Israeli society is becoming more divided as Israel’s devastating conflict with Gaza continues, which has been advanced by a prime minister who demands that the goal of complete military victory be achieved.
Supporters of the war have increased their pressure on continuing regardless of the cost in terms of humanitarian, political, or diplomatic relief as Israeli peace activists and antiwar groups have increased their efforts over the past few weeks.
Members of the military have written open letters in opposition to the political motivations behind the ongoing conflict in Gaza, or claim that the most recent offensive, which has been systematically razing Gaza, poses a threat to Israeli prisoners who are still being held in Palestinian hands.
Israel’s universities and colleges have received another open letter, with its signatories focusing on Palestinian suffering, which has been a occurrence since the war started in October 2023.
As a result of a mix of pro-peace sentiment and more prevalent anger at the government’s handling of the war, there are instances where Israelis war effort is hampered by the active participation of the country’s youth.
In response to mounting international accusations of genocide, the war’s critics claim that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has grown dependent on the extreme right to sustain his coalition and that the opposition is too cowardly to support him.
powerful far right
It is important to avoid conflating the Palestinian people’s growing domestic animosities with the Israeli government’s war-fighting policies.
Nearly 50% of Jewish Israeli respondents support what they described as the “mass killing” of civilians in Israeli-occupied areas, according to a recent poll, and 82 percent of them still want to see Gaza cleared of its Palestinian population.
And on Monday, thousands of Israelis rioted through the occupied East Jerusalem’s Old City, chanting “death to Arabs” and attacking anyone who appeared to be Palestinian or defending them under the direction of the country’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Bezalel Smotrich, the ultranationalist finance minister, made an address to the “Jerusalem Day” march crowd, who has vehemently pushed for the annexation of the West Bank and the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.
Smotrich posed the questions to the audience, “Are we afraid of victory?” and “Are we afraid of the word “occupation”? ” The audience reacted with a resounding “no” in response to the criticism that some Israeli media outlets have given them as “revellers.”
Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli diplomat, told Al Jazeera, “There is a cohort of the extreme right who feel vindicated by a year and a half of war.” They believe that their argument that “if you blink, you lose, if you pause, you lose, if you waver, you lose has been proven.
growing dissention
Voices of dissident voices have risen in frequency as the Israeli assault on Gaza has grown more intense. More than 54 000 Palestinians have been killed in the past. More than 1, 000 presently serving and retired pilots wrote an open letter in April to object to a war that they claimed served “political and personal interests” rather than security. Following these letters are further correspondence and an organized campaign to persuade young Israelis to decline to serve in the military.
The leader of Israel’s left-wing Democrats Party, Yair Golan, who initially supported the war and held a hardline position against allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza, may have noticed the wind was blowing as he launched a stark broadside against the conflict earlier this month, claiming that Israel was at risk of becoming a “pariah state” that killed “babies as a hobby” while giving itself the aim of “expelling populations”
Some people applauded the former army major-general’s comments, but others criticized them. Golan was heckled and called a traitor by far-right audience members while speaking at a conference in southern Israel, where security led him before being escorted off the premises.
Cassif’s repeated condemnation of how Israel treats Palestinians has long sparked outrage in the mainstream of Israeli society.
According to Cassif, who has been the only Israeli lawmaker to oppose the war since it began, “there have always been threats against me.” “I have no way of walking down my own street.” Before October 7, I was attacked twice, and things have gotten worse.
“But not just me,” I said. He said that all peace activists face physical harm and threat, and that hostage-carrying families face the same threat of harm from these bigots.
Cassif criticized the finance minister and his supporters, saying that “many people are realizing that this government and even the mainstream opposition aren’t fighting a war for security reasons or even even to recover the hostages.”
He cited prominent politicians opposed to the prime minister, who didn’t dare criticize it [the war] and Netanyahu, who had manipulated it for his own ends, and said that “This has been allowed by people like]Benny] Gantz, [Yair] Lapid, and]Yoav] Gallant.”
Ayelet Ben-Yishai, an associate professor at the University of Haifa, one of the signatories to the academics’ open letter criticizing the war, echoed Cassif’s remarks.
She told Al Jazeera, “The opposition has nothing. They do and say nothing, which is understandable given that it’s difficult to argue for a complex future. Between Smotrich and his followers managing the war and the occupation is all that they have left us with. That is it. What kind of future does that represent?
a legacy of Israel
Many members of the opposition and the government have previously held senior positions in the army, supporting Palestinians through their continued support of the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory.
Golan, the head of the Democrats Party, was previously criticized by the army in 2007 for repeatedly using Palestinian civilians as human shields.
Professor at Tel Aviv University Yehouda Shenhav-Shahrabani described the political conflicts that are taking place in Israel as “a conflict between two Zionist elites over who is the greater fascist in various forms.”
He compared Israel’s traditional military and governing elites, many of whom might say they were liberal and democratic, and were originally from central and eastern Europe, to the Ashkenazi Jews, who settled Israel, imposed the occupation, and killed thousands. Or you have [the current religious Zionists, like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, who the former Ashkenazi elite now denies being fascists.
You can’t just go back and forth about this. Shenhav-Shahrabani said, “I don’t buy into that.” It “goes further.” The genocide in Gaza is not being witnessed by either side.
The level of attacks being protested against has increased as has the level of the international and domestic resistance.
Nearly 4, 000 Palestinians have died, many of them children, since Israel unilaterally ended a ceasefire in March. International organizations, including the UN, have been cautioned that what remains of the city’s depressed enclave have been subjected to famine because of a siege that wasimposed on the area on March 2.
Israel’s actions in the West Bank have also increased as has its aggression against Gaza. As it builds its own military network there, the Israeli army has reportedly occupied and levelled large portions of the occupied territory under the guise of yet another military operation, causing the country’s alleged 40 000 residents to flee.
Israel Katz announced the establishment of another 22 Israeli settlements on Thursday in violation of international law along with Smotrich, who has significant control over the West Bank.
Few people were surprised by Smotrich’s announcement. The far-right minister, who is a settler on Palestinian land, has previously stated openly that he intends to annexe the West Bank. He even ordered preparations in advance of US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, in which case he anticipated to be in favor. Additionally, he added that Gaza will be “totally destroyed” and that its residents will be relocated to a remote area along the Egyptian border.
Little of Shenhav-Shahrabani’s was surprising.
