The division within Israeli society is becoming ever deeper and deeper as Israeli society advances by a prime minister who claims that Israel’s catastrophic war against Gaza is shattered and the goal of a complete military victory is met.
Over the past few weeks, as Israeli peace activists and anti-war groups have strengthened their campaign against conflict, war supporters have increased continued pressure, regardless of their humanitarian, political or diplomatic costs.
Members of the military either protest the political motivations to continue the war with Gaza, or have issued an open letter claiming that the latest attacks systematically destroying Gaza put the rest of the Israeli prisoners of war held in Palestinian territory.
Another open letter comes from universities and universities in Israel, whose signatories have been doing something unusual within Israel since the war began in October 2023. It focuses on the suffering of Palestine.
Elsewhere, campaigns of protest and refusal to military service have spread. This is the result of a mix of government feelings about the government’s handling of war and more general anger, poses risks to Israel’s war efforts.
Critics of the war say that the man they oppose, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, relies on his extreme right to maintain his coalition, and wards him too opposed to confront him in the face of international accusations of the massacre.
Strong right
It is important not to confuse domestic criticism of the Israeli government’s handling of war.
A recent poll has shown that 82% of Jewish Israeli respondents want to exempt the Palestinian population, and they also support that almost 50% say it is a “mass killing” of civilians in enemy cities occupied by Israeli forces.
And on Monday, itamar ben-Guville, the thousands of Israelis, led by the country’s far-right national security minister, rampaging through the old town of occupied East Jerusalem, chanting “death to the Arabs,” attacking or protecting those who they recognize as Palestinians.
Also speaking to the crowd during the “Jerusalem Day” march was Bezalel Smotrich, supranational finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who has spoken up in the annexation of the occupied West Bank and promoting the evacuation of Palestinians from Gaza.
Smotrich asked the crowd: “Are we afraid of victory?”; “Are we afraid of the word “profession”? The crowd, called “drinkers” within some parts of Israeli media, responded with “no.”
“There’s an extreme right cohort that feels proven in a year and a half of the war,” former Israeli diplomat Aron Pincus told Al Jazeera. “They are thinking their message that when you blink, if you lose, if you pause, if you lose, if you shake, you’ve lost. If you’re shaking, you’ve lost.”
Protest
Opposition has been raised in addition to the escalating Israeli onslaught in Gaza, which now kills more than 54,000 Palestinians. In April, more than 1,000 serving and retired pilots issued an open letter protesting the war, which said it served “political and personal interests” more than security ones. More letters followed and an organized campaign encouraging young Israelis to refuse to appear for military service.
Perhaps feeling the direction of the winds blowing is that Yair Golan, leader of Israel’s left-wing Democratic Party (who initially favored the war and took a hard-line position by allowing humanitarian assistance to Gaza), launched a tough broadside against the conflict earlier this month, claiming that Israel is killing “paria” while Israel killing itself “as a hobbyist being.”
While being welcomed by some, the former Army Major General’s comments were rounded up to others. Speaking with Ofer Cassif, a prominent anti-war lawmaker, at a conference in southern Israel, Golan was called a traitor by far-right members of the audience and had to be escorted from the facility by security.
Calling himself an anti-Zionist, Kassif has long drawn the rage of mainstream Israeli society by loudly denounced the way Israel treats Palestinians.
“There has always been a threat to me,” Kassiff, who was in line with his solo opposition to the war among Israeli lawmakers, told Al Jazeera. “I can’t walk my streets. I was attacked twice by October 7th, and it’s been getting worse ever since.
“But it’s not me alone. All peace activists risk being physically attacked or threatened. Even hostage families are at risk of attacks by these paranoids,” he said.
“Many people are aware that even this government and mainstream opposition are not fighting the war for security reasons or even fighting to restore hostages, but are carrying out a kind of genocide mission advocated by the prejudices of Smottlich and other Messianics,” Kassif said of the finance minister and his supporters.
“This is permitted by people like [Benny] Gantz, [Yair] Rapid and [Yoav] He said, citing prominent politicians who opposed the prime minister. [the war] And Netanyahu manipulated it for his own purposes. ”
Cassif’s comments were repeated by one of the signers of an open letter of scholars criticizing Ayelet Ben-Yishai, an associate professor at Haifa University.
“There’s nothing in the opposition,” she told Al Jazeera. “I think it’s difficult to discuss a complicated future, but they don’t do anything. What they left us with is the war and occupation and the choice to manage Smotrich and his followers. That’s it. What future is that?”
It is unique within Israel
Many members of the government and opposition parties previously served in senior roles within the Army, engaged or overseeing combat operations against the Palestinians and maintained illegal occupation of Palestinian lands.
Democratic party leader Golan was even previously criticized by the Army in 2007 for repeatedly using Palestinian civilians as human shields.
“What we’re looking at now is the struggle between two Zionist elites, the larger fascists in various forms,” says Yehouda Shenhav-Shahrabani, a professor at Tel Aviv University, about the political struggle within Israel.
“On the other hand, there are Ashkenazi Jews who settled Israel, imposed occupation and killed thousands,” he said of Israel’s traditional military and governing elites. “or [you have] Current religious Zionists like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir [the old Ashkenazi elite] He now accused of being a fascist.
“You can’t reduce this to the left and right. I won’t buy it,” Shenhaf Sharabani said. “It’s going to be deeper. Both sides have forgotten about Gaza’s genocide.”
Resistance against the war has grown both domestically and internationally, but the strength of the attack is also being protested.
Israel unilaterally defeated the ceasefire in March, killing almost 4,000 Palestinians and hundreds of children. Furthermore, the siege imposed on the enclave, which was destroyed on March 2, pushed the remainder of the prewar population to more than 2 million people into the point of hunger. International organizations, including the United Nations, have warned.
As Israel’s war with Gaza intensified, there have also been actions in the West Bank. In the guise of another military operation, Israeli forces occupied and leveled the majority of the occupying territories that expelled 40,000 reported inhabitants in establishing their own military network there.
On Thursday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced the establishment of 22 more Israeli settlements along with Smotrich, whose finance minister enjoys substantial control of the West Bank.
Smotrich’s announcement was a surprise to a few. The far-right minister, a settler of Palestinian land, was previously clear about his intention to see the West Bank annexed, and had ordered him to prepare to do so before President Donald Trump’s inauguration. He also said Gaza would be “completely destroyed,” and its population was exiled to a small land along the Egyptian border.
For Shenhav-Shahrabani, there was little surprise.
“I went to South Africa with others in 1994. I met the Supreme Court Justice, Jews who were injured in the African bomb. [during the struggle against apartheid]Shenhaf Sharabani said. We’re not there yet. ”
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