Are we seeing the beginning
of the end of Zionism?
How will Israel Collapse?
One of the most common tropes is that Israel has ‘a right to exist’. It
is as if any state has a right to exist. Only people have that right.
What Israel is really saying is something entirely different. Israel is
an illegitimate state and therefore it fears those who question its
legitimacy. From 2009 onwards the Reut Institute, Israel's ‘premier strategy policy group’,
devoted itself to what it called the 'delegitimization' of Israel.
The Reut Institute defined
'delegitimization' as the "convergence
of seemingly unrelated movements and associations” that delegitimised the
Jewish nature of the Israeli State.
Israel’s founding myth (the Jewish ‘return’) does not stand up to
scrutiny. Israel was founded on the dispossession of another people who
ironically are the
real descendants of the ancient Hebrews.
How the Jews of Judea Became the Arabs of Palestine
However much Israel portrays
itself as just another hi tech western state it is a state with a difference.
It is a ‘Jewish’ ethno-nationalist state. What does this mean?
Is Israel like for example
Britain which is nominally a Christian state? Absolutely not. In 1858
Parliament passed the Jews
Relief Act which removed
restrictions that prevented Jews entering Parliament. It was the beginning of
Jewish Emancipation.
No longer were the
rights of British citizens dependent upon their religion. This was a rejection
of the medieval model whereby the identity of a state was based around a
particular religion and those not of that religion were discriminated against.
This marked the
transition from a state which accorded rights depending on one’s religion to a
secular state. Except for the fact that no-one Jewish can become the monarch
Jews face no disability in the UK.
Israel is not just a
state where Judaism is the official state religion. In Israel one’s rights and privileges
are related to one’s religion or rather race. In Israel a Jew can be recorded in the Population Registry as being of no religion but is still recorded as being of Jewish nationality. There is no Israeli
nationality. There are dozens of other nationalities, none of them entitling
anyone to anything.
This was spelt out in
the Jewish
Nation State Law 2018 which states:
1.B The State of Israel is the national
state of the Jewish people, in which it exercises its natural, cultural, and
historic right to self-determination.
1.C Exercising the right to national
self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.
7. The state views the development of Jewish
settlement as a national value.
Netanyahu described what
this meant when he said that
“Israel is not a state of all its citizens... Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people – and only it."
In Israel state land is Jewish state land - that is why half the Arab villages in Israel are 'unrecognised'. They have no right to be on state land and like Umm al Hiran they face demolition - something that never happens to a Jewish settlement
In Israel there are two categories of citizen – Jewish and non-Jewish.
From this flows one’s rights and privileges. This is the basis of Israel as a
Jewish Supremacist State. Israel is a throwback to medieval times.
For example 93% of Israeli land is controlled or owned by the Jewish
National Fund in conjunction with the Israeli Lands Authority. The JNF
by its constitution only leases land to Jews not non-Jews. The JNF is not some
voluntary charitable organisation. It is a para-state body established by the 1953 JNF Law.
In Adalah v. The Israel Lands Administration the JNF argued that it was entitled to lease land
to Jews. 80% of its landholdings, 13% of total land in Israel, was confiscated
from the Palestinian refugees who were expelled in 1948.
It is as if 93% of
English land were owned by the Christian National Fund and when I sought to
rent a flat built on its land I was told that I couldn’t because I wasn’t a
Christian.
This is why Israel is so sensitive when anyone questions its legitimacy. Apartheid and discrimination against
non-Jews is part of Israel’s constitutional DNA. All else is hasbara (propaganda).
Brian Berletic: Iran War - A
Gateway to War with China & Russia
October 7, Expansion & Israel’s Forever Wars
When you are in the middle of great historical
events it is difficult to see which direction things are heading in or what is
happening with any great clarity. This is especially true of Israel today, with
the current war with Iran.
It is not helped by having an imbecile as the US President.
Trump’s inability to outline his goals reflects not just his own inadequacies but
US imperialism’s arrogance of power, its ‘manifest destiny’ and the belief that
might is right. It is not helped by the fact that each statement of Trump contradicts
his previous utterances.
Trump is not unique. He reflects the dilemmas of the
United States as its ambitions to remake the world fall foul of reality and its
waning influence.
