A-Infos (en) Italy, FDCA, Cantier #27: After October 7: Israeli society between radicalization and dissent - Chiara Cruciati (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Anyone who found themselves in the midst of Israeli society before 
October 7, 2023 would have been able to observe without too much effort 
a compact tendency towards the removal of the Palestinian question. In 
September last year, a few days before the Hamas attack, we could 
breathe the same air that had been present for years, the result of the 
entrenchment of what we could define as the Netanyahu doctrine: the 
occupation of the Palestinians must not be resolved, it must only be 
managed. -- In a few hours that perception crumbled, causing a profound 
shock, on an individual and collective level. To date, that shock has 
not yet produced a profound change in the internal narrative, but on the 
contrary we seem to be witnessing a further radicalization of a 
significant and majority part of Israeli society. A society that 
maintains many of its historical characteristics since its birth, when 
the State of Israel was created in 1948, with the forced expulsion of 
80% of the Palestinian population of the time, almost one million 
people: continues to being a society profoundly fragmented along 
different ethnic, religious, social and economic lines and guidelines. A 
society that tends not to mix these guidelines, made up of communities 
that often do not share spaces and daily life, even within the Israeli 
Jewish community itself, without considering the Palestinian one within 
Israel. Today that society, in its majority, continues to consider the 
offensive on Gaza the only possible way out of the shock of October 7, 
effectively confirming Netanyahu's doctrine of "management" of the 
unmanageable.
In this sense, the images of the protests - filmed on a weekly basis - 
against the Netanyahu government could appear contradictory, with the 
families of the hostages marching and continuing their sit-ins in front 
of the institutional headquarters and asking for an exchange agreement 
with Hamas. How contradictory the courageous protests of a minority 
calling for a ceasefire and an end to the military occupation might 
appear. They are not: internal dissent exists, but - with the exception 
of the minority mentioned above - it is mostly a dissent that does not 
question the system of occupation and settler colonialism. This, I 
believe, is the element that resisted October 7th.
Before October 7, the Israelis had completely removed the Palestinian 
question: Palestine did not exist, there was no occupation, Gaza did not 
exist, the West Bank did not exist, East Jerusalem did not exist, the 
internal apartheid regime did not exist. The Israelis simply didn't see 
it. October 7 was a shock for the loss of human lives, 1,100 people, for 
the kidnapping of 250 citizens but also because it occurred in a void of 
awareness: it reminded us that Palestinians exist. But instead of 
translating this awareness into a political solution, a military 
solution is being chosen for the umpteenth time, which has already amply 
demonstrated not to be such. Polls say that the majority of the Israeli 
population believes the offensive on Gaza is necessary and believes it 
is necessary for the land offensive to expand to Rafah. At the same 
time, Netanyahu is holding firm in the polls, trailing rivals such as 
the centrist Yair Lapid by dozens of percentage points.
The Prime Minister is indeed on the grill because a large part of 
society, on the right and on the left, considers him one of the main 
responsible for the great failure of the army and intelligence on 7 
October, but he continues to represent for many the guarantee that the 
Palestinians will enjoy self-determination. It is the guarantee that 
there will be no political solution. Netanyahu knows that ending the war 
could end his long political experience, but at the same time he is 
somehow defining its future. He works to show himself again for what he 
has shown himself in all these years, "Mister Security", the man who 
will never allow the recognition of the State of Palestine, who will 
never recognize the independence or right to self-determination of the 
Palestinians, the He is the man who will effectively carry out the 
annexation of the occupied territories and this is what the majority of 
Israeli society is interested in hearing.
It is this type of thinking that effectively nullifies any form of real 
dissent and has allowed it to lead to a real police state. The internal 
repression against the Palestinians has now also spread to left-wing 
Israelis who are critical of their government's policies: arrests, 
intimidation, threats of dismissal from their jobs and suspensions no 
longer concern only the Palestinians.

Many Israeli activists say this, almost with amazement: «We have 
discovered that we too, left-wing Israeli Jews opposed to the 
occupation, supporters of a political solution and for peace - are in 
the crosshairs, we too can be repressed and silenced, while until now 
this type of police state was reserved only for what is perceived as the 
internal enemy, that is, the Palestinians."
It doesn't mean there isn't hope for real change. I would like to return 
to the words that Ilan Pappé, one of the greatest Israeli historians, 
told me: it will take years, but Israeli society is destined for 
decolonization, a painful process for the colonizer but irreversible. 
Israel is concluding a journey that began more than a century ago. 
Zionism as a political ideology could only evolve in this way, becoming 
an extremely religious and nationalist, messianic ideology and 
transforming settler colonialism into an apartheid regime. Such a 
political project will hardly be able to survive in a world in which 
colonialism, although still existing in new, indirect forms, is no 
longer considered legitimate. Israel was born too late, it entered 
history in a period in which the countries of the Middle East, North 
Africa, Africa and Latin America were freeing themselves from their 
colonizers and in a historical period in which the Palestinians had 
already developed its own national identity.
According to many experts and analysts, Zionism and therefore Israel 
have found themselves in a dead end, having generated a permanent 
apartheid regime which is no longer sustainable, which is anti-historical.
I believe that everything we are witnessing in this period – the 
mobilization of civil society, the radicalization within Israeli society 
and probably also that of Palestinian society, given the military 
violence to which it is subjected    will necessarily lead to an 
awareness, to a different evolution and who knows, maybe from the 
tragedy we are experiencing in recent months a real political solution 
will arise in a few years.
Chiara Cruciati is foreign editor and deputy director of the newspaper 
«il manifesto». You have published, among others, Fifty Years Later. The 
occupied Palestinian territories and the failure of the two-state 
solution and Israel, myth and reality. The Zionist movement and the 
Palestinian Nakba seventy years later (Edizioni Alegre). We thank you 
for offering us your collaboration.

ilcantiere@autistici.org
https://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it
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