The internal political battles within Israel, waged by Israelis against Israelis, have often lulled Israel’s enemies into a false sense of hope. Leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah have been quick to pounce on problems in Israel, using them to justify escalation and attacks. Mohammed Deif’s speech announcing and explaining Hamas’s cross-border raid on 7 October 2023 is a prime example.
Of course, Israel has problems, not least since the current government—comprised of far-right religious nationalists and strictly Orthodox parties—began targeting Israel’s judiciary, trying to limit its independence and ability to render unlawful the ideologues’ unconstitutional plans.
Ministers like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who have a history of hatred towards the Palestinians, are driving an identity shift. They want Israel’s character to be Jewish and religious rather than secular and democratic. This is at odds with Israel’s Declaration of Independence, which declared that Israel “will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex”.
Israel’s divisions
Forcing such a fundamental shift has taken Israel to the brink of self-destruction, according to commentators like Prof. Ilan Pappe, leading to deep fractures in society—not least between the religious and the secular and between Arabs and Jews. These divisions have even impacted Israel’s military, a key societal melting pot owing to the compulsory national service (until now, the strictly Orthodox have been exempted from service, but politicians have voted to change that).
Yet news of these mass protests against judicial “reform” or of military reservists refusing to serve gave birth to misguided beliefs about Israel’s fragility, its inability to endure a prolonged war, or its refusal to accept significant losses. In other words, the voicing of dissent was mistaken for signs of the state’s weakness.
In fact, protests and Israelis’ insistence on their rights were signs of the state’s health. Alongside this misjudgement have been misleading assessments from the resistance. Phrases such as “our losses are tactical while Israel’s are strategic” have been voiced.
