It’s a cruel irony that Qatar has been bombed twice in the last three months by two sworn enemies, first by Iran and then by Israel. Neither has received kinetic retaliation from the very power supposedly guaranteeing Qatar’s security: the U.S. This signals a shift in the world order that Israel has already understood, but which Gulf states are only now beginning to grasp.
Israel’s attack on Qatar has exposed the fragility of the Gulf states’ security system, based on U.S. protection as its power declines. As John Mearsheimer argues, Israel does not have territorial ambitions within the Gulf, but it certainly has hegemonic ones. Through the Abraham Accords, Israel aims to normalize relations, as it has done with the UAE, but under the rubric of its own superiority.
Hegemony in the Middle East is what Israel is after by establishing a “Greater Israel,” expelling Palestinians from it, and balkanizing its direct neighbors. This puts Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt at risk. It is also why Israel will likely attack Iran again—perhaps, many analysts suggest, before the year’s end. Turkey is also on the horizon, and its government is taking note.
Israel wants to establish itself as the regional hegemon, and is already behaving like one, backed by the United States. The U.S. wants to disengage from the Middle East—to “end the endless wars”—while leaving it in the hands of a friendly power, and so far, that power is Israel. That is why Washington will not restrain Israel and will do nothing more than issue symbolic rebukes when it bombs its own allies.
The current boldness of Israel in pursuing its hegemonic ambitions shows that Israel has understood something the Gulf states seem to have not: the U.S. is a declining, overstretched empire forced to choose where it puts its resources. There are many arguments to justify this claim: from the defeat in Afghanistan to the one in Ukraine; from trade wars with China to levies imposed on Europe; from the breaking of its own international rules to the collapse of liberal philosophy’s universal claim—all are signs that the age of the hegemon is ending.
But it has not ended yet; this is a golden opportunity for Israel, and Netanyahu knows it. The U.S. is still heavily invested in the Middle East, and Israel has convinced Washington that helping it pursue its strategic goals is in America’s own interest—a fantasy sustained by the Israeli lobby.
To push its expansionist agenda, Israel needs the U.S. strong enough to offer support and political cover—fully aware that this entails committing genocide—while having no appetite to uphold the international rules-based order. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that the Hamas attacks on October 7 were, if not planned, at least allowed by the political and military elite of the country.
It’s arguable that Israel has been waiting for this moment since its creation in 1948, or at least since the Oslo Accords in 1993. The UN partition in 1947 was clearly carried out with a goal in mind—one has only to look at the map—and it was not a two-state solution. The Oslo Accords seem to have been nothing more than a way for Israel to buy time and strength to discard them entirely. Likud, Netanyahu’s political party, was founded in 1973 with the express intent of pursuing a “Greater Israel.”
That Israel was waiting for the most advantageous circumstances to fully unleash its expansion can also be deduced from recent history. Ariel Sharon, then Prime Minister, approved the disengagement plan to withdraw from Gaza in 2003. The E1 settlement in the West Bank—which Netanyahu himself has said would make a Palestinian state impossible—has been postponed since 1994. Both the reoccupation of Gaza and the E1 settlement are now moving ahead in full force.
Since the beginning of Israel’s attack on Gaza, it has also advanced occupation of the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria. Despite the peace, Egyptian leaders have begun to voice their concern, fully aware that the Sinai is part of Israel’s project and that Israel already took it once. Israel has also pursued a policy of destabilization in the Middle East in general to prevent the emergence of any regional power capable of posing a threat. Hence it has attacked Iran and will do it again—and is already speaking about Turkey.
This is a marked change from the Israel of Trump’s first administration and the first iteration of the Abraham Accords. Back then, Israel was publicly promoting a desire for regional stability and normalizing relationships with its Arab neighbors. Now it speaks openly of annexing Gaza and the West Bank, and doesn’t hide its ambition of a hegemonic Greater Israel.
Israeli leadership has understood that the window of opportunity to pursue its expansionist agenda is now—or perhaps never. Despite good relations with Russia and friendly ones with China, at least until recently, neither of these powers would offer the support and political cover that the U.S. has done and continues to do. This also means that there will probably not be a better time to commit genocide than now, while the current international order is broken and a new one has not yet been enforced.
