Ilan Pappé, an Israeli Jewish historian, argues in his latest book, 'Israel on the Brink', that Israel has reached a moment of profound political and moral danger.
He does not call for the disappearance of Jewish people or Palestinians, nor for the destruction of Israeli society through violence. Rather, he argues that the State created by Zionism is unsustainable.
His book describes deepening divisions within Israeli society. The most significant are between secular Zionists, represented by parties such as Likud and the National Unity Party, and religious-nationalist Zionists, including Religious Zionism and Jewish Power, led by Itamar Ben-Gvir. These groups disagree over religion, State authority and the role of the judiciary. Nonetheless, they share a commitment to illegal settlements and territorial expansion. This hasn’t produced lasting security.
Instead, it has intensified conflicts and isolated Israel on the world stage with growing international hostility. The relationship between secular and religious-nationalist Zionists is toxic.
Some ultra-Orthodox religious-nationalist leaders have denounced secular Jews in language just as extreme as their rhetoric towards Arabs. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the former spiritual leader of the extremist Shas Party, made statements calling for the deaths of leaders of secular parties and, in other sermons, used profoundly dehumanising language towards Arabs by referring to them as 'snakes' and 'ants.'
The glue keeping these opposing factions in power is their support for a Greater Israel and a desire to ethnically cleanse the whole of Palestine. It is difficult to see how groups with such profound internal hostility could ever live harmoniously within an expanded State.
Most Israelis have become indoctrinated to believe that security can be achieved only through military superiority, settlement expansion and permanent control over Palestinians.
But an increasing number are leaving, having recognised that Israel cannot maintain its present system indefinitely. Pappé points to declining confidence in the two-state solution.
Polling has suggested that only about 34 per cent of Israelis support an independent Palestinian State. Among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, recent surveys indicate that only around 33 per cent of Palestinians now believe a two-state solution is a realistic possibility.
Settlements have expanded across the West Bank, while Palestinian communities have faced demolitions, displacement and settler violence. Roads, military zones, checkpoints and legal restrictions have fragmented Palestinian territory. The conditions required for a viable and sovereign Palestinian State no longer apply.
Pappé describes Israel as a colonial project to draw attention to this unequal structure of power. He argues that Zionism sought to establish and preserve a Jewish state in a land inhabited by a large Palestinian majority. He does not deny Jewish suffering nor the reality of antisemitism.
His argument is that Jewish insecurity cannot justify the permanent subordination of the indigenous Palestinians. Pappé describes Israel’s growing international isolation. He believes that Israel is gradually losing legitimacy and risks becoming a pariah state if it continues on its present path.
Western governments have historically declared support for peace while allowing occupation, settlement expansion and annexationist policies to continue.
Palestinian leaders have often been offered proposals described as opportunities for statehood. Yet most would have left Palestinians with fragmented territory, limited sovereignty and no satisfactory resolution of the questions of refugees, borders and security.
If extremist Zionist forces continue to reject Palestinian political rights and rely on military force and territorial expansion, the consequences for Israelis will be catastrophic.
Political collapse accompanied by violence could produce a human tragedy on an enormous scale. Pappé advocates a peaceful transformation into one democratic State in which Muslims, Jews, Christians and others live under the same laws and participate equally in political life.
He argues that Jewish security cannot be achieved through permanent domination over Palestinians.
According to Pappé, Israel faces a choice between transformation and catastrophe. Following the genocide in Gaza, I doubt that a two-state solution remains politically viable.
The question is how to establish one State with equal rights, security and political representation for everyone living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Israel’s enemies may now reject peace and instead seek revenge.
KARIM EASTERBROOK
The writer is a Former Cambridge School Principal and Author
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