However we should not believe that but for Trump all
would have been well. Trump reflects a political consensus that ‘something must be done’ about Iran. The
question is what. Why? Because Iran’s insistence on being politically
independent falls foul of US plans. It also obstructs Israel’s desire for
political hegemony in the region.
It is also worth emphasising the point that Marx
made in The
Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, that people make
history, but not of their own time or choosing.
This is particularly true of Hamas. When it launched
the uprising on October 7, little did it realise that it would have the consequences
that we are seeing today, both inside and outside Gaza. The whole world order
and the US’s role as the world’s hegemon is being challenged and thrown into
doubt.
NATO countries are reluctant to join in with
Netanyahu and Trump’s attack on Iran. Even as servile a creature as Starmer has
had his doubts about the Mafioso boss who doubles as President of the US and
his zombie assistants although he has since fallen into line.
There are those who see the war against Iran in
terms of Netanyahu having dragged Trump into it. This is a fundamental
misconception. If Trump hadn’t wanted to go to war he wouldn’t have. Rather I
see the situation as analogous to the Suez
War
where Israel’s attack on Egypt was the pretext for Britain and France’s invasion
of Egypt.
When Hamas planned the break-out on October 7 it
clearly misjudged Israel’s reaction. It didn’t aim to bring down the Zionist
entity. Rather it wanted to capture Israeli hostages in order to exchange them
for Palestinian captives.
What it failed to understand was the profound political
changes taking place in Israel itself. In particular the rise of the Messianic
Religious Nationalist Right led by Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar ben Gvir. These
are Jewish Nazis. Even Moshe Yalon, the former Likud Defence Minister said so.
From 1948 to 1967 Israel consolidated what it had
seized when it was established. Although it wanted to expand (for example the Suez War) it had
to give back its ill-gotten gains. Israelis look back at this period as one
when Israel was relatively ‘normal’ despite Israeli Palestinians living under
military rule until 1966.
In the 1950s Israel was still too weak to expand and
it lacked the settlers. That didn’t stop Israeli leaders entertaining many
ideas of how to expand and destabilise their neighbours.
Livia Rokach published a book ‘Israel’s Sacred Terrorism’ based on the Diaries of Moshe Sharrett Israel’s second Prime Minister. It described how on February 25, 1954, Syrian troops stationed in Aleppo revolted against Adib Shishakly's regime.
After lunch Lavon [Defence Minister] took me aside
and started trying to persuade me: This is the right moment to act this is the
time to move forward and occupy the Syrian border positions beyond the
Demilitarized Zone. Syria is disintegrating. A State with whom we signed an
armistice agreement exists no more. Its government is about to fall... This is
an historical opportunity, we shouldn't miss it.
I was reluctant to approve such a blitz-plan and
saw ourselves on the verge of an abyss of disastrous adventure. I asked if he
suggests to act immediately and I was shocked when I realized that he does. ...
He repeated that time was precious and we must act so as not to miss an
opportunity which otherwise might be lost forever. Again I answered that under
the circumstances right now I cannot approve any such action.... (25 February
1954, 374)
The next day the Shishakly regime actually fell.
The following day, February 27, Sharett was present at a meeting where Lavon
and Dayan reported to Ben Gurion that what happened in Syria was - "a
typical Iraqi action." The two proposed again that the Israeli army be put
on the march. Ben Gurion, "electrified," agreed. Sharett reiterated
his opposition, pointing to the certainty of a Security Council condemnation,
the possibility of the use against Israel of the Tripartite Declaration of
1950, hence the probability of a "shameful failure" The three
objected that "our entrance [into Syria] is justified in view of the
situation in Syria. This is an act of defense of our border area." Sharett
closed the discussion ...
Lavon's face wore a depressed expression. He
understood this to be the end of the matter. (27 February 1954, 377)
On Sunday, February 28, the press reported that no
Iraqi troops had entered Syria. The situation in Damascus was under the
complete control of President Hashem Al Atassi. The cabinet approved Sharett's
position and rejected Lavon's vehement appeal not to miss a historical
opportunity. ...
On December 12, 1954, however, a Syrian civilian
plane was hijacked by Israeli war planes shortly after its takeoff, and forced
to land at Lydda airport. Passengers and crew were detained and interrogated
for two days, until stormy international protests
It must be clear
to you that we had no justification whatsoever to seize the plane,... I have no
reason to doubt the truth of the factual affirmation of the U.S. State Department
that our action was without precedent in the history of international practice.
