How Has Israel Transformed and Changed?

What Israel Are We Facing? 

 How Has Israel Changed and Transformed? 

Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Israeli politics have undergone radical transformations on social and economic levels, in addition to strategic changes in its foreign relations with the Arab world, especially regarding the Palestinian people and their cause. Profound changes have also occurred in its self-perception. 

Israel, as imagined by some Arabs and foreigners, including media figures, academics, and politicians with various theses and diverse viewpoints, is far removed from contemporary reality, whether politically or socially. 

A distorted image of Israel often appears in Western and Arab public opinion, where 

an incomplete and partial image sometimes infiltrates minds, built more on wishes and speculations 

and outdated information than on modern and comprehensive knowledge of Israeli reality. This distorted image, regardless of whether its promoters are opponents of Israel’s colonial policies or its supporters, is what most often reaches the world. This view is based on one fundamental basis, which can be summarized as the superficial and non-renewed knowledge these people hold about Israel in its multiple and complex aspects. 

At the heart of influencing public opinion and shaping political convictions among elites, modern knowledge and information emerge as essential elements in the field that this process seeks. 

1 What Is the Face of Israel We Are Facing?

This truth applies to all fields of work in which a lobby or any solidarity group seeks to achieve a prominent impact. 

As for the questions about the failure of Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular to form an effective influence on the orientations of European and international political elites, they involve multiple answers and complex reasons. But what I have noticed in recent years is the absence of posing the fundamental question: Which Israel are we dealing with today, the world is dealing with, and we Arabs? 

What has happened to Israel in recent years? How has it undergone radical transformations? And where is the country heading today? 

To answer this question and to facilitate understanding of the current situation in Israel, as well as its policies and following the developments it has experienced over the past seven decades, I will divide the stages of this transformation into three time periods that witnessed radical changes. Every researcher and every politician must pay special attention to these periods when studying Israel or dealing with it in its social, economic, ideological, and diverse strategic fields. 

First Israel 1948 - 1977 

Second Israel 1978 - 2005 

Third Israel 2006 - to this day 

I divide the first Israel into two main phases: 

The first phase - the phase of self-building or the phase of the "New Jew" from 1948 to 1966. The second phase - the phase of occupation and fighting the Palestinian identity from 1967 to 1976. 

I divide the second Israel into three phases: 

example;

The first phase - the phase of war on the PLO 1977 - 1991 

The second phase - the phase of maintaining privileges or the end phase of the "New Jew" from 1992-2000 

2 What kind of Israel is it facing?

The third phase - the transition phase from 2001 - 2005 

I divide the third Israel into three phases: 

The first phase - the phase of defeat from 2006 - 2008 

The second phase - the phase of planning for the great transformation 2009 - 2012 

The third phase - the Netanyahu phase, the "new Zionism" from 2012 - until now. 

Throughout its three eras, Israel has witnessed profound qualitative transformations in its social fabric and notable economic developments. It has also seen changes in its centralized political strategies, which have left clear impacts on the social and political structure. Alongside this, radical changes occurred in ideology and self-understanding, which now dominate the political and social scene in the Israeli arena. 

Over the past seven decades, Israel has transformed from a state pulsating with the roots of a socialist solidarity society, as manifested in the kibbutz movement, into a neoliberal economic entity at the lowest level in concepts of democracy, citizenship, and party structure. We are now witnessing a deep transformation 

that sweeps the political arena. A political radicalism has emerged that takes religion and secularism as its colors, pushing everyone towards right-wing and racism. In this context, I find myself using the term "racism capital." I do not mean it in the Marxist thought sense, but rather I refer to the fact that traditional racism is exploited by the vast majority of political elites in Israel to enhance their political and social gains. The competition in manifestations of racism 

towards the Palestinian people in general, towards the Palestinian minority in Israel, and also 

increases noticeably. Racism in the Israeli Jewish society has shifted from mere verbal expressions and spontaneous daily behaviors to institutional racism supported by explicit racist laws. 

In the context of scientific research related to Israel, as well as in the daily political interactions by its friends and enemies, we notice that the radical transformations this state has witnessed have been overlooked by the field and the appropriate attention. What is taken into consideration is often rare 

the contrasting interaction with Israel and our recognition that it has undergone radical changes, and that today it is completely different from its past in most of the main axes, whether at the level of

3 What kind of Israel is it facing?

Its political elite or its strategies or its social structure and self-understanding, makes research superficial in general. It also opens up, and makes analysis far more accurate and deep scientific, new horizons to develop realistic strategies and precise tactics suitable for the political future in front of it. 

withThe changes that swept through Israel, its political system, and its social structures. 

In the following lines, I will dedicate my discussion to addressing the transformations that occurred in the stance of the Israeli political elites towards the Palestinian issue, and how it relates to the Middle East, in addition to the relations it wove with the Arab countries during the third phases I previously mentioned. 

In the first phase of Israel’s history, from 1948 to 1966, the prevailing ideology in the Israeli mindset was Ben-Gurion Zionism. All its energy was directed towards building the state and consolidating the concept of new citizenship for Jews immigrating from various parts of the world, after the programmed massacres and ethnic cleansing inflicted upon the indigenous people of the land, the Palestinian people. Zionist literature consistently used the term 1 "the new Jew" to describe these efforts. 

The modern state had no significant interest in the fate of the Palestinian people or their cause, which Arab leaders exploited since the uprooting of the indigenous population from their land for purely selfish purposes. Within its strategy, Israel, in its inception, worked to exaggerate the Arab threat ًthat endangered its existence. As for the remainder of the Palestinian people in their land, it considered them a danger surrounding it, and 

the Palestinian in his land was placed under direct military rule during that period, due to the absence of a clear strategy for dealing with them within the framework of the modern state. Zionism in its early stages aspired, as indicated by the writings of its founders such as Tsangfel and Ben-Gurion and others, to achieve comprehensive ethnic cleansing. The early Zionist political elites considered the Palestinians who remained on their ancestral land a strategic error that required careful and skillful handling so that it would not become an obstacle to the world’s recognition of the modern state and the establishment of diplomatic relations with it. The Zionist strategy was 

1 1 For more on this phase and Israel’s strategy towards the Palestinian minority, see: 

Raif Hussein; die politische Partizipation der Palästinensischen Minderheit in Israel; 2002; Grin Verlag  Raif. Hussein in Israel on Israel, 2008; P. 206–218 ;: also see 

4 What is Israel facing?

In that era, the aim was to dissolve the Palestinians within the Jewish society by granting them voting and candidacy rights for the Knesset, in addition to attracting their remaining elite and tribal leaders within the Zionist movement parties, including the Israeli Communist Party. With the announcement of the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its resistance strategy against the occupation, interest in the Palestinian cause began to increase within Israeli political circles. The Zionist leadership realized that a solution to the Palestinian issue must be proposed at some point. 

In the second phase of Israel’s history, which extended from 1967 to 1977, specifically after the Zionist state occupied the rest of Palestine and other Arab lands, it felt its position as one of strength. It began sending signals of its readiness to withdraw from most of the areas it occupied in the 1967 war, provided its security and the stability of its geography, whose borders remain ambiguous, were guaranteed. The Zionist movement relied on the occupied territories as a means of pressure in subsequent negotiations to resolve the Palestinian issue, and the Palestinian refugee issue was present in its mind.From the beginning. 

