Israeli society is divided and on the road to complete collapse

A year after starting its genocide against the Palestinians, will Israel win in Gaza and now Lebanon? The occupation state, more divided than ever, is facing a tragedy deep within. While its Jewish citizens agree on many key issues, the government led by Benjamin Netanyahu is busy tearing these issues apart in a time of war.

Israel is fighting on more than one open stage in Gaza and Lebanon, yet the most important threat for a large majority of the people in Israel is obvious: the threat of division and polarisation within society, represented by fraternal and unjustified hatred.

Are they right? What is the most important threat to Israel? Is it external or internal? Perhaps the internal threats are indeed the most serious in a state established and existing on a reckless logic, a crooked path that will lead to its demise if it continues to be led by the extreme right that rejects the idea of living in peace.

Israelis realise that they have never come this far before. The war has divided Israeli society more than ever, and it is on the road to complete collapse.

Netanyahu and his bloodthirsty comrades who cannot accept the idea of compromise know this.

There is a huge gap between the people and the government, and there is a clear picture of a divided Israeli society, reflected clearly in social media and mainstream media channels. All have been mobilised in a major confrontation that cannot be ignored, not least because the blows that the army is receiving in Gaza are painful.

The phenomenon that hurts the Zionists is represented in the depth of Israeli society, where most of the divisions go back to social origins. This is also reflected in the political system, such as the Jewish-Arab split, or the religious-secular divide.

While the occupation state continues to benefit from these divisions, it also works to feed them politically by creating a futile perception, or a perception of a zero-sum war, for example, between Israel as a Jewish state versus a truly democratic state for all of its citizens, one-fifth of whom are “Arab Israelis”, not Jews.

What is clearly evident is that the majority of Israelis have a clear position that is opposite to that of the Israeli government regarding the return of the hostages and the formation of an official investigation committee. These and other issues such as compulsory conscription for all citizens and neglect of legal reform, mean that the image of polarisation is in fact a project initiated by a government more extreme than the electorate, and this is reflected in the concept of responsibility.

More than half of Israelis demand Netanyahu’s dismissal or resignation, and trust the Israeli army. However, the story that Netanyahu wants to tell us now is not about years of neglect, nor about criminal negligence, nor about kidnapped people languishing in captivity. It’s not even about the blood that has been shed. It’s about the results of a war that has already lasted more than a whole year; it has lasted for 76 years, since 1948, and is ongoing.

On the anniversary of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, Benjamin Netanyahu wants to change the name of the war that Israel has been waging for 368 days, to the “Resurrection War”. In a way, this is just a classic projection, but the truth in this war is that there are no heroics and there are no victories; there are disasters, there are horrors, and there are difficult and terrifying questions that remain unanswered. There are 101 people who can be saved today if someone wants them to be, and it was not in vain that their families said, “There will be no ‘resurrection’ except with the return of all of the hostages.”

READ: Israel occupation forces ‘exhausted, lost 12 battalions’ in Gaza, say media

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