Yossi Schwartz ISL (RCIT Section in Israel, Occupied Palestine) 03.06.2025
Dr. Michael Milstein, head of the Forum for Palestinian Studies at the Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University, wrote an article today that illustrates how isolated Israel is:
“This is how Israel becomes a pariah state
Israel cannot continue to accuse the international depression of bad public diplomacy or anti-Semitic tendencies – arguments that are turning their backs on a mirror that reflects the image of a country without an organized strategy, except for slogans of total victory and eternal war.
As in classic suicides, Israel responds to the growing challenges posed by the international system with self-harm. Following the June 17 UN General Assembly meeting of the Franco-Saudi conference, at which broad international recognition of a Palestinian state is planned, Israel warns that it will take unilateral steps, first and foremost the annexation of territories in Judea and Samaria. Beyond increasing the (already deep) international isolation and undermining relations with the Arab world, including erasing the possibility of normalization with Saudi Arabia, the “annexation whip” strengthens the possibility of realizing the one-state scenario – the greatest threat to the Zionist vision today.
Israel’s focus on the war in Gaza and the fierce clashes at home makes it difficult to identify a negative tectonic movement that is taking place in the international system and is expected to fall on Israel as a tsunami in the near future. Its biggest friends, led by Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, are having a hard time defending its moves, especially the war in Gaza, whose strategic purpose no one is able to understand, especially when it is accompanied by declarations in the spirit of destruction, occupation and smashing by government ministers. This creates an image of an extremist and unbalanced country that does not take international considerations into account and yearns to realize a messianic vision while adhering to the slogan “And the nations will not be considered.” As a result, the discourse on boycotting Israel and reducing ties with it is expanding, and the risk of it becoming an isolated state is growing.
Israel does not understand that the memory of the October 7 massacre is gradually weakening around the world, and it is difficult to see it as a justification for the current actions in the Gaza Strip, which are accompanied by scenes to which most of the Israeli public is not exposed, but to which the world sees them as the authentic reflection of the current campaign. Israel cannot continue to accuse the international downturn of bad public relations or anti-Semitic tendencies – arguments that are turning their backs on the appearance of a country without an organized strategy, except for slogans of total victory and eternal war.
In the background, adherence to the new concept that America is with us in every scenario continues, which was already refuted when Trump surprised us in the dialogue with Iran, the agreement with the Houthis, the talks with Hamas, and the meeting with al-Shara. This is in addition to the desperate clinging to the “vision of the Gaza Riviera,” in which Israel remains the only country in the world that clings to fantasies about countries that will open their doors to Gazans – which also damages the international system.
Even if an arrangement in Gaza is advanced soon, Israel still faces the escalating challenge from Judea and Samaria, embodied in the growing international recognition of a Palestinian state. This illustrates once again that a central component of the concept that collapsed on October 7 continues to nest in the minds of Israeli decision makers: the assumption that it is possible to maintain strategic stability and promote normalization with the Arab world even without discussion, let alone decision, on the Palestinian issue. Since there has been no change in the composition of the decision-makers, and first of all, an investigation into the October 7 fiasco, it is not surprising that this concept, like many others, has been preserved and continues to cause damage.
It turns out that there could be a worse scenario than Hamas remaining in its current configuration in Gaza (at least for the time being), which is a war that does not rely on internal consensus and external legitimacy. While Israel is focused on the war in Gaza, without imagining to the public what its strategic implications will be, the dream of normalization is fading, and there is no ability to focus efforts and enlist international support in the struggle against the “Auschwitz complex” that Tehran is vigorously developing through its nuclear program. Israel may occupy Gaza, but it will find itself facing a nuclear arsenal that poses a long-term existential threat – and on which it was supposed to focus.” [i]
For one secular democratic state for the Israeli Jews and all the Palestinians including the refugees!
For one state ruled by a worker’s government supported by the Fallahin!
End note:
[i] https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/yokra14391845 (Hebrew)