David Pratt: If Israel can find peace deal in Lebanon, why not Gaza?

But that said, there is another “win” worth weighing up here too, one that must have left Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu rubbing his hands with glee. That very point was made in another newspaper piece yesterday too, written by the Israeli journalist Amos Harel in the daily Haaretz.

It hit the nail on the head when it posed the question that many of us are or should be asking ourselves right now. Put quite simply, if Israel is able to end the war in Lebanon without the total defeat of a far more powerful enemy – Hezbollah – then why can’t it reach a deal in Gaza with a much weakened Hamas?

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Image: PA) But before I address that very point, in just a brief aside can I draw readers’ attention to the fact that last Sunday the Israeli cabinet unanimously agreed to sanction Haaretz, the country’s oldest newspaper, citing its critical coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.

The result has been a boycott of the newspaper that has been pushed by Netanyahu, who has long loathed Haaretz’s criticism of him, calling the title one of the “greatest enemies of Israel”.

Just for good measure too, Netanyahu’s government also launched a bill to privatise Israel’s public broadcaster Kan, which has also been deemed problematic to the government’s position on Gaza, unlike many other channels which have been only too happy to toe the Netanyahu line.

For Haaretz, the order means that government officials or anyone working for a government-funded body must now boycott the paper while all government advertising in its pages or website must be halted.

READ MORE: UK Government faces total arms embargo legal challenge over Israel arrest warrants

Not surprisingly, the moves have raised real concerns over freedom of the press in Israel, but also acted as a reminder of the extent to which Netanyahu and his government will go to make sure everything that needs to be must serve their interests. Which takes me back to the ceasefire deal struck over Lebanon.

Put in a nutshell, this has only come about not because of wonderful diplomacy, welcome as the outcome is, but rather because it serves Netanyahu’s interests.

To begin with, stores of arms – despite Washington’s top-ups – are in fact beginning to dwindle and after more than a year of fighting Israel’s reservists are worn out. Some 54% of those mobilised since October 7 have done more than 100 days of service.

Netanyahu knows too that the outgoing Biden administration, generous as it has been until now, might not continue with its largesse in terms of supplying such weapons during the remainder of its term.

So, seen from Netanyahu’s perspective then what’s important here is to buy time until the US political cavalry arrives in the shape of the Trump administration, which will not only willingly replenish the arsenal and coffers in the war chest but give him a much freer hand to “finish” the job in Gaza.

Israeli troops seen moving in the Gaza strip (Archive)And speaking of finishing that job, wasn’t it curious how comparatively quiet and restrained those Israeli ultranationalists within Netanyahu’s government were in terms of criticising a ceasefire over Lebanon, despite the fact that many felt the job remained unfinished in dealing with Hezbollah and by default Iran?

All things considered, there was hardly a peep from the likes of national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Sure, on social media he called it a “grave mistake” and urged the need to fight until “absolute victory,” – but the bleating stopped pretty quickly and did so for one very important reason, it means that Israel can now get on with doing what it wants to do in Gaza, eviscerating Hamas and picking up fresh real estate along the way that it can fold into a “greater Israel” at the expense of any Palestinians who stand in its way.

For the inescapable fact here is that Netanyahu’s war aims against Hezbollah were also always more modest than the “total victory” he has sought against Hamas in Gaza. This too suits the ultranationalists in his collation just fine, chiming as if does with their religious zealotry and vision of Israel’s “rightful” territorial expansion.

READ MORE: Israel killing of three journalists could be war crime, investigation finds

Ending the war in Lebanon by Netanyahu was never really going to pose a domestic political threat, even if many Israelis in recent polls showed they felt it a job unfinished. The reason being that Israel had no intention of permanently grabbing Lebanon for its own.

As a sovereign state that was never going to happen even if Israel has occupied it in the past.

For now, Israel is satisfied with its security buffer from its border up to the Litani River and as for Hezbollah, its leadership has been largely wiped out this year, including Hassan Nasrallah, its charismatic boss for more than three decades.

With Gaza though it’s a different story, for there Israel remains hell-bent on swallowing up the territory and neutering the threat that comes from there once and for all whatever the cost to Palestinians.

Were Netanyahu to end the war in Gaza or even hint at it through a ceasefire as in Lebanon, the Ben-Gvirs and their ilk would let him know instantly and the Israeli leader’s power base would collapse.

Having succeeded in separating the two fronts posed jointly by Hezbollah and Hamas, is for Netanyahu an important win.

In doing so he has in one fell swoop cut the link of open solidarity that Hezbollah made its cause at the outset of the war in Gaza and made its promise of standing by its Palestinian “brothers” in Hamas until fighting stopped there look as empty as it always was.

As so often in the past, Gaza and the Palestinians now stand alone, and the vultures of Netanyahu’s government are circling waiting to go in for their final pickings.

For the people of Lebanon, I’m pleased for the respite they now have from the onslaught that has befallen them.

For Gazans however, I fear their own suffering is far from its end.