It took the U.N. almost three years and probably over 600,000 deaths to conclude that Israel is committing genocide. There has been no international organization—the U.N., the ICC, the E.U., BRICS, the OIC—or any nation, despite rhetoric, that has done anything to effectively stop the carnage in Gaza and to rein in Israel’s expansionist policy in the region and its continuous heinous attacks on civilians. This is a failure of the international system—not the first, but arguably the one that delivered the final blow.
That reality, which goes hand in hand with the decay of U.S. hegemony, is what Gulf states seem not to have understood—or, if they have, they are not willing to act on it as Israel does. The declaration at the recent Arab-Islamic emergency meeting in Doha, in light of Israel’s attack on the host country, is a testament to this: full of anger but lacking concrete action.
They call on the “international community,” the charter of the Arab League, and Article 2 of the U.N. Charter, which prohibits aggression that threatens territorial or political integrity. They invoke relevant resolutions of the OIC as well as the U.N. to condemn Israeli aggression on Qatar and its expansionist policies in the Middle East. They call for holding Israel accountable according to relevant “international law” and “human rights.” But there is not a single concrete item of actionable policy.
There is an argument for this, which is that they did not really want to do anything about it: that the emergency meeting was only a PR exercise to placate public opinion. This argument maintains that the U.S. and Qatar were aware and, since Qatar was not really the objective but Hamas, the Gulf state did not really feel threatened by Israel. Thus, their poetic but empty calls for Arab and Islamic unity, coupled with the lack of concrete action.
I don’t particularly agree with the idea that Qatar was in the loop, but if there is some truth to it, we must assume that it was forced to accept it as a fait accompli, since it doesn’t seem to benefit from it. Which only reinforces its status as a vassal state.
The Gulf states are, for all intents and purposes, vassals of the U.S. They owe their very modern existence to the international order championed by the U.S. after World War Two and its protection; that is why they invoke it when they feel threatened. The U.S. established a contractual relationship with them: security and recognition in exchange for oil and gas. But they have no real sovereignty. As Julian Macfarlane notes, their situation is very similar to that of the Indian Princely States under British imperial rule. The empire allowed local tribal families to rule while making sure they aligned completely with its interests. But the interests of the empire do not always align with theirs.
This is the case that most likely applies to Israel’s attack on Qatar. It is hardly believable that the U.S. had no prior knowledge. Axios reports that Netanyahu spoke to Trump previously. John Helmer argues that the attack might have been conducted with drones and not missiles and that, if so, it must have been launched from within Qatar, probably from an airstrip coming from the U.S. Al Udeid Air Base. This is speculative, but nonetheless, the argument of U.S. ignorance does not hold—just as it did not hold when Trump claimed not to be involved in Israel’s attack on Iran.
In the face of U.S. interests clashing with their own, what can Gulf states do? Not much. As Mearsheimer notes, they have almost no leverage. They have promoted an image of political and economic stability and neutrality, aiming to attract oligarchs and their finances, Western and non-Western, but all predicated on the U.S.-led order.
Now that order is breaking, they risk suffering the same fate as Antwerp in the 16th century. Under the Spanish Empire, this city became the world’s financial hub, handling 75% of Europe’s trade with Asia and receiving over 1,000 boats weekly from all over the world. But when in 1576, the Spanish Empire, burdened with debt, failed to pay the wages of its mercenary soldiers fighting in the Low Countries, the troops ransacked Antwerp, which was full of foreign merchants. In less than three days, this international merchant hub disappeared, with all traders and financiers relocating elsewhere.
To conclude, and because it does not seem appropriate to present only a victorious Israel, the genocide it is committing may ultimately cost the country its very existence. It is hard to imagine how any society could endure with such a deep moral wound, yet Netanyahu himself has warned that isolation is on the horizon. The real question is: how long can Israeli society hold together before part of it turns against itself? Difficult to predict—but not difficult to see coming.
PS: As I finished writing this, news broke about a security agreement between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, which MoA has analyzed as consequence of the attack in Doha. This does not invalidate the hypothesis in this article, since Saudi Arabia already had its “Qatar moment” in 2019. And although it is a Gulf state, its size and importance place it in a different category from the others—closer to Türkiye and Iran.
