On 17 August, Israel’s Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, appeared on a podcast hosted by a former hostage held in Gaza. “I think targeted assassinations should be carried out in Gaza, taking down 30 to 40 every night,” he said. The minister emphasised that this would not be limited to those who posed an immediate threat, concluding: “There are people there who are not worthy of life. They shouldn’t live. They’re not even people.”
Who is “they”? Who should not live? It is safe to assume that, in fact, he means all residents of Gaza. For Ben-Gvir and his ilk, there are no innocent Gazans. Not even the 1,000 children under the age of one who have been slaughtered by Israel. Ben-Gvir has spoken out in favour of the ethnic cleansing of Gaza more than once. Despite the ceasefire, now seems to be the time to continue what a UN Commission and genocide scholars have described as the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
The world was upset by Ben-Gvir’s statement. But this is not the first statement of its kind, either in Israel or elsewhere. What should alarm and disturb everyone far more than the statement itself is its normalisation in Israeli society. Incitement to the mass killing of innocents is a war crime. But in Israel, it has become normal – even a politically acceptable expression. In a society that has already legalised and justified almost all forms of collective punishment – including blocking humanitarian aid – perhaps this should not be surprising.
Today, there is nothing that Israeli society and the media have not attempted to justify or legitimise. Indeed, little testifies to the spirit of the times in Israel more clearly than the yawning indifference of Israelis in the face of a senior minister speaking openly about a daily blood quota of Palestinians in Gaza.
Since 7 October 2023, Israel has undergone a profound change in consciousness, the significance of which cannot be overstated. It appears irreversible, at least for the years to come. The attacks on 7 October dragged Israel towards the consolidation of two axioms that have transformed the spirit of the state.
First, the belief that, after 7 October, Israel is allowed to do anything in Gaza; and second, the belief that there are no innocent people in Gaza. The two are linked: if there are no innocent people, then everything is permissible.
These assertions swept through almost the entire society. Diplomacy, political arrangements, compromise and peace were removed entirely from the Israeli agenda, even among the Zionist left, which had previously stood for peace with the Palestinians, while large sections supported the two-state solution and opposed at least some of the settlements. What remained of the peace camp collapsed. At the same time, a process of accelerated and unrestrained extremism began. Here, too, everything was normalised and legitimised.
Under the auspices of the media, which voluntarily and on its own initiative hid Gaza from the eyes of Israelis so as not to disturb their conscience and consciousness, the settlers in the West Bank saw an opportunity. They understood that the war in Gaza was the great opportunity of their lives. While the focus was on Gaza, the settlers, together with the government, the army and the police, changed the face of the West Bank.
In Gaza the goal seemed to be systematic destruction and killing – as the then defence minister Yoav Gallant said in the days after 7 October, “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.” That has led to the erasure of a people on a genocidal scale, the destruction of Palestinian society and all its institutions, the concentration of the entire population in tent camps in the south, and the hope of their expulsion. In the West Bank, the struggle was for the takeover of land and for making the lives of its residents unbearable. The ultimate aim was to drive Palestinians to leave and, in the process, to destroy the last chance for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Under the cover of the war, the army changed its policy in the West Bank, where Hamas holds no official administrative or sovereign power. Some 900 checkpoints were set up throughout the territory. All Palestinian towns and villages were placed behind iron gates, sometimes locked and sometimes open to the public. You never know when they will be opened or closed, and nothing can be planned any more. Controlling Palestinian time is part of the tyranny.
All work permits in Israel were revoked for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians after the war began, devastating their livelihoods, and remain revoked to this day. At the same time, this burst of settler violence began which has been described by Israeli human rights organisations as “pogroms”. Palestinian residents could no longer reach their fields and olive groves. More than 100 new – and, of course, illegal – outposts sprang up across the land, including on some private property already owned by Palestinian residents. Their occupants began to descend on the residents, abusing them, threatening them, stealing sheep, burning agricultural equipment and houses, and sometimes even killing them.
