PREVIEW： Realpolitik #10 ｜ The Greater Israel
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Summary
Firas Mardad is back from a break in Lebanon and talks about the latest Israeli offensive in Gaza, the limitations of the Israeli offensive, and what Israel is trying to achieve in order to achieve its goals in the Middle East.
Transcript
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Hello, welcome to a new episode of RealPolitik. I am your host, Firas Mardad, back from a bit of a break in Lebanon.
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And I thought that I would start with an update on where we are with the wars in the Middle East,
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what Israel is trying to achieve, what are the limitations, and what does it mean if you are in Europe.
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So we have here a map of Israel showing us a little bit about where the fighting is and what's happening.
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And the first area of focus, obviously, should be Gaza, where the Israelis are trying to capture the city of Gaza itself.
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They've captured the towns around Gaza City, here in the middle, and they've isolated Gaza itself.
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They're trying to force a million civilians to evacuate, but according to the Israelis' own numbers, they say that only 10,000 have left.
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So they're going to try to conquer this territory, this very small area, a few square kilometers, really,
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which has a million people in it still, 990,000, according to the Israelis.
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Well, the first reason is, unless they take territory from Hamas and destroy their infrastructure thoroughly
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and clear areas and expel the Palestinians from them, they can't say that they've won.
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The problem is that with so many civilians there, it's going to be quite a challenge.
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The second reason is because the Israelis are saying that they want to force at least a big part of the residents of Gaza to leave the area entirely.
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Probable answers are Europe, the West, the Anglosphere in general, Egypt, but Egypt absolutely doesn't want to take part in it,
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But the idea is to take this city completely because of its proximity to other important Israeli towns like Sderot and Ashdod,
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where Hamas being able to position itself there allows it to fire rockets at Israel.
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Hamas hasn't been firing rockets for a while, but if they ever recover, they will rebuild and they will resume that.
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The problem that's facing Israel is that for the last 30 years, ever since the 1982 invasion of Lebanon,
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So in 1982, they managed to kick the PLO out of Lebanon, but that only ended up creating Hezbollah,
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and then eventually Hezbollah forced the Israelis out by the year 2000 and kind of, kind of beat them in 2006.
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Since then, the Israelis haven't won anything decisively.
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And the only way to win against a group like Hamas, which is a genuine reflection of the Palestinians
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and of what they want to achieve, which is the elimination of Israel, obviously,
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And since they're concentrated in the north and Gaza, they have to be pushed southwards.
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And so the occupation of Gaza becomes politically and militarily important for Israel,
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and it would allow them to settle Gaza and alleviate some of the problems that they have
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with overcrowding in Israel itself by taking more territory and settling it.
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Nothing says you've won more than taking the enemy's territory, forcing their population out,
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and then taking control of their land, cultivating that land, putting your people there.
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So this is what the Israelis are trying to achieve.
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And what happens if you take this territory and a million people remain?
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Because when you withdraw, Hamas will rebuild itself,
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it or a successor organization that's even more radical,
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So the fight is really about the expulsion of the Palestinians.
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And the Americans are saying that they're willing to help.
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Trump said to be thinking about a plan whereby the Americans would pay $5,000 to every Palestinian
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in exchange for leaving Gaza, in theory, temporarily.
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If they leave temporarily, we all know that they're never going to be allowed back.
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There is no such thing as temporary displacement when it comes to Israel.
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The Palestinians who were expelled in 1948 were not allowed back.
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The ones who were expelled in 1967 were not allowed back.
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And these guys in 2025 will not be allowed back either.
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But the Americans are supposed to be weighing this plan to try to get rid of a quarter of the Palestinians.
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So 2.3 million people, you're dealing with half a million in change,
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six, seven hundred thousand people that would be expelled under the Americans' plan.
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Well, I want to take a minute here to play a video of Benjamin Netanyahu
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explaining his own views of why the Americans end up obeying Israel.
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This is Netanyahu speaking in 2001 about his plans to retake the West Bank.
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And his view is that the world won't say a thing because, essentially,
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especially today with America, I know what America is, says Netanyahu.
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America is something that can easily be moved to the right direction.
