– Syed Azharuddin
When the ceasefire was finally declared, the roar of bombs gave way to the sound of questions. Whose victory was this? What had really changed? For months, the world had watched the Gaza war unfold like a grim theatre of defiance and devastation, yet the ending came not through triumph of arms but through a convergence of exhaustion, diplomacy, and moral recoil.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel entered the war, imagining that overwhelming force could bury the idea of Palestine once and for all. It emerges now diminished – its alliances frayed, its moral standing in ruins, and its political future uncertain.
The agreement announced in New York, brokered amid claims of an American “peace initiative,” looks, on paper, like Donald Trump’s achievement. His 20-point “Gaza peace plan,” rolled out weeks earlier, promised a new order for the region. But a closer look reveals that almost every clause in the deal – from the phased withdrawal of Israeli troops and reopening of crossings to the release of detainees and international reconstruction guarantees – had already been proposed months before by Hamas during the Qatari- and Egyptian-mediated talks. What Washington and its media ecosystem branded as Trump’s decisive diplomacy was, in reality, a reluctant acceptance by Israel of conditions it had long dismissed as “unrealistic.”
That reversal marks the true hinge of history. The military campaign designed to crush Hamas has instead forced Tel Aviv to negotiate on Hamas’s terms. The movement, battered and bloodied, remains politically intact and, more crucially, has succeeded in restoring global recognition of Palestine’s right to exist and resist. Israel, for its part, retains its arsenal but has lost the illusion of control.
The “Greater Israel” project – the fantasy of permanent dominance stretching from the river to the sea – now lies shattered under the weight of world opinion.
Much of the shift occurred not in war rooms but on streets and screens. From London to Jakarta, students, dockworkers, artists, and faith groups organised the largest coordinated protests since the anti-Iraq war marches. The Sumud Flotilla, a civilian convoy of aid vessels, became a moral lodestar. When the ships were harassed in international waters, millions watched live feeds and hashtags multiply; universities in France, Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands announced class boycotts should the flotilla be blocked. For many young people, Gaza had become the litmus test of conscience. Yet, as convoys moved toward the besieged coast, western coverage tilted curiously elsewhere – toward the celebrity presence of Greta Thunberg, who had joined climate activists calling for a ceasefire. Her involvement drew headlines that eclipsed the flotilla’s humanitarian purpose, reducing a transnational act of civil courage to a photogenic sidebar.
This was not the first flotilla, nor the first attempt to breach the blockade. From the 2010 Mavi Marmara to the 2018 Freedom Flotilla, such voyages have punctuated the long siege of Gaza with reminders that civil society often carries the moral weight governments refuse to bear. The Sumud Flotilla’s legacy is therefore twofold: it reignited that tradition of non-violent defiance and exposed the world’s media asymmetry, where narratives of resistance are drowned by celebrity-driven attention cycles.
Inside Israel, the fissures are deeper than ever. For the first time in decades, Jewish citizens have mounted sustained protests not merely against a policy but against Zionism’s current expression in Netanyahu’s leadership. Former military officials, rabbis, and academics publicly demanded an end to the war and called for recognition of Palestinian suffering. In Tel Aviv, vigils for Palestinian children stood beside demonstrations demanding Netanyahu’s resignation. The prime minister, once the self-styled guardian of Jewish unity, now presides over a nation split between fear and fatigue.
The hostage exchanges, initially framed by Israeli spokesmen as proof of Hamas barbarity, produced an unexpected narrative twist. Testimonies from freed Israeli captives described adequate food, medical care, and access to religious observance while in Hamas custody. Human-rights monitors noted that many Palestinian detainees released from Israeli prisons bore signs of mistreatment and prolonged isolation. These accounts complicated the moral binary long used to justify Israeli operations. While neither side can claim moral purity in war, the contrast undermined the government’s claim to exclusive virtue and reinforced the perception that brutality had become Israel’s default language.
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, American public sentiment reached an inflection point. Polls showed that for the first time a majority of young voters viewed Israel unfavourably, citing the humanitarian toll in Gaza as incompatible with democratic values. Congressional hearings turned contentious; protest encampments reappeared on U.S. campuses. Trump’s administration, weary of defending an unpopular ally, quietly endorsed the ceasefire framework while allowing Trump to claim credit – an act of political convenience that fooled few but suited Washington’s need for closure.
