Israel’s dilemma: De Gaulle’s path or Hitler’s way?

There are only two powers in the world: the sword and the spirit. In the long run, the sword is always defeated by the spirit – Napoleon Bonaparte.

Israel has never been a normal state. Zionism, its foundational ideology, has made settler colonialism essential for its survival. Ethnic cleansing and genocide have always been integral to a policy of settler colonialism. Consequently, Israel has remained in a state of perpetual conflict as it employs its military prowess to “secure” itself through ethnic cleansing and genocide. However, as the events of 7^th October and beyond have elucidated, even after 75 years of ruthless campaigning, Israel can hardly be considered secure (a point relentlessly emphasised by the Israeli Government and the Zionist lobby).

Renowned Pakistani political scientist Eqbal Ahmed had postulated that settler colonial societies continue to suffer from weakness and insecurity until they fulfil three conditions. First, they must establish normal relations, or preferably hegemony, with their neighbours. Second, a “final solution” of the “native problem” has to be found and implemented. Third, they must obtain self-reliance in order to wean themselves off from their overseas/metropolitan sponsors.

Initially, Israel did achieve some success along these lines when it successfully removed the bulk of native Palestinians from 80 per cent of historic Palestine (the land between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea) during the Nakba by killing thousands of Palestinian civilians and scaring hundreds of thousands more to flee their homes. Israel occupied the remaining 20 per cent of Palestine in 1967 but failed to depopulate these lands from Palestinians completely despite decades of violence, injustices, and humiliations piled on the Palestinian people by its forces.

Today, the number of Palestinians in historic Palestine roughly equals the number of Zionist Jews (around 7 million each), a fact that has augmented Israel’s demographic anxiety. Post 7 October, Israel has used all the force it can muster to remove two million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to “ease” the demographic equation, but the Palestinians have refused to leave, and Israel has proven unsuccessful in forcing any of its neighbours to accept millions more Palestinian refugees.

Alarmingly for Israel, the Palestinians’ spirit of resistance seems to have amplified since it inaugurated the deadliest phase of its ongoing genocide (that began with the Nakba in 1948) after 7 October. Even according to Israeli sources, the offensives against Gaza have failed to achieve their objectives. Concurrently, Israel seems to be losing its support among the populations of its vital Western allies, especially among the youth. This means that in the coming years, a decline in the hitherto unrestricted support to Israel is expected. The USA, by far Israel’s largest sponsor, seems to be waking up to the fact that Israel is becoming a strategic liability that involves the USA in its forever wars without providing any significant strategic benefit in return. There is a recognition within many influential US strategic circles that unrestricted support to Israel alienates the US from many important potential allies and strengthens China’s hand all over the Global South. Due to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the Palestine cause has evolved to become somewhat of a cause célèbre not only in the Global South, but also among the youth of many of the developed countries.

So, Israel seems to be facing a dilemma. How can it secure its existence as a Zionist Jewish state as support from the West ebbs away and the Palestinian resistance keeps on strengthening? History offers the examples of two paths Israel could take: French Algeria and Nazi Germany. Both of these entities shared some of Israel’s key attributes, including but not limited to an ideology of racial superiority, settler colonialism, apartheid, demographic anxieties, and militarism.

France occupied Algeria in 1830 and declared it an integral part of France (as opposed to merely a colony) in 1848. European colonists were encouraged to settle in Algeria, and in the 1950s these settlers (known as Pieds-Noirs) numbered around 1.4 million (13 per cent of the population of Algeria). Pieds-Noirs exhibited many socio-cultural attributes that are the hallmark of Israeli settlers in the occupied territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem today. They lived in perpetual insecurity of losing their hold on Algeria (which would result in the loss of special privileges and domination over the native population) and, as a result, exhibited a tendency to cross any limit to make French Algeria endure, even if those efforts brought France to the brink of civil war. The Pieds-Noirs were considered an integral part of the French nation. Neither the French Army (in which there were many Pieds-Noirs senior officers) nor any French Government could afford to take their concerns lightly.

In 1954, Algeria’s War of Independence was launched. More than half a million French troops (not to mention the various Pieds-Noirs militias) exerted every effort to quash the resistance but failed despite inflicting huge losses on the Algerians. By 1958, France was facing the dilemma Israel faces today: an unwinnable war in the service of a settler-colonial project. The French Fourth Republic was accused by the French Right, the French Armed Forces, and the Pieds-Noirs of not doing enough for Algérie française. In May 1958, a few French Generals and colonial officials in Algeria launched a coup d’état in Algiers and took control of French Algeria. They also warned the French Government to hand over power to Charles De Gaulle or they would seize Paris with the help of sympathetic army detachments. Charles De Gaulle was not only given the post of Prime Minister, but he was also given extraordinary dictatorial powers. The Generals had brought De Gaulle for a single reason: to save French Algeria.

