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July 30, 2024 - 2:30pm
Nearly 10 months into the Gaza war, Israel is weighing up the opening of a second front in Lebanon, in response to Saturday’s deadly attack in Majdal Shams. Yet today it is disorder on the home front which is causing most alarm in the country.
Last night’s footage of militant settlers storming the IDF’s Beit Lid military courthouse north of Tel Aviv to free reserve soldiers accused of raping Palestinian detainees drew condemnation from across the political spectrum. Israel’s opposition leader Yair Lapid declared: “We are not on the brink of the abyss, we are in the abyss. All red lines were crossed today”, adding that “a dangerous fascist group threatens the existence of the State of Israel.”
Eran Etzion, former head of Israel’s National Security Council, urged the country’s military and security chiefs to demand Benjamin Netanyahu’s resignation, while the IDF’s Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi warned that “breaching the bases is a grave, illegal act — it’s on the verge of anarchy.”
With Netanyahu dependent for his political survival on far-Right ministers Bezalel Smotrich, a radical settler, and National Security Minister Itamir Ben-Gvir, a settler and convicted terrorist, the radical faction of Israel’s governing coalition is increasingly a source of both domestic instability and international censure. Last night’s events were, apparently, initiated by the likely ban of arms sales to Israel by Britain’s new Labour government, which cited probable grave breaches of Palestinian prisoners’ human rights.
Yesterday, military police detained nine reservist soldiers at the notorious Sde Teiman detention centre, where 27 Palestinian prisoners have died in custody since 7 October, on charges of violently raping a male Palestinian prisoner. As military police confronted reservists at the jail, in footage shown on Israel’s Kan news network radical settlers — supported by Right-wing MPs — demonstrated at the base before later assembling at Beit Lid, where the accused soldiers are being detained.
When the settlers, supported by armed and masked soldiers, attacked Beit Lid, the IDF begged the Israeli police — under Ben-Gvir’s control — to disperse them, but the police refused, according to Israeli military correspondents. As Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and Israeli President Isaac Herzog ordered the police to “intervene and act immediately to restore law and order” and the “ministers responsible” (meaning Ben-Gvir) to calm the situation, the IDF was forced to redeploy two infantry battalions preparing to enter Gaza to secure the site.
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SubscribeWhilst accepting the problems facing the IDF, the downfall of Netanyahu will surely be the concerted attacks on him by direct political opponents and the global anti-Israel, anti-Semite, anti-capitalist camps and the liberal-democracy-cures-all wars lobby, the latter bizarrely giving succour to probably their greatest enemies i.e. Islamic imperialism and terrorism.
The downfall of Netanyahu will more likely come from the fissures now breaking violently open in his own ‘society’. The mutually inconsistent demands of the Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jews were fermenting in the wake of his judicial ‘reforms’ – they could be about to reach the level of savagery that Israel usually reserves for it’s neighbours in West Asia. This won’t be a surprise to anyone who has been following the writings of Alastair Crooke – UK diplomat & negotiator – someone who Unherd really should give a call to now.
It’s never a good thing when a nuclear power turns into a failed state.
This is why I am so worried about the state of affairs in the UK
Britain has over a century’s experience managing decline, any further deterioration won’t come as a shock. Plus the UK’s nukes are on the submarines, and I’m told they’re essentially under US control.
Crucially, though, the UK does not have a bunch of trigger-happy religious zealots, egged on by another set of religious nutsoes overseas hankering for Armageddon.
I don’t remember the name of the American politician who said that Britain would become the first Muslim country with full nuclear capability.
Although it doesn’t matter anymore, right?
Two dangerous fascist groups fighting each other in Israel – really no surprise – fascists are as fascists do.
As for fighting Hezbollah being a ‘difficult’ task – it certainly would be. Likely to the extent that it is beyond the knackered, over-stretched and over-rated IDF, let alone the Iron Dome.
The IDF receiving a long over due hiding would do the power of good to the region, but I fear when they get it they’ll be looking to take as many of us with them as they can.
This was a sober rant in guise of a sober analysis. The author brings cherry-picking of “facts” to a fine art. Half opinion, half data of dubious regard out of context, and the other half is an inexpert summation of everything that came before.
Unconvinced of anything the author is proposing, and this was a low-quality article.
A war in Lebannon would look more like Israel opening up a third (or possibly fourth front if you include the occasional drone attacks from Yemen).
The extra front I’m talking of is the, not that suprising if you’ve been following the writings of ex-UK & EU diplomat Alastair Crooke, civil war between the Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jews. The attack on the prison here could be the opening exchange – especially given that it looks like the police just stood by. Bringing their violence home really would be a very great shame indeed.
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