Israel has been bombarding Gaza for over six months, a genocidal war that has generated over 33,000 casualties, over 13,000 of whom are children.
But despite the brutal attacks, which include targeted assassinations of children, the systematic destruction of health and education systems, and killings of humanitarian aid workers, the Palestinian people continue to wage a struggle of resistance.
Below is a transcribed interview which aired on BreakThrough News’ The Socialist Program, hosted by Brian Becker. Becker dialogues with Mohammed Nabulsi, attorney, organizer, and leader in the Palestinian Youth Movement, one of the primary organizations in the Palestine solidarity sphere in North America.
Nabulsi gives an analysis of how the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza can finally end—the Israelis must come to terms with their defeat.
Brian Becker: Several days ago, US officials said that a negotiated ceasefire is near in Gaza. Some Israeli military forces have been pulled out of southern Gaza. But this war rages on. Today we’re talking with Mohammed Nabulsi. He’s an organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement [and] an attorney based in Houston, Texas. Mohammed, I think the topic on everyone’s mind is whether or not the war in Gaza is coming to an end.
The Biden administration, various Biden administration officials say that they are taking over the negotiations, that they’re insisting on a ceasefire. They’re distancing themselves from Netanyahu. The Israeli military did withdraw military forces from southern Gaza. Netanyahu said it was just for recuperation, that they’re going to go in, they’re going to launch an invasion of Rafah no matter what.
But all the indications seem to be that the US is really promoting and pushing hard now for a settlement. At the same time, the Israeli military just assassinated the three sons of the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh. Three sons killed in a targeted assassination by the Israelis, I believe, in northern Gaza.
The war is going on. It’s raging on. Do you expect a ceasefire?
Mohammed Nabulsi: It’s really difficult to say at this point. I think, as you stated, we’ve received so many mixed messages. I think part of it is tied to attempting to place pressure on all of the parties involved by cultivating some sort of popular pressure. So once people hear this news that a ceasefire is coming, it often results in trickling up, that they feel it themselves.
So I think that’s what we’re seeing. At the same time, I think the Israelis have nowhere to go. And so the ceasefire is the only thing that’s on the table. But Hamas will not give in to the concessions that the Israelis are demanding. And that’s why we’re seeing different attempts to place pressure, including the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, three sons and several grandchildren.
And this is another attempt to weaken the leadership of the Palestinian resistance. But as he stated today, following the assassination of his three sons and grandchildren, this will not change the position of the Palestinian resistance on negotiations.
Netanyahu announced, after Ben-Gvir threatened to dissolve the coalition, following news of hesitancy or reluctance to go into Rafah, Netanyahu came out and said, well, we set a date for our invasion, which is unusual in military strategy.
And only to see Antony Blinken come out and say, in discussions with Yoav Gallant, the Defense Minister, that there has been no date set. In fact, the Americans are still discussing this with the Israelis. And so it’s clear that most of what’s happening right now is political theater or pressure on negotiations. But ultimately, there’s no more leverage.
I think a few weeks back when I was on the program with you, I discussed the attempts to deport the resistance leadership to freeze their assets. And so we’re seeing all of these last ditch efforts to try to get the resistance to capitulate on some of the most important terms that are all tied to the safety and security of the people of Gaza. The return to the north, the withdrawal of the Israeli military, the increase in aid that, you know, in the recent few days we’ve seen sort of theater around as well, which we can discuss further.
But that’s ultimately where we are. I don’t see this war ending in the immediate unless the Israelis come to terms with their defeat.
BB: I want to pick up on the issue of defeat. You’re characterizing the Israeli military move into Gaza as a setback, a military defeat. You’re saying that Israel has been defeated. In some ways that seems incongruous to let’s say, people just watching TV in the United States, people who may not be that close to what’s going on in the Middle East, because on the face of it, Israel and the Israeli military has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, destroyed more than 60% of the houses in Gaza.
There are more than a million people in Gaza who are displaced. The UN and now the US government says that the people in Gaza are starving, or they’re being starved. On the face of it, it looks like with all of this death and destruction, it would be impossible to say, well, this was a defeat for Israel. And yet many, including many inside the Israeli media, are now saying it was a defeat.
Let’s talk about how this could be considered a defeat for Israel, in light of all of the death and destruction imposed by the Israeli military on the people of Palestine, the people of Gaza.
MN: So with any war, with any campaign, with any operation, there are obviously stated objectives, and those are political in nature. You’re attempting to impose a state of affairs politically on another people, or another actor.
And so for the Israelis, they, from the outset stated what their goals were, that they would eliminate Hamas and its leadership, that they would completely degrade their capabilities, including the firing of rockets in their capacity to actually resist Israeli occupation, and that they would completely alter the condition of the Gaza Strip, where they would put the governance of the Gaza Strip, either under the Israeli occupation, or a coalition, or force or something of that nature.
