In a recent article, we analyzed the general situation of the Zionist state’s military offensive on the Gaza Strip and Lebanon [1]. This article examines what is happening inside the State of Israel.
Alejandro Iturbe
In the article, we stated that although Zionism succeeded in assassinating key leaders of Hamas (Gaza) and Hezbollah (Lebanon), this did not mean its “final triumph.” We also discussed how it faced several challenges in achieving this goal.
Although the Zionist army has superior weapons and military technology (and uses them to the fullest), it finds it more complicated to carry out “ground actions” aimed at achieving permanent occupation and domination. At present, despite its genocidal and “scorched earth” methods, it has been unable to achieve stable control over the Gaza Strip or eliminate the heroic Palestinian resistance. It is also beginning to face serious difficulties in this new invasion of Lebanon.
The Netanyahu government and the military commanders are hiding these difficulties from the Israeli public and are beginning to receive strong criticism and denunciations. In early November, Noam Tibon, a former Israeli major general, claimed that “the army lied about the casualties in the war [in Lebanon] and that they were beyond what the troops could bear. It estimated that it was 10,000 soldiers short for the war, the equivalent of a full division. Regarding the fighting in southern Lebanon, the Jerusalem Post “leaked” the information that in an attack on a Hezbollah “compound,” “sixteen soldiers were wounded and five reservists were killed in action.
It is noteworthy that this general affirms that the Israeli army is “short of soldiers”. The Zionist state is highly militarized: all young Israelis (men and women) must complete a long compulsory military service. Its duration has just been extended to three years. Upon completion, they remain reservists until the age of 40, with the obligation to temporarily rejoin the ranks if called up.
The only exceptions to this requirement are the ultra-Orthodox Jews, known as Haredim, who devote themselves exclusively to the study of the Bible and receive a salary from the Zionist state. This privilege was granted to them in the past. The Netanyahu government continues to maintain it because the Haredim have formed an electoral bloc that secures several parliamentary seats. They negotiate their support for the government in exchange for maintaining this privilege unchanged.
This factor contributes to the division and conflict within Israeli society, and has always been criticized by other sectors that are required to serve in the military and remain reservists.
The war in Gaza and Lebanon has intensified. A recent Supreme Court ruling ordered the end of the exemption, which would affect 63,000 young Habredim. Netanyahu’s government does not want to implement this ruling because the ultra-Orthodox parties have threatened to leave the governing coalition if he does. This could leave him with a minority in the Knesset (parliament) and provoke the fall of the government[2].
A crisis with the reservists
In this context, the issue of the integration of reservists is emerging as another potential crisis factor. Last year, 42 reservists refused to return to Gaza because they were unwilling to participate in the violent methods used by the Israeli army during the occupation. Although this number is relatively small, it is a warning sign that similar situations could arise again.
Without losing their Israeli citizenship, thousands of young Israelis have stopped being reservists by moving to Europe or the U.S. to pursue their studies, business or professional careers. It is an extensive process led by professionals and businessmen: “The elites are leaving Israel because they ‘feel that they do not belong there'” [4]. In other words, they are no longer willing to “kill and die” for the Zionist state, as their fathers and grandfathers did.
In order to analyze this process, it is necessary to understand the profound economic and social changes that have taken place in Israeli society in recent decades. New bourgeois, petty-bourgeois and workers’ sectors have emerged, with social and political dynamics different from those of the past[5].
The Zionist state fully maintains its character as an imperialist colony, and the population as a whole defends and uses what has been stolen from the Palestinians. However, political contradictions have emerged within Israeli society that did not exist before and have been expressed several times in the 21st century. As in the case of the “Indignados” movement in 2011[6].
This has also been the case with the large mobilizations against the judicial reform promoted by Netanyahu in July 2023[7].
The hostage crisis
Each time the Netanyahu government faced difficult situations, it escalated the attacks on the Palestinians, especially in Gaza, in order to rally Israeli public support by framing it as a defense of Israel against a “common enemy. Netanyahu capitalized on the aftermath of the October 7 Hamas military operation. He initiated the invasion and occupation of Gaza, using methods that many considered genocidal, in an attempt to achieve a “final solution” to the Palestinian resistance in the area and to establish complete control by the Zionist state. He presented this strategy as a necessary effort to eliminate the “terrorist enemy” (Hamas) and to rescue hostages taken by Hamas during the operation.
