The Gaza war is a “military quagmire and a human tragedy”, said The Economist. It is also fast turning into a “diplomatic disaster for Israel”, at a critical juncture in its history.
Last week, the International Criminal Court‘s prosecutor alleged that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defence minister had committed war crimes in Gaza: using starvation as a weapon of war and deliberately attacking civilians. (Hamas’s leaders were also accused of war crimes.) The move is bitterly contentious, and the ICC judges won’t decide for weeks whether there’s enough evidence to issue warrants.
There is certainly an arguable case that Netanyahu’s government has “breached the laws of war” in Gaza by not providing food and medicine to civilians “to the fullest extent of the means available”, as the Geneva Conventions demand. Either way, the PM’s “disastrous” strategy in Gaza has brought “ignominy” to Israel. His departure is long overdue.
Israel’s ‘fire alarm’
The ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, and Netanyahu’s determination to press on with the offensive in Rafah – the southern city where more than a million civilians have sought sanctuary – make it ever harder for Israel’s allies to back it, said the FT.
Last week, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to immediately halt its assault in Rafah. Israeli forces pushed on, and on Sunday, 45 people, including many women and children, were killed in an air strike on an encampment housing displaced people in a supposedly safe zone.
Meanwhile, Ireland, Norway and Spain have all recognised Palestinian statehood – a “symbolic blow against an Israeli leader who rails against any talk of a two-state solution”.
An “international reckoning” has long been coming, given Netanyahu’s record of refusing to offer a credible peace plan to the Palestinians, said Jo-Ann Mort in The Guardian. Now a moment of “extreme crisis” has arrived. This is “a fire alarm for Israel”. Will it take heed?
A weakening position
“The world is pitted against Israel in a way we haven’t seen before,” said The Jerusalem Post.
Much of the international pressure comes from “smug, sanctimonious” critics embracing a “ludicrous and disgusting double standard”: why did the ICJ ask for Israel’s Rafah operations to be halted, but not for Hamas to free Israeli hostages? Yet we must accept that our leaders’ poor decisions and inflammatory rhetoric have paved the way for this growing isolation.
The current pursuit of “total victory”, without defining any political goals that can slow the “escalating cycle of bloodshed”, has not made us stronger, said Tehila Wenger in Haaretz. It has made us weaker – and is losing us friends.