different motive behind the support for the Palestinians: the desire to overthrow governments in order to bring their own Muslim Brotherhood to power.

This cannot be in the interest of the Palestinians, but would benefit Israel's hegemonic ambitions. If civil war breaks out in Egypt, the only Arab country in the region with a strong army would be plunged into chaos. The result of such a development can be seen in Syria, where the ever-violent al-Qaeda leader Dschulani is in power and minorities are being slaughtered.
This should be a wake-up call to all Arab governments to finally show their colors for Gaza and not leave this protest to al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, in line with the interests of the US, MI6, and Israel — the puppet masters behind the scenes.

The West is hypocritical
The population of the Arab countries and the global South is likely to be lost to the West for a very long time, given the hypocrisy it has displayed, its false “values” and the human rights it holds dear, which do not seem to apply to Palestinians. Once again, it has become clear that black lives do not matter. The West is racist.

All that remained for the West was its old strategy of placing itself at the head of a movement that it can no longer stop, but at least still tries to control: aid for the Palestinian civilian population. In keeping with the idea that we are still the really good guys. Even though the German government continues to stand by its unwavering support for Israel, including arms deliveries for the murder of civilians, even Chancellor Friedrich Merz had to cautiously distance himself a few days ago from the Israeli army's actions, which are suddenly no longer quite so acceptable.

France announced its intention to recognize Palestine as a state, as did Spain, Norway, Ireland, and Mexico. However, we should not expect too much from this, because Palestine is already recognized as an independent state by 147 countries, including China and Russia, two of the five veto powers in the UN Security Council—without any consequences, because the US and Israel are blocking it.

With around five percent of its population being Muslim, France can hardly afford to remain silent about the genocide of Palestinians. In Germany, the figure is almost seven percent, and in England it is just as high.

Furthermore, France is likely to be very keen not to lose its still considerable influence in West African states. It is a matter of saving face — far too late and completely implausible.
And it is about not alienating the Global South even further and thus driving it into the arms of Russia, China, and the BRICS countries.

Starving, murdering, and expelling civilians as a war strategy has worked since ancient times and even in two world wars. Now it no longer works.

European countries have just launched a media-effective but nonetheless ridiculous campaign: European governments—led by German Chancellor Merz—are working with Jordan to drop pallets of food over the Gaza Strip, grandly calling it an “air bridge.” It has long been known that all aid organizations reject this campaign as unhelpful symbolic politics—far too little, far too expensive.

A new word needs to be invented for the West's hypocrisy, which has been taken to immeasurable heights.

Even Israel is currently transporting food to Gaza via the Rafah border crossing — also far too little and far too late.

No, they have not discovered their hearts for the oppressed Palestinian civilian population. They are doing it because the war in Gaza is derailing, because endless wars and new waves of refugees are looming, because the world can no longer bear these images from Gaza. They have lost the world.

Can Israel achieve its war aims?
The demand for the release of the hostages can safely be dismissed as completely irrelevant to the Israeli government — just as the destruction of Hamas is illusory.
And what about the creation of a Greater Israel? Ben-Gurion himself explained the plan:
“Our goal is to smash Lebanon, Transjordan, and Syria (...) Then we will bomb and advance and take Port Said, Alexandria, and the Sinai.”

In this tradition, the current Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, announced that Israel would expand “piece by piece.” It is “written that the future of Jerusalem lies in expanding to Damascus.” In the future, Israel will not only encompass all Palestinian territories, but also Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia—the announcement of a massive annexation of foreign territories in violation of international law.

Soumaya Ghannoushi wrote on the NachDenkSeiten website:
"Even Pakistan is now part of this vision. Voices close to Israel speak of a reshaping of the region ‘from Pakistan to Morocco’. The Abraham Accords, which are far from being peace agreements, serve to normalize these aspirations and position Israel as the economic, security, and technological center of the region."