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One problem is that Israel has no resources and no depth. It cannot be a substitute for US should we withdraw from the Middle East. To the contrary, its very existence demands continuous US commitment to the ME to prop it up. Israel’s cintinued existence, unless it reaches modus vivendi–which seems impossible now–is incompatible with cintinued existence of US as a great power.
‘One problem is that Israel has no resources and no depth.’
Absolutely. Right now Israel has become a sort of black hole of military equipment in the same way that the Ukraine is. Massive amounts are being shipped in, mostly from the Collective West. I doubt that Israel has the resources to manufacture bombs from local resources to finished bombs. All the bombs used on Gaza come from the US – as well as other anonymous countries. Israel cannot exist without a hegemonic America and Netanyahu see this as the one chance to establish Greater Israel. And if the present generation of Israelis becomes a “broken generation” that is OK as they can be replaced by the next generation over time.
Israel is not the black hole of foreign military equipment that Ukraine is; they have a huge defense manufacturing industry and while of course the IDF is the biggest customer, last year half of Rafael’s orders were for for export.
Israelis depend massively on foreign inputs/assistance/cooperation. Arrow, David’s Sling, Iron Dome, etc might be “Israeli,” but many of their components, including, as I understand it, whole missiles and radar systems that make up part of the complex, depend on US manufacturing, not to mention various parts, components, and raw materials. I suspect Israeli “defense industry” is like Singapore’s-they process foreign inputs to outputs and not much else. That’s no way to self-reliance in defense manufacturing capabilities.
In fact, notwithstanding the current mess, I’d say Ukraine had a very robust domestic defense industry before it was totally wiped out that did not depend so much on foreign support/cooperation.
Sure they have a huge defense manufacturing industry but where do all the materials come from that they need for manufacture? The metals, the gun cotton and the myriad of other materials needed to make up manufactured weapons? That is the vital question. Can all those materials be mined in tiny Israel? Is Israel independent in that it does not have to import these materials? If Israel’s ports got wrecked, how long could the defense manufacturing industry keep going? Even the US is screwed manufacturing modern weapons without Chinese refined rare earths.
I’m not disputing that Israel lacks the inputs within their borders to continue with their export (or even domestic) defense needs. It is a fact they are reliant on imported inputs. I’m disputing these statements you made:
None of these statements are true. They are things you and no doubt many here want to be true because it would mean the horror in Gaza would come to an end soon if only some actual leadership was capable of being displayed in the US and Europe and material support for Israel was pulled. I am American and pay an immense amount of tax to support these atrocities, I also wish it were true. It is not. You know who buys a lot of Israeli arms? India. In 2024 they even sent arms to Israel for Gaza. Do you think that is going to stop if the EU or even the US grow a spine? Wait, EU has to rearm to take on Russia, is it more important than not being complicit in supporting Israel’s genocide economy? Guess so!
That Israel has ties to other powers is doubtlessly true, and that was even more so in the past–the Pollard case, where Israel sent secret info to the Russians, alleged transfer of the Lavi fighter aircraft and Phalcon AWACS to China, and historically close relations between India and Israel, and how Russia, China, and India, even now, have been playing the game cautiously even now. Heck, I even wondered at times if Israel migjt even make a bold turn towards Russia–Naftali Bennett seriously made me wonder via his mediation attempt between Russia and Ukraine. Further, all these ties would provide Israel with alternate sources for its inputs.
However, I wonder if Israel can, at the current stage, realign, in effect, towards US’s rivals. This would actually be an excellent test for the power of the Israeli lobby: can Israel openly do business with BRIC powers (ie probably not SA) against US interests and get away Scott free? It would certainly be compatible with Israel recognizing US weakness. It would not be compatible with Israel seeking to be US’s viceroy in the Middle East while US withdraws.
One thing I strongly suspect is that so-called Israeli lobby is more complex than what many people seem to think: it’s an alliance where Israelis serve the intetests of the US policymaking elite whose agenda is using US power (including those of US allies) to remake the world, even at the expense of US on the whole. Israel has undue influence because it fulfills its role extremely well and can get away with many “peripheral” things, like mass murdering Semitic subhumans (Deliberate word choice. Sorry!), that don’t fit into “remaking the world.” But Israel straying into BRIC sphere even only partially makes Israel less valuable to US policymaking elite. So, in a way, Israel is trapped into becoming more dependent on US, to prove that they are loyal to US elites. But this, in turn, makes Israel weaker, with fewer “friends” to turn to.
