The hardline policies of the current Israeli government threaten to isolate the nation from the international community. What has changed over the decades that puts Israel in such a place?
Even the patience of the United States — historically Israel’s staunchest and most steadfast backer — is fraying. It once would have been unthinkable for a U.S. president and an Israeli prime minister to engage in a public dispute, but the unthinkable happened this weekend. Moreover, President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made little effort to hide their exasperation with each other in dueling interviews.
Biden began by acknowledging Israel’s “right to defend” itself and “to continue to pursue Hamas” for the terrorist group’s October 7 attack in Israel. But, after getting the obligatory references to Israel’s existential danger out of the way, Biden launched — in the same sentence — his critique. Netanyahu, Biden asserted, “must, he must, he must, pay more attention to the innocent lives lost as a consequence of the actions taken” in bombing Gaza. “In my view,” the president continued, “[Netanyahu’s] hurting Israel more than helping Israel,” a reference to Israeli military strategy in Gaza. “It’s contrary to what Israel stands for, and I think it’a big mistake. So I want a ceasefire.”
Biden also wants to jump start negotiations aimed at a two-state solution. In his response, Netanyahu shot down that suggestion, again. “[T]he reason we don't have peace is not because the Palestinians don't have a state,” the prime minister said. “It's because the Jews have a state. And, in fact, the Palestinians have not brought themselves to recognize and accept the Jewish state.” As for the substance of Biden’s remarks, Netanyahu responded: "I don't know exactly what the president meant, but if he meant… I’m pursuing private policies against the majority, the wish of the majority of Israelis, and that this is hurting the interests of Israel, then he's wrong on both counts.”
Biden’s criticism of Israel may be unprecedented for an American president, but it is also far tamer than much of the condemnation leveled by the international community. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged Israel to use “maximum restraint” and to stop “killing babies.” French President Emmanuel Macron agreed, saying there is “no legitimacy” for Israel to kill babies in Gaza. South Africa alleged before the International Court of Justice that Israel’s actions in Gaza violate the Genocide Convention. Censure of Israel erupted at the Academy Awards Sunday evening when Jonathan Glazer, director of the superb Holocaust movie The Zone of Interest, accepted an Oscar for the best international film. Glazer condemned the Israeli “occupation” of Palestinian lands, “which has led to conflict for so many innocent people, whether the victims of October 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack in Gaza.”
It is, of course, the continuing occupation that lies at the root of the current crisis and thus fuels the international outcry against Israel. As Amnesty International points out, occupation of a territory is meant to be temporary during a period of conflict. Israel has occupied the West Bank for 57 years now! On November 22, 1967, the United Nations adopted Security Council Resolution 242, linking Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories to recognition of Israel by its neighbors. The building of Israeli settlements in the West Bank — which is illegal under international law — suggests Israel has no intention of abandoning the West Bank — not now, not ever.
Israeli public opinion on the disposition of the territories is not monolithic. A substantial minority — roughly one-in-three — of Israelis still believes “a way can be found for Israel and an independent Palestinian state to coexist peacefully.” At the same time, half of the nation favors annexing at least parts of the occupied West Bank, and a quarter wants the Israeli government to move toward annexation of Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley even without the support of the United States.
Successive Israeli governments have been ambivalent about the disposition of the territories. As the Israeli newspaper Haaretz says, there always has been a natural instinct to settle on the historic “Land of Israel,” that is, greater Israel from the Mediterranean to the Jordan. But early on, at least, Israeli leaders recognized that the United States would not support unilateral action, and it was generally understood that peace with Israel’s neighbors depended on withdrawal from the territories.
Over time, as Shaul Magid describes in his masterful book The Necessity of Exile: Essays from a Distance, the secular, liberal Zionism of the founders of the state of Israel transformed into a religious Zionism that has stoked the settler movement and has become a major obstacle to peace. The early Zionists, Magid hastens to point out, did not envision a state in which Jews and Palestinians lived in harmony. But they made a major miscalculation in assuming that most Palestinians would emigrate and the remaining small number would be integrated into Israel without undermining its status as a Jewish nation.
That did not happen, and the conquering of Arab lands in 1967 brought both more Palestinians under Israeli rule and opened up the possibility of settling on what many Israelis view as the biblical lands of Judea and Samaria. While the Israeli government dithered regarding the territories, right-wing Jews began to create facts on the ground. Gush Emunim (Hebrew for “Bloc of the Faithful”), founded in 1974, pushed a Greater Israel ideology predicated on retaining the West Bank. To accomplish that, Gush Emunim began to encourage settlements in the territories.
Gush Emunim built on the teachings of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook and his son Rabbi Tzvi Yehudah Kook. The Kooks believed that the Jewish people and the land of Israel were mystically bonded through the spirit of God. The Kooks argued that returning to Zion and establishing a Jewish homeland would lead to the Messianic Era. The ideas of the Kooks, and the strategic policies of Gush Emunim, became Israeli government policy when Israel’s first right-wing government, led by Menachem Begin, took office in 1977. And, now, generations have grown up with this ideas as foundational to Israel and its existence.
Zionism has become a spent force, especially given its transformation from a secular to a religious, messianic movement that has driven Israel further to the right, hardened Israeli attitudes on the territories, and made a lasting peace agreement with the Palestinians virtually impossible. The upshot of all that may be that Israel — at least the Israel of Benjamin Netanyahu — no longer cares about international opinion, including that of its major ally, the United States.
Israel appears poised to go it alone, which is quite a change from the early years of the State of Israel. Then, Israel had widespread international sympathy and support.
Posted March 12, 2024
I believe that there is still a left-wing form of Zionism. I, for one, am a left-wing Zionist. I believe that we Jews must have a homeland in part of our ancient territory. I also believe that Palestinians must have a homeland in the West Bank and Gaza. Sadly, Jerusalem will have to be divided, BUT the Western Wall MUST remain in Jewish hands. Organizations such as ARZA are examples of left-wing Zionist groups that proudly proclaim their belief in Zionism, but their (our) Zionism definitely does not mean what anti-Israelis believe. I also supported the original bombing campaign after October 7th, BUT I believe it has captured all the Hamas leaders and members possible. Now, there must be a negotiated settlement with Hamas gone, Israel out, and the Palestinian Authority in. Before that settlement, Israel MUST agree to feed Gazans — Jewish law requires we be a light to the nations. It is gut-wrenching to see fellow Jews blocking humanitarian aid.