And now there were also other stated goals that we saw throughout. And I don’t know that they ever unified on them because I don’t believe that they were actually ever achievable. That revolved around completely ethnically cleansing the Gaza Strip.
So those are the stated goals. And when you are the superpower, when you are the power with an Air Force, a Navy, an Army, reserves—your entire economy is sort of geared towards prosecuting this war.
When you’re that superior power, you have to achieve your goals against a weaker power. And in the past, we’ve seen the Israelis defeated repeatedly in these types of wars, but their goals, specifically articulated here, have not even come close to being achieved.
And that includes the release of the hostages. The only hostages that have been released have either been done through negotiations—there’s a few exceptions to that—and the ones that were killed by the Israelis themselves. We also know that the Israelis have probably killed dozens, if not north of 100, hostages through their bombardment and genocidal campaign. And so their inability to achieve these goals demonstrates that for the Palestinians, the weaker party they’ve prevailed. Now, that doesn’t in any way assuage the feeling of mourning and deep dread around what has been done to our people as Palestinians, what has been done to the Gaza Strip.
But at the end of the day, when you fight a national liberation struggle, one in which your enemy is so superior to you militarily and backed by an even more superior superpower, both of which are nuclear armed states, This is what it looks like to struggle and fight. And this is what victory means for us as a people.
BB: When one reads the Israeli media, you can see that there are decidedly different orientations. The liberal Zionist media, some of the reporters and writers in Haaretz, for instance, have been for months indicating that this entire operation will end up in defeat, or could very well end up in defeat for Israel, and sacrifice Israel’s reputation globally, and make Israel a pariah state, basically.
And that’s true. I mean, that’s already happened. I don’t think that’s going to change. When you think about the stated objectives of the Israelis, of Netanyahu, which is to completely eliminate Hamas, and then you’re negotiating with Hamas, that in itself is an inherent foundational contradiction, because if your goal is to completely destroy the other side, what’s the point of negotiation?
So obviously, in terms of the reality of the situation, they can’t destroy Hamas. And according to the Israeli media, they’re making the argument that Hamas’ capacity to fight has not been actually disrupted. In other words, they are intact.
MN: The sort of contradiction between the liberal Zionists, labor Zionists, and the right is a historic one around their strategy vis-a-vis the Palestinians. For the liberal Zionists, and at one point labor Zionists, this notion of land for peace, negotiations, understanding that the Palestinians aren’t going away, but recognizing that you still want to maximize your sort of expansionist project, required a specific strategy and they engage that and they ultimately view themselves as failing in that.
And for the right wing, that’s inherited the sort of Jabotinsky, Iron Wall politics that Netanyahu himself embodies ideological. The idea is we must bring them to their knees. The Palestinians, we must make them understand that we will devastate them beyond anything they can imagine, before we grant them any sort of concessions around their nationhood, around the need for them to have self-determination, the right of return, and various other political claims that Palestinians have.
Well, now we’re seeing the failure of both strategies. What we’re seeing is the demonstrated resilience of the Palestinian people, and the resistance project of the Palestinian people. If you can look at the most recent scenes out of Khan Yunis, a battle that took place for over four months, one fourth the size of the entire Gaza Strip, which was a small, densely populated area in and of itself.
They left out of an ambush, where multiple Israeli soldiers were killed, multiple above that injured, and that’s how they departed Khan Yunis.
And if you compare that to prior operations and initiatives, let’s say the 1982 invasion of Beirut, the Israelis reached Beirut and besieged Beirut, and theoretically or in theory, I guess, defeated the Palestinian PLO in three months, an area of the Gaza Strip, tiny in comparison to Lebanon.
And we’ve seen that routinely in other arenas. The Six-Day War in 1967, in which the Israelis were able to defeat multiple Arab conventional militaries in six days. Similarly, in the 1973 war, which was fought to a stalemate, lasted less than a month. So all of these prior sort of demonstrations of Israeli superiority and Palestinian or Arab weakness, the Palestinian resistance has clearly transformed the political and military equation vis a vis the Israelis.
And we’re seeing that now in the fact that there’s still operations taking place in the north. They’ve withdrawn all battalions, with the exception of one. They’re still hanging on to this notion that victory comes through Rafah, even though now there’s discussions about whether they even invade Rafah. So it’s a resounding defeat. And those who predicted it on the part of the Israelis knew it because they understood what the dynamics of their actual political class looked like, their actual ability to execute, and we know what happened on October 7. This is the same military, the same intelligence agencies, the same leadership that failed miserably on October 7.
And so they’re expected to now, with the same amount of intelligence, the same capabilities, to actually defeat Hamas, which was prepared for the invasion. Obviously, that’s a fantasy.
But for Netanyahu and his ilk, there was no offramp. This was the only path forward. Now, that’s why we’re seeing them trying to escalate with Iran, as another attempt to build another off ramp for them to see if maybe they can survive this politically or declare some sort of victory.
Check out the entire interview here.