..... What shocks and worries me is the narrow-mindedness and the
shortsightedness of our military leaders. They seem to presume that the State
of Israel may or even must-behave in the realm of international relations
according to the laws of the jungle. (22 December 1954)
All the madcap schemes that Sharrett prevented in
the 50s have come to pass today.
Israel's Two Jewish Neo-Nazi Ministers - Ben Gvir & Smotrich
In 1967, the Labour government of Levi Eshkol
launched a war against Syria, Jordan and Egypt. The genie was out of the
bottle. The conquering of the West Bank and Gaza gave rise to a messianic
settler movement. Many on the ‘left’ of the Zionist movement – Yitzhak
Tabenkin, Yisrael Galili and Yigal Allon – were to the fore of the settler Greater Israel
Movement.
Settlement in the West Bank started with very few
settlers at first but by 2021 they had grown to 720,000 when Ben Gvir of the
Jewish Nazi Otzma Yehudit
was elected to the Knesset.
The break-out on 7 October 2023 took place less than
a year after the 2022 elections which brought Ben Gvir and Smotrich into the
Israeli government. They took full advantage of October 7 to destroy Gaza, with
a view to colonising it and also launched an open reign of terror in the West
Bank.
Their viewpoint was summed up on October 9 by Yoav
Gallant who described
the Palestinians of Gaza as ‘human animals’. The very same phrase used by
Heinrich Himmler about non-Aryans in his address to senior SS Generals:
I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.”
Israel's Protests Against the Judicial Reforms
Throughout 2023 there had been massive
protests in Israel against the judicial reforms with sections of the
military, in particular the airforce, saying they would refuse
to serve.
It must have seemed to those planning October 7 that
the contradictions within Zionism were leading to a fundamental breakdown in Israeli
society. What they did not understand was that the whole basis of the Judicial
Protests was they had been launched on the basis of protecting Israeli Jewish democracy
whilst ignoring the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.
Although Israeli activists made efforts
to inject those issues into the protests the campaign allowed only token
representation for Israeli Palestinians and anti-Occupation groups.
As Yiftach Golov, spokesperson for Brothers and
Sisters in Arms said: “(while) it’s
important to one day solve the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict, this is not an
immediate threat” to Israeli democracy.’
Moshe Yaalon, ex-Likud Defence
Minister describes Smotrich & Ben Gvir as 'Mein Kampf reversed'
Hamas failed to understand that the protests against
the judicial reforms, a product of the ascendancy of the messianic fascists,
took place within Israeli Jewish society
and on the basis of an acceptance of the position of the Palestinians.
When October 7 happened, the protests folded as Israeli
Jewish society came together. The Israeli state was now prepared to embark once
more on a program of expansion with the full support of all wings of Zionism.
The mad Iranian regime's strategy is to target civilians. In the past 24 hours, Children were severely injured.
— Gideon Sa'ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) March 22, 2026
They are committing war crimes as a strategy!
My statement at the site of the Iranian missile strike in Arad >> pic.twitter.com/1dtKClvFvC
During the course of
the Genocide in Gaza, Israel occupied both Lebanon and Syria. The ‘left’ Zionists,
in so far as they existed, fully accepted all Netanyahu’s wars. Yet when Iranian missiles hit Israeli civilian areas, Israelis - without a hint of irony - complained bitterly at these 'war crimes' - having done their best to discredit the International Criminal Court and all international law.
Iran is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity by launching indiscriminate missile attacks at population centers and holy sites. In the past week alone, Iranian missiles struck the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and landed within 300 meters of the Western… pic.twitter.com/ZFKLuuLPkn
— Sharren Haskel השכל שרן (@SharrenHaskel) March 22, 2026
How
will Israel Collapse
In the video How will Israel Collapse? five factors
are listed that will lead to Israel’s collapse. They are:
1.
The weakening of United States Support
2.
The weakening of support from American Jews
3.
The breakdown in Social Cohesion
4.
The Fight for Survival
5.