I can’t be sure of the details now, but I’ll bet you that Israel is far more dependent, relatively speaking, on Western cooperation for its security than they ever were. (I could have sworn that I read something about this somewhere–something by Stephen Bryen, maybe? I think it was about hoe dependent even allegedly “Israeli” air and air defense assets are completely dependent on US support whereas they weren’t, say, in 1980s.
There was a recent article in last week, maybe two, showing that much more than half (70%?) of matériel expended in the 2024 missile fight with Iran was from Israel’s allies.
The data on the 12-day missile war are not in yet but are not expected to be more in Israel’s favour….
US/UK presence in the eastern Mediterranean is significant: UK bases on Cyprus, US air bases in Jordan, Iraq, Syria, US/NATO bases (in addition to Incirlik are several “NATO” air bases of significance in east Turkey), Al Udeid in QATAR, and around the Adan area in Djibouti.
US air and naval presence in support of Israel is huge! As much as US presence in Southeast Asia during the 1970’s.
Israel has enogh depth to drown itself in. It’s like having enough rope to hang oneself, but more painful.
There was a Western settler colony in the Middle East that was at war with all its muslim neighbors, including perpetrating atrocities (massacres) on the local populations.
https://www.worldhistory.org/Crusader_States/
The Crusader States disappeared after around a century due to a lack of fighting men, loss of military advantages over the surrounding muslims, and dwindling European support.
History rhyming?
Also few people and minuscules land, granted the aspire to more of that. But imo no matter how much they grow now they can’t continue without us active, robust presence. And it’s not just they’re just a fifth of pre-war Ukraine pop, a lot of military age males dodge the draft by studying the Torah, ie not producing anything but except waste. And others of draft age will find a way to escape.
Meanwhile the genocide is breaking up the west that was formerly nearly totally united on 10/7/23. Spain flipped from below, this might encourage bolder demos within the other latins. French dock workers already refuse to load ships bound for israel. Recent votes show 70+% of dems want the war stopped, plus a majority of indies. Eu elections might eventually turn out even German hard line genocider elites
Bibi is right, isolation had begun. Eu looks losable near term, and anyway us, with eu collusion, is destroying eu mfg, so arms supplies from eu anyway looks unstable.
I’ve heard 650k dead, it’s frankly hard to imagine surviving in Gaza, almost no food and clean water. Cholera seems likely. As the number climbs the west will likely see more turn against Israel, and row will look for alternatives.
I’m disappointed but not surprised Russia/China are standing back. Aside from existing issues such that a lot of Russian Jews live in Israel, why try to stop the enemy from making existential mistakes? Plus, likely both welcome us distraction/overextension while Russia finishes up in Ukraine. Just realpolitik.
Sadly, things will get much worse in Gaza and the West Bank going forward.
Imo it would be a major mistake for bibi to attack Iran again.
Qatar seems almost like a reverse Switzerland, everyone can strike it without direct immediate consequence
I always thought Switzerland was in fact exactly that during the early modern era? Practically everyone who wanted to intervene in Northern Italy passed through Switzerland. The formally enforced Swiss neutrality was a post Napoleonic phenomenon, precisely because everyone marched through Switzerland, so to speak–well, the Belgian neutrality, sort of, stems from post Napoleonic politics, too, but that went through a lot more gyrations, but only because Italy became back water of politics in 19th century…
Switzerland (a heavily armed defense state) enabled the third reich by taking
all the gold from the teeth of ‘Settlement Camp’ victims in WWII.
Israel gets its weapons courtesy of US ‘foreign aid’ – that’s you and me,
paying our taxes. Such a deal!
That’s after 1815. Switzerland in 17th and 18th centuries, iirc, was a regular doormat. Every invader, especially if they wanted something to do with Northern Italy, seems to have marched through Switzerland–although the catch was that nobody bothered to conquer them–nothing really too valuable by contemporary standards, I think. Back then, they were a different kibd of neutral–they didn’t fight back, like Qatar.
In pre-mechanisation days, having an army march through your territory wasn’t always a bad thing. Many a farmer and merchant made a fortune selling supplies. Good army leaders realised it was better strategically to avoid making unnecessary enemies by razing the lands of those they march through.
