Israel's domestic turmoil raises serious questions about its long-term survival
Story by Daniel L. Douek, Faculty Lecturer, International Relations, McGill University •
Testing Israeli defences
But after weathering the protests and a United States-led economic boycott, the Iranian regime’s fortunes appear to have turned.
Iran has won its bet in Syria. Its military intervention alongside Russia has kept Bashar al-Assad’s regime in power, keeping open a conduit for weapons transfers to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Meanwhile, Iran’s recent renewal of diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia, brokered by China, has crippled Saudi Arabia’s young alliance with Israel while eclipsing U.S. influence in the Middle East.
This has emboldened Iran to test Israel’s internal cohesion and resolve. Hamas’s deployment in Lebanon and its ability to fire rockets from Lebanese soil, along with rocket fire from Gaza and Syria, shows Iran’s assorted proxy forces are testing Israel’s defences.
The far-right swing in Israeli politics is inseparable from Israel’s police brutality at Al-Aqsa. Amid its ongoing occupation of Palestinian territories, the worsening tensions between Israel’s secular and religious Jewish blocs have blown wide open.
Meanwhile, as Netanyahu’s coalition injects virulent extremism into Israel’s political mainstream, a reprise of the deadly violence between Arab and Jewish citizens that exploded across Israel in May 2021 seems inevitable.
Israel’s current internal tumult is far greater than at any other moment in its history. As many Israeli analysts have already noted, this raises serious questions about the country’s long-term survival.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.
Read more:
Most Palestinians in East Jerusalem are sitting out Israeli protests – but they are still concerned about a potential judicial reform
Story by Daniel L. Douek, Faculty Lecturer, International Relations, McGill University •
THE CONVERSATION
Yesterday
In late 2022, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won Israel’s fifth election in the past three years by forming a coalition with far-right religious extremists whose ilk were previously considered beyond the pale in Israeli politics.
Israelis opposed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's judicial overhaul plan set up bonfires and block a highway during a protest in March 2023.© (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Netanyahu’s coalition recently introduced legislation to overhaul Israel’s Supreme Court, aiming to eliminate the court’s ability to impose democratic checks on elected leaders.
The overhaul, which would also protect Netanyahu from pending corruption charges, provoked an unprecedented wave of anti-government protests across Israel that have shaken the country’s political and economic foundations.
The protests included threats by combat personnel from Israel’s air force and special forces units to boycott their reserve duty.
Defense minister reinstated
In response, Netanyahu temporarily shelved the legislation, candidly admitting that he wished to avoid “civil war.”
Netanyahu also reinstated Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, whom he had fired for publicly calling on him to end the judicial overhaul because the internal divisions it caused made Israel vulnerable to external threats.
On one level, the widespread protests against governmental overreach represent an indicator of Israeli democracy’s robustness. But as a country that considers itself beset by external enemies, Israel has only a slim margin for internal division. The gulf between the protesters and Netanyahu’s coalition reflect the deepening fault line between secular and religious Jews.
And despite Netanyahu’s backtracking, Israel’s ability to deter its enemies has already been weakened by wounds that are self-inflicted.
Ramadan attacks
In early April 2023, during the holy month of Ramadan, Israeli police raided Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam. The site has been under Israeli control since 1967 and has increasingly become a place of resistance to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.
Israeli forces were caught on camera using brutal force to subdue worshippers in a video that quickly went viral globally.
Israeli police arrest a Palestinian woman at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound following a raid at the site in the Old City of Jerusalem during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.© (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
Islamist militant group Hamas responded by firing a barrage of rockets at Israel from Gaza. Another was fired from Lebanon, where Hamas has a foothold under the patronage of Hezbollah, the strongest of Iran’s various proxy militias across the Middle East.
Related video: Some young Israelis refusing mandatory military service (NBC News)
Duration 4:41 View on Watch
Read more: Why Hezbollah matters so much in a turbulent Middle East
When militant attacks then killed several civilians inside Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Hamas called this a “natural response” to Israeli forces’ actions at Al-Aqsa.
