I wanted to be wrong, but it turns out I was right.

Since the beginning of October, I have been sure that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu always had one goal: to wipe out Gaza.

Spurred on by a fanatical cabinet that considers the Palestinians worthless.”vermin“Netanyahu has done what I believe he always wanted to do: forego the gradual destruction of a people and a strip of land and instead engineered a genocide in Gaza with ruthless and oh-so-satisfying efficiency.

By now this fact should be clear. This is the “victory” that Netanyahu has achieved and will continue to strive for until he achieves it – turning Gaza into dust and memory forever.

There will be no “pause in fighting,” no “permanent” ceasefire, no truce, no end to the genocide because Netanyahu has no reason or incentive to stop.

And Netanyahu knows that no one inside or outside Israel is ready, willing or able to stop him.

Hope is gone.

Every day the Palestinians hope in vain that the horrors and atrocities will end. Every day we hope in vain for some faint sign that the murderous madness has ended, that reason and diplomacy will prevail, and that prisoners – on both sides – will be reunited with their hurting families.

Hope is a fantasy, snuffed out by men and forces whose “killing fury” only seeks to cause chaos and despair.

Netanyahu could be unpopular. Nevertheless, what he does and how he does it, in defiance of standards, decency and international law, has the overwhelming support of Israelis, who would apparently also be content with Gaza being permanently reduced to dust and memory.

Survey show that most Israelis want Netanyahu to use more force and more “firepower” in Gaza and beyond. Damn decency, international law and the number of victims, which is increasing horribly day by day.

The pain and suffering of Palestinians is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is Israel’s right and duty to defend itself.

So it’s hardly surprising that polls also show that, despite rampant hunger, disease and desperate need, most Israelis want their compatriots to continue blocking trucks carrying food, water and medicine from reaching Gaza until the government’s response Prisoners held by Hamas have been released.

Palestinians are expendable. Israelis are not.

As for the “future” of Gaza, 93 percent of Israelis reportedly agree with Netanyahu: the two-state “solution” is dead from the start, since all the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River belongs to them. The goal is for Israeli settlers to replace Palestinians in Gaza. Another Nakba is already underway – literally.

I am convinced that most of Israel’s allies abroad – whether they admit it publicly or not – also hold these outrageous beliefs and fully subscribe to Netanyahu’s approach and definition of “victory.”

So far from being “damaged” or “weakened,” Netanyahu was emboldened as a “wartime” prime minister and by an “international community” that encouraged him to do without remorse what he did in Gaza and the occupied West Bank or restraint.

Netanyahu will survive as prime minister as long as Israel does what it does in Gaza, and perhaps even longer. Ever the calculating Machiavellian, he has dismissed predictions from wishful-thinking columnists, “experts” and former presidential candidates of his imminent political demise or forced exit.

The “international community” has repeatedly said it is “concerned” about what her husband is doing in Tel Aviv, the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank. Time and time again, these expressions of “concern” proved to be empty pieces of performative nonsense.

As a reliable cue, US President Joe Biden described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “excessive”.

“I have been very, very committed to bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza. There are a lot of innocent people starving, a lot of innocent people in trouble and dying, and it has to stop. Number one,” Biden told reporters earlier this week.

It won’t stop. How can it stop when? Biden and his complicit allies in London, Paris, Berlin and Ottawa continue to arm Israel to the brim and refuse – even in the face of Israel’s “excessive” attack and the worsening humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza – to call for an immediate ceasefire?

The ominous The course was set when Biden and the other presidents, chancellors and prime ministers rushed to Tel Aviv on “solidarity” pilgrimages to stand “firmly” at Netanyahu’s side.

It is too late to apply the usual short-lived talking point brake because Netanyahu is not listening.

He does not comply with the requirements of the International Court of Justice devastating verdict It called on the Israeli government to halt its activities in Gaza after South African lawyers and diplomats argued convincingly and “plausibly” that Palestinians were victims of genocide and Israel was the perpetrator.

Rafah is in Netanyahu’s crosshairs. The so-called “safe haven” and the more than a million Palestinians who have sought refuge there in tents and makeshift “houses” will have to endure the inevitable deadly consequences of the major Western powers’ unconditional support for Israel.

Exhausted and petrified Palestinians, including mothers, wives and their sons and daughters, will not be spared from Israel’s wrath. Their already precarious lives hang – for the moment and only for the moment – ​​on the precipice of Netanyahu’s life. delayed designs.

Biden and others could at least claim publicly that they are calling on Israel to stop the impending bloodbath. Netanyahu is not deterred by her empty speech delivered behind a lectern “Warnings”. He sets the geopolitical tone, not Biden et al.

While America was busy with a football game last night, Netanyahu gave to the Palestinians In Rafah there was a foretaste of the horror to come – a hail of shells was fired, killing and dismembering dozens of sleeping children, women and men.

Netanyahu is finally sure about the importance of patience. Biden looks and sounds like an old man about to become yesterday’s man – gone, irrelevant and forgotten.

The November presidential election is just around the corner. Another old man, Donald Trump, has more than a good chance of returning to the Oval Office.

If that happens, Trump will enshrine Israel’s license to commit genocide without the meaningless rhetorical “caveats” of his predecessor.

Either way, America has effectively turned into Israel’s proxy. The dynamic has shifted.

Israel will decide what will happen in Gaza today and tomorrow, and America will salute in approval and help pay for the pleasure of obeying its captain’s orders – happily, willingly and enthusiastically.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.