The Economy
Although all of these are important, the most
important is the first factor, US support. Today we are seeing a fracturing of
the political alliance in support of Israel with sections of the Democrats
splitting off coupled with a division in the MAGA base. In particular there has
been a sea change in American political opinion such that a majority of the
population now sympathise
more with the Palestinians than the Israelis. This is true of the West as a
whole.
However we haven’t seen any significant diminution
in the support of corporate America and establishment opinion, not least the
military-industrial base in support of Israel.
It is important that public opinion is now moving
against Israel and no longer buys into the idea that Israel is the ‘only
democracy in the Middle East’. However we should not forget that US foreign
policy has never depended on public support.
It will take a concerted campaign from below to
force US corporations to disinvest and withdraw support from Israeli apartheid.
What may happen is that the US will reduce its support for Israel and refuse to
automatically support every Israeli adventure that Netanyahu or his successors
propose.
The aftermath of an Iranian missile strike
What the video doesn't mention, but which the Iran war is demonstrating, is the
elephant in the room - the corrupt and authoritarian Arab regimes. Their
overthrow are key to the US dropping its support for the Zionist state. They are
Israel's junior allies. What is missing is the Arab masses themselves who have
tolerated or acquiesced in the maintenance of these regimes.
The weakening of support from American Jews,
although welcome, is not a decisive factor for the simple reason that contrary
to the propaganda of the imperialist politicians and the anti-Semitic Right, US
support has never depended on Jewish support for Israel. Jews provided the
moral alibi and political shield for that support. They have never been the reason for that support.
Israel is a settler colonial state that is bound
together by its antagonism to the Palestinians. War and expansion are part of the
Zionist DNA. Without the Palestinians and external enemies Israel may already have
been engulfed in a civil war.
Israel's War for Survival Means
Endless Wars and the Dehumanisation of Non-Jews
That is why Israel will never be a ‘normal’
capitalist state. It sees itself as the bulwark of the West in a hostile region.
As Joe Biden said,
if Israel did not exist it would have to be invented. Israel will never be content
with its existing borders. Israel is the only state in the world not to define
its borders.
Iran has proven again in the last 48 hours that it is the enemy of civilization and a danger to the free world: targeting children, families, and the elderly with terror missiles, threatening Jerusalem’s holy sites, launching long-range missiles, and trying to blackmail the world… pic.twitter.com/pQaUW1oYgx
— Benjamin Netanyahu - ×‘× ×™×ž×™×Ÿ × ×ª× ×™×”×• (@netanyahu) March 22, 2026
However we should not fool ourselves that Israel
will be destroyed or collapse from within. Rather there will be an incremental erosion
of democratic rights even for Jews. It will be increasingly intolerant even for
Jews.
The days of a steady stream of immigrants from the
Jewish diaspora via Aliyah are over. The direction of migration is out of the
country not into it.
As Israel moves further to the neo-Nazi right and
increasingly theocratic under the influence of halachic rather than civil law, coupled with the never ending wars,
so we can expect an increasing number of Jews to emigrate. Emigration
today is at a record high. Israel will more and more come to
resemble a theocracy with religious nationalists in the driving seat.
The Zionist organisations invested heavily in capturing diaspora Jewish organisations like the Board of Deputies. Increasingly, despite the weaponisation of anti-Semitism, they will have greater difficulty in controlling Jewish opposition to the Israeli state, not least amongst the young. Already today it is clear that the Board is to the right of most Jews in Britain.
As we see in the war against Iran, the further
Israel extends itself the weaker it will become. Expansion has its downside and
those Zionists who dream of a Jewish Empire should remember the fate of all
empires.
Western politicians will continue to pretend that
Israel is a democracy. In so doing they ignore the genocide in Gaza, the apartheid
and settler terror on the West Bank and the open racism such as the ‘Death to
Arabs’ marches. To say nothing of the racism and apartheid within 1948 Israel.
We saw after October 7 how those who considered
themselves part of the Zionist ‘left’ accepted the narrative of the Israeli Right. Over
60%
of Israeli Jews support the extermination of the Palestinians of Gaza and 56%
support the expulsion of Israel’s Palestinians.
The Israeli Jewish working class will play little or
no part in opposing these things. In a settler colonial state the working class
sacrifices its class interests for what it sees as its national interests. The
Israeli working class has never broken from Zionism. Mechanical and economistic Marxists who
reduce everything to a sociological definition of class will continue to be baffled
as to why their predictions of working class unity with the Palestinians never
come to pass.