This was followed by another barrage of rockets fired at Israel from Syria, where Iran, Hezbollah and other Iranian-aligned militias all have forces deployed near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Self-inflicted wounds
These rocket salvos caused minimal casualties. Many rockets were shot down by Israeli air defences, and Israel then launched retaliatory strikes.
Yet the rockets nevertheless caught Israel’s political and defence establishment off-balance. Afterward, a former chief of Israel’s military intelligence branch warned that the damage inflicted to Israel’s national security by Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul might be “irreversible.”
Another former senior defence official said Israel’s enemies are “rubbing their eyes in disbelief” about the domestic turmoil and wondering whether the country “has decided to die by suicide.”
During a special Ramadan address, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei exulted in the alarm of Israeli political elites over Netanyahu’s overhaul, noting that Israel’s “own officials continuously warn that their collapse is nearing.” Khamenei concluded that Israel’s demise was unfolding even faster than he had anticipated.
In recent years, Khamenei’s Islamic Revolutionary regime has itself been rocked by widespread anti-government protests, raising questions about its own survival.
In this photo taken by an individual not employed by the Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran, protesters chant slogans during a protest over the death of Mahsa Amini, who was detained by the morality police, in downtown Tehran, Iran, on Sept. 21, 2022.© (AP Photo)
In late 2022, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won Israel’s fifth election in the past three years by forming a coalition with far-right religious extremists whose ilk were previously considered beyond the pale in Israeli politics.
Israelis opposed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's judicial overhaul plan set up bonfires and block a highway during a protest in March 2023.© (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Netanyahu’s coalition recently introduced legislation to overhaul Israel’s Supreme Court, aiming to eliminate the court’s ability to impose democratic checks on elected leaders.
The overhaul, which would also protect Netanyahu from pending corruption charges, provoked an unprecedented wave of anti-government protests across Israel that have shaken the country’s political and economic foundations.
The protests included threats by combat personnel from Israel’s air force and special forces units to boycott their reserve duty.
Defense minister reinstated
In response, Netanyahu temporarily shelved the legislation, candidly admitting that he wished to avoid “civil war.”
Netanyahu also reinstated Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, whom he had fired for publicly calling on him to end the judicial overhaul because the internal divisions it caused made Israel vulnerable to external threats.
On one level, the widespread protests against governmental overreach represent an indicator of Israeli democracy’s robustness. But as a country that considers itself beset by external enemies, Israel has only a slim margin for internal division. The gulf between the protesters and Netanyahu’s coalition reflect the deepening fault line between secular and religious Jews.
And despite Netanyahu’s backtracking, Israel’s ability to deter its enemies has already been weakened by wounds that are self-inflicted.
Ramadan attacks
In early April 2023, during the holy month of Ramadan, Israeli police raided Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam. The site has been under Israeli control since 1967 and has increasingly become a place of resistance to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.
Israeli forces were caught on camera using brutal force to subdue worshippers in a video that quickly went viral globally.
Israeli police arrest a Palestinian woman at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound following a raid at the site in the Old City of Jerusalem during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.© (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
Islamist militant group Hamas responded by firing a barrage of rockets at Israel from Gaza. Another was fired from Lebanon, where Hamas has a foothold under the patronage of Hezbollah, the strongest of Iran’s various proxy militias across the Middle East.
Related video: Some young Israelis refusing mandatory military service (NBC News)
Duration 4:41 View on Watch
Read more: Why Hezbollah matters so much in a turbulent Middle East
When militant attacks then killed several civilians inside Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Hamas called this a “natural response” to Israeli forces’ actions at Al-Aqsa.
This was followed by another barrage of rockets fired at Israel from Syria, where Iran, Hezbollah and other Iranian-aligned militias all have forces deployed near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Self-inflicted wounds
These rocket salvos caused minimal casualties. Many rockets were shot down by Israeli air defences, and Israel then launched retaliatory strikes.