Dozens of shepherding communities have already left their villages throughout the West Bank because of the settlers’ terror. Gaza has become an uninhabitable place; the West Bank is approaching this state at an alarming rate. The economic and social situation is rapidly deteriorating, and the residents’ lack of personal security is absolute. Palestinians have no one to protect them.
The Palestinian Authority’s forces are not allowed to intervene. The IDF explicitly protects the settlers, and if residents try to defend themselves, they are arrested or shot dead. The pogroms, which have become a daily occurrence, leave them helpless. The Palestinian police have no authority to intervene; the IDF cooperates with the rioters and protects them – and only them – and the Israeli police hardly investigate or bring the perpetrators to justice.
The result is a no-man’s land where everything is permitted for the settlers and nothing is permitted for the indigenous residents, where the cheapest commodity is a Palestinian’s time, property, honour and life.
This issue is barely on the agenda of Israeli society. The West Bank and Gaza are both about an hour’s drive from the centre of the country, and yet they exist on a different planet in terms of consciousness.
Almost three years have passed since 7 October. Gaza, the West Bank and Israel have changed beyond recognition. Israel’s international standing has also changed beyond recognition. Diplomatic ties have been cut in parts of Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia, and any mention of it has become toxic.
Its security situation has not improved either as a result of the wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran. And perhaps the most serious threat to the country is already looming on the horizon: the dramatic change in the US’s attitude towards it.
Whether the president is a Republican or Democrat, it is already clear that the special relationship between the US and Israel has come to an end. Given Israel’s geostrategic situation, this is more threatening and dangerous than the prospect of Iranian nuclear weapons. The loss of the American alliance would endanger Israel’s existence more than Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. In a situation of global ostracism, American banishment could be a strategic game-changer for Israel.
Israel is meanwhile confronted by an apathetic society that lives in complete denial and does not discuss at all the enormous challenges facing the country. Discourse is appallingly shallow, sensationalist, propagandistic and false. It is led by much of the mainstream media and characterised by a frightening unanimity of opinion on the main issues at hand – the occupation, relations with the Palestinians, apartheid and genocide. Almost everyone agrees on everything.
Only one issue truly divides political opinion in Israel: Benjamin Netanyahu, yes or no. That is what they take to the streets for; that is what they fight over. Israel has never had a leader who was as beloved and hated as he is. Now it appears that the elections to be held here on 27 October will probably change the situation, if only a little. All serious polls indicate that Netanyahu will not have the majority needed to form the next government.
Gadi Eisenkot, Netanyahu’s chief of staff of the army from 2015 to 2019, whose son and nephew both died fighting for the IDF in the recent war in Gaza, is the leading candidate to replace him. There is a good chance that he will be able to form a coalition with the other centrist parties and, probably, with one Arab party.
This is both encouraging and discouraging news. On the one hand, there is no doubt that Netanyahu’s time to leave the stage has come. The time for his far-right political partners, such as Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, has long since come as well. On the other hand, Israel is facing such fateful challenges that it is hard to believe that Eisenkot, or any other candidate from the current opposition, will be able to confront them. He has declared it explicitly on social media: “There is no Palestinian state, and under the government we establish, there will be no Palestinian state.”
Israel needs a reset. It needs to change some of its most basic assumptions. Yet there is currently no potential leader who appears capable of taking them.
Above all, Israel must finally break free from the paradigm that war is always the first, and sometimes the only, option for solving problems. Since the 1948 war, Israel has not fought a single war of choice that justified itself purely in terms of Israeli interests, yet war remains the preferred option in Israel, not only for governments but also for society.
For example, Israel went to war with Iran with 93 per cent public support – a North Korean figure. In Israel, there will always be a larger majority for any military action than for any political step. There are risks only in peace; Israel goes to war again and again, with its eyes closed, with almost unanimous consent and even enthusiasm.
After three years, Israel stands at a crossroads. In Gaza, the violence continues, albeit on a much smaller scale but by the same brutal methods. About two million people live in inhumane conditions, imprisoned in tent camps, while there is still no solution in sight, either to their humanitarian plight or to the future of the almost completely destroyed Gaza Strip.
