Israel’s Emerging Occupation Consensus: Despite Misgivings About Netanyahu’s Gaza Plans, Most Israelis Support His Approach to the Palestinians

5 comments

1. [SS from essay by [Dahlia Scheindlin](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/authors/dahlia-scheindlin), opinion researcher, a Policy Fellow at Century International, and a columnist at *Haaretz*. She is the author of [*The Crooked Timber of Democracy in Israel: Promise Unfulfilled*](http://www.amazon.com/Crooked-Timber-Democracy-Israel-Unfulfilled/dp/3110796457%3e).]

   As the Israeli government prepares for the military takeover of Gaza City and, many fear, lay the groundwork for full seizure and occupation of Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stirred anger at home and abroad. Overwhelming evidence that large numbers of Gazans are starving has left Israeli leaders facing worldwide condemnation, the threat of partial arms embargos from allies, as well as growing charges of genocide.

   In Israel itself, [Netanyahu](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/tags/benjamin-netanyahu) and his cabinet have been under intense criticism for months from former military and intelligence chiefs, opposition leaders, and intellectuals, as well as military reservists and tens of thousands of public protesters. At the heart of the rift between the Israeli people and their government are the 50 hostages still held by Hamas, of which around 20 are believed to be still alive. Yet on August 8, the Israeli cabinet decided to ramp up the war, and the new plans will de facto advance a full occupation of Gaza with the possible objective of long-term military rule of Gaza, as some cabinet members have advocated. The government insists that by expanding military operations, it will save the hostages. But Israelis are not convinced.

2. > have fueled the broader conflict all these years and ruined Israel’s prospects for being a democracy,

   Oh, Israel is not a democracy? Its citizens do not determine, through representation and voting, the outcome of elections?

   It seems the author just tosses that off as if it should be assumed. The author has an apparent axe to grind.

   > …found that among Jewish Israelis between the ages of 15 and 21, 88 percent believed Israel “can be a democratic state even though it controls the West Bank and Gaza (de facto), where Palestinians cannot vote in Israeli elections.” In other words, the rising generation of young Jewish Israelis—and this was before October 7—overwhelmingly took it for granted that millions of Palestinians could be deprived of basic rights indefinitely without compromising Israel’s democratic foundations

   Ah, so the author thinks that Palestinians (non-Israeli citizens) being unable to participate in Israeli elections means Israel is undemocratic.

   I don’t know whether the author understands that democracy is for citizens of a country. Let Palestinians vote in Israel’s elections, and you *WILL* have a dead democracy.

3. People are going to be angry about this but the reality is this is the only practical solution to the issue. No other country is willing to take over Gaza, and the Palestinians themselves are either unwilling or unable to remove Hamas from power themselves.

4. I kind of find it strange that Israelis are expected to at all “sympathize” with the Palestinians, which recent polling shows the majority still either support the actions of 10/7 or at least believe they did not happen to the extent that they did despite video evidence, as a reflection of Israeli society apparently (despite almost never hearing any discussion of this). 10/7 really did shatter any trust there could be between the two parties; it’s worth remembering that the kibbutzes that were attacked were largely left-leaning and many of the people killed were friendly with Gazans. There are even stories that Gazans who would regularly meet with Israelis ended up giving information including addresses of the Israelis they would meet with to Hamas to help them target them. I think it’s also not helped by the fact, as Haviv Gur recently pointed out, that the UN has been very problematic in this conflict with continued accusations of hunger that did not pan out, which have left Israelis very skeptical of the current claims even though they are more closer to reality. I think any country would find it near impossible to “sympathize” or be able to trust the other population in a conflict considering all these actions.

   While I don’t like that Israelis have extremist positions like the majority supporting the “concentration camp” idea, I do think it’s understandable unfortunately when it just does not seem like there’s any other viable option for peace. If anything, this war has only made it more clear that terrorism is what will get the Palestinians what they want, as we’ve seen from multiple Western countries recognizing the state with laughable conditions. Like, do we really expect that these states will pull recognition of the Palestinian State if they don’t commit to elections next year, or if they don’t demilitarize. Not to mention that there are real talks of Hamas and the PA combining, with the former PM of the PA explicitly saying that Hamas should just take over the PA if that happens. There is a reason that Hamas has been openly celebrating these recognitions even though they claim that Hamas can no longer be part of the government. Yes, there’s been a major right wing turn within Israeli society, but it’s not just like it happened out of the blue. I think if there had been more pushback by the international community against the attacks- which it should be reminded I don’t believe have ever been condemned by the General Assembly- maybe there would have been less of a reactionary turn, but there has not been and I suspect it’s just leading Israelis to think that they have to turn to the most extreme positions in order to live in peace because there’s no other way that the Palestinians are going to be convinced that a peaceful answer is a solution.

   That said, despite the misgivings, I think it’s still kind of irrelevant how much Israelis sympathize with the Palestinians or even sympathize with more extremist positions ultimately when it’s pretty clear that most people still support an end to the war. A lot of these are just hypotheticals, and I think the key thing is that Israelis want this war over. I don’t think many Americans were very sympathetic to the Afghanis when we left, I don’t know why we expect Israelis to also be sympathetic. I don’t believe that there’s going to be a solution anytime soon to the conflict from what the polls are saying, but I think the important thing is that at least there’s greater support for the war being over. Those next steps can come as the whole post-war situation gets disentangled and public opinion has less of an impact on the reaction of countries. I think the only thing that is going to be an issue is that we’re going to see less meaningful influence from Western countries now that many of them have shown themselves as being untrustworthy from an Israeli perspective.

5. Wonderful news, I’m glad Israel is remaining stalwart. I was worried for a bit.

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