Charles De Gaulle, a war hero of the Second World War and a former President who had vehemently opposed the prospect of granting independence to the French Indochinese colonies during his rule, was expected to “go hard” on the Algerian resistance. For a while, De Gaulle fit the bill. He inducted fresh forces into the battlefield and appointed General Maurice Challe in command, who launched the famous “Challe Offensive” in 1959. General Challe employed scorched earth tactics and put millions of Algerians in concentration camps (named “regroupment” camps) to intercept the logistics of resistance fighters and stop their recruitment. However, in a few months, it became clear to De Gaulle that military force wouldn’t result in victory, but rather would only prolong an unwinnable war and bleed France dry in the process. He started pondering other solutions. Full integration of French Algeria with France was rejected as it would result in a France that would have a huge Muslim minority of over 30 per cent (and a higher birth rate). De Gaulle, who believed in French racial superiority, was horrified at the prospect. The status quo was deemed unsustainable as well, especially in light of the fact that horrific French atrocities in Algeria (according to the Algerian sources between 1 and 1.5 million were killed by French forces between 1954 and 1962) had turned the global opinion against France. In a secret speech at General Challe’s headquarters in late 1959, De Gaulle declared, “We shall not have the Algerians with us, if they do not want that themselves. The era of the European administration of the indigenous peoples has run its course. In the outside world, there is an international situation almost entirely and openly against us.” Later, De Gaulle wrote in his memoirs, “Integration, then, was in my view no more than an ingenious and empty formula. But could I, on the other hand, contemplate prolonging the status quo? No! For that would be to keep France politically, financially, and militarily bogged down in a bottomless quagmire when, in fact, she needed her hands free to bring about the domestic transformation necessitated by the twentieth century and to exercise her influence abroad unencumbered.”

So, De Gaulle put on the hat of a pragmatist and arrived at the best possible solution for France. He resolved to grant self-determination to Algeria. The French Right, the French Army in Algeria, and the Pieds-Noirs erupted in fury, but De Gaulle remained unfazed. In April 1961, France witnessed a tremendous irony when the same generals who had brought De Gaulle to power attempted a coup d’état against him. It failed. De Gaulle organised a referendum on Algerian independence in both France and Algeria in 1962 and granted independence to Algeria in July 1962 according to its results. He was lucky to escape an assassination attempt by a French Colonel the next month, but by freeing France of its settler-colonial burden, De Gaulle managed to rejuvenate his country and enabled it to reclaim its place among the top Western powers after the disastrous Second World War.

Adolf Hitler’s unwavering ideological commitment to the Nazi ideology sharply contrasts with De Gaulle’s pragmatism. Throughout his career, Hitler rejected any and all compromises he was offered. From the remilitarisation of Rhineland in 1936 to the stubborn defence of the Third Reich in 1945, Hitler was offered several chances to stop and solidify his gains or to save Germany from annihilation during the later stages of the war. Hitler spurned them all. In his view, Lebensraum (living space) in the form of a Greater Germany stretching from the Rhine to the Urals was the “right” of a superior race of German Übermenschen. In the quest for Greater Germany, Hitler plunged Germany into an unwinnable war, which he hoped to win through genocide and ethnic cleansing of Eastern Europe.

Coming back to Israel’s dilemma, it can opt for a “De Gaulle Solution” and accept an independent Palestinian state consisting of the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and East Jerusalem. Even Hamas has agreed to demilitarize itself and cease its war on Israel if Israel lets a Palestinian State based on these borders be established. Israel’s “demographic problem” will be solved as well as the Jews outnumber the Palestinians three to one in the rest of historic Palestine. So, by returning only 20 per cent of Palestine to the Palestinians, Israel can secure its future as a Zionist Jewish State.

However, if Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s obsession with the dream of Greater Israel is shared by the bulk of the Israeli population, then it follows that the “De Gaulle Solution” will never be seriously considered by the Israeli Government. It will continue on its path of war and genocide with renewed vigor in the hope that it will be able to shatter its opponents through sheer military might and impose its will on them. This “Triumph of the Will” has to be achieved quickly, though. Like Hitler and his henchmen, Netanyahu and his aides in genocide know that their endless military adventures are resulting in the organisation of newer and ever stronger forces against them. So, the dual task of conquest and genocide has to be achieved quickly. Hitler’s impatience and anxiety after his failure in subjugating Britain resulted in his fateful decision of a surprise attack on Soviet Russia. Similarly, Netanyahu’s impatience and anxiety after his failure in neutralising Iran can result in further wars, even against countries that are supposedly allied to Israel today. For example, Israel can be tempted to launch a surprise attack on Egypt and capture swathes of territory in the Sinai to forcibly displace the Palestinians out of Gaza in the next few years if it continues to experience failures in “pacifying” Gaza. Such “ideological warfare” on the part of Israelis can even plunge the world into a devastating Third World War.

Israel has a choice: it can stop now and gain a secure Israel stretching from the Galilee to Eilat. Just like Hitler had a choice to stop after the Munich conference and secure a Nazi Germany that was more than twice the size of today’s Germany. However, it appears that the Israeli leadership and the bulk of its population will spurn the opportunity without a second thought, like Hitler. The world has a choice as well. It can continue to actively (like the USA) and passively (like most of the rest of the world) encourage Israel’s genocidal settler-colonialism that will lead it to a new world war that would dwarf the last world war in carnage or it can learn from history and force Israel to stop its genocide and accept a pragmatic solution in the interest of peace for all.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.