Israel is sabotaging every attempt to begin rebuilding Gaza and demanding that Hamas disarm first. The chances of this happening are slim. In Lebanon, the picture is similar: destruction and occupation in the south of the country, with no real political horizon. Nothing has been resolved with Iran either, as we know.
About two months before the Israeli elections, Netanyahu is trying to stir up war on every front, believing that only fighting can rescue him from the poor polling figures. This is now his war for political survival, and he will be willing to do anything to win it. That is why he is such a dangerous figure at this moment.
Israel will not get out of its situation on its own, even if its government changes. Gaza will not escape disaster as long as Israel has the ability to shut down any international action. The West Bank is quickly approaching an explosion, and has been ever since Israel placed its residents in an impossible situation.
The responsibility lies on the shoulders of the international community. So far, it has done nothing but engage in empty talk. The world sees the genocide, sees the apartheid and sees the occupation, but takes no practical steps to put an end to them. Public opinion all over the globe is agitated, but governments are doing nothing.
What should be done? Just as the international community knew exactly what to do in the face of the first apartheid state, South Africa, and transformed its regime through determined and uncompromising intervention, it should know exactly what to do in the face of the second apartheid state, Israel. Israeli law rules that any Jewish person has the right to immigrate to Israel and gain instant citizenship, while Palestinians who were displaced from their homes in 1948 and their descendants are denied the right to return. It prohibits citizenship or residency for spouses from the West Bank or Gaza Strip. The regime under which Israel operates is no longer its own internal affair. There is an obligation to intervene.
The most urgent task now is to rescue Gaza from its disaster. Immediately afterwards, it is imperative to address what is happening in the West Bank. Israel bears responsibility for what it is doing in these two parts of the country.
The American taxpayer, who finances a large part of Israel’s actions, must look at the reports from Gaza and ask whether they agree with what is being done with their money. They need to look at the settlers who carry out pogroms and understand that not only are the jeeps they drive made in America, but much of the equipment used by the Israeli military is American-supplied and made
The administration must ask the same questions. It must draw conclusions. Such massive and unconditional aid amounts to full complicity. The decisions of many other governments, including the United Kingdom, also makes them complicit.
Once Gaza and the West Bank have been partially saved – once the genocide and the pogroms have been stopped – we should start thinking about the future. This spectacle of the Middle East blazing and threatening to set the world on fire every few years must end.
The two-state solution, which the entire world except Israel stubbornly supports, has unfortunately fallen off the agenda. Those who continue to cling to it know the truth: a real Palestinian state will never be established. There is no space left for it. It is time to admit it.
Israel and the settlers have won. Between the River Jordan and the sea, only two real options remain: apartheid or democracy, with one person, one vote. There is no third way, and the world must choose. Israel made its choice long ago.
[Further reading: Under siege on the Gaza flotilla]
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Subscribe here to commentA very sobering article. I have read Haartz since the 7th October 2023 and have noticed the change of mood to put it mildly. The USA has the final decision but expediency rules. I hope Haartz continues to give a very powerful commentary on the politics of Israel.
This article shows bravery and clearsightedness. The warrior state of Israel is no protection for Jewish people, nor is it a democracy. Oren Yiftachel is right to call it an ethnocracy, That will have to end before there is peace. But the task of persuading people is truely enormous.
Perhaps the role of Arab and Palestinian rejection of any Jewish state at all, ever, shouldn’t be ignored in this equation. Over the past century from the Peel plan onwards every rejection of peace has seen the actual or projected expansion of Israel.
Inasmuch as 7/10/23 marked perhaps the most brutal single act of rejection (even if you prefer to see it as “resistance”) it surely played as much a role in killing off a two state solution as anything the Israeli right has said or done, while the West Bank settlers – for whom I have no sympathy – are arguably just continuing what Arab rejectionism has largely facilitated for almost a century. This doesn’t excuse Israel’s faults or errors but it does require a more balanced view both off history and where wed are now that Gideon’s piece.