After the Palestine Liberation Organization approved the phased program for the two-state solution as an offensive strategic plan, and it gained broad recognition from many countries around the world ِ even obtaining observer member status in the United Nations as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and from 

the United Nations, the Zionist political elite began to intensify their focus on the Palestinian issue in their diplomatic and security attacks across several fronts. The Palestinians’ escalating efforts to assert their right to self-expression and self-determination according to ً prominent strategies on the regional and international stage granted them power and presence 

which increased pressure on Zionism to reach a "just" solution to the Palestinian issue. At this critical stage, the Zionists began to consider well-thought-out strategies, where they placed plans to use colonial settlement in the occupied territories to enhance the value of the hostage they held and increase pressure on the Palestinian side in case negotiations to resolve the issue began. Also, the Likud party, with its ideology, was closer to the Greater Israel theory, where settlement contributed to strengthening its influence within extremist religious and political circles.

5 What is Israel facing?

At this historic stage, the Zionist political and security establishment closely monitored the significant increase in Palestinian participation in the territories occupied in 1967 within the ranks of Palestinian liberation movements affiliated with the PLO. As a result, it began to devise strategies to pursue and follow up on them to undermine the influence of the PLO in Palestine. To achieve this goal, Israel exploited all possible means, whether security or military, including killing, assassinations, and arrests, aiming 

to fragment the Palestinian fabric in the occupied territories. It worked to form an alternative leadership under the name of village committees, quietly supporting political Islamic forces that did not join the PLO institutions. 

After the first Intifada of Palestinians inside on Land Day, the Zionist leadership realized that its project aimed at absorbing Palestinians who remained in their lands within the new Israeli fabric had failed. It fell into a strategic error trap when it granted them 

the right to vote and semi-free political organization. To try to correct this situation, the Israeli military governor of the northern Palestine region, General King, issued the "King Document." This document, which is still debated today, adopts the transition from a strategy of assimilation to a strategy of integrating Palestinians into Israeli society, while attempting to weaken their Palestinian identity and national affiliation. The document emphasizes tightening restrictions on national forces among Palestinians inside, disrupting opportunities for youth to study at Israeli universities, aiming to push them to emigrate abroad for education, and placing obstacles before them upon their return after completing their studies abroad to enter the Israeli labor market. 

Meanwhile, the Zionist establishment treated Palestinians inside as Israeli citizens, although their citizenship was limited and restricted. Since the establishment of the state, prevalent verbal racism was present in the Jewish street, directed towards Palestinians inside. Palestinians inside remained prohibited from openly expressing or strengthening their Palestinian identity, which was replaced by an Arab identity 

align: right;">2 For more on this phase and Israel's strategy towards the Palestinian minority, see: 

Raif Hussein; The Political Participation of the Palestinian Minority in Israel; 2002; Grin Verlag  Raif. Hussein in Israel on Israel, 2008; P. 206–218 ;: also in 

6 What is Israel facing?

In general, in an attempt to limit the presence of the Palestinian identity. Here, the ambiguous term was born, with its intentions and goals, namely "Israeli Arabs" or Arabs in Israel, which was adopted by the Palestinian and Arab political and cultural elites as well as the Palestinian and Arab masses in the Middle East, without awareness of its danger. 

In the second Israel, specifically in the first phase between 1978 and 1991, and with the Likud party taking power, radical transformations occurred in the elites' strategy towards the Palestinian people. The main goal of the political, military, and security establishment at the end of the first Israel era and the beginning of the second was the uprooting of the PLO. At that time, the Zionist political elite realized, what remains hidden to some Palestinian elites to this day, that the Palestinian Liberation Organization is not merely a political body representing the Palestinian people, but in fact represents a comprehensive national identity encompassing all members of the Palestinian people regardless of their location, and here lies its true strength. Zionist strategy aimed to destroy this unifying identity by all means available, imposing strict censorship on the activities of Palestinian institutions linked to resistance factions or those close to them in the territories occupied in 1967. It did not hesitate to pursue movements and individuals in the territories occupied in 1948 who showed sympathy towards the PLO. Operations began

targeting symbols of national identity and prominent figures in a desperate attempt to dismantle the Palestinian social and cultural fabric. 

The Zionist military establishment sensed that the conditions created by the civil war in Lebanon represented an opportune moment to launch a campaign of extermination against the PLO factions and their vital institutions present in Lebanon. 

During the aggression targeting Lebanon and the PLO, four fundamental matters formed in Israel considered pivotal in building the "Second Israel": First, the growth in the number of Jewish movements seeking peace with their Arab surroundings; second, strengthening their influence within the Jewish social fabric. 

Third, the influence of the extremist Kach movement, founded by the American Jewish Rabbi Meir Kahane after his arrival from the United States in 1971, increased. Kahane's ideas became in 19717 What is Israel facing?

the extremist ideology that served as the foundation upon which terrorist Jewish movements and entities with a racist character grew within the Jewish community. 

Fourth, the colonial settlement project, especially in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, transformed from a mere strategic tactic into a comprehensive ideological project. The Shas party for religious Mizrahi Jews was established, following the earlier establishment of the Mafdal party by religious Western Jews in 1956. 

"text-align: right;">These four points had a profound impact on the social and political character 

of Israel in its second phase, leaving indelible marks in the records of Zionist history and the history of interaction with the Palestinian cause within the Zionist and Jewish elite. They also established clear features of Israel's image, manifested through its political elite and societal structure, in the eyes of the outside world, where the majority of Western and Arab political elites still rely on this image in their dealings with and evaluation of Israel to this day. 

Israel's attempts to eliminate the Palestine Liberation Organization ended in catastrophic failure, after the outbreak of the First Intifada ignited hope in the hearts of the Palestinian people. Despite all that Israel sought in terms of reprisals and destruction of the infrastructure of resistance factions' institutions in the territories occupied in 1967, and despite its success in pushing the PLO leadership away from its close borders, the resistance factions demonstrated exceptional ability to manage and sustain the Intifada, which drained the occupation forces on all fronts. Amid the atmosphere of the First Intifada, international pressure on Israel increased, which also imposed on the Palestine Liberation Organization the necessity to work diligently to find a just solution to the Palestinian cause. 

Israel exerted intensive efforts to evade this obligation and benefited from the division 

that arose during the First Intifada between the factions of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the political Islamic movements, foremost among them Hamas. Also, the strategic mistake made by the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in supporting Saddam Hussein in his invasion of Kuwait had a profound effect in reducing the pressure on Israel, allowing it to shift from seeking a radical solution to the Palestinian cause, at least among political elites 

8 What is the strategy of Israel facing it?

Zionism and some of its supporters in the West adopted a new strategy to manage the conflict with the Palestinians. 

At the end of the first phase of the second Israel, the call for the Madrid Conference in November 1991 came from the United States, as if a lifeline for the Zionist establishment. What preceded it, the American administration's threats to Israel regarding withholding loan guarantees if it did not agree to participate in the Madrid talks, was a carefully crafted strategic scenario. Some Europeans and most Arabs ignorantly surrendered to the idea that the United States was genuinely serious in its threats to Israel and changing its approach to the Palestinian cause. 

In the second phase of the second Israel, from 1992 until 2000, the Zionist leadership was able to seize its precious opportunity to shift from a strategy of addressing the Palestinian cause to a strategy of managing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yitzhak Shamir, the Israeli Prime Minister at the time, expressed this clearly when responding to a question from a European journalist about what they sought to achieve in Madrid, saying: We want to hold talks, prolonged talks that may extend for many years. Within the Israeli arena, the conflict rapidly erupted between the various peace movements, which strived to find a "just" solution to the Palestinian cause and end the occupation, and, at the same time, the rise of extremist racist and settler currents witnessed a notable increase in Likud. Illusions played with minds, as if we were on the verge of an Israeli withdrawal from the territories occupied in 1967. 