Still, the ceasefire is not peace. Gaza remains in ruins, and accountability for war crimes is nowhere in sight. International law, repeatedly invoked and repeatedly ignored, stands like a broken promise. Netanyahu and his ministers face mounting petitions at The Hague, yet justice moves glacially while reconstruction demands urgency. In Arab capitals, leaders who once spoke cautiously have hardened their tone; in Europe, governments that recognised Palestine now press for war-crimes inquiries. Even within the United Nations, where Israel once relied on American vetoes, a procedural shift is visible: smaller states are setting the moral agenda.
And yet the silence of some heavyweights remains deafening. India, China, and Russia – all official supporters of Palestinian statehood – have offered only muted statements, balancing moral posture with strategic self-interest. Their reticence throws the contrast into relief when smaller nations such as Sri Lanka or war-torn Syria speak forcefully for Gaza. Global morality, it seems, often emerges from the peripheries, not the powers.
For Hamas, the outcome is less a victory of arms than of endurance. In Arabic, sumud means steadfastness – the ability to remain rooted despite assault. That ethos, more than any battlefield achievement, has defined the Palestinian narrative through this war. To survive politically and socially after the devastation of Gaza is itself a moral triumph. Across refugee camps, mosques, and social media, celebrations erupted not with triumphalism but with tears of vindication. Flags waved not merely for Hamas but for the idea that Palestine had endured what was meant to erase it.
Netanyahu’s personal reckoning may yet come. His apology to Qatar for the earlier violation of its sovereignty exposed how few friends Israel retains in the region. His coalition teeters, his international image is toxic, and even Washington’s patience is wearing thin. The Greater Israel myth, the dream of permanent dominance sanctified by claimed divine right, has collapsed under the combined weight of global resistance, internal dissent, and moral fatigue. Israel’s military supremacy remains, but it is power drained of purpose.
The deeper story, however, belongs to the world that witnessed this shift. Over the course of a year, the Gaza conflict transformed from a regional tragedy into a global referendum on justice, empathy, and the limits of exceptionalism. From Latin America’s presidents quoting liberation theology at the UNGA to European mayors hoisting Palestinian flags over city halls, a shared moral vocabulary has begun to re-emerge. It insists that no state, however historic its trauma or sophisticated its weaponry, can bomb its way to legitimacy.
What began as Netanyahu’s campaign to secure his political survival has ended as a parable of decline. He promised security and delivered isolation; he invoked divine destiny and found human outrage. Trump’s self-proclaimed deal of the century has proven to be, at best, a surrender to realities crafted by those he sought to erase. The narrative control that once shielded Israel from scrutiny has fractured under the decentralised glare of global media, citizen journalism, and moral fatigue.
This is not the first time a super-armed state has won battles and lost the argument, but rarely has the shift been so swift or so public. From the Sumud Flotilla’s persistence to the Jewish protests in Tel Aviv, from student walkouts in Paris to quiet confessions in Washington’s corridors, a new consensus has taken shape: justice for Palestine is no longer a fringe demand but a measure of global conscience.
As the celebrations in Gaza subside into the daunting work of rebuilding, the world faces its own test. Recognition and cease-fires are milestones, not justice. The graves are still fresh, the blockades still stand, and the perpetrators of indiscriminate bombing remain unaccountable. Yet history will remember this moment less for the signatures on a truce and more for the moral realignment it revealed.
Across five articles, this story has traced the unravelling of a myth – the belief that power could forever insulate Israel from consequence. That era is over. Netanyahu’s Israel stands isolated not because it was defeated militarily but because it has exhausted the world’s tolerance for impunity. The “Greater Israel” dream, once shouted from pulpits and parliaments, now echoes as a warning of how arrogance corrodes legitimacy.
In the end, what endures is not the machinery of war but the stubborn hope of the oppressed. The moral, spiritual, and diplomatic victory claimed by Palestinians is less about domination than survival with dignity. The world, chastened and divided though it remains, has glimpsed its collective conscience again. And in that faint but growing light, the myth of Greater Israel finally meets its reckoning.
