Well, Muhammad Sharjawi is Professor of Conflict Resolution and Diplomacy
at George Mason University,
joins us here in the studio.
Good to have you with us.
So first of all, let's start with
what's behind this withdrawal of some reservists.
Well, definitely there is a struggle in achieving certain objectives
in Gaza.
Therefore there is number of those soldiers who were killed
and there is a probably a
latent fatigue among certain brigades.
Therefore, I think the military leadership is reshuffling
its troops with the hope of
focusing on certain narrow targets instead of an
open-ended
coverage of the war or,
you know, so there is a shift going on in
the military tactics.
I think it is. I mean,
the indicators are there that there are two shifts,
one political and one military,
and they both coincide, you know,
at the end of 23,
beginning 24. Therefore, there are questions to be asked
whether there is a trajectory that can be determined by
the government of Netanyahu or he is trying to experiment
with other tactics here and there.
But this doesn't mean the end of the war.
No, unfortunately, the lingering Gaza war is shifting into a
protracted conflict which may stay with us for another year.
And when and Netanyahu said that bluntly,
the war will continue for many more months.
That's an indication that he wants to maintain his option
that there is a time framework open-ended for himself and
this is also an indication that he has not achieved
what he thought he would achieve on the 8th of
October.
Is the economic cost of the war also reason for
this redeployment?
Possibly, but I think the the impact of the economy
will
trigger more ramifications later on.
So now you have billions of dollars that are spent
on this
military campaign in Gaza. At the same time the Israeli
economy will be suffering long term.
So if there is any prediction when Netanyahu will be
convinced to change his
military mind, that would be
because the Israeli economy will no longer be all these
consequences at the same time.
The question now is with these two shifts in the
government as well as in the military strategy,
how does he deal with Washington?
I think so far Washington has not said award yet
about what should happen next in terms of negotiation,
in terms of truce or ceasefire or the two state
solution.
So a new year has begun.
Where is Israel's military strategic interests?
Is it better placed now when we look at the
situation,
its southern border still very much,
you know, under the line of fire,
the northern border unstable and part of shipping to Israel
also disrupted.
It's a mixed situation, one objective which is depopulating in
Gaza.
Basically it's working. I think now
about 80% of Gazans cannot live anywhere,
so it's massive destruction. Therefore,
there is this score of thought that
Gazans will be encouraged. A smooth rich food.
It will be encouraged to migrate elsewhere.
So the the civilian devastation is on target.
As far as one can tell,
however, the military campaign in terms of eradicating Hamas and
killing the so-called terrorists and so forth doesn't seem to
be working well.
So all these indicators are boiling down to one thing,
that the more time Nathaniel is giving himself,
the more late and challenge he's facing.
Alright, thank you so much,
Mohammed. Shark Howie.