Meron Rapoport writes:

It is still too early to say who won and who lost Israel’s war on Gaza, especially since the ceasefire has not yet begun. But if at least the first stage of the agreement goes ahead, it can be said that Israel has not achieved its war goals.

Israel has not succeeded in achieving its pronounced goals: wiping out Hamas and returning the captives by military force.

More importantly, its undeclared goal was to eliminate the Palestinian human presence in Gaza and that was not achieved. Despite all the destruction and mass killing that Israel inflicted during the 15 months of war in Gaza, the Palestinians continue to cling to their land.

The Palestinians who took to the streets in Gaza after the announcement of the ceasefire agreement celebrated their survival as a people and as human beings against Israeli aggression. These scenes indicate that as far as Israel is concerned, it failed.

We cannot talk about a Palestinian victory either. With probably more than 50,000 Palestinians killed, most of them women and children, and their cities in ruins in a way never seen before in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, any talk of victory seems detached from reality.

However, if the Palestinian goal was a kind of “sumud”, or steadfast perseverance, then the Palestinians achieved this goal. [Continue reading…]