The persistant questions after the announcement of a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip are: “Who won and who lost?” The war lasted a brutal 470 days and left a massive amount of death, bloodshed and destruction in its wake, as well as reframing a status quo that has held for two decades.  But the most important debate revolves around the longer-term consequences of this war.

Let’s start with the well-established maxim which goes as follows: “If the Resistance has not surrendered, it is not defeated, and if the regular army has not achieved its stated objectives, it is not victorious.”

But this raises more questions. One is, how can you talk about victory given the almost complete destruction of the Gaza Strip? On the other hand, how can Israel talk about victory after being forced to accept what it could have obtained before launching the ground war? Furthermore, can Israel just brush off the deleterious effects of the war on  its army’s reputation, not to mention the social divides that have resulted and the deepening ideological discord among its political elite?

In the early days of the Al-Aqsa Flood, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of an “existential war”. For its part, the Resistance adopted the radical counter language of a “war of liberation”. As it turned out neither of these two scenarios panned out. Israel could not defeat the Resistance; neither could it expel the Palestinians or  completely eliminate their cause. But nor could the Resistance liberate an inch of Israeli-occupied land. 

It is possible a new equation of mutual deterrence has been created. The huge costs incurred may instil caution on both sides about launching another war in the coming years. Traditional assumptions about Israel's tolerance for a prolonged war have had to be revised by the Resistance. Meanwhile, Israel has been forced to conclude that reoccupying Gaza on a permanent basis and building settlements there is just a pipe dream.

There is a lot of propaganda around and some Arab regimes are far from happy about the Resistance claiming victory. Not only do they oppose and fear the political and intellectual identity of the Resistance, but they are also deeply embarrassed to be shown up in front of their own people for their inability to stand up to Israel. People have been shown just how weak the Arab states are and their only defence is that imbalance of power exists stemming from unlimited Western support that Israel receives from the West.

Yes, Israel clipped the nails of the Resistance in Lebanon and Gaza. Yes, the regime of Bashar al-Assad fell along the way, and Iran had to leave Syria, where its presence had been seen by Israel as a grave danger. But in a sense this does not go a lot further than the “mowing the lawn” tactic that Israel has pursued against the Resistance, already resulting in four wars on Gaza since 2008.

But however much “mowing” Israel might do, it cannot end the possibility of a resurgence of resistance. Hamas and its allies did not lose their place in Gaza. They did not lose their popular support. They did not abandon their goals. And they demonstrated their ability to reassume control of the situation once the fighting stopped.

The ceasefire that was accepted by Netanyahu in January 2024 was the same one that he categorically rejected months ago. This was achieved by heavy pressure from US President Donald Trump and the realisation the Israeli army was unable to score a crushing victory or force the Palestinian Resistance to surrender. But Netanyahu will not be able to live down his failure to achieve his goals—his failure to free the Israeli prisoners from the hands of the resistance by force; his failure to eliminate Hamas; his failure to drive the population of Gaza into Egypt as a forerunner to liquidating the entire Palestinian cause by driving the Palestinian population of the West Bank into Jordan.

Gaza’s suffering will last for years because of the devastating effects of the war. But Israel will also suffer from the loss of its pristine image marketed to the world. It has gone from the “only democracy in the Middle East” surrounded by authoritarian regimes, to the “genocidal army” for its alleged crimes in the Gaza Strip. Israel will also suffer from the backlash of the war internally. Social unrest looms, to the point that some people are bringing out the term “civil war” in their expectations of where Israel might be heading in the future.

It is the Palestinians who have been victorious in the battle for public perception. In spite of all the destruction, the bloodshed and the inordinate pain, this puts some strength into their hands. They have also put paid to another historical myth, albeit a slanderous fabrication, that Palestinians gave up their land for money before the establishment of Israel in 1948. The Gazans have proven that they are willing to pay the price of sacrifice, in an unprecedented historic fashion.

Has Netanyahu reshaped the Middle East?

