While the devastating war of Israel against Gaza is essential, pushed forward by an insistent Prime Minister that a total military victory objective is achieved, the divisions within Israeli society are becoming deeper.
In recent weeks, while Israeli peace activists and anti-war groups have intensified their campaign against the conflict, war supporters have also increased their pressure to continue, regardless of its humanitarian, political or diplomatic cost.
Members of the army have published open letters protesting against political motivations to continue the war against Gaza, or claiming that the last offensive, which systematically shaves Gaza, risks the remaining Israeli captives held in the Palestinian territory.
Another open letter came from inside the universities and colleges of Israel, its signatories doing something rare in Israel since the start of the war in October 2023: focusing on Palestinian suffering.
Elsewhere, the campaigns of protest and refusal of military service have spread – resulting from a mixture of pro -P -Geace feeling and more widespread anger in the face of management by the government of war – posing a risk for the war effort of Israel, which depends on the active participation of young people in the country.
Critics of war say that the man they oppose, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has become dependent on the extreme right to maintain his coalition, and too loose opposition to face him in the face of international accusations of genocide.
Powerful to the far right
It is important not to confuse the growing domestic criticism of management by the Israeli government of war with any mass sympathy for the Palestinian people.
A recent survey said that 82% of Jewish Israeli respondents would still like to see Gaza rid of its Palestinian population, almost 50% also supporting what they said to be the “mass murder” of civilians in enemy cities occupied by the Israeli army.
And on Monday, thousands of Israelis led by the Minister of National Security of the country, Itamar Ben-Gvir, were unleashed in the old occupied town of East Jerusalem, chanting the “death to the Arabs” and attacking anyone who is perceived as being Palestinian or by defending them.
The country’s Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, also addressed the crowd during the “Jerusalem day”.
Smotrich asked the crowd: “Are we afraid of victory?”; “Are we afraid of the word” occupation “”, the crowd – described as “revelers” in certain parts of the Israeli media – replied with a resounding “no”.
“There is a cohort of the extreme right which feels justified by a year and a half of war,” said former Israeli diplomat Alon Pinkas in Tel Aviv Tribune. “They think their message that, if you click your eyes, you lose; If you take a break, you lose; If you vacillate, you lose, has been confirmed. ”
Growing dissent
In addition to the intensification of the Israel assault in Gaza, which has now killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, dissenting votes have become stronger. In April, more than 1,000 service and retirement pilots published an open Protestant letter against a war which, according to them, served “political and personal interests” rather than security letters. Other letters, as well as an organized campaign encouraging young Israelis to refuse to present themselves to the military service, followed.
Perhaps feeling the direction that the wind was blowing, the leader of the left democratic party of Israel, Yair Golan-who initially supported the war and took a hard position to allow Gaza of humanitarian aid-launched a large side against the conflict earlier this month, while making him the objective of “the state of pariah” which killed “babies as a pastime” while making him the objective of “the expulsion of the populations”.
Although well welcomed by some, the comments of the former major-general of the army were gathered by others. Speaking at a conference in southern Israel alongside the anti-war legislator noted of Cassif, Golan was heckled and called a traitor by far-right members of the public, before he was escorted from premises by security.
Cassif, who refers to himself as an anti-Zionist, has long attracted the indignation of the dominant Israeli society for its strong denunciation of the way in which Israel treats the Palestinians.
“There have always been threats to me,” Cassif, which was alone among Israeli legislators, told Tel Aviv Tribune to oppose the war. “I can’t walk in my own street. I was attacked twice before October 7 and it has won since.
“But it’s not just me. All peace activists may be physically attacked or threatened, even hostage families are at risk of attack by these fanatics,” he said.
“Many people realize that this government and even the traditional opposition do not fight a war for security reasons, or even to recover hostages, but carry out the type of genocidal mission recommended by Smotrich and other messianic fanatics,” Cassif said about the Minister of Finance and its supporters.
“It was authorized by people like (Benny) Gantz, (Yair) Lapid and (Yoav) Gallant,” he said, citing eminent politicians opposed to the Prime Minister, “who did not dare to criticize him (war) and Netanyahu, who manipulated him for his own ends.”
Cassif’s comments were taken up by one of the signatories of the open letter from the academics criticizing the war, Ayelet Ben-Yishai, an associate professor at the University of Haifa.
“The opposition has nothing,” she told Tel Aviv Tribune. “I understand that it is difficult to argue for a complicated future, but they do and say nothing. All they left us is a choice between managing war and occupation and smotrich and its disciples. That’s it. What kind of future is it? “
Inherent in Israel
Many members of the government and the opposition have previously held senior positions within the army, either engaging or supervising combat against the Palestinians, and the maintenance of the illegal occupation of the Palestinian lands.
The leader of the Democratic Party, Golan, was even criticized by the army in 2007 for having repeatedly used Palestinian civilians as human shields.
“What we see at the moment is a fight between two Zionist elites for whom is the biggest fascist in different forms,” said Yehouda Shenhav-Shahrabani, professor at the University of Tel Aviv, about the political struggles involved in Israel.
“On the one hand, there are the Jews Ashkenazi, who regulated Israel, imposed the occupation and killed thousands of people,” he said about the traditional military and governing elites of Israel, many of whom could describe themselves as liberal and democratic, and were at the origin of central and eastern Europe. “Or (you have) the current religious Zionists, like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, who (the old Ashkenaze elite) now accuse of being fascist.
“You cannot reduce this to the left and right. I don’t buy this,” said Shenhav-Shahrabani. “It goes more deeply. Both sides are unconscious of the Gaza genocide. ”
Although the resistance against war has increased both in the country and abroad, the intensity of the attacks also protested against attacks.
Since Israel has unilaterally broke a ceasefire in March, nearly 4,000 Palestinians were killed, including hundreds of children. In addition, a seat, imposed on the enclave decimated on March 2, pushed what remains of its pre-war population of more than two million at the point of famine, warned international agencies, including the United Nations.
At the same time as the War of Israel against Gaza has intensified, the same is true for his actions in the West Bank. Under the cover of another military operation, the Israeli army occupied and leveled large parts of the occupied territory moving 40,000 of its inhabitants while it establishes its own military network.
Thursday, the Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz, alongside Smotrich, who, as Minister of Finance, enjoys significant control over the West Bank, announced the creation of 22 other Israeli colonies, all in defiance of international law.
Smotrich’s announcement was a surprise for some. The far -right minister – himself a colonist on Palestinian lands – has already been clear about his intention to see the West Bank annexed, even by ordering the preparations to do so before the inauguration of the American president Donald Trump, which he expected to support the idea. He also said that Gaza will be “completely destroyed” and that its population has expelled to a small strip of land along the Egyptian border.
For Shenhav-Shahrabani, it was not surprising.
“I went with a few others to South Africa in 1994. I met a judge from the Supreme Court, a Jew, who had been injured by an Afrikaner bomb (during the fight against apartheid),” said Shenhav-Shahrabani. “He told me that nothing would change for the Palestinians until the Israelis are ready to go to prison for them. We are not there yet. “