There is an almost automatic tendency to frame the conflict involving Israel as a territorial dispute, where terms such as “occupation,” “expansion,” and “colonial project” are systematically reinforced until they solidify into conventional wisdom—driven not merely by repetition, but by a deliberate effort to shape perception.

Yet this narrative, beyond being reductive, is fundamentally flawed.

At its core, this has never been about land.

If territorial conquest and border expansion were the objective, the operational logic would look entirely different. One would expect traditional campaigns of occupation, continuous troop advances, direct governance of cities, and the gradual incorporation of new areas.

That is not the pattern we observe. Instead, the consistent focus lies in dismantling military capabilities: arsenals, weapons stockpiles, underground networks, command centers, and launch infrastructure. This reflects a strategy of containment and threat neutralization, not territorial annexation. Conflating these two dynamics—conquest and dismantlement—misrepresents the nature of the confrontation and imposes a framework that does not fit its reality.

What has been at stake from the outset is the confrontation with organized systems of violence—political and military structures whose very........

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