Is The State of Israel on the Road to Self- Destruction?
"Either this nation shall kill racism, or racism shall kill this nation." (S. Jonas, August, 2018)
"A Vote for 'ABBH' (Any Body But Harris) is a Vote for Trump and Republo-Fascism" (S. Jonas, March, 2024)
If the State of Israel continues along its present path, of evermore expulsion-focused policy towards its Palestinian population in Gaza and the West Bank, in a word, "Yes!" And if this current process keeps going, who knows when the current government of Israeli Nationalism (as I call it) might turn its attention towards its own Palestinian citizens. (The "Nuremberg Laws," anyone? See footnote.)
The territory occupied by the State of Israel as we now know it was created first by a set of United Nations Resolutions in 1947-48, which led-to/were-followed-by-over-time, three wars. Each of those wars was the result of either an Arab invasion of one sort or another, the "War of Independence" in 1948 and the "Yom Kippur War" in 1973, or the threat of one. "The Six-day War" occurred when Israeli intelligence uncovered an Egyptian plan to invade and in a term from the Old (U.S.) West, "cut them off at the pass" (most significantly destroying much of the Egyptian Air Force on the ground). As I have said on more than one occasion, if one looks at maps of the land-area that was allotted to the State of Israel by the final UN partition-resolution in 1948, if the "Six Nation Invasion" had not occurred, it is hard to see how that nation (about half of which was part of the Negev desert --- which was really desert in those days) could have survived for too many years, surrounded by enemies.
As is well known, particularly after the "Sinai Agreement" of 1979, Israel, and its surrounding Arab neighbors as well as representatives of the Palestinians in what came over time to be known as the "Occupied Territories:" the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, slowly limped towards coming to an overall agreement, which would have proved some measure of justice, and peace for the Palestinians. The limping culminated in the "Oslo Agreements." The resistance from the Israeli Right and Far-Right (there was some difference between them in those days) to "Oslo" intensified, culminating, as is well known, in the assassination of the former Israeli Rightist who was instrumental in getting the proposed treaty done, Yitzhar Shamir, by a far-far-rightist Israeli terrorist (who now likely now be considered just an everyday Israeli Rightist). And, symbolized by the violation in 2000 of a Muslim space in Jerusalem known as Temple Mount, by the villain of the "Sabra and Shatila massacres" of 1982, Ariel Sharon, it has been downhill from there, coinciding with the dominance of the Israeli government by Rightists for most of the time since then.
I have been writing on the Israeli Right with regularity since 2012. And since that time, as is well known, for most of it the Prime Minister has been the Israeli-career-politician-with-the-well-practiced-U.S.-accent, "Bibi" Netanyahu. As is also well-known, since then Bibi has been moving further and further to the Right, both in terms of dealing with the Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank and Gaza, or dealing with trying to reduce the powers of the Supreme Court of Israel. What is not as well-known is the Netanyahu is a direct ideological descendant of the original Expulsionist, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, a man who in the 1930s the future first Prime minster of the State of Israel labelled the "Jewish Hitler," for his racist ideas and policies. As a young man Netanyahu's father was a secretary to Jabotinsky, and quite obviously the latter's ideology was passed through the father to the son.
Politically, Netanyahu's hand has been strengthened by the expansion of the Jewish "Settlements" in the West Bank to the increasingly serious detriment to the Palestinian Arabs who have lived since before Partition. The "Settlers," many of whom are U.S., often U.S., Orthodox Jews (many of whom continue to hold their U.S. passports [in order to provide for a quick, emergency exit, if necessary?]) A graphic display of how the U.S. "settlers" treat their Palestinian neighbors is provided in: "US Silence Despite Americans Attacked in Occupied West Bank." If you listen to the "settlers" it is clear, certainly by implication if not declaration, that their ultimate objective is expelling the Palestinians from the West Bank. Certainly, any concept of any kind of "Two-State" is well outside their realm of thinking. I have written more than once the Expulsion of any non-Israeli Palestinians from and territory controlled or partially controlled by the State of Israel --- see, of course, Gaza --- is the ultimate objective of the Israeli Rightist political coalition. Viewing the behavior of Israeli forces in Gaza since the Hamas outrage of 10/7/23 to me just makes no sense.
