After one year of genocide, why Israel's belligerence may be its undoing

On 7 October 2023, Hamas launched an offensive into southern Israel to irrevocably shatter an unsustainable status quo. While the crisis that has now persisted for an entire year did indeed erupt on that day, it had been decades in the making.

Israel's initial response was to unleash a genocidal campaign against the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip. Motivated by revenge and bloodlust, it was designed to not only kill and destroy on a massive scale but to make the Gaza Strip unfit for human habitation.

Genocide was the price Israel's western sponsors were prepared to pay for Israel to make an example of the Gaza Strip and, in so doing, to re-establish its shattered power of deterrence.