Ilan Pappé: The Collapse Of Zionism
Ilan Pappé is, of course, a well known Israeli historian. You can read up on him at his Wikipedia page. A reader sent me a recent article by Pappé, titled as above:
In the article Pappé poses the question whether the current genocide in Gaza has exposed the factors that will lead to a collapse of the entire Zionist project—the imposition of “a Jewish state on an Arab, Muslim and Middle Eastern country.” Pappé lists and discusses five “early indicators” that, taken together, point in this direction. I’ll briefly list them—follow the link for Pappé’s more extended discussion. Pappé prefaces his listing of early indicators with this:
Historically, a plethora of factors can cause a state to capsize. It can result from constant attacks by neighbouring countries or from chronic civil war. It can follow the breakdown of public institutions, which become incapable of providing services to citizens. Often it begins as a slow process of disintegration that gathers momentum and then, in a short period of time, brings down structures that once appeared solid and steadfast.
A first indicator is the fracturing of Israeli Jewish society.
Pappé breaks Israeli society down into two visions, similar to the account that Alastair Crooke regularly presents:
the ‘State of Israel’, comprised of more secular, liberal and mostly but not exclusively middle-class European Jews and their descendants, who were instrumental in establishing the state in 1948 and remained hegemonic within it until the end of the last century. ... Their basic wish is for Jewish citizens to live in a democratic and pluralist society from which Arabs are excluded.
the ‘State of Judea’, ... Its influence in the upper echelons of the Israeli army and security services is growing exponentially. The State of Judea wants Israel to become a theocracy that stretches over the entirety of historical Palestine. To achieve this, it is determined to reduce the number of Palestinians to a bare minimum, and it is contemplating the construction of a Third Temple in place of al-Aqsa. Its members believe this will enable them to renew the golden era of the Biblical Kingdoms.
These two visions are irreconcilable and have led to violent street clashes. The ‘State of Israel’ camp includes a large proportion of the more productive elements in the Israeli economy and are increasingly voting with their feet—half a million Israelis, mostly from the State of Israel, have left since October.
The second indicator is Israel’s economic crisis. The political class does not seem to have any plan for balancing the public finances amid perpetual armed conflicts, beyond becoming increasingly reliant on American financial aid.
That works as long as The Israel Lobby runs the US government, but how long can that continue? Fractures are appearing in American society, too.
The third indicator is Israel’s growing international isolation, as it gradually becomes a pariah state.
Israel’s international support has always been based on the support of the collective West. That was sufficient under US hegemony, but US hegemony is coming to an end. The effect of this growing isolation is already seen in economic terms, but it also plays into the next indicator.
The fourth, interconnected indicator is the sea-change among young Jews around the world. Following the events of the last nine months, many now seem willing to jettison their connection to Israel and Zionism ... Jewish communities, particularly in the US, once provided Israel with effective immunity against criticism. The loss, or at least the partial loss, of this support has major implications ... AIPAC can still rely on Christian Zionists to provide assistance and shore up its membership, but it will not be the same formidable organization without a significant Jewish constituency. The power of the lobby is eroding.
Implicit in the third and fourth indicators is Israel’s loss of immunity from criticism among non-Jews and the growing awareness among non-Jews of the influence of The Israel Lobby, based on suborning of the political establishment. This factor—the forbidding of open discussion of Israel and its Lobby’s influence over politics in the West—has worked hand in hand with Jewish solidarity with the Zionist Project to immunize Israel from virtually all criticism. The crumbling of this self-censorship is also a “sea-change” that will increasingly affect the views of young Jews.
The fifth indicator is the weakness of the Israeli army. … its limitations were exposed on October 7. Many Israelis feel that the military was extremely fortunate, as the situation could have been far worse had Hezbollah joined in a coordinated assault. Since then, Israel has shown that it is desperately reliant on … the rapid delivery of huge quantities of supplies from the Americans, without which it could not even fight a small guerrilla army in the south.
There is now a widespread perception of Israel’s unpreparedness and inability to defend itself among the country’s Jewish population. ...
This weakness was already on display going back to the 1982 invasion of Lebanon—and indisuputably so after the 2006 defeat by Hezbollah.
The final indicator is the renewal of energy among the younger generation of Palestinians.
Let’s finish with one paragraph from Pappé’s concluding observations:
Whether people welcome the idea or dread it, the collapse of Israel has become foreseeable. This possibility should inform the long-term conversation about the region’s future. It will be forced onto the agenda as people realize that the century-long attempt, led by Britain and then the US, to impose a Jewish state on an Arab country is slowly coming to an end. It was successful enough to create a society of millions of settlers, many of them now second- and third-generation. But their presence still depends, as it did when they arrived, on their ability to violently impose their will on millions of indigenous people, who have never given up their struggle for self-determination and freedom in their homeland. In the decades to come, the settlers will have to part with this approach and show their willingness to live as equal citizens in a liberated and decolonized Palestine.
All of this will play out, one way or another, in US and British imperial politics—with ramifications also for domestic politics. It will be influenced as well by the rise of Russia, China, Iran, and the rest of BRICS.