Yet the rockets nevertheless caught Israel’s political and defence establishment off-balance. Afterward, a former chief of Israel’s military intelligence branch warned that the damage inflicted to Israel’s national security by Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul might be “irreversible.”
Another former senior defence official said Israel’s enemies are “rubbing their eyes in disbelief” about the domestic turmoil and wondering whether the country “has decided to die by suicide.”
During a special Ramadan address, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei exulted in the alarm of Israeli political elites over Netanyahu’s overhaul, noting that Israel’s “own officials continuously warn that their collapse is nearing.” Khamenei concluded that Israel’s demise was unfolding even faster than he had anticipated.
In recent years, Khamenei’s Islamic Revolutionary regime has itself been rocked by widespread anti-government protests, raising questions about its own survival.
In this photo taken by an individual not employed by the Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran, protesters chant slogans during a protest over the death of Mahsa Amini, who was detained by the morality police, in downtown Tehran, Iran, on Sept. 21, 2022.© (AP Photo)
Testing Israeli defences
But after weathering the protests and a United States-led economic boycott, the Iranian regime’s fortunes appear to have turned.
Iran has won its bet in Syria. Its military intervention alongside Russia has kept Bashar al-Assad’s regime in power, keeping open a conduit for weapons transfers to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Meanwhile, Iran’s recent renewal of diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia, brokered by China, has crippled Saudi Arabia’s young alliance with Israel while eclipsing U.S. influence in the Middle East.
This has emboldened Iran to test Israel’s internal cohesion and resolve. Hamas’s deployment in Lebanon and its ability to fire rockets from Lebanese soil, along with rocket fire from Gaza and Syria, shows Iran’s assorted proxy forces are testing Israel’s defences.
The far-right swing in Israeli politics is inseparable from Israel’s police brutality at Al-Aqsa. Amid its ongoing occupation of Palestinian territories, the worsening tensions between Israel’s secular and religious Jewish blocs have blown wide open.
Meanwhile, as Netanyahu’s coalition injects virulent extremism into Israel’s political mainstream, a reprise of the deadly violence between Arab and Jewish citizens that exploded across Israel in May 2021 seems inevitable.
Israel’s current internal tumult is far greater than at any other moment in its history. As many Israeli analysts have already noted, this raises serious questions about the country’s long-term survival.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.
Read more:
Most Palestinians in East Jerusalem are sitting out Israeli protests – but they are still concerned about a potential judicial reform
Charges dropped against West Bank settlers after disengagement repeal
ZIONISM IS NATIONALISM
"Along with the joy of the repeal of the Disengagement Law, we are expecting soon the authorization of the yeshiva, and will continue to raise the flag in Homesh until the authorization of the yeshiva and actual building of Homesh," said Vandi.
Honenu, which provided legal aid to the rabbis and students, said the decision was an example of the power of dedication.
"The Honenu organization had the privilege of standing up for the right of the yeshiva and its rabbis for many years, with legal assistance against the many evictions at the site, against the numerous arrests and police investigations, and to assist the yeshiva's rabbis and students in protracted legal battles against the many indictments that were filed," said Honenu lawyer Moshe Polski.
Samaria Council head Yossi Dagan welcomed the decision, saying that the indictments shouldn't have been filed in the first place.
"We will continue to act and won't be silent until Homesh and Sa Nur are permanent settlements of the Samaria Regional Council."Yossi Dagan
"There's nothing more basic and moral than contradicting the racist law that discriminates and forbids Jews to be in the region of the land of Israel," said Dagan. "We will continue to act and won't be silent until Homesh and Sa Nur are permanent settlements of the Samaria Regional Council, and I'm happy that also the prosecution and courts understand that being in these places is no longer against the law."
Left-wing NGO Yesh Din said that the Homesh outpost was built on private Palestinian land, and noted that the dropping of the indictments by noting that the repealing of the Disengagement Law does not authorize the settlement.
"The decision to drop the indictments without prosecuting the invaders for trespassing is outrageous and sends a clear message that the State of Israel encourages plundering and dispossession of Palestinians," said Yesh Din.