The Palestinian leadership faced many traps set by the Zionist strategic establishment before signing the Oslo Accords and subsequent related agreements, which led to the entrenchment of the principle of conflict management instead of working on resolving the Palestinian cause. It realized 

The Palestinian leadership clearly recognized this fact in 1999, the year that was supposed to mark the end of the transitional phase and the beginning of the stage of reclaiming the entire Palestinian lands 3 from occupation. The Palestinian Authority tried to correct this course by igniting the second intifada, but this event only exacerbated the crisis of the Palestinian people caused by the Oslo Accords, giving Israel multiple justifications 

3 /d-Raif-Husni-Palestinian-Built-Political-Solution/com.natourcenters://https  

9 What kind of confrontation does Israel face?

Its continuation of the strategy of conflict management and avoiding pressure for a final resolution of the issue. 

The conspiracies prepared by the Israeli strategic establishment in cooperation with its partners in America and some European countries were based on only one principle: to suggest to the Palestinian leadership that it had achieved a great accomplishment towards resolving the issue, while the Zionist works diligently on the ground, investing in diplomacy to obstruct and destroy this goal from within. Since the signing of the Oslo Accords, two conflicting visions have emerged: a Palestinian vision fueled by hope and ambition but lacking a clear strategy, and an Israeli vision supported by the United States, based on a systematic plan to entangle the Palestinians and complete the elimination of their national identity represented by the Palestine Liberation Organization. 

During its second phase between 1992 and 2000, Israel witnessed significant social and political transformations with deep meaning, which require us to pause and reflect on their effects on Israeli policy and evaluate international reactions to them, including the impact on the Middle Eastern environment. Among these transformations, by way of example not limitation: with the signing of the Oslo Agreement, Israel appeared before the world as a state seeking peace and looking, after a long period of procrastination, for a settlement with the Palestinians, despite not having done so in previous decades, which perpetuated the state of war and instability. It did not dismantle its colonial settlements, did not acknowledge the ethnic cleansing it committed in Palestine, did not compensate the Palestinians for the natural resources it seized, and did not define its borders, which remain open to this day. Additionally, it threw the ball into the Palestinian court suffering from division, at a time when political Islam was able to consolidate its presence in the Palestinian arena, becoming a competitor to the Palestine Liberation Organization institutionally and politically. 

The world welcomed this transformation with overwhelming enthusiasm, and the forces of peace emerged before it, witnessing the end of Israel’s first phase and the beginning of its second in its golden era, as an effective force capable of pushing the traditional political elites in the Israeli Jewish society towards engaging in the political process with the Palestinians. 

With the influx of hundreds of thousands of new Jews from the former Soviet Union to Israel and their integration into the Israeli social, political, and cultural fabric, a new phase of political and social organization began. The Russian Jewish minority was considered a pioneer in organizing itself politically and culturally based on its ethnic affiliation. The large number, exceeding one million, of Eastern Jewish social and cultural elites was seen as a serious threat to Ashkenazi attempts to control the state, especially

10 What kind of confrontation does Israel face?

a threat to the political and social dominance of the Ashkenazi elites over the state, especiallyAfter they reached 4 and were about to become a majority within the Jewish community. The beginning of the end of the era of traditional parties within the Israeli Jewish community was formed, which previously relied on political ideological principles and subjective visions of Zionism and Judaism. Over time, the transitional phase towards a post-party era began, with new groups forming around prominent figures. This shift became clear with Sharon's departure from the Likud party and the establishment of Kadima in 2005. After the assassination of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on November 4, 1995, by a member of extremist movements that grew under the ideological umbrella of Kahane, a shift towards the right swept the Jewish political arena across its various spectrums, dominating the general atmosphere in Israel. Meanwhile, a slow disintegration began within the Labor Party. The Jewish political elites realized they had made a strategic mistake with the Oslo process when they allowed Palestinian citizens of Israel to openly express their national affiliation, leading to the revival of their buried Palestinian identity deep in memory. In 2002 and 2003, when Netanyahu took over the Ministry of Finance in 1998 and later ascended to the premiership in 1999, Israel began moving rapidly away from its quasi-socialist identity. Threads of dissolution crept into the kibbutz project, which had been the social backbone of early Israel. Under Netanyahu's rule, Israel moved towards a new liberal political and economic system, where privatization became entrenched in the keys of the national economy, transforming the economic scene into a state of deep and radical change. For more on demographics in the Israeli Jewish community, see the study on the ethnic identity of Jews in Israel (2019) in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. What is Israel facing? Privatization became entrenched in the keys of the national economy, turning the economic scene into a state of deep and radical change. In the third phase of the history of the second Israel, from 2001 to 2005, the outlines of the new Zionist strategy towards the Palestinian issue became clear. Israeli political elites exploited the events of the Second Intifada, including bombings inside Israel and the participation of all Palestinian national and Islamic forces, to evade Oslo commitments. They unleashed settler mobs and so-called terrorist movements to uproot Palestinian lands and build settlements, in addition to launching brutal attacks on agricultural areas, destroying crops and uprooting fruit trees. The Zionist security establishment tightened its grip on the Palestinian arena, narrowing its spaces and restricting the movements of its diverse political forces. In this context, the Israeli occupation forces began a series of assassinations targeting Palestinian military and political figures, starting with the assassination of Fatah leader Jamal Abdul Razzaq and his companions in Gaza. These assassinations peaked with the targeting of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine's security official comrade Abu Ali Mustafa in August 2001, as well as Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, founder of Hamas, in March 2004, ending with the execution of Hamas charismatic leader Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Rantisi in the same year. These assassinations particularly targeted the field, political, and military leaderships of the main Palestinian organizations, Hamas and Fatah. On March 29, 2002, the Israeli occupation forces began...A strict siege was imposed on the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat inside the compound, where it was subjected to repeated rocket bombings, encirclement by tanks, and various security forces over three years 

. Amid these difficult times, and specifically in June 2002, Israel began building the apartheid separation wall, claiming its alleged goal was to protect its citizens, where it was announced 

Israel from Palestinian resistance and its operations inside. However, the course of this wall clearly revealed the colonial objectives of the Zionist state, as it annexed vast areas of the West Bank and cut off communication between East Jerusalem and northern 

 https://www.jstribune.com/krampf-the-netanyahu-doctrine/ 5 

12 What is Israel facing?

and southern West Bank. These colonial objectives, based on the old Zionist equation 6 "More land and fewer Arabs," were crowned by Israel's unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2005 without any coordination or review, clearly revealing its true intentions. 

These aggressive acts carried out by the Zionist entity against the Palestinian people are considered 

known as the Third Israel. In my view, the decisive blow to the Oslo phase and the beginning of a new phase, this phase transcends the borders of the entity itself and its self-understanding in dealing with the Palestinian people and its orientations towards citizens in the territories occupied in 1967, but also includes 

Palestinians in the territories occupied in 1948. During solidarity demonstrations with their brothers in the territories occupied in 1967 during the Second Intifada, Palestinians faced the Zionist security apparatus since 1976 on the day of the eternal land. The Zionist state security agencies confronted peaceful demonstrations of its citizens with force of arms within a few days... These practices resulted in the killing of 13 Palestinians for no other reason than that they were Palestinians, and because the Zionist state no longer considers them citizens. 

