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 ending the occupation of their land within the framework of the two-state solution.
Ben-Zion Sanders, who is the director of the Jerusalem program at Extended TV, a rights group that links Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups to the American Jewish community, said he fought with the IDF in its July 2014 ground offensive on the Gaza Strip.
He elaborated on the operation, in an article in the New York Times, explaining how he believed that the losses suffered by the Israeli army were justified in order to achieve the desired goal, which is to "completely eliminate the threat posed by the Islamic movement (Hamas)."
He explained that this was what they (meaning Israel's leaders) said to them at the time, describing what they were told as a "lie," the same lie they are repeating today," i.e., "completely eradicating the threat of Hamas."
Since then, Hamas has grown stronger "despite all our sacrifices, and despite the death and destruction inflicted on Gaza."
The military's regular killings and destruction are the price Israel has been paying "willingly" to avoid pressure to accept a two-state solution.
According to Sanders, Israel has chosen to "manage" the conflict through a combination of "oppressive" force and economic incentives, rather than resolving it by ending its permanent occupation of Palestinian land.
He revealed that many of his partners in Palestinian human rights groups – who organize non-violent protests – are targeted or harassed by the Israeli military.
He believed that the aim of these policies was to avoid pressure for the establishment of a Palestinian State, to proceed with the construction of Israeli settlements and to expand the annexation of land in the West Bank.
For years, he said, many on the Israeli left have warned that the country will not enjoy peace and security unless it reaches a political agreement that brings Palestinians freedom and independence. He added that even former Shin Bet security chief Ami Ayalon had argued for years that Palestinian "terrorism" could only be defeated by "hope" for Palestinians.
The Israeli activist acknowledged – in his article – that the events that took place inside the Gaza Strip during those three "fateful" weeks, brought about a shift in his convictions from "modern Orthodox. and a settler in the West Bank" to an activist in a movement opposed to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.
He added that all the human losses suffered by his state, and the suffering it has caused to the Palestinians in Gaza, have achieved nothing, "since our leaders refused to work to create a political reality in which violence is not inevitable."
He had learned from the fighting in Gaza that unless the Israeli Government changed its approach of eliminating any hope for the Palestinians, to a commitment to granting the Palestinians independence, the war now under way would not only result in the deaths of an unpredictable number of Israelis and Palestinians, but would not put a decisive end to "terrorism", stressing that any ground invasion was doomed to failure.