Story by By MICHAEL STARR • Yesterday
Charges against Homesh yeshiva rabbis and students for illegally staying in the outpost were dropped on Wednesday due to the repeal of the Disengagement Law, right-wing legal aid organization Honenu announced.
Visitors walk by the water tower on the ruins of the evacuated settlement of Homesh on August 27, 2019.© (photo credit: HILLEL MAEIR/FLASH90)
The state requested the Petah Tikva District Court to drop indictments against Rabbi Elishama Cohen and his colleagues and students because the basis for their offenses, the 2005 Disengagement Law, was repealed on March 21.
Cohen and other members of his yeshiva had been charged in November for entering and staying without permit in Homesh, a restricted area since the settler outpost's 2005 evacuation.
The yeshiva predates the outpost
The yeshiva, which predated the outpost, had continued to operate from the site for years though it was illegal to do so. Cohen had also been arrested in 2021 for trespassing, but wasn't indicted.
Homesh yeshiva director Shmuel Vandi said that they were happy that the State of Israel had begun to correct the mistake of the disengagement.
Right wing activists protest the demolition of structures in the illegal outpost of Homesh, outside the Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem on January 13, 2021 (credit: OLIVIER FITOUSSI/FLASH90)
Charges against Homesh yeshiva rabbis and students for illegally staying in the outpost were dropped on Wednesday due to the repeal of the Disengagement Law, right-wing legal aid organization Honenu announced.
Visitors walk by the water tower on the ruins of the evacuated settlement of Homesh on August 27, 2019.© (photo credit: HILLEL MAEIR/FLASH90)
The state requested the Petah Tikva District Court to drop indictments against Rabbi Elishama Cohen and his colleagues and students because the basis for their offenses, the 2005 Disengagement Law, was repealed on March 21.
Cohen and other members of his yeshiva had been charged in November for entering and staying without permit in Homesh, a restricted area since the settler outpost's 2005 evacuation.
The yeshiva predates the outpost
The yeshiva, which predated the outpost, had continued to operate from the site for years though it was illegal to do so. Cohen had also been arrested in 2021 for trespassing, but wasn't indicted.
Homesh yeshiva director Shmuel Vandi said that they were happy that the State of Israel had begun to correct the mistake of the disengagement.
Right wing activists protest the demolition of structures in the illegal outpost of Homesh, outside the Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem on January 13, 2021 (credit: OLIVIER FITOUSSI/FLASH90)
"Along with the joy of the repeal of the Disengagement Law, we are expecting soon the authorization of the yeshiva, and will continue to raise the flag in Homesh until the authorization of the yeshiva and actual building of Homesh," said Vandi.
Honenu, which provided legal aid to the rabbis and students, said the decision was an example of the power of dedication.
"The Honenu organization had the privilege of standing up for the right of the yeshiva and its rabbis for many years, with legal assistance against the many evictions at the site, against the numerous arrests and police investigations, and to assist the yeshiva's rabbis and students in protracted legal battles against the many indictments that were filed," said Honenu lawyer Moshe Polski.
Samaria Council head Yossi Dagan welcomed the decision, saying that the indictments shouldn't have been filed in the first place.
"We will continue to act and won't be silent until Homesh and Sa Nur are permanent settlements of the Samaria Regional Council."Yossi Dagan
"There's nothing more basic and moral than contradicting the racist law that discriminates and forbids Jews to be in the region of the land of Israel," said Dagan. "We will continue to act and won't be silent until Homesh and Sa Nur are permanent settlements of the Samaria Regional Council, and I'm happy that also the prosecution and courts understand that being in these places is no longer against the law."
Left-wing NGO Yesh Din said that the Homesh outpost was built on private Palestinian land, and noted that the dropping of the indictments by noting that the repealing of the Disengagement Law does not authorize the settlement.
"The decision to drop the indictments without prosecuting the invaders for trespassing is outrageous and sends a clear message that the State of Israel encourages plundering and dispossession of Palestinians," said Yesh Din.
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