The Israeli working class has never been able to
create its own independent political organisations. Its ‘trade union’ Histadrut
was at one and the same time the largest employer after the state itself. It
was a colonising
agency not a trade union except in the narrowest sense. Zionism is an
alliance between the settler working class and the settler capitalists.
The Israeli working class, like the White South
Africa working class, is on the right of Israeli politics. If South Africa is
any guide, the first sections of the Israeli population that will be prepared
to abandon Zionism will be its capitalists and middle class not the Israeli working
class.
Israel sees itself as in an existential battle for survival
as in the slogan of Israel’s ‘right to self defence’. ‘Self defence’ means Israel’s
right to attack anyone who challenges its hegemony.
It is an essential component of Israeli settler
identity that it is always the victim, even when it’s the aggressor. This is
true of all settler colonialism. It was the ‘left’ Zionists of Mapam (long
since disappeared) who talked
of ‘shooting and crying’. Today the Zionists don’t cry when they kill – that is
the main difference between ‘left’ and ‘right’ Zionism.
This self pity is a
characteristic of colonialism in general. The British Empire according to
Rudyard Kipling’s poem had to:
Take up the White Man's burden—
And reap his old reward,
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard
Israel’s economy is bound up with Israel’s role as a
projection of US power. Whatever the strain of war on Israel’s economy it will
survive as long as it is bailed out by the United States.
Also missing from How
will Israel Collapse is any mention of the solidarity campaign outside
of Israel, BDS or Arab and Palestinian agency. It presupposes that Israel will just collapse.
What will Happen to the Settler State?
The Palestine solidarity movement rarely discusses what will happen to
the settlers if there is a solution.
There are
approximately 7 million Israeli Jews. This question is vital to the de-Zionisation
and decolonisation of Israel. It may be crucial to achieving a settlement along
the lines of apartheid in South Africa.
It is naive to suppose that all Israel’s Jews will emigrate to Europe or
the USA. For many Israeli Jews there will be nowhere to go. As Israel becomes increasingly a
theocratic police state under the Ben Gvirs and Smotrichs, social tensions will
be exacerbated within the settler community. The question how to take advantage
of these tensions and divisions is crucial.
Between
early 2022 and mid-2024, more than 125,000 Jewish citizens left
Israel than entered. The trend is believed to have
continued through 2025. The current war with Iran is almost certain to ensure that emigration increases.
Knesset
Immigration Committee chair MK Gilad Kariv warned that
this is no longer a trend — it’s a tsunami. Many Israelis are choosing to build their future outside the State of
Israel, and fewer and fewer are returning.”
If this emigration continues Europe and the USA may raise their
immigration barriers and prevent Israeli Jews coming.
Israel
has now become a state of permanent war. If Iran is defeated then it will look
for a new enemy such as Turkey. Israel cannot survive without an external
enemy.
It is essential that any movement for decolonisation holds out the
promise that Israeli Jews who wish to live in peace and equality will be able
to do so. That is why the old PLO call for a Democratic, Secular State is more relevant
now than ever. Those who call for the expulsion of all the Jews in Israel are holding
up a mirror to the Ben Gvirs and Smotrichs.
Israel is an artificial state that is not destined for a permanent place
in the sun. With the rise of the messianic settler right it is going to be increasingly
uncomfortable for secular Israelis.
The aftermath of an Iranian missile strike in Arad
Israel’s existence is a temporary one. I doubt that it is even going to
last for the first 100 years. There is no going back from the forever wars as Israel
expands into Lebanon, Syria soon to be followed by Jordan and possibly Egypt.
It is important that anti-Zionists abroad enters into a close
relationship with that section of the Israeli Jewish population, however small,
that is prepared to reject either Zionism, Jewish Supremacy or apartheid. It is
possible that a small section of Israeli Jewish workers will realise that their
class interests and Zionism do not coincide.
My fear is that Israel, like South Africa before the end of apartheid, is going to have a very
bloody end before Zionism is finally ended. Many people both in Palestine and the wider Middle East region,
are going to have to pay a very heavy price for its demise.
Tony
Greenstein