So far, Israel has been successful: the Gaza Strip has been bombed to the ground, a southwestern strip of Syria is occupied—as is southern Lebanon. Ironically, the new Syrian al-Qaeda government, controlled by Turkey and the US, is making deals with Israel. A Western-oriented government is in power in Lebanon, as it is in Jordan, with its large NATO base. On July 23, 2025, the Knesset voted 71 to 13 in favor of annexing the West Bank. Today, three million Palestinians live there and — due to Israeli settler colonialism — about 700,000 Israelis.
But what happens next? Israel has not succeeded in defeating its major adversary in the region, Iran. Another war with Iran, which is also supported by nuclear-armed Pakistan, could end in Armageddon. Egypt is also a military heavyweight that would certainly not stand idly by and watch Israel conquer the Sinai.

Further wars and unrest in these areas could severely shake the global economy and present Europeans with unsolvable refugee problems.

Presumably, even the US would oppose Israel assuming a dominant position in the region, as it would then be impossible to control. Even the Arab states, which are certainly interested in doing business with Israel, will strictly reject this development in view of the loss of importance it would cause them.

Similarly, Turkey, which verbally attacks the genocide in Gaza but also has considerable business interests with Israel, is likely to regard such a large increase in Israel's power as an obstacle to its own hegemonic interests.

Israel is trying to conquer Palestinian territories by means of bombs, starvation, and expulsions. Other areas are to be “liberated,” such as the Druze from the evil al-Qaeda boys in Damascus, whom they themselves helped bring to power. Lebanon must be liberated from the evil radical Hezbollah. And in Iran, regime change is needed to free the people from the evil mullahs. However, in view of the massacres Israel is currently committing, not everyone is willing to be “liberated” by Israel of all countries. This became abundantly clear during Israel's attack on Iran. Without an Iranian government that strategically supports Israel, there will never be a Greater Israel.

Even if Israel were to succeed in annexing the territory it desires, how would it rule over a Greater Israel with a population of just under ten million people?

And where would the indigenous population, especially the Palestinians, go? No country wants to take in these war victims, who are radicalized and traumatized to the core. Arab states in particular fear that settling Palestinians in their countries would strengthen radical Islamists, while accepting Palestinians would be seen as support for Israel. Above all, no Arab government can afford that today if it does not want to fear for its power.

Libya, which has been destroyed since the NATO war in 2011 and is threatened by civil war, is the Trump administration's point of contact for the admission of Palestinians. Although Libya is large in terms of area, 85 percent of it is desert and it has only six million inhabitants. How are a million Palestinians, whose admission is a “no-go” for the Libyan population, supposed to make a living there?

And how many of these Palestinians would immediately set out across the Mediterranean to Europe? Libya is a failed state with a completely unstable security situation. Despite all the money from the West, it has not been possible to stop the escape routes.

In addition, the country is marked by severe human rights violations. These escape routes are co-controlled by Turkey in western Libya, while Russia is increasingly exerting influence over them in eastern Libya.

Imagine this huge number of people: there are not 10,000 or 100,000 Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, there are two million! Three million Palestinians live in the West Bank! It is illusory to imagine that they could all be driven out. Greater Israel—a mirage, a pseudo-reality in which Israel has established itself.

It is obvious to assume that Israel's neighbors will not all be well disposed toward it in the future. Today, Israel protects itself from its Palestinian neighbors, whose territories it has annexed, with a high wall and fences. Is Greater Israel planning to build a wall through Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon to protect itself from attacks that—incidentally—would be considered defense and thus in accordance with international law?

Despite all its technology and electronics, Israel's much-praised army would be overstretched. Conflicts with the ultra-religious sections of the population, which already reject military service and the state of Israel, would increase, as would the already considerable suicide rates among soldiers.

A Greater Israel would have to degenerate into an even stronger police and surveillance state in order to maintain its apartheid state, which already includes some 2.1 million Arab citizens, representing approximately 21 percent of the total population. Apartheid states are no longer viable today.

The State of Israel has maneuvered itself into a dead end. It is its own worst enemy.
Perhaps a two-state solution as an intermediate step toward a one-state solution could be a first step on the road to peace.

What applies to all wars also applies to Israel's war against the Palestinians: as long as there are victors and vanquished, peace is impossible.


Angelika Gutsche, born in 1955, is a certified psychologist. After many years at the Goethe Institute in the field of film, she now works as a freelancer. In addition to writing travelogues, she writes on her blog about developments in Libya, as well as other current political and literary topics. For more information, visit gela-news.de and angelika-gutsche.de.