In addition to the above, during the early months of the Second Intifada, Zionist political forces increasingly recognized the value of the "racial capital" and competed among themselves to seize this base... Racism towards the Palestinian people, throughout historical Palestine, has become politically and socially profitable for Zionist political movements. At the same time, peace movements within the Jewish community began to isolate themselves and cling to their past, resulting in an institutional decay path for these 7 movements, where the diminishing role of some and the extinction of others became clear. This fact, on the Western labor front, was sufficient, but it did not receive Israeli attention, which has become a reality 

Nor did it find resonance at the Arab regional level, especially Palestinian. Therefore, we still hear the echo of the term peace forces repeated among those who still live in the illusion of Oslo and the nostalgia for peace. This strategic assessment is led 

6 For a deeper understanding of this strategy, see Nour al-Din Masalih's book published by the Palestinian Studies Center entitled: Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of ‘Transfer’ in Zionist Political Thought, 1882–1948 

7 n>Yoram Peri; The Failure of the Israeli Peace Movement, 1993–2000 13 What face does Israel really confront?

Until today, the main mistake is Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who still clings to a destructive equation; he sees that the alternative to negotiations is negotiations themselves... and this in the absence of a clear Palestinian strategy and without a real partner on the Israeli side. 

The third Israel, which we face in our current time, is completely different from the image woven from the threads of the second phase promoted by the Arab and Western media, which is ingrained in the minds of Palestinian, Arab, and Western political elites. 

Israel has witnessed profound transformations on social, political, ideological, and strategic levels. 

Today, we stand before an Israeli Jewish society whose social features have radically changed, where its ethnic and class composition has shifted. The reality of the third Israel is entirely different from the economic conditions that prevailed in the first phase of the second Israel. Israel today is considered a model for neoliberalism, despite the economic prosperity that some boast about, where the gap between social classes widens day by day, and the number of groups suffering under the weight of poverty continuously increases. In its third form, Israel tops the list of industrial countries in terms of child poverty rates.8 The third Israel is going through turbulent stages of a chronic political crisis, resulting from the transformation of its political elites from building parties and political movements based on solid ideologies, to forming parties centered around prominent personalities whose shine and presence quickly fade, disappearing into oblivion. This phenomenon has clearly manifested in the repeated crises of government formation in recent years. The past decade shows that this situation has become the prevailing characteristic and is continuously increasing, raising concerns about the future of political life in Israel. 

Alongside all the above, Israel has shifted from a society characterized by political pluralism including right-wing, centrist, religious, and secular groups, with movements seeking peace with neighbors, to a society where radical discourse clashes and internal social solidarity is almost absent, replaced by a nearly racist and sectarian discourse. Political work has become confined 

https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-israel-has-second-highest-poverty-rate-in-8 oecd-1001497127 

14 What face does Israel really confront?

Israel has established a fully-fledged apartheid system, especially in the occupied territories since 1967, practiced in a distinctly discriminatory manner against the Palestinian minority, and is rapidly moving towards entrenching an apartheid system also within its own borders. All this develops with the blessing and support of all Zionist Jewish political elites without exception. In the third phase of Israel, discriminatory laws have been enacted in various fields such as economy, housing, education, and property rights, practiced against the Palestinian minority, to the extent that Palestinians inside Israel have become almost completely deprived of living in about 900 Jewish towns and neighborhoods.9 10 11 Il. The profound transformations witnessed by the third Israel cannot pass without leaving their radical imprints on the political, social, and ideological structure of Israeli Jewish society. 

The former and current Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, played a prominent role in the transition process. Netanyahu is considered the main architect of Israel's shift from the second phase to the third phase. 

The main planner of this transition, not only because he set a new strategy for transformation towards a neoliberal economic system through privatizing state institutions and companies, halting support for kibbutzim which led to the erosion of most of them, and reducing social welfare services, but also because he early on realized that traditional Zionism had reached a dead end and had become, according to his vision, an obstacle to the progress of the state and Jewish society. He laid the foundation for the new Zionism with its renewed vision, strategies, and rules, hence it was labeled "Netanyahuism." 

Since the mid-1990s, many Jewish elites in Israel began to recognize the dilemma of traditional Zionism, and for some, it went even further, 

 “A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution” 9 (2021) 

10 Professor Yousef Jabareen from the Department of Planning and Construction at the Technion University prepared this study, which was quoted by an Israeli newspaper. 

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2017-11-30/ty-article/.premium/israel-fences-in-arab towns-then-complains-of-illegal-construction/0000017f-f64d-d460-afff-ff6f7ebd0000 

11 The full report on the racist laws enacted in Israel over the past years can be found on the Palestinian Adalah website https://www.adalah.org/ar/content/view/1169 

15 What is Israel facing?

This especially after the assassination of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by an extremist Jew, where 12 they boldly addressed the idea of the end of Zionism. 

At the same time, the structure of Jewish society in Israel witnessed a radical transformation, coinciding with the arrival of more than a million new immigrants from countries that formerly constituted the Soviet Union, in addition to the noticeable increase in the number of Jews who were born and raised in Israeli territories. This situation led a large segment of Jews to distance themselves from Zionist thought, making it difficult to classify Zionism as a unified national ideology; rather, it was viewed as a "national nostalgia" carrying memories of the past more than being an ambitious project that unites everyone. 

At the same time, the negative perception of Zionism increased on a general level, especially since the United Nations Resolution 3379 in November 1975 described Zionism as a racist movement. This perception did not stop there but worsened with Britain’s opening of the British Mandate archives in Palestine, which provided researchers, including Jews in Israel, the opportunity to access historical documents from the period of the state’s establishment. Historians such as Nur al-Din Masalha and Israeli Ilan Pappe, among others, were able to shed light on the hidden aspects of massacres and the systematic ethnic cleansing carried out by Zionist militias since the beginning.its presence in Palestine. 

The negative perception of Zionism worldwide increased with the growing international solidarity with the first Palestinian Intifada. Amid this complex reality experienced by the occupying state and its ideology, reflection began on a way out of this impasse. The traditional Zionist leadership sought to escape this predicament by linking Zionism as a movement to its participation in the Madrid Conference by canceling the United Nations resolution that condemned this achievement for the Zionist current as racist, and it succeeded in doing so. Nevertheless, the Jewish community in Israel did not lose the momentum it had, nor did many Jewish elite opinions about the impact of Zionism on their lives in Israel change, nor did the international community's view on this matter adjust. This resolution and this achievement remained confined to the corridors of official politics only. 

 Moshe Zimmermann; The End of Zionism? 12 

16 What challenge does Israel face?

Netanyahu, who realized that this development represented his opportunity to present a new ideology, and considering the radical changes witnessed by Israel, the Middle East region, and the regional system, gained a strong motivation to advance rapidly towards his project of a Third Israel. 

Regarding Israel’s self-perception and its relationship with the Palestinian people and their cause, in addition to its position in the Middle East, the new ideology formulated by Netanyahu clearly diverges from the traditional Zionism that formed the foundation for building the state and its institutions over the decades. The first Zionism was the dominant force over the Jewish community and the political elite in Israel during its first and second phases. 

The fundamental difference between modern Zionism and the traditional one goes beyond the surface to reflect a radical transformation in the basic strategies, especially concerning the Palestinian cause and everything related to the Palestinian people. We can summarize the profound changes brought about by this ideological shift within the Jewish community inside Israel through the following points: 

First, in the geography overlapping Jordan, Israel, and Egypt, Israel cannot allow the establishment of a fully sovereign Palestinian entity. 