And it is this view of Israeli policy that leads me to believe that it will eventually lead to the self-destruction of the State of Israel. Why do I take this radical view (on which I will write briefly now and then more later, if events seem be taking that nation in that direction? (And by the way, if somehow a peace [in a variety of meanings] government does take over in Israel, I will be breathing a gigantic sigh of relief and gladly admitting that that prediction was entirely wrong.) But if things continue to go in the same direction that they have been going in for well over a year, these are some of the consequences, for the State of Israel:
If Vice-President Harris wins the Presidential election (and that election survives the possibly violent response on the part of Trump and his allies that would make "Jan.6" look like a stroll down Pennsylvania Avenue --- see my next column on "Secession," next week) there will be a major change in U.S. policy. The Vice-President knows that things simply cannot go on like this, and changes will come. (President Biden knows that too, but as far as what could and could not be done now, see the second footnote below.)
2. Israel's standing in the world is diminishing at a rapid rate. For example a vote has been taken in the UN General Assembly that grants some sort of regular membership to the Palestinians (who don't have a "nation" or a government in the conventional sense, so they cannot be conventional members). The U.S., for the time being, has prevented this from happening. But, like the old Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team, "wait 'til next year." I am certain that under a President Harris, that policy would change. Of course, under a President Trump, even as he wonders why "Jews don't vote for me," it would be even worse. (Just remember that it was Trump who, for example, moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, where it does not belong under international law.)
3. But it is primarily internal factors that lead me to believe that Israel is on the road to self-destruction. Not necessarily on order of importance, they are. 1. No matter how much military aid Israel is currently getting from the U.S., wars are expensive. 2. Israel's population is just under 10 million. Of that number, just under 75% are Jews. As things get worse economically --- and they certainly will --- at first at least some of the non-Jews will look to leave. Next will be those Jews who hold passports from their countries of origin (like many of the "settlers" in the West Bank who are from the U.S.).
4. These developments will harm the economy, but they will also harm the military, which is already being stretched very thin, with an IDF constructed to be an only-when-really-needed military force to one that is constantly in use. Reserves, if they are in Gaza, are not at work (and of course they are neither trained nor psychologically set up to do the work of an occupation force).
5. It is likely that foreign investment is dropping, and not just because of the BDS movement.
And so on and so forth. The point is, that Israel is a small nation facing huge internal and external economic, political, and social problems. I don't see a collapse on the near horizon. But on the far one, in a form and process that is in no way presently predictable, I do see it coming.
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Footnote 1: "Politics, Law & Government: Law, Crime & Punishment:"
Nurnberg Laws, two race-based measures depriving Jews of rights, designed by Adolf Hitler and approved by the Nazi Party at a convention in Nurnberg on September 15, 1935. One, the Reichsburgergesetz (German: 'Law of the Reich Citizen'), deprived Jews of German citizenship, designating them 'subjects of the state.' The other, the Gesetz zum Schutze des Deutschen Blutes und der Deutschen Ehre ('Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour'), usually called simply the Blutschutzgesetz ("Blood Protection Law"), forbade marriage or sexual relations between Jews and 'citizens of German or kindred blood.' These measures were among the first of the racist Nazi laws that culminated in the Holocaust.
Footnote 2: It is a given that the Biden/Harris Administration, and V-P Harris' Presidential campaign, both depend in part on American-Jewish contributors who just happen to support the Netanyahu govt. to at least some extent. Given that reality, I look forward to hearing about a GAZA-settlement solution contrary to current Israeli Nationalist policy, that both the Administration and the Campaign could possibly support, before the election. One must also assume that if Trump is re-elected, things would get even worse than they already are for the Palestinians, in GAZA (although that's hard to imagine) and on the West Bank as well (and of course they are already horrible in both loci).