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So Israeli thinking is that, basically, they can influence American foreign policy to an enormous extent.
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And this was said in 2001, and this is still Netanyahu's view.
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And his main claim to power is that he can influence the Americans and get them to back any Israeli project that he wants.
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And in this case, he wants the displacement of the Palestinians.
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And the Americans are saying, well, okay, we're going to pay for that, essentially, and facilitate it,
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and maybe take control of Gaza for 10 years, according to President Trump.
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Even if you take 600,000 or 700,000 Palestinians, and then 1.5 million Palestinians remain in Gaza,
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firstly, in 10 years' time, the numbers will have gone back to what they were because of the high Palestinian birth rate.
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And secondly, it would mean that another war is inevitable.
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After 7 October, it became understood by the Israelis that at any point,
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the Palestinians can just conduct massive attacks against Israeli civilians
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that show that Israel is not a safe haven for the Jewish people,
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which undermines the very claim to legitimacy that Israel has in the eyes of other Jews,
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Jewish support for Israel is predicated on the idea that Israel is there to protect the Jews.
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And if Israel can't defend itself and can't win decisively,
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then Israel is not a credible solution to the Jewish question.
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And so if October 7, if the consequences of October 7 don't include the mass displacement
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of the Palestinians of Gaza and their permanent expulsion,
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Because what it would mean is that in 5 years' time or 10 years' time or 20 years' time,
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there would be another similar attack against Israel,
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and this time the attack would be better coordinated.
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And rather than just emanating from Gaza itself,
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it would come from Gaza and the West Bank and possibly Lebanon or Syria,
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and it would mean essentially a strategic disaster for the Israelis.
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And you have no reason to rebuild the territory that is in very close proximity
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to the Palestinians or to Hezbollah if you are guaranteed that in a few years' time,
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along with the massive destruction of Israeli properties and lives,
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that if they don't win decisively, that is as good as being defeated.
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And the issue is that so long as these million Palestinians remain in Gaza City here,
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even if Israeli tanks march up and down Gaza City,
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Because eventually there will be low-level resistance
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and the Israelis will be forced to sort of evacuate the most densely populated areas,
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and then these densely populated areas will become a hotbed for resistance,
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and then there will be another series of attacks.
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And I want to emphasize that it's genocidal on both sides.
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It's genocidal on the Israeli side, and it's genocidal on the Palestinian side.
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Because the one conclusion of the various attempts at peace is,
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And what's happening now is that the current leadership of Israel
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So the most influential politicians today in Israel
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are Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister,
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And the finance minister is obviously one of the most important people in any cabinet.
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And so these guys are full-on followers of Meir Kahane.
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Kahane was a rabbi who was eventually assassinated by an Egyptian guy in the 1990s.
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His whole premise was that all of the Palestinians in the West Bank,
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in 1948, Israel proper, in Gaza, and even around it,
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in areas like South Lebanon, South Syria, parts of Jordan,
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all of these Arabs must be completely expelled.
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So essentially, this is the logic of greater Israel.
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which means that the peace treaties between Israel and Jordan and Egypt
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because these guys are certain that eventually there's going to be a bigger war.
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And the way to prepare for that war is to expand today
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okay, I'm the guy who can deliver American and Western support
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but it would include parts of the Sinai Peninsula
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It would include parts of the east bank of the Jordan River,
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in this area that I'm trying to scroll over with my mouse.
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basically to create a Liebenstraum for the Israelis.
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The biblical land of Israel that these guys envision
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So it's an even bigger area that includes a lot more territory.
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And the way that Netanyahu says that he's thinking about this
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with the generation that built the state of Israel
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being responsible for merely establishing the state
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until the dream of a biblical Israel is achieved.
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That's the logic that's really driving Netanyahu right now.
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and we end up basically with the same borders of Israel
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then that guarantees there's going to be a future war
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So the threat here as perceived by the Israelis is existential.
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who are turned off by Hamas' failure to defend them,
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then they won't just be leaving to some country nearby.
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They're going to be chased out of the region entirely.
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It hasn't happened at this scale in the last century.
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Here you're dealing with 2.3 million people in Gaza