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 existence depends on rejecting Israel and sustaining conflict. Land serves as the stage, not the driving force.

This distinction changes everything.

In Gaza, Hamas is not merely a political actor; it functions as a war apparatus. It governs without renewed legitimacy, suppresses internal dissent, and redirects civilian resources into military capacity. Tunnels replace infrastructure. Arsenals displace social investment. The population is not the focus of the project—it is embedded within its machinery. Confronting Hamas is not about competing for land; it is about dismantling a system that depends on perpetual warfare.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah has consolidated a similar model. A state within a state, it maintains its own arsenal, command structure, and autonomy over decisions of war and peace. Its presence does not strengthen Lebanon—it subordinates it. The country is drawn into conflicts that do not originate from its society, but from an external strategic agenda. Challenging Hezbollah is not about redrawing borders; it is about confronting an armed structure that compromises Lebanese sovereignty.

In Iran, this dynamic expands further. The theocratic regime has, over decades, built a regional network of power projection based on militias, the financing of armed groups, and sustained destabilization. Domestically, it represses its own population. Externally, it organizes and fuels conflict. This is not a conventional state engaged in territorial dispute, but a system that exports instability as a governing principle.

The common denominator is clear: this conflict is not structured by land, but by power architectures sustained through organized violence.

In this context, Israel is not confronting peoples. It is confronting these structures.

This realization is uncomfortable because it disrupts the dominant narrative. If the conflict is not primarily territorial, then it cannot be resolved through geographic concessions alone. Its roots lie elsewhere—in the existence of organizations and regimes whose survival depends on the continuation of confrontation.

By insisting on interpreting this reality as a classic land dispute, public discourse shifts attention away from what is essential. Borders become the focal point, while the structures that generate and perpetuate the conflict remain intact.

This does not eliminate complexity, nor does it exempt decisions from scrutiny. But it redefines the analytical axis. The question is no longer who controls which territory, but which systems prevent these societies from organizing beyond a permanent state of conflict.

Some conflicts are resolved with maps. Others require dismantling machinery.

Within this framework, the characterization of Israel as a colonial project loses analytical coherence. Colonialism presupposes a distant metropole, resource extraction, and expansion as an end goal. None of these elements accurately describe Israel’s reality, which lacks an external center and operates within a predominantly defensive logic. Rather than an expanding power, it is a state responding to continuous threats to its existence—acting not to dominate or extract, but to contain structures that reject its legitimacy at their core.

Progress will remain elusive while violent structures are treated as legitimate political counterparts, while moral equivalence blurs the distinction between aggressor and defender, and while ceasefires are pursued without addressing the machinery that sustains conflict. Temporary calm cannot substitute for structural change. A credible path forward requires abandoning these approaches in favor of one that isolates and dismantles the systems of organized violence, restores clarity to moral judgment, and creates space for societies—rather than the forces that constrain them—to shape their own future.

*Célia Parnes served as São Paulo State Secretary for Social Development and is President of the Jewish Federation of the State of São Paulo and Secretary-General of the Jewish Confederation of Brazil.*

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)