In more modern times, smart rulers (and the rulers of Qatar are very cunning) understand full well the importance of maintaining strategic ambiguity between warring factions both in their neighbourhood and globally. Suffering an occasional public humiliation is just an accepted part of the greater game.
This places Swiss neutrality in a rather different context than people think, I guess. Not only that the Swiss had been selling stuff (including themselves, so to speak) to all manner of warmongers on all sides for centuries…and until the Allied powers put a stop to it in 1815, the warmongers came to them to buy stuff.
I was taught that our most celebrated general, Alexander Suvorov, insisted on paying the locals generously for supplies during his famous (at least in Russia) fighting retreat through Switzerland after the Italian campaign. This compared favourably in the eyes of the Swiss population to the actions of the revolutionary French, who were notorious for marauding even more than the contemporary European norm. Or so it is remembered here; the Swiss did give him a monument, in any case.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suvorov%27s_Swiss_campaign
Yes, Suvorov and Napoleon (and other French generals) are among the “invaders” I had in mind that marched through Switzerland in 17th and 18th centuries….
Comic quibble, but this end bit, “In less than three days, this international merchant hub disappeared, with all traders and financiers relocating elsewhere,” might benefit from a tweak to, “with all the SURVIVING traders and financiers relocating elsewhere.”
Though it’s prob a rare member of the elite who thinks it’s their own neck that finds its way to the guillotine before their neighbor’s.
A regular Duke of Orleans! (Tbf, I guess his son did become the king eventually…)
On the surface this post seems to make a bunch of bald, trollish assertions. But looked at more critically there is little that is not backed up by the depth of evidence available to anyone who has had the luxury of working through the issues in a disciplined, credible, graduate-school class.
There is something calming about being able to look at the truth of an ugly matter straight in the face and see it for what it is. At this point it becomes possible to anticipate, with high probability, what can be expected to happen in the Middle East over the next few years, at least.
The most obvious thing is that Egypt and Jordan will be strong-armed into accepting millions of Palestinians being ethnically cleansed. (Being objective here, “genocide” is an inflammatory and inaccurate word. There is also the matter of trademark infringement. In reality, Israel simple wants them gone.) Those who do not decamp as instructed, who are not killed outright or driven into the sea, will come to the US.
Who’s running things after all, Prof Mearsheimer?
Thanks for this post, Curro, and for pointing out that Israel’s actions are driven in large part by recognizing the decline of US hegemony has presented them with a once in a lifetime opportunity, and this, combined with the current makeup of the governing coalition of Israel, are major driving factors behind Israel’s actions since 2023.
I have had to learn how to develop a thick skin when commenting here because I comment almost exclusively on Israel-related topics, and this has given some other regular commentors the idea that I myself am Israeli or support their actions, when in fact I’m trying to share what I see when interacting with them – that they have recognized something that many others (both here in the US and elsewhere in the world) are not yet willing to face directly, and the consequences that naturally flow from that realization. Those in power in Israel decided what they were going to do with that information. What is the rest of the world going to do now?
Could it be that the real horror of the end of Westphalia is that it is not a state, but a community – which could have state powers, such as a military – are what will define international relations going forward? Combine this with the Russian and Chinese ideas of intervention in others states – it’s not really their problem – so is there even really any entity left who can intervene in the affairs of other states when the era of a hegemon is past? And what does that mean for those individuals who were previously considered citizens under the concept of a state but no longer under these new rules? We are seeing stirrings of this concept in other places now, including the US.
Regarding your final question, how long can Israel hold it together before internal strife. I think this was already started before 10/7, when Israel had 5 governments in less than 3 years (2019-2022) and this led to mass anti-Netanyahu protests which in turn led to Netanyahu cultivating a governing coalition with the extreme far right parties Jewish Power (Ben Gvir) and Religious Zionism (Smotrich) whereas prior to 2022 these figures had been fringe and or outright banned from being elected due to being labeled terrorist. Paradoxically the Gaza war has given the country a focus temporarily which prevents it from fully collapsing from this split and the contradictions. If the war had not happened, if 10/7 had not happened, if someone other than Netanyahu had been able to keep a governing coalition together – it’s impossible to know the alternate timeline, of course, but there was no inevitability of this moment. Israeli society to this day is still split almost 50/50 along partisan lines related to the Palestinian question after 25 years of militarized mobilization since the collapse of Oslo. Greater Israel was still a fringe belief and a talking point of individuals on terrorist lists as recently as 3 years ago. The mass settler immigration and destruction of the Palestinian territories had to be cultivated by the Israeli right wing, it wasn’t a natural action by people already living in the area. It could be undone still, but it would require courage and leadership in the opposition that is not currently in evidence. Israel is one of the most militarized countries in the world and has a huge amount of guns – the only country I’ve ever been to where I’ve seen open carry other than the US – I think a civil war following Netanyahu’s removal in a military coup is a very possible outcome.
