Long before 7 October last year, divisions in Israel have been widening in ways that undermine its cohesion and even its usefulness to US imperialism, argues John Clarke

After a year of genocide in Gaza and accompanying brutality in the West Bank, the entire region now stands on the brink of a catastrophic conflagration. While it is the Palestinian and now Lebanese populations who have paid a terrible price for this, it is important to take note of the considerable social tensions and serious political differences that have emerged within Israeli society.

Since 7 October last year, an intense military mobilisation, major social dislocations and the growing threat of a regional war have opened up differences within Israel’s population that already existed prior to these developments. There have been huge protests, often focused on demanding that the Netanyahu government prioritise the return of the Israelis held as captives in Gaza and work for a ceasefire. In September, some 300,000 people took to the streets to press these demands and a short but highly significant general strike was held at the same time.

Even the official ceremonies to mark 7 October in Israel were a source of discord and acrimony. Transportation Minister Miri Regev, who played the lead role in staging these events, had to proceed in the face of ‘a growing boycott and objections among Gaza border communities and hostage families,’ according to The Times of Israel. For her part, the right-wing minister increased the tensions by dismissing such criticism as ‘noise.’

Economic impact

It is clear that these protests reveal a very powerful level of discontent and uncertainty. Israel’s protracted military operations, unprecedented since the state was established, have had a major economic impact. A headline this month in CNN Business points out that ‘Israel’s economy is paying a high price for its widening war.’ Karnit Flug, a former governor of Israel’s central bank, warns that if ‘recent escalations turn into a longer and more intense war, this will take a heavier toll on economic activity and growth.’

CNN notes that before ‘the October 7 attack and ensuing Israel-Hamas war, the International Monetary Fund forecast that Israel’s economy would grow by an enviable 3.4% this year. Now, economists’ projections range from 1% to 1.9%. Growth next year is also expected to be weaker than earlier forecasts.’ Yet, high inflation makes it impossible for the central bank to adopt stimulatory measures.

Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich gamely suggests that these are all short-term problems but others are less confident. The costs of the military effort are immense and the impact on the economy is considerable. The Institute for National Security Studies suggests that ‘Israel is expected to suffer long-term economic damage regardless of the outcome.’

This month, The Guardian looked at the ‘brain drain’ that is leading to the departure from Israel of ‘doctors and other professionals as a worrying sign that some of Israel’s elite already feel they no longer have a future in the country.’ Emigration is growing particularly among highly skilled professionals within the high-tech industries. The article points out that the ‘problem precedes the 7 October attacks and the war that followed, as demographic and political shifts have prompted some secular, liberal Israelis to question their future in a state increasingly dominated by religious traditionalists.’

Before considering the importance of the situation that emerged after 7 October 2023, it is worth stressing that this only compounded a longer-term trend. ‘By 2015, only a minority – although, at 45%, a large one – of the Jewish population in Israel defined themselves as secular … Data from the first class at elementary schools in 2023 showed that only 40% of children were in the secular stream.’ The ascent to power of extremists like Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir are reflective of these changes and the right-wing trajectory that Israeli society is on is largely rooted in religious fundamentalism.

Still, the shock of 7 October and the realisation that a new reality of indefinite conflict lies ahead can’t be underestimated. A report in Middle East Eye in July, which drew on Israeli media sources, pointed to a huge upsurge in departures from Israel. ‘Latest reports of the exodus of Israelis confirms data published two months after the 7 October attack which showed that nearly half a million people left Israel. It also showed a significant decline in the number of Jewish immigrants arriving in Israel. A second survey among Israelis living abroad conducted in March by the Hebrew University on the initiative of the World Zionist Organisation revealed that 80 per cent said that they do not intend to return to Israel.’

Two camps

The anti-Zionist Israeli historian Ilan Pappé has explored the divisions that have opened up in Israeli society and presents them as evidence of a fundamental rift with fatal implications for the long-term survival of the Zionist project. Writing in New Left Review, he describes the discord as ‘the fracturing of Israeli Jewish society. At present it is composed of two rival camps which are unable to find common ground.’

Pappé characterises these two opposing camps as ‘the State of Israel’ and the ‘State of Judea’ respectively. He describes the former as being comprised of ‘more secular, liberal and mostly but not exclusively middle-class European Jews and their descendants, who were instrumental in establishing the state in 1948 and remained hegemonic within it until the end of the last century.’ He is at pains to point out that ‘their advocacy of “liberal democratic values” does not affect their commitment to the apartheid system which is imposed, in various ways, on all Palestinians living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.’

The ‘State of Judea,’ on the other hand, ‘developed among the settlers of the occupied West Bank’ and it represents a break with the values and pretences of the past. It is politically on the ascendency within Israel and it ‘constitutes the electoral base that secured Netanyahu’s victory in the November 2022 elections.’ Its adherents have no patience for any limited or incremental process of dispossession and ‘it is determined to reduce the number of Palestinians to a bare minimum.’ The horrors that we have seen inflicted on Gaza, the West Bank and now Lebanon reflect the reckless and uncompromising drive to complete the colonial project to which this camp aspires.

We can see that the splits within Israeli society over the fate of those taken captive on 7 October and whether to curtail the rampage of military violence that have developed, as significant as they are, only point to a very much more fundamental rupture. Furthermore, those who make up the ‘State of Judea’ are the dominant grouping and they are not the ones looking for employment opportunities in Europe or North America.

Israel is, indeed, a settler-colonial project but it is also a garrison state that upholds Western interests in the Middle East. The present Israeli political leadership and the ascendant social base it represents bring with them a level of volatility and uncertainty that disrupts the balance between these two features.

The plans to advance ‘normalisation’ between Israel and the despotic Arab regimes that the Biden administration had such hopes for have been in disarray since 7 October, 2023. The US and most of its Western allies have, of course, continued to arm and support Israel since the present rampage began and there are no immediate prospects of this changing, even in the face of the threat of a regional catastrophe. However, Washington wants stability and containment in the Middle East and an ability to focus on confronting its main global rival, China. Long cherished as a ‘strategic asset’, Israel is ever more taking on the characteristics of a liability.

After one year of Israel’s cascading military onslaught, the region is a tinderbox and Israel itself is in the grips of a deep economic malaise and a profound social and political crisis. Israeli political leaders are forging ahead with no coherent exit strategy, in the face of resistance they can’t subdue and a wave of international revulsion that continues to grow. Israel’s ruthlessness is beyond dispute and it plays a role that is massively dangerous. At the same time, however, the Zionist state is deeply unstable and its future is highly uncertain.