[The true threat to Israel’s survival hides not in the shadows,
but in the mirror ]
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ISRAEL’S CHOICES — NOT HAMAS — ARE AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT TO THE
JEWISH STATE  
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Jerome Karabel
December 20, 2023
Forward
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_ The true threat to Israel’s survival hides not in the shadows,
but in the mirror _

A Palestinian girl, photographed in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza
Strip, on October 22, 2023. She lost 13 family members who fled Gaza
City to seek safety in the south. Their shelter was hit by an Israeli
strike., Mohammed Salem / Reuters

 

The war between Israel and Hamas has now been raging for more than two
months. But from its bloody onset, which began with Hamas’ horrific
slaughter of 1,200 people
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kidnapping of more than 200 civilians on Oct. 7, Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has consistently rejected calls
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a cease-fire, declaring
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crushing Hamas was “an existential test for Israel.” 

But the notion that Hamas poses an existential threat to Israel is
untenable. The Qassam Brigades
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Hamas’ armed wing, has perhaps 40,000 fighters and a relatively
primitive
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arsenal. Israel, by contrast, has 169,500 active-duty personnel and
465,000 reservists, with technologically advanced weaponry
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an estimated 90 nuclear warheads
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What made Oct. 7 so deadly was the element of surprise, not superior
military capabilities.

Retribution was swift. The Palestinian death toll is nearing
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according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, well over 10 times
the number of Israelis killed since Oct. 7. The United
Nations estimates
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about 70% of the Gazans killed were women and children. The numbers
fit a longstanding pattern: Between 2008 and 2023
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Palestinian and 308 Israeli fatalities across the conflict, a ratio of
more than 20:1. In the 2014 Gaza war
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32:1.

While the ratios themselves do not
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violate international law, global protests against Israel’s war have
escalated alongside the death toll in Gaza. Even President Joe Biden,
one of the staunchest supporters of Israel, has expressed concern
about Israel’s seemingly “indiscriminate bombing
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The true threat to Israel’s survival hides not in the shadows, but
in the mirror. Against the backdrop of its violent occupation of the
West Bank and obstruction of Palestinian statehood, Israel’s
apparent disregard for Palestinian lives in the current Gaza campaign
risks not only global condemnation, but the fate of South Africa
during apartheid: economic, political and cultural isolation — and,
ultimately, collapse.

A DECADE OF INCREASING ISOLATION

In 2014, Richard Falk, formerly a U.N. special rapporteur on human
rights in the Palestinian territories, declared
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Israel, “increasingly in the position that apartheid South Africa
found itself in during the late 1980s,” is “not only a rogue
state, it is quickly becoming a pariah state.”

Worries about delegitimization have penetrated Israel itself. In 2016,
the head of its strategic affairs ministry warned
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of its international perception as a “pariah state.” These fears
were reinforced by a pair of detailed reports by Human Rights Watch
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International
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in 2021 and 2022, that accused Israel of apartheid. Amnesty’s said
that Israel’s “oppression and domination over Palestinians” had
led to segregation “conducted in a systematic and highly
institutionalized manner.”

Within a week of Hamas’ murderous Oct. 7 terror attacks,
Israel dropped
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bombs on Gaza, which is roughly the size of Philadelphia,
and announced that “Gaza will be under complete siege,” cut off
from food, water, electricity and fuel.

By way of justification, Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav
Gallant stated
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Israel is “fighting human animals” and “acting
accordingly.” Other Israeli officials have similarly dehumanized
Palestinians as “bloodthirsty animals
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and “inhuman animals
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with Netanyahu calling
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war a “battle of civilization against barbarians.”

Meanwhile, Israeli President Isaac Herzog made the outrageous claim
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“the entire nation” of Gaza was “responsible for the Oct. 7
attacks.”

The international community is not convinced. In the face of this
heated rhetoric, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights Volker Turk rebuked Israel, reminding
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that total siege was a form of collective punishment banned under
international law.