Initially, the vast majority of the Israeli population supported the military operation in Gaza. Even Benny Gantz, one of the most prominent opposition leaders to Netanyahu, joined the government in the “war cabinet.
However, as the Israeli occupation of Gaza, despite its genocidal methods, failed to take effective control of the territory, destroy Hamas and free the hostages, things began to change, and within a few months the contradictions resurfaced with great force.
This time, the trigger was the organizations of the families of the hostages, founded on October 7, 2023, which began to demand that the Netanyahu government, in order to obtain the release of the hostages, sign an immediate ceasefire agreement with Hamas (as proposed by Joe Biden, then President of the United States). Netanyahu refused to do so, because accepting even a temporary ceasefire meant a serious defeat for him and the possible fall of his government.
In June 2024, the mobilizations for an immediate ceasefire grew as they received increasing support in Israeli society[9]. Gantz decided to resign from the government. The mobilizations demanding an agreement with Hamas continued.
In September, the Histadrut (the main Israeli trade union federation) called a general strike with this demand, preceded by large demonstrations. Shortly thereafter, an opinion poll showed that 53% of Israelis supported the ceasefire and prisoner exchange with the withdrawal of troops from Gaza [11].
After the invasion of Lebanon
In this context, Netanyahu once again “fled forward”. He launched the attacks and the invasion of Lebanon in order to “destroy Hezbollah” and to occupy and annex the south of this country (something that the Zionist state already tried in 2006 and was defeated) [12]. Netanyahu said it would be a “quick invasion”.
Initially, he succeeded in his goal of “closing ranks,” although not to the extent that he did after the invasion of Gaza. In this scenario, Yoav Gallant, a former military officer and leader of the small Kulanu party, joined the government as minister of war. Gallant’s tenure was short-lived, however; he was recently fired by Netanyahu, who cited a “crisis of confidence” between them. The real reason for Gallant’s dismissal is his stance that the government’s priority should be to reach a hostage release agreement with Hamas, a proposal that Netanyahu rejected.
Gallant’s dismissal has already sparked protests in the streets of Tel Aviv, and new demonstrations are being organized that are expected to be more widespread.
After being fired, Gallant added fuel to a growing sentiment in Israeli society: that for Netanyahu, his political survival, that of his government, and his plans are more important than the needs – and even the lives – of Israeli citizens. Gallant expressed that a “moral darkness is descending on the country” because the Prime Minister refuses to make a ceasefire agreement to release the hostages and, having achieved very good military conditions for doing so, “unnecessarily keeps troops in Gaza” [14]. This situation has led to a widespread perception that Netanyahu may not really want the hostages to be released, and instead sees them as a pretext for maintaining the occupation of Gaza and the ongoing state of war.
Haaretz, the most traditional and influential of the Zionist newspapers, published an editorial accusing Netanyahu and the Israeli army under his command that it is no longer about fighting Hamas or freeing the hostages, but that “an operation of ethnic cleansing [of the Palestinian people] is being carried out in the north of the territory” [15].
At the same time, the occupation of the Gaza Strip and the genocidal methods used by the Israeli army have caused widespread rejection the world over and increased Israel’s international isolation. This, in addition to the BDS campaign, became a boomerang in the Israeli economy, generating a strong crisis and, with it, an increase in the anger of growing sectors of that society against Netanyahu [16].
Regarding the invasion in Lebanon, it is clear that Netanyahu lied when he said that it would be a “quick victory”. Now he is hiding the true situation of this war, the cost it is having on the Israeli army, and the difficulties in meeting the needs of soldiers to sustain it. This has already been pointed out in the aforementioned report by Noam Tibon.
Some conclusions
This accumulation of economic, social and political contradictions within the Zionist state and the political crisis they have created is a positive fact of reality. Because the Palestinian struggle against the State of Israel (and all the international solidarity and support for this struggle) does not face a solid and seamless enemy, but an enemy with growing weaknesses. This is why some international analysts, such as Arlene Clemensha, a professor of Arab history at the University of São Paulo in Brazil, has argued that “Israel has never been so pressured and cornered. This weakening of Israel is an opportunity that must be seized.