Second, there is a deep objective and strategic link between the new Zionism and the idea of a distinctly Zionist Jewish state. 

Israel is considered a model Jewish state; where the concept of full citizenship is tied to Jewishness, making this citizenship exclusively for those belonging to the Jewish religion. 

Third, Israel can enter the Middle Eastern arena without the need to resolve the Palestinian issue. 

These four points are considered the backbone of Netanyahu’s ideological framework, especially regarding Israel’s self-perception, its position in the Middle East, and its view on the future of the Palestinian cause. 

At first glance, these points may seem to reflect the essence of traditional Zionism and the Jewish elite’s standards in Israel, but the truth reveals that Zionist Judaism in Israel has always workedAccordingly, these four points represent a new offensive ideological strategy, at a time 

17 How does Israel face it?

Israel is facing one of the most difficult phases in its history, while the region is witnessing complex and unprecedented transformations. Amid the radical changes and deviations shaking the regional order, we have noticed since the inception of the embodiment of these points that the Third Israel has begun to achieve distinctive qualitative accomplishments in this context. 

The announcement of a "Palestinian entity" or a Palestinian state with limited sovereignty over the territories occupied since 1967, excluding parts of East Jerusalem according to the Zionist vision, fundamentally contradicted, in its details, what was deeply rooted 

in international norms, apart from the acceptance of the Palestinian side, and even far from the approval of some Arabs. This was clearly understood by the traditional Zionist elites. Those perceptions were an integral part of the implicit strategy of the Jewish Zionist political elite 

and a heavy hostage in their hands, who saw the territories occupied in 1967 as a precious treasure 

to be exploited as a bargaining tool with the Arabs and Palestinians in case a settlement agreement was reached. Although it was an incomplete vision and conflicted with Palestinian aspirations, it viewed the two-state solution as an implicitly acceptable option. Yes, the first Zionism did not define Israel’s final borders and had geopolitical ambitions in Arab and Palestinian lands... It strove to reduce the sovereignty of the Palestinian state it claimed to accept building, and this was clearly observed during the Oslo talks and subsequent negotiations between the Palestinian and Israeli sides. However, the traditional Zionist leadership deeply realized that it would never be able to reduce the lands and sovereignty of the future Palestinian state, given the standards imposed by international powers and regional alignments in the Middle East. 

The Netanyahu doctrine has set strict limits on sovereignty, where essential elements such as (geographical area, borders, crossings, airspace, natural resources...) have become the cornerstone of its aggressive strategy towards the Palestinian cause. It brazenly declared its opposition to the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state. Zionism also clearly realized that the PLO had become a semi-dead entity 

for a long time in the future, while the effective Palestinian leadership remained politically and economically tied to the occupation. The Palestinian leadership, through its selfish actions and attempts to preserve its physical existence, opened the doors to extortion attempts from the other side without any reservations. It realized 

18 How does Israel face it?

Netanyahuism quickly understood how to exploit the current circumstances, especially since the names nominated to succeed President Mahmoud Abbas showed readiness to coexist with this incomplete solution offered by Netanyahuism, or something similar to it. 

Israel is eagerly seeking to intensify its settlement activity, especially in the areas of Jerusalem and East Jerusalem, paving the way for their final annexation to the Zionist state, and this is nothing but part of its comprehensive strategy. Also,The transfer of the American embassy to Jerusalem and the attempts to eliminate UNRWA and tighten the noose around it have added additional momentum to the strategy of deception. 

According to the concept of the new Zionism, the "two-state solution," in its best manifestation, is represented by the establishment of a Palestinian entity, which the Palestinian may choose to call an empire, a state, or otherwise, only within a framework of limited sovereignty and will. It is merely self-administration of cities but remains confined 

to the Greater Palestinian affairs, less than autonomy, concerned with daily life matters, with only limited Palestinian involvement.

Political symbols aimed at deceiving Palestinians and the international community into believing in the existence of a "Palestinian state." 

The new Zionism manifests itself in its insistence on establishing an apartheid regime in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, and it does not hesitate to express this truth, whose ideas have successfully seeped into minds. This project has found justification 

in the West. The evidence for this is the absence of any real movement to obstruct Israel's efforts to build an apartheid system on Palestinian land. The occupation state has begun implementing its project to establish bypass roads that facilitate the movement of settlers between their settlements and Zionist lands, avoiding passage through Palestinian villages and towns. These roads are exclusively restricted to Israeli use. With the construction of the separation wall, a judicial system has become more entrenched than ever, starkly distinguishing between individuals sharing the same geography under one political and administrative system. What I mean is the judicial system that applies to Palestinians and Israelis in Area C and parts of the occupied Palestinian territories. These manifestations have effectively reduced Palestinian sovereignty over their land, people, and resources, and this is increasing daily. The new Zionism and its political elites justify these measures that diminish Palestinian sovereignty and will as measures to protect the security of the Jewish state and its citizens. Although these policies represent a blatant violation of human rights 19 and are Israeli crimes against Palestinians, and contradict international laws and norms, they have become accepted in global political circles... Israel does not fear any third-party punishment or legal, economic, or diplomatic measures against it. The third Israel seeks, through its new ideology, to present these policies as a "conflict reduction" strategy 13 . 

In this way, the third Israel has fundamentally changed the concept and strategy that prevailed in the second and third phases of the second Israel, where the focus was on the concept of "conflict management." Today, serious discussions about finding a solution to the Palestinian issue or managing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have disappeared, replaced by the discourse of "conflict reduction." 

The concept of expelling the occupation to achieve security and calm in the region has been replaced by the latter becoming the primary concern and goal to reduce the intensity of the conflict, with the aim of security and avoiding a popular explosion in the occupied Palestinian territories. 

The complex and essential relationship between the new Zionism and Judaism requires deep reflection. The first Zionism exploited Judaism by manipulating its components, as noted by several prominent Jewish thinkers such as Moshe Tsukerman, Moshe Zand, the philosopher Herovitz, and others. This exploitation was...Exchange, reflecting the intertwining of religion by Zionism for the benefit of Zionist interests and the Jewish religion, where the traditional role was used to serve political and social goals. 

In its early stages, Zionism was teetering on the brink of collapse, until it discovered the religious dimensions and their great importance in integrating them with Zionist ideology. Judaism, especially from Haredi sectors such as Rabbi Kook, contributed to expanding the base of this movement within Jewish social strata, particularly in Europe, where it had failed when it presented itself as a secular movement. This relationship also brought great benefits to Judaism and its theological institutions. The revival of the Hebrew language, which had been exclusive to Jewish religious circles, gave a strong boost to the revival of the Jewish religion and restored its exalted status at the core of Jewish social life. However, the relationship between religion and Zionism still suffers from a severe coldness. 

 Micah Goodman; Shrinking the Conflict: Israeli Policy Toward the Palestinians 13 20 Which Israeli face?

