On Groundhog Day - Alon Pinkas in Haaretz:

‘Spoiler alert: you have seen this one before. Several times. It’s the Mideast version of “Honey, are you watching Israel and Gaza again? Didn’t we watch that together last year?” You may also be tempted to vent that even “The Phantom of the Opera” closed recently, after thousands of identical performances every night. You know the stages, you can sing along and parrot the TV studios clichés – and you already know how it will end.’

(…)

‘Military blows are traded, Gaza is bombarded, southern and central Israel experience sirens, rockets and disruption of life. Both sides vow to continue. Egypt, Qatar and some other volunteer country launch “mediation” efforts, while the United States urges “restraint and regard for human life.” Soon, the UN Security Council is asked to convene and issue a statement or vote of condemnation. World attention shifts gradually from total disinterest to mild indifference and then to active anger, as the optics of devastation and death make it to the top of TV news bulletins and websites.
Then comes real mediation and the two sides grudgingly agree to a cease-fire, but not before declaring stunning, unprecedented successes – when in fact it was a lose-lose cycle of violence, irrespective of who started it or who is right, that achieved no political goal whatsoever.’

(…)

‘At this point, the international protagonists are all sticking to the script. The United Arab Emirates, together with China and Russia, called for a UN Security Council meeting to draft a condemnation of Israel. Reportedly, the United States and Britain blocked that initiative over technicalities. However, as long as the Chinese and Russians view international relations as a zero-sum game with the Americans, and if there is escalation, this condemnation is bound to resurface.
The United States has only two policy interests in mind regarding this latest round. First, avoid escalation, both in Gaza and laterally, and prevent this from becoming a focal point of world diplomatic attention – certainly while the Ukraine war is raging on. Second, in light of the recent Saudi-Iranian rapprochement, Syria’s readmittance to the Arab League and increased Chinese involvement with Iran and tightening of Russian-Iranian relations, the United States does not want this to expand into an Arab-Israeli issue beyond the confines of the Israeli-Palestinian arena. The Americans have neither the inclination nor the political capital to mediate or be sucked into this.’

(…)

‘Why? That’s easy. It provides the ultimate pretext for never having to engage in a diplomatic process, previously known as “the peace process.” When the PA is weak and Hamas is an Iranian-backed terror organization whose stated goal is the destruction of Israel, who will you negotiate with? So instead, there are periodic military flare-ups with no political objective.’

(…)

‘Gaza is a prime example of Israel’s endemic fixation on the tactical level, purposely avoiding the political and strategic altogether. This will almost surely lead to either the implosion of the PA under political and financial strains, or to a voluntary dissolution that will bring the “one binational state” to the top of the menu.
Barring major deterioration, this round will end in the most predictable way: as a continuation of the previous round and a preamble to the next. No equation has changed, no power relations have been altered. No one gains, everyone loses.’

Read the article here.

I mostly agree, maybe Netanyahu and his coalition might win something. At least attention is distracted from the ongoing protests against the judiciary reforms that Netanyahu is seeking.

The truth is that this seemly endless cycle of violence can go on for decades, well as long as Hamas and PA survive. Israel needs Hamas desperately, for various reasons, and vice versa.