The widespread use of “dumb bombs
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— unguided munitions that cannot distinguish between valid military
targets and civilians — has exacerbated the situation. Responding to
the growing anger, both at home and abroad, at what is perceived as
Israel’s excessive retaliation, the Biden administration has pressed
for more precise targeting
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a more surgical approach
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the battle with Hamas.

ISRAELI SECURITY DEPENDS ON PALESTINIAN STATEHOOD

Born in the shadow of the Holocaust, Israel enjoyed broad
international sympathy for decades. But goodwill began to erode
in the late 1970s, when the rise of Israel’s right-wing Likud
Party catalyzed an explosion of Israeli settlements
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Bank.

Decades of violent conflict repeatedly thwarted efforts to establish
a two-state solution, and the now-56-year Israeli occupation of the
West Bank continues despite mounting international censure: In a poll
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22 countries, Israel was the fourth-most-disliked nation, behind
only North Korea, Iran, and Pakistan. Meanwhile, a recent study
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that six of seven Western European countries (Britain, Denmark,
France, Italy, Spain and Sweden) are more
sympathetic to Palestinians than Israelis, with only Germany
slightly more sympathetic to Israel.

 Of particular concern for Israel is the accelerating erosion
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in the United States, its paramount ally. In 2000, just 11% of
Americans expressed more sympathy for Palestinians than Israelis,
rising modestly to 15% by 2016. But by February 2023 — eight
months before the current Israel-Hamas war — that figure had more
than doubled, with 31% of Americans reporting more sympathy
for the Palestinians. And in March, Gallup reported
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Democrats, historically stalwart supporters of Israel, were
for the first time more sympathetic toward Palestinians than
Israelis, 49% to 38%.

Support for Israel has plunged further during this war, especially
sharply among young Americans: A _New York Times_/Siena poll
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Tuesday showed 46% of voters ages 18 to 29 had more sympathy for the
Palestinians than Israel; a staggering 74% said they believe Israel is
intentionally killing civilians in Gaza; and 55% opposed further aid
to the Jewish state.

Especially worrisome for Israel is the division among American Jews:
one study
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that 58% of respondents supported restricting U.S. military
aid to Israel to prevent the expansion of settlements
in the occupied West Bank. This same survey had 31% of American Jews
saying that Israel “was committing genocide” and roughly a quarter
agreeing that “Israel is an apartheid state.” 

The intensifying condemnation that has affected even Jewish Americans
should give the Jewish state pause. Instead, Israel’s
understandable grief at Hamas’ brutal attack has fueled blind rage,
driving it further down the path toward international isolation. Yet
for many Israeli Jews, a total siege depriving Palestinians in Gaza of
food, water and medicine is not enough.

Even before the Oct. 7 attack, a study by the Pew Research Center
reported that 48% of Israeli Jews
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expelling Arab citizens from Israel. Now, amidst the carnage in
Gaza, an Israeli ministry has proposed
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a concept paper the formal transfer of Palestinians in
Gaza to Egypt’s Sinai. This would be a clear-cut case of
internationally proscribed “ethnic cleansing” — a policy long
favored by far-right Zionists
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including Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s minister of finance.

Yet Israel need not continue down this path. In the aftermath of the
deadliest assault on the Jewish people since the Holocaust, Israel
must make a fateful choice. It can continue to violently impose its
will on the Palestinians in an illusory quest for security — or it
can finally recognize that its own peace and security is bound up with
the creation of an independent Palestinian state and acknowledge, in
word and in deed, that Palestinian lives are as precious as Israeli
lives.

_Jerome Karabel is an emeritus professor of sociology
at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of the
2006 book The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and
Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. He has previously written
for The New York Times, The New York Review of
Books, The Washington Post, The Nation, Le Monde
Diplomatique and other publications._

* Israel-Gaza War
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* political strategy
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* international affairs
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* condemnation
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