However, we must be aware that these contradictions have an insurmountable limit: the state of Israel is not a “normal” oppressor country. Rather, it is a political-military enclave of imperialism, created by the imperialist powers based on the theft and usurpation of Palestinian territory, the violent expulsion of people from their lands and the artificial installation of a Jewish population coming from abroad.
In the territory stolen from the Palestinians, a foreign population – mainly Jews of European origin and from other countries – has settled and continues to settle. The homes in which Israelis, including the working class, live, the schools in which their children study, and the factories and fields in which they work have been built on land stolen from the Palestinian people. Israeli society, including its working class, is aware of this and often takes the position that “what was taken from the Palestinians is rightfully ours.”
This means that they also defend Israel’s colonial character. The vast majority of them will never abandon this position, even if they have specific contradictions with Netanyahu and mobilize against him. Some sectors, as we have seen, choose to go to Europe or the USA to “continue their lives”.
But, with a few exceptions, such as the historian Ilán Pappé, “nobody goes to the Palestinian camp”. Therefore, the proposal of some leftist organizations that the main way to defeat the Zionist state is the formation of an alliance between the Palestinian people and the Israeli working class against the “common enemy” is wrong because it is objectively impossible to realize.
We believe that this situation of the Zionist enemy must serve as an impulse to broaden and strengthen the struggle against it throughout the world, in all the forms in which it develops, as we always express in the texts of the IWL[18].
This means that in order for the Palestinian people to regain their historic territory, it is necessary to militarily defeat and destroy the Zionist state. In order to achieve this objective, the Palestinian struggle must be the spark that “ignites” the region with a revolutionary process of the Arab and Muslim peoples that develops a full military struggle against this state from “all fronts” simultaneously.
Notes:
[1] https://litci.org/es/como-luchar-por-una-palestina-libre-del-rio-al-mar/?utm_source=copylink&utm_medium=browser
[2] https://www.pagina12.com.ar/747173-israel-la-corte-suprema-anulo-la-exencion-militar-para-los-u
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNtuphbe5XA
[4]https://www.hispantv.com/noticias/economia/599729/iinflacion-subida-precios-exodo-israel
[5] Sobre este tema, ver https://litci.org/es/74690-2/?utm_source=copylink&utm_medium=browser
[6] https://litci.org/es/sobre-el-movimiento-de-los-qindignadosq-en-israel/?utm_source=copylink&utm_medium=browser
[7] https://litci.org/es/74690-2/?utm_source=copylink&utm_medium=browser
[8] https://litci.org/es/palestina-el-ataque-del-7-de-octubre-y-su-lugar-en-la-historia/?utm_source=copylink&utm_medium=browser
[9] https://litci.org/es/estado-de-israel-movilizaciones-exigen-acuerdo-en-gaza/?utm_source=copylink&utm_medium=browser
[10] Ver: https://litci.org/es/la-huelga-general-amplia-la-crisis-israeli/?utm_source=copylink&utm_medium=browser y https://www.france24.com/es/medio-oriente/20240609-tras-la-salida-de-gantz-a-qué-se-enfrenta-el-gobierno-de-netanyahu
[11] https://efe.com/mundo/2024-10-07/guerra-gaza-primer-anversario/
[12] https://litci.org/es/por-el-fin-de-los-ataques-israelies-contra-el-libano-y-el-pueblo-palestino/?utm_source=copylink&utm_medium=browser
[13] https://www.bbc.com/mundo/articles/ce319338212o
[14] https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-firing-gallant-tells-hostage-families-netanyahu-needlessly-keeping-troops-in-gaza/
[15] https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/2024-11-10/ty-article-opinion/netanyahus-ethnic-cleansing-is-on-display-for-all-to-see/00000193-12ac-d3a2-a3d7-5bed1d8d0000
[16] https://litci.org/es/crisis-economica-en-el-estado-de-israel/?utm_source=copylink&utm_medium=browse
[17] ‘Israel nunca esteve tão pressionado e encurralado’, | Internacional (brasildefato.com.br) En portugués en el original (traducción nuestra).
[18] Ver, entre otros: https://litci.org/es/como-luchar-por-una-palestina-libre-del-rio-al-mar/?utm_source=copylink&utm_medium=browser