The land, especially during the period of ethnic cleansing in Palestine, was not purely secular. Initially, during the first and second founding periods of Israel, religious parties and movements appeared calling themselves names including "national religious parties" or "religious national," without calling themselves "religious Zionist parties." Religious Zionist Jews engaged in political work through major known parties such as Labor and Likud, especially within the latter. Netanyahu realized the importance of the deep strategic link between Judaism and Zionism and sought to turn this link into an implicit concept in the new Zionism, determined to remove the secular cover from Zionism to make room for any Jewish party or political movement in Israel to engage directly in it. Netanyahu sought not to separate Zionism from Jewish identity, so that it complements it as well as making Zionism part 

of it. It is the opposite. But his ambitions did not stop there; he also wanted the new Zionism to manifest in a different form, free from the negative obstacles that afflicted traditional Zionism. The increasing phenomenon of Islamophobia in Europe and America gave Netanyahu and new Zionist thinkers a unique opportunity to reshape their ideological political discourse, which consists of Judaism, Zionism, and Islamophobia as a strategic triangle. As talk about the spread of Islamophobia in the world increased, Zionist political elites began to focus their foreign policy increasingly on this very issue. Anti-Islamophobia became closely linked with Judaism as a state and modern Zionism. The equation became clear in the politics related to understanding and dealing with Israel: if you want to be truly anti-Semitic, you must accept the Jewishness of the state without any restriction and support the political orientations of the new Zionist elites. Netanyahu's efforts succeeded in consolidating this ideological triangle of anti-Semitism after the "International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance" issued the Budapest Conference definition in 2015 to also include hostility to Israel's policy and its political elites. This renewed definition of anti-Semitism has been adopted and reinforced by governments and parliaments in Europe and America. Merely supporting the Palestinians' demands to restore their basic rights, which previously formed part of the official, media, and cultural scientific political discourse, is now classified as a form of anti-Semitism.Anti-Semitism. The remarkable success of the idea in the West, y 

14 International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance 

21 What does Israel face?

Netanyahu has entrenched the new Zionism as an ideology adopted by all Jewish political and religious movements in Israel without exception. The enactment of the Nation-State Law with overwhelming support from Zionist political elites confirmed this new trend and supported the adoption of the new Zionism as an alternative to traditional Zionism. 

It is to be noted that the recognition of the Jewishness of the state of Israel at this critical historical stage by some Arab and Islamic countries, according to most Western countries, and the acceptance of normalization by some, is a dangerous strategy. Over the past years, we have witnessed a rise in the new definition, which carries dimensions 

of the brutality of settlement in the Palestinian territories under the pretext of security, where Jews are assumed to have the right to settle these lands according to their understanding. This strategic dimension manifested itself in the genocide war that Israel is waging against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and Jerusalem. With the recognition of the Jewishness of the state, Israel acquires the right to defend its Jewish identity, and just as the threats to Judaism are known, the Palestinian demographic from a Zionist perspective is considered a threat, allowing Israel to justify acts of genocide or displacement in the face of this demographic challenge. 

The new Zionism, which Netanyahu created, managed to empty the most important diplomatic weapon that Palestinian politics controlled in confronting Zionism on the international arenas... that weapon which exposed Zionism as a racist movement. Restoring the situation to what it was before abandoning this weapon prior to the Madrid Conference has become a kind of impossible mission for peace. 

Establishing a close relationship between the concept of citizenship in Israel and the Jewishness of the state is embodied in the "Nation-State Law" passed by the Israeli Knesset in 2018, which represents the peak of the shift towards the third Israel. Although this law was passed by a vote of 62 against 55, with two abstentions out of 120 members, the Zionist Jewish opposition did not stem from the principle of recognizing the existence of citizens of non-Jewish religions in Israel,15 and the implications of this law on their citizenship rights. Rather, their opposition, as noted 

https://en.idi.org.il/about/about-idi/?utm_source=chatgpt.com. And more in : Honaida 15 Ghanim (2021) Israel’s Nation-State Law: Hierarchized Citizenship and Jewish Supremacy”  

22 What does Israel face?

Former President Rivlin and others expressed their deep concern about Israel's democratic character and how the world will view it in the future. Alon Harel, a law professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, went further than Rivlin and built the real risks that Netanyahu’s circle draws with the passage of this law, saying, "The law will create a different branch of the state where economic and ideological interests will define the scope and content of Jewish culture and heritage 

instead of reinforcing it.Judaism." . 

The passage of this law took many years of deep discussions between the Jewish community and the Palestinian community in Israel. Its enactment marked a pivotal milestone in the relations of the Jewish state with the Palestinian minority in Israel. The law not only reiterated the values that prevailed in early Zionism, such as the slogans and symbols of the Jewish state, 

it also demoted the status of the Arabic language from one of the official languages alongside Hebrew. Furthermore, non-Jews were not mentioned even once, highlighting the third fundamental principle of this law, which did not firmly emphasize exclusivity and exclusion in legal policy. On the contrary, it was considered that the right to self-determination belonged solely to the Jews. Israel represents the "state of the Jewish people," where only Jews have this right. Consequently, Palestinians in Israel became mere guests limited to this geography, where their residence and the rights granted to them are tied to their behavior and loyalty to the Jewishness of the state, as stated in the Loyalty Law enacted to reinforce the Nation-State Law project. 

Israel's position at the heart of the Middle East... Since its inception, Israel has sought by all available means to be part of the group of Middle Eastern countries. However, the history of the establishment of the Zionist entity, which was based on uprooting the indigenous population, brutalizing them, consolidating occupation, and forcibly seizing lands, prevented the achievement of the Zionist goal, which was embodied in natural relations with the peoples of the Arab region. Progress in this file has become exclusively contingent on finding a just solution to the Palestinian issue. 

The Zionist political elites in their first and second phases realized that the way to actual integration into the club of Middle Eastern countries passes through offering an acceptable solution to the Palestinian leadership and Arab leaderships regarding the Palestinian issue. 

New Zionism, especially after the profound transformations witnessed in the Palestinian arena, including geographic, social, and economic division, as well as radical changes 

23 What is Israel facing?

that affected the region following the victory of Hezbollah, supported by Iran, in the 2006 war, has observed other central strategic changes of great importance that prompted it to reconsider and reformulate its strategy to define its position on the Middle East map. 

Among the profound transformations that swept the region and the Palestinian arena at the beginning of what is called the Third Israeli Intifada, several prominent features emerged: 

The sense of trust among the Palestinian masses towards political leaderships diminished, and their desire to actively engage in national work and daily struggle declined. The institutions of the PLO witnessed significant fragmentation, losing their status as a unifying identity for all members of the Palestinian people, while the Palestinian Authority took the lead instead of the PLO, weakening national ties among Palestinians. Fear cast its shadow on some Arab leaders due to the increasing influence of Iran and its nuclear program, allowing the formation of new tactical alignments in the Middle Eastern space. With the declining role of the United States in the region, some Arab leaders, especially in the Gulf, have grown increasingly anxious about the possibility of their thrones being shaken from within or outside. 

Known as the Arab Spring, and differeDo the successive collapses have already begun the Arab division with what 

and the war on Syria, which suffered failure, and also increased as a result of the war on Yemen. This division, which is manifested in a dual-dimensional Arab scene, paved the way for the formation of new alliances in the Middle Eastern club, and also allowed the third Israel to play a role in this complex scene. It is influential. 

At the heart of this radical transformation that took place, especially in the transitional phase from the third Israel 2009 - 2012, the new Zionism began to outline the features of its renewed strategy in its position in the Middle East. As if it had landed on new shores, the new Zionism began to formulate ideas and draw alternative plans for its entry into the Middle Eastern club.

Where the modern alignments that emerged in what is known as the Arab Spring manifested before its eyes, to plant its roots in the Arabian Gulf, and settle in North

Africa. 

24 What face does Israel show?

This strategy culminated in a spectacular success, where the principle of Arab normalization with the occupying state was achieved within the framework of its renewed ideological identity, Netanyahu's, without any opposition to its racist vision towards itself and its programs aimed at eliminating the Palestinian cause. This success for the new Zionism was like the last nail hammered into the coffin of traditional Zionism.

