Secret CIA report warns Israel is on brink of civil war, political collapse

US sources said a secret assessment by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) warned that Israel risks sliding into civil war or political collapse amid growing political, economic and social divisions after years of wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.

According to two sources who spoke to the US-based Drop Site News, the report was prepared in August under the title “Fracture From Within” by experts from the CIA’s Red Cell, a unit that conducts forward-looking assessments and analysis outside traditional frameworks.

The assessment appears to focus only on Jewish citizens in Israel and does not take into account Arab citizens, who make up about 20 per cent of the country’s population. The CIA did not respond to a request for comment.

CIA experts pointed to a volatile mix of pressures converging ahead of Israel’s 27^th October election, including an economic crisis and increased military spending; the return of heavily armed veterans from prolonged fighting, many of whom are suffering from severe psychological trauma; growing anger over exemptions from military service for ultra-Orthodox men; rising settler violence in the occupied West Bank; and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s struggle to retain power, which the report said is fuelling a constitutional crisis.

The CIA’s Red Cells are tasked with producing analysis and ideas that challenge prevailing assumptions and expose groupthink or blind spots within the intelligence agency.