>I have had to learn how to develop a thick skin when commenting here because I comment almost exclusively on Israel-related topics, and this has given some other regular commentors the idea that I myself am Israeli or support their actions, when in fact I’m trying to share what I see when interacting with them
I for one really appreciate your comments raspberryjam. I think a core strength of NC is the diversity of viewpoints covered and it’s valuable to read anecdata you get from your Israeli contacts.
I read with care, and have never thought you either an Israeli or a supporter.
Relatedly, I’ve spent the last few weeks around a lot of (mostly youngish) secular Israelis and come to understand some things in a little more depth. I’ll post longer about this in the next days when an appropriate article comes up.
Thank you for your kind comments, Ben. I am looking forward to reading your thoughts.
The mass settler immigration and destruction of the Palestinian territories had to be cultivated by the Israeli right wing
People addressing this claim have pointed out that the Labor government initiated settlements as soon as the 1967 war was over. Greater Israel has always been the aim but the frog had to be boiled for 80 years before a new wave of fascism could truly expose itself to an anesthetized world.
Except it doesn’t seem to be working and can’t work because human beings have empathy even if their leaders do not.
As for your comments here I think you have been downplaying the obstacles as during the 12 day war when Israel seems to have taken much greater damage than their govt or your friends there are willing to admit. At least that’s according to other things that I read, here and elsewhere.
If you want to see what Tel Aviv was like in the days after the war you should watch this video. The walker starts around the site of the HaKirya (struck the first night, camera turns and looks at it straight on about 4:09, someone clever has changed the corresponding Google Maps view of the street to a photo of anti-Netanyahu protests from before the war). The chapter “Allenby” shows the residential blocks that were hit.
I spend a lot of time working out my own cognitive dissonance about Israel in the comments here because I feel like quite a lot of the written material produced about the country by people who don’t have contacts there or visit regularly (as I am required to) suffer from the same bias I see in the various media in the US, for example the myriad pieces about the city I live in (San Francisco) being an unlivable hellhole due to the conditions of a single 10 square block area. Or the stuff that comes out of the other team’s media about how Trump is stroking out and going to die any day, or will be brought down by the Epstein scandal, or whatever. It’s not that I am downplaying or dismissing the ‘Israel is on the ropes’ stuff (my very first comment at this blog was on exactly that topic after my first visit there). It’s more that like the quote says, there is a lot of ruin in a nation, and it was clear to me at the conclusion of the 12 days that it wasn’t enough to drive Netanyahu out of power, that there was going to be more. I was accused of cope, but here we are, Netanyahu is still in power and lots of rumors of another round coming soon. Will it be enough to drive him out or force a state change in Israel? We’ll just have to see.
I also appreciate your posts. I have relatives permanently or occasionally in Israel, so knowing what’s actually going on there is rather more important to me than receiving false reassurance that it’s totally going to collapse any moment now (yeah, just like Putin is about to die of cancer and/or get overthrown). For what it is worth, what I hear from them certainly doesn’t give that impression, though there are definitely serious economic problems and only temporarily submerged political tensions. Agreed also that Israel’s leadership is taking advantage of an opportunity – I think that the nationalists think, more or less, that they won’t be any less hated regionally no matter what they do by this point, and therefore may as well claw out the strongest possible position ahead of US drawback.
As for a civil war… well, we’ll see. Between who – the military and the nationalists (including parts of the military)?