In the third Israel, we find a Jewish society and movements and parties that do not provoke objections

to the broad outlines of the new Zionism... On the contrary, everyone has adopted this strategy and builds their political, social, economic, and religious programs according to it.

The third Israel, which embraces Netanyahu's ideology as its official framework, is what we face now. In this state, we do not see parties

calling for a two-state solution as stipulated by international decisions, or as the Palestinian people aspire to... In addition, there is no one who radically opposes the Jewishness of the state, or denies the "historical religious right" of the Jews throughout all historical Palestine. In the third Israel, we only find individuals who express their opposition to the colonial settlement project in the occupied Arab and Palestinian lands, and it is impossible to find a political movement or party that considers East Jerusalem Palestinian occupied territory. The right of return and compensation for Palestinian refugees, as stipulated by international resolutions and norms, is no longer a topic addressed by Zionist political elites in discussion. The third Israel has become accepted in the West and part of the Eastern Arab world as a colonial state embodying colonialism, without anyone feeling embarrassed about it. The apartheid regime in the occupied Palestinian territories and the reality of racism inside Israel have become extremely natural matters.

The third Israel and October 7, 2023

Analyzing the discourse of extermination and fascist tendencies in contemporary Israeli politics clearly shows us how Netanyahu's ideology has become the only one adopted by the political elites in Israel. During the war of extermination and displacement against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip

25 What face does Israel show?

Gaza, which moved to vast areas in the West Bank, specifically in Area A and Area B according to the division applied within the framework of the Oslo Accords, this ideology was renewed in political and media discourse as well as in field military work. 

The conceptual framework: the shift of discourse from the margin to the sovereign center 

The phase following the events of October 7, 2023, represents a structural turning point in Israeli Zionist political, military, and global discourse, where the exterminationist language and fascist tendencies planted by Netanyahu before the war moved from the margins of ideology to the heart of the official institution and sovereign decision-making. This shift cannot be reduced to merely an emotional reaction to a sudden attack; rather, it expresses an ideological maturity of exclusionary tendencies accumulated over years of occupation and settlement, which found in the moment of crisis an opportunity to emerge as an official state strategy. Experts in genocide studies indicate that this discourse, when issued by senior leaders at the top of the authority pyramid, transcends being merely an expression of anger to become "genocidal intent" (Genocidal Intent), the most complex moral element in the description of international crimes. These statements have created what academics call a "semantic void" (Void Semantic) in the public space of society, where victims are stripped of their humanity through intensive metaphorical language that transforms them from humans into non-human biological entities, making them fully legitimate targets not subject to the laws of war. This dehumanization acts as a central station through which exterminationist policies pass, becoming part of the discourse of the new Zionism, where the conflict is portrayed as an existential battle "between the sons of truth and the sons of falsehood" or "between civilization and barbarians." This is the explicit evidence of the new Zionism's margin and its racist warning view of the indigenous people of the country. Thus, the new Zionism embodies the principle of master and slave not only in its discourse and media but also in the collective consciousness of its society, and it, 

26 What is Israel facing?

Civilization and barbarians, binaries aimed at eliminating any possibility of moral or 16 legal accountability for military actions. 

Dissecting the discourse of the senior leadership: from exterminationist tendencies to direct incitement 

The statements of the top political echelon in Israel are considered the primary driver of military operations, providing moral and legal cover for soldiers in the field to commit acts beyond military necessity. The use of the term "human animals" by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on October 9 was not a mere passing expression but rather an announcement of a comprehensive strategy that included imposing a complete siege and cutting off water, food, and electricity to more than two million people. This linkage between the low biological description (animals) and deprivation of life essentials (water and food) represents the essence of the act as defined by international agreements. Let us remember that such phrases were not issued by a single person or personalized leaders only in Netanyahu's government and the Israeli Knesset but by many of them, and these phrases have been repeated many times across different media to make this thinking and these terms part of the collective consciousness of the Jewish society in 18 Israel. 

https://www.amacad.org/daedalus/multi-perspectivity-ethical-representation-context- 16 gaza-october-7-addressing-semantic-void 

https://www.natcom.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Resolution-Denouncing-the Dehumanization-of-Palestinians-and-its-Impacts.pdf 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 17 

2025_UNHRC_Commission_of_Inquiry_report_on_Gaza_genocide 

https://www.genocidewatch.com/de/single-post/genocide-is-never-justifiable-israel-and hamas-in-gaza 

18 In this context, journalist Wael Awada on Al-Ghad TV focused heavily on this point in his daily media coverage https://youtu.be/FYr8paoLSjE?is=VlP1ZAjJs-w7PkEF for more Israeli 

27 What Israel Faces?

The "Amalek" discourse and the theological employment of violence 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went even further by invoking texts referring to "Amalek." These are loaded with historically exterminationist connotations, specifically the command to warriors in the religious text cited by Netanyahu (1 Samuel 15:3), to "utterly destroy Amalek" and kill men, women, children, infants, and even livestock. This invocation of religious texts in an ethnic political conflict confirms the substantive link in Netanyahu's rhetoric between the new Zionism and the Jewishness of the state. Calling upon this text in the context of a modern war transforms the conflict from a political or military struggle into a "divine religious war" or a "purification war" that admits no division, negotiation, or interpretation, thereby legitimizing 19 atrocities as a sacred religious duty and a divine command that must be executed in submission to the will of God. The United Nations Commission of Inquiry confirmed that such statements, especially when issued by figures at the level of Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog, constitute "incitement to genocide." Incitement under international law is a crime in itself, punishable regardless of whether it actually leads to genocide or not, as it aims to prepare the psychological and social environment for accepting and carrying out the collective crime. 

The purpose is to create the psychological and social environment for accepting and executing the collective crime 20 . 

Generalization of responsibility and abolition of civilian status. 

In Western circles, Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who is considered a moderate figure in both Israeli and Arab societies, often made statements that held the entire Palestinian Gaza community responsible, claiming that "there is a whole nation responsible" for the events of October 7, denying the existence of uninvolved civilians. This discourse abolishes the principle of "distinction" and denies 

https://halifax.citynews.ca/2024/01/18/harsh-israeli-rhetoric-against-palestinians- 19 /becomes-central-to-south-africas-genocide-case 

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/israel-has-committed-genocide-gaza- 20 strip-un-commission-finds 

28 What Israel Faces?

pan>h?

(Distinction (Bani al-Muqātilīn wa al-Madaniyyīn represents a fundamental pillar in fascist thought that 21 sees the "other" as a mute hostile mass that must be dealt with as a single target. The danger of this discourse manifests in field practice; when a soldier is convinced that everyone moving in Gaza is part of a "responsible nation" or a "potential terrorist," the field rules of engagement become loose enough to allow targeting children, women, and the elderly without professional or ethical restraint. Human rights organizations, such as "B'Tselem," have documented how this discourse led to the adoption of the "scorched earth" policy and the destruction of entire residential blocks under the pretext that they are 22 "terrorist infrastructure." This generalization and lack of distinction is a firm embodiment of the racial and servile injustice adopted by Netanyahu in his dealings with the Palestinian people. 

