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An Israeli activist warned that any ground invasion of the Gaza Strip is doomed to failure, calling on Tel Aviv to change its approach towards the Palestinians by putting an end to the occupation of their lands within the framework of the two-state solution.
Ben Zion Sanders – who works as director of the Jerusalem Program at Extend, a human rights organization concerned with linking leaders of Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups with the American Jewish community – said that he fought within the ranks of the Israeli army in its ground attack on the Gaza Strip in July 2014.
He went into detail about that operation – in an article in the American newspaper The New York Times – explaining how he believed that the losses incurred by the Israeli army were justified in order to achieve the desired goal, which is “eliminating the danger posed by the Islamic Resurrection Movement”agitation“A final judgment.”
He explained that that is what they (meaning the leaders of Israel) told them at the time, describing what they were told as a “lie,” and it is “the same lie they are repeating today,” meaning “completely eradicating the Hamas threat.”
Since then, Hamas has been growing stronger “despite all our sacrifices, and despite the death and destruction inflicted on Gaza.”
He continued to say that the killing and destruction carried out by the army on a regular basis is the price that Israel has been paying “willingly” in order to avoid pressure to accept the two-state solution.
According to Sanders, Israel chose to “manage” the conflict through a combination of “brute force” and economic incentives, rather than resolving it by ending its permanent occupation of Palestinian territories.
He revealed that many of his partners in Palestinian human rights groups – who organize non-violent protests – are targeted or harassed by the Israeli army.
He expressed his belief that the goal of these policies is to avoid pressure to establish a Palestinian state, continue building Israeli settlements, and expand the annexation of lands in the West Bank.
He said that many on the Israeli left have been warning for years that the country will not enjoy peace and security unless it reaches a political agreement that achieves freedom and independence for the Palestinians. He added that even the head of the Israeli security service (Shin Bet) Former Ami Ayalon has been arguing for years that Palestinian “terrorism” can only be defeated by “spreading hope” to the Palestinians.
The Israeli activist acknowledged – in his article – that the events that took place inside the Gaza Strip during those “fateful” three weeks caused a shift in his convictions from “a modern Orthodox… and a settler in the West Bank” to an activist in a movement that opposes the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.
He added that all the human losses incurred by his country, and the suffering it caused to the Palestinians in Gaza, achieved nothing, “since our leaders refused to work to create a political reality in which violence is not inevitable.”
He said that he had learned from the fighting in Gaza that unless the Israeli government changed its approach, based on eliminating any hope for the Palestinians, to a commitment to granting the Palestinians independence, the war now taking place would not only result in the deaths of an unforeseeable number of Israelis and Palestinians, but it would not bring an end to Crucial to “terrorism”, stressing that any ground invasion is doomed to failure.
