Is Israel Winning the War in Gaza?

Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah says the end of the Jewish state is near. The military facts on the ground say otherwise.

This article first appeared in the The Daily Beast.

Iranian and Arab pundits, both radical and moderate (on state-run TV), seem to have reached a consensus that Israel is not winning in Gaza. Arab loyalists to Tehran go as far as to argue they see signs of mass Jewish emigration out of Israel. In their telling, all the land—from the river to the sea—will then become Palestine.

But while Israel cannot claim a conclusive victory yet, trends suggest the Jewish state is beating its enemies.

Every Israeli “has a second nationality and has his bag ready,” saidHezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, in Lebanon, on Wednesday—invoking the popular canard that there is no real Jewish people, only a collection of European settlers on Arab land. “Reverse [Jewish] migration has begun, hundreds of thousands” have already left, he said. “If you are an Israeli with an American passport, go to America, with a British passport, go to England, with a French passport go to France,” Nasrallah said. He added: “You Israelis have only this future, the land of Palestine from the sea to the river will be for Palestinians only.”

Not so fast. Israel has been killing top Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Hamas, and Hezbollah officers at such a rate that funerals and eulogies have sucked the oxygen out of its enemies’ public life.