The penetration of Kahanism and the political center's shift towards neo-fascism 

The intensity and severity of the current racist discourse cannot be understood without analyzing the rise of the "Kahani" (Kahanism) movement from the margins of despised Israeli politics to centers of sovereign ministerial power. Netanyahu paved the way for this movement to spread within Israeli society

and also within the ranks of the Likud party, as evidenced by statements from many of their ministers and leading figures. The ideology of Rabbi Meir Kahane, classified in the 1980s as a "fascist and racist" ideology and whose party was banned from entering the Knesset, has today become the "reference language" of ministers who form the backbone of the current government 23 , such as Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. It has also become the core of what I call the 'head of the racial pyramid' in the world of internal Israeli politics. 

Smotrich and Ben-Gvir: Fascism as a government agenda 

Bezalel Smotrich, who previously did not hesitate to describe himself as "fascist" within ideological contexts, openly called for the "eradication" of Palestinian villages and the occurrence of a "new Nakba."

/https://www.arabnews.jp/en/uncategorized/article_106655 21

https://jier.um.edu.my/index.php/hscps/article/download/62623/18654 https://www.btselem.org/press_releases/20250728_our_genocide 22

/https://www.972mag.com/kahanism-israeli-politics-likud 23

29 Is-rael-fac-ing?

Its effects go beyond the Nakba of 1948, as it proposed the "decisive plan" that leaves Palestinians with only three options: living under Jewish sovereignty as "subjects" without political rights, emigration, or killing. This proposal embodies pure fascist thought that sanctifies absolute ethnic sovereignty and demands ethnic cleansing as a means to ensure 24 national homogeneity. 

As for Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Minister of National Security, he exploited his position to transform the Israeli police into a tool to reinforce Jewish supremacy, arming settler militias known as "defense squads" that carry out systematic attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank. His discourse directed at settlers and soldiers is based on the idea of "master of the land," where the Palestinian must be continuously subdued through excessive violence. 25  

Kahanism as a framework for military operations in Gaza 

p>

Academic analysts view the current war in Gaza as the "first Kahane war" in Israel's history; it is not merely a war aimed at achieving tactical military objectives, but rather seeks to implement Kahane's vision of "cleansing the land" and resettlement. This was evident in the "Return to Gaza" conferences attended by Israeli ministers and deputies, where maps of future settlement over the ruins of the destroyed Palestinian cities in the Gaza Strip were circulated.26 Gaza. 

Incitement Archive: Systematic Documentation of Genocidal Discourse 

Human rights and research organizations, most notably "Palestine for Law," have launched a massive database documenting more than 500 inciting statements issued by Israeli officials since October 7. These data are not limited to passing remarks but include carefully crafted posts on social media, television interviews, 

https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/the-war-on-gaza-and-israel-s-fascism-debate 24 https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/12/1145132 25 

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/mar/20/meir-kahane-israel-kach-ben-gvir- 26 long-dead-extremist 

30 Israel facing?

And official statements from within the Knesset. The methodology of this documentation aims to prove that incitement is not an "exception," but rather a "communicative policy" aimed at creating societal consensus to commit the crime.27 . 

The Structure of Torture and the Prison System: "Welcome to Hell" 

The fascist discourse was not limited to Gaza but extended to the prison system, which has turned into a network of "torture camps," according to a report by B'Tselem titled "Welcome to Hell." Since October 7, the number of Palestinian detainees has doubled to nearly 10,000, living in conditions lacking the most basic humanitarian standards. Documented testimonies included brutal practices such as sexual harassment and rape, deliberate starvation, sleep deprivation, and denial of medical treatment. These practices are not isolated acts by rogue soldiers but rather an "institutional policy" driven by direct orders from National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has openly boasted 

and deprived them of their basic rights. The transformation of prisons from a legal control tool into an instrument of physical and psychological revenge is one of the clearest indicators of the state's shift towards absolute fascism.28 Those who think Ben-Gvir acts alone are mistaken; he is part of a system built over many years that ultimately shaped Netanyahu’s regime with all its supremacist and racist manifestations. 

Suppression of Opposition and Authoritarian Shift within Israel 

One of the essential characteristics of fascism, as defined by philosophers Umberto Eco and Hannah Arendt, is intolerance of any internal dissenting voice and labeling opponents as "traitors." The Israeli society after October 2023 witnessed a fierce crackdown against academics, 

https://law4palestine.org/law-for-palestine-releases-database-with-500-instances-of- 27 /israeli-incitement-to-genocide-continuously-updated 

https://www.btselem.org/sites/default/files/publications/ 28 

202408_welcome_to_hell_summary_eng.pdf 

31 Which Israel is facing?

Teachers and activists, mostly from the Palestinian minority in Israel and after them the Jews, 29 who dared to criticize the war or express sympathy with the Palestinian victims. Laws have been proposed (supported by a majority in the Knesset) imposing the expulsion of academics who "incite against the state" or express "support for terrorism," vague terms 

used to silence any discussion about the nature of military operations in Gaza. The prosecution of teacher Meir Baruchni and his imprisonment merely for publishing condolences for the children of Gaza, or the dismissal of a senior doctor (the certificate), exemplify the "purging" of the public sphere of any critical thought . 

30 This authoritarian shift extends to academic institutions that have begun to lose their independence, where academic credits have been granted to students involved in far-right organizations like "Im Tirtzu," which specialized in persecuting leftist lecturers. Researchers see these measures as aiming to create a "forced consensus" supporting policies of genocide 31 and preventing any ethical review of the war’s outcomes. 

International legal dimensions: The confrontation at the Hague 

Racist and inciting statements formed the core of the lawsuit South Africa filed against Israel before the International Court of Justice. South Africa argued that the "intent to commit genocide" does not need to be inferred but is "clearly declared" in the speeches of Netanyahu, Gallant, and Herzog.32 

The court issued several provisional measures orders, affirming that "the Palestinian right to protection from genocide is a reasonable and enforceable right." However, the disregard 

/https://forward.com/opinion/618223/israel-fascism-academic-dissent-law-crackdown 29 

https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/fascism-from-the-standpoint-of-its-racialized- 29 /victims 

/https://forward.com/opinion/618223/israel-fascism-academic-dissent-law-crackdown 30 

https://www.amacad.org/daedalus/multi-perspectivity-ethical-representation-context- 31 gaza-october-7-addressing-semantic-void 

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/read-the-full-application-bringing-genocide- 32 charges-against-israel-at-un-top-court 

32 Which Israel is facing?

Israel’s disregard for these orders, the continuation of inciting statements, and targeting areas classified as "safe" (such as Rafah and the crossings), reinforce the conviction that Israel sees itself above international law, a behavior consistent with the fascist vision that sees national power 33 The only reference for truth and justice. 

Analytical assessment: Towards a "One State Reality" fascism 

Contemporary academic discourse analysis indicates that Israel is transitioning from the model of "temporary occupation" to a "one state reality" (Reality State-One), but in an ethno-fascist version. In this reality, the state seeks to impose full Jewish sovereignty "from the river to the sea," turning the Palestinians into merely a "demographic problem" that must be resolved through 34 expulsion or violent subjugation. This is the truth behind the new Zionism. The intersection of "colonial fascism" with "religious radicalism" has produced an extremely explosive political chemistry. On one hand, there is the colonial desire to control the land, and on the other, there is the religious obsession with "redemption" through cleansing the land of "strangers." This mixture is what makes the current conflict in Gaza different from previous wars 

An "exterminationist ideology" par excellence, not aiming to negotiate borders but to settle 35 existence. 

https://www.icj-cij.org/node/203447 33 

https://www.international.ucla.edu/israel/currents/article/278253 34 

https://www.thecairoreview.com/essays/when-european-semi-fascism-and-israeli- 35 /occupation-converge 

33 Which Israel faces?

34 Which Israel faces?