Netanyahu may be able to skirt around the issue of partial gains and losses, and go straight to the big picture item of establishing a “New Middle East” with Israel as its central and most powerful player. He has already said as much following the ceasefire agreement with Lebanon, before the Israeli army finished off the Syrian army and rolled in to occupy more Syrian land.

New Arab candidates for normalisation with Israel may appear after the cessation of the war. This may even include countries formerly classified as part of the Axis of Resistance, such as Syria and Lebanon, who will want to negotiate the departure of the Israeli army from their territory. This does open the door to the signing of new peace agreements, but is it enough to put Tel Aviv at the threshold of its long-held dream of leading a “New Middle East” and even aligning with Arab countries in confronting Iran?

Netanyahu might be able to sell this idea to Israelis in the short term, to soften the blow of his government’s disastrous performance in the Gaza war, as it is portrayed by his political opponents. But there is no guarantee of him being able to achieve this in the future. And it’s not just because his days may be numbered as prime minister.

This moment recalls the overoptimistic vision of Shimon Peres who thought Israel had it all figured out in the 1990s. He tried to soften the path to such an alliance through economic and cultural relations, but it never materialised. Israel continued to complain of a cold peace with the Egyptian people and a lukewarm one with most Jordanians. The Palestinian and Lebanese resistance never stopped fighting Israel with whatever strength they had. Nor did Israel ever stop its assaults on the Palestinians with excessive force, thereby keeping the flames of war flickering, regardless of any talk of peace and normalisation between Tel Aviv and certain Arab capitals.

Even the Arab countries that are likely to normalise with Israel may not align completely with Netanyahu's vision of the Middle East. They have their own projects that contradict the Israeli project in many respects. Their ambitions extend further than acting as stepping stones for Israel’s hypothetical or imaginary leadership of the Middle East.

But can Netanyahu achieve by force what Peres failed to achieve by subterfuge? It doesn’t look like it at first glance. Palestinian resistance has been baptised in blood. Resistance has taken root in the rubble, and I expect it also to grow in the West Bank. Hizbullah, although deeply wounded, can recover and, even without gaining its full strength, can thwart Israel’s plans in the Lebanese arena.

If Israel wants to maintain a military presence inside the Lebanese border, that would give Hizbullah its casus belli, and may rally the Lebanese population, or at least an overwhelming majority of the population, to the resistance cause, especially if it works with the Lebanese army and with the approval of official Lebanese institutions.

Meanwhile, Israel makes no secret of its concerns about the new de facto government in Syria and expects to be asked to withdraw from the land it grabbed after the fall of the Assad regime. Tel Aviv hopes it can bring Ahmad al-Sharaa and his associates to negotiations and a peace agreement that does not require giving up the occupied Golan Heights, which Israel annexed in 1981. But pressure might build on al-Sharaa to do something about the occupation of a new part of Syria, and even if the new rulers rebuild the army, experience suggests they would prefer to combine a regular war with a guerrilla war that Israel would have to deal with.

Even if Israel is banking on building an alliance with Arab countries against Iran, there is nothing to prevent Tehran from working  towards understandings and agreements with GCC countries. Gulf Arabs are fully aware that their involvement with Tel Aviv in confronting Iran would cause unwanted and avoidable blowback and we saw how they stayed well out of the exchanges of fire between Iran and Israel in April and October 2024.

And then there is Türkiye, which is undeniably a powerful player, one that is showing its desire to play a stronger regional role. We may start seeing Ankara coming into direct competition with Israel for influence, meaning that Tel Aviv's vision of leading the Middle East will not be an easy or unilateral process.

The most important factor remains that the recent war has deepened Palestinian grievances against Israel and will have persuaded a significant portion of them about the necessity of the armed struggle. Israel may find itself in the coming years facing Hamas not only in Gaza but also in the West Bank. The Palestinian reputation for “sumud”, or steadfastness and resilience, has been reaffirmed beyond any doubt and the “Resistance Project” will remain a  significant challenge to any Israeli vision for a Middle East that it wishes to impose by force. "There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip," as the saying goes!