XPost: talk.politics.misc, soc.culture.usa, talk.politics.guns   
   XPost: alt.philosophy.taoism   
   From: void@invalid.noy   
      
   by Hussain Abdul-Hussain   
      
   Iranian and Arab pundits, both radical and moderate (on state-run TV),   
   seem to have reached a consensus that Israel is not winning in Gaza.   
   Arab loyalists to Tehran go as far as to argue they see signs of mass   
   Jewish emigration out of Israel. In their telling, all the land—from   
   the river to the sea—will then become Palestine.   
      
   But while Israel cannot claim a conclusive victory yet, trends suggest   
   the Jewish state is beating its enemies.   
      
   Every Israeli “has a second nationality and has his bag ready,” said   
   Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, in Lebanon, on Wednesday—invoking   
   the popular canard that there is no real Jewish people, only a   
   collection of European settlers on Arab land. “Reverse [Jewish]   
   migration has begun, hundreds of thousands” have already left, he   
   said. “If you are an Israeli with an American passport, go to America,   
   with a British passport, go to England, with a French passport go to   
   France,” Nasrallah said. He added: “You Israelis have only this   
   future, the land of Palestine from the sea to the river will be for   
   Palestinians only.”   
      
   Not so fast. Israel has been killing top Iran Revolutionary Guard   
   Corps (IRGC), Hamas, and Hezbollah officers at such a rate that   
   funerals and eulogies have sucked the oxygen out of its enemies’   
   public life.   
      
   “...while Israel cannot claim a conclusive victory yet, trends suggest   
   the Jewish state is beating its enemies.”   
   Nasrallah delivered his remarks in commemoration of the fourth   
   anniversary of America taking out top IRGC leader Qassem Soleimani.   
   Nasrallah’s speech came two weeks after Israel assassinated IRGC’s   
   Syria viceroy, Razi Mousavi, and six days after an Israeli airstrike   
   allegedly killed 11 top IRGC officers. In Gaza, Israel has eliminated   
   at least a dozen senior Hamas leaders.   
      
   The day before Nasrallah’s speech, Israel had surgically taken out   
   Hamas’ number two, Saleh Al-Arouri, and six other Hamas leaders who   
   were meeting in Beirut’s southern suburb, a Hezbollah stronghold.   
      
   To top it all, since Hezbollah joined the war on Israel on Oct. 8, per   
   Nasrallah, the Jewish state has killed at least 150 fighters of the   
   Radwan Forces, Hezbollah’s “special forces.” In the ensuing battles,   
   Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health has reported fewer than 20   
   Lebanese non-combatants killed, attesting not only to Israel’s   
   surgical strike capabilities, but also to its intelligence prowess.   
      
   Iran’s Islamist regime and its allied militias seem to understand that   
   their conventional military power is no match for Israel’s. Nasrallah   
   justified the relative weakness of his side by arguing that had it not   
   been for America, its military aid, and the deployment of its fearful   
   aircraft carriers, Israel would have been toast.   
      
   With few tools left to respond to Israel’s power, Iran and its allies   
   started threatening an “all-out war.” Nasrallah threatened to wipe   
   out—with his missiles—Gush Dan, the highly populated coastal strip   
   centered on Tel Aviv.   
      
   Nasrallah’s threats, however, sounded hollow when he blamed Israel for   
   escalation, signaling that he was not interested in doing so.   
   Meanwhile, the leader of the Iran-led “resistance axis,” Ayatollah Ali   
   Khamenei, reportedly counseled “strategic patience” to avoid direct   
   war with America. America’s deterrence seems to be working.   
      
   Has Israel reaped the fruits of its military superiority in Gaza?   
   Skeptics note that—three months into the war—top Hamas leaders in   
   Gaza, namely its chief Yahya Sinwar and his brother Muhammad, in   
   addition to Muhammad Deif, remain at large. Hamas has also continued   
   to launch rockets into Israel, suggesting that the organization’s   
   command-and-control is still working.   
      
   But if Hamas’ rocket frequency is any measure, one can deduce that   
   Hamas has been weakened. Add the number of Hamas tunnels in Gaza that   
   Israel has found and destroyed, and the territory that it has wrestled   
   from the Palestinian militia, and it becomes clear that the Israeli   
   military is succeeding, so far at the cost of 170 soldiers who have   
   fallen since the beginning of the invasion on Oct. 30. Hamas does not   
   disclose its losses, but the IDF estimates it has killed upwards of   
   8,000 fighters.   
      
   The Gaza war is not over yet, but trends are unmistakable: Israel   
   continues to erode Hamas’ capabilities, so much so that the Jewish   
   state has felt ready for another front—on the north with Hezbollah—if   
   need be. If current trends continue, Hamas will be too weak to mount   
   attacks, as its leaders lose hiding space, making them more vulnerable   
   to being caught, or likely to seek refuge abroad, perhaps with their   
   colleagues in Qatar.   
      
   “The Israeli entity [suffers] the loss of confidence in its political   
   leadership, its military leadership… all of this leads to weakness,   
   slackness, discord, and internal discord,” Nasrallah said in July.?   
   “All the Israeli arrogance and tyranny [and yet] you can see today   
   where this entity is: Where is its army? Where is the future of this   
   entity going?” the Hezbollah chief asked. “Fading into oblivion,” he   
   concluded.   
      
   Nasrallah, and with him Iran’s Khamenei and Hamas, have mistaken   
   Israel’s peacetime demobilization with weakness. Nasrallah and   
   Khamenei have not learnt the lesson from one of the most famous Arab   
   poetry verses: “If you see the lion’s canines, don’t assume that the   
   lion is smiling.”   
      
   Israel looks to be on its way to beating its enemies in yet another   
   round of fighting. But for its victory to be fruitful, the government   
   will have to hand the reins from its generals to its diplomats, with   
   an eye toward finding Arab and Palestinian partners ready to forge   
   peace and build prosperity in Gaza, rather than turning it into a   
   terrorist stronghold once again.   
      
      
   https://www.thedailybeast.com/is-israel-winning-the-war-in-gaza?ref=home   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)