From the Fifty-First State to the Outcast Nation

Wars do not always end in military victory, but sometimes in moral defeat. On the day the ceasefire agreement was announced in Gaza, Israel had lost its most important battle in modern history: the battle for legitimacy.

It was not an army or a decision that halted the fire, but a global conscience awakened by images of rubble and blood, which erupted in the streets, universities, stadiums, and cafes to tell Tel Aviv: enough.

We have always underestimated the calls of the world's free people to act, seeing them as emotional without effect. But in this slaughter, the scales turned: in London and Paris, in Toronto and Berlin, in New York and Rome, people took to the streets not with a seasonal tone of solidarity, but with an angry awareness that sees Palestine as a test of the humanity of the age.

Students occupied squares, artists boycotted festivals, companies withdrew from deals, and universities opened cosmic dialogues about the meaning of justice and occupation, and even in popular Italian restaurants, the Israeli became embarrassed.

The United States pushed for calm not out of love for peace, but out of fear for its colonial arm.

The continuation of the war exposed its moral contradictions in front of Western public opinion. "Israel cannot fight the world," Trump told Netanyahu, and the United States could no longer justify its partnership with a state whose crimes are broadcasted live on screens. Therefore, the ceasefire was not a victory for Israel but an urgent rescue operation for its crumbling image.

Israel, which once boasted of being "the only democracy in the Middle East," has become morally outcast in the eyes of peoples. The world's universities no longer welcome its missions, stadiums no longer raise its flags, and artists do not accept its money.

The images coming out of Gaza shattered all of its old rhetoric about a "moral army" and "an equal struggle." Israel lost its most important capital: the ability to convince the world that it is the victim.

Internally, Netanyahu acknowledged that Israel is heading towards a "self-sufficient economy" what economists call an autarky. But this is not a project of strength, rather a sign of isolation. When a state declares that it will rely only on itself, it implicitly acknowledges that no one wants to deal with it anymore. Just as was the case with South Africa before the fall of apartheid, with Russia after the sanctions, and with Iran under siege, Israel is heading towards the same model: isolation instead of prosperity, fear instead of trust. Netanyahu, as usual, ideologizes failure and markets the historical significance of his rule even in the face of isolation!

But with external isolation, symptoms of an even more dangerous nature are spreading internally: fascism, racism, and a closure of consciousness. When the state loses recognition in the world, it seeks an internal enemy to forge its identity, and it becomes harsher against Palestinians and Arabs, and even against Jewish dissenters. Closure breeds fear, fear breeds hatred, and hatred turns into a way of life. It is a state that consumes itself from the inside and lives on the idea of eternal danger, and the outcast does not live as others do.

When the Israeli passport becomes a burden, when generals are summoned to the International Criminal Court, and when companies start to flee, Israel will discover that its army did not win, but rather defeated its image in the world.

From being the 51st state that was the center of American power, Israel has transformed into an outcast state bearing the stigma of genocide.

But unfortunately, the worst is yet to come. Political isolation, economic fragmentation, and a society drowning in its fascism, these factors do not bode well for everything Arab and Palestinian, but rather towards the intensification of the crisis in the West Bank and in Palestinian territories, in an attempt to escape forward away from global isolation and the repercussions of the genocide curse, and the attempt of displacement, and perhaps from the upcoming internal conflicts in Israel. After the exchange process is completed, there will be no Israeli voice calling for a ceasefire should it resume because the only reason for the internal Israeli dispute over whether to continue the war will vanish after the exchange deal is completed; thus, there are no guarantees that can deter those thirsty for blood and genocide and displacement in the future.

If the prisoner exchange process takes place, it will mark pivotal points that will widen the rift in the warring Israeli society, which has condensed humanity around the issue of just returning its hostages. After their return, it will revert to tribal wars.