I do remember how exceptionally militarised and well-armed Israel’s population is, both from my relatives’ reports and from having lived there for a few unfond years in my childhood. Russians who ran away there from the Ukraine war ended up being laughably shocked by the regular low-intensity violence, shellings, etc. that long-time residents have largely learned to ignore or mock – outside of October 7 and the 12-day war, that is. That’s all much more normal there than here (outside of the border with Ukraine, anyway), which would lower the threshold for communal violence, I think. On the other hand, Israelis still seem to have a lot of cohesion, at least while most of them believe they have a common foe outside the community.
>the regular low-intensity violence, shellings, etc. that long-time residents have largely learned to ignore or mock
Said to me more than once recently:
“When we hear there are rockets coming we first ask “where from?” If its from Iran we go to the shelter; from Yemen we don’t bother”
Yes, and before October 7 from Lebanon or Gaza – at least that was the common reaction back then. Some existential threat warranting a maximum response, that. /s
As for a civil war… well, we’ll see. Between who – the military and the nationalists (including parts of the military)?
Generally speaking, from my view, the vast majority of Israeli social cohesion is due to two things: mass conscription and state-directed, community-enforced “us against the world” viewpoint/rationale for their actions.
Because of mass conscription, the IDF has high approval ratings regardless of the low approval ratings of the government. And that government is currently commanding the military.
Right now command discipline continues to hold. But there are visible cracks showing. IDF chief released a report earlier this month that the government isn’t sharing next phase of plans for Gaza with the IDF. The fact that he is talking about this publicly is really abnormal. It tells me there is major dissent in the ranks at what they are being ordered to do. This is to be expected given the unpopularity of the current phase of the mobilization in the general public.
The right wing faction that is arming the settlers and fought (and lost) conscription for ultra orthodox is perceived to be pushing the current invasion in Gaza and the proposed annexing of the West Bank. There is rising resentment (already quite high) among the seculars about the right wing’s increasing grip on secular society. This is perceived for many issues, not the least of which is getting to a ceasefire. (There is the non-trivial matter that, like the US Democrats, the Israeli center-left refuses to grow a spine and commit to aligning with the Palestinian parties to get a new government that will commit to a ceasefire, and given how many governments have collapsed since 2019, even if new governments are called despite Netanyahu’s unpopularity he may win again with the same coalition given electoral math.)
For me the wild card is how much instability the Zionist billionaires and their interests (and money) inject into the current state through their contribution to the factional fighting/jockeying for position that is clearly ongoing as we approach the end state of the Gaza campaign. Smotrich’s comments the other day about a ‘real estate bonanza’ were sickening and since he personally is not benefiting from that unless he delivers to those who do benefit it tells me it is a factor in whether a ceasefire (or the government falls) happens or not.
So what happens if there is enough dissent in the IDF about the command they are given and there is enough coordination for them to remove the government? Let’s say they’re ordered to preemptively use the nukes on the southern Gaza border and whole chains of command refuse. How big are the factions in the military on each side? The settlers have been getting armed for years now but they’re not cohesive in the same way the seculars with military experience are, and it’s the latter who, generally speaking, have the homes and businesses and family connections to lose if a theocratic zionist regime supplants secular Israel permanently. How appealing is “Trump Gaza” then? I realize Dubai seems to be doing okay and maybe that is what the Kahanists are thinking except with, you know, Shabbat closures instead of adhans, but that totally excludes the other 51%+ of secular Israeli society who have a lot to lose in that situation.
It’s possible there is a coup but no civil war; it’s possible the government falls without a coup as the result of the end of the Gaza campaign. As hk says above, I have also been wondering how much Israel can flagrantly side against the hegemon if needed (Russia does make a better ‘big brother’ than the US these days and if they tried for it after the Gaza campaign they could potentially get the Palestinians expelled and also an enforced peace from their neighbors if Russia mediates with the Arab states since Russia is clearly seen as a more reliable partner when it comes to regional security commitments).
Thank you. What I appreciate the most about NC is the possibility of having informed and respectful debates.
I mostly agree that, in the medium term, Israel’s greatest threat is itself. As I understand it—and it might not be 100% accurate since I’m oversimplifying—a large part of the population is liberal, while another, smaller but increasing, part can be described as radical Zionists, and they are armed. When the latter does not have an external enemy, or at least no one they can directly fight (like the Palestinians), how long will it take them to turn on the liberals? Not long, I think.
This article is a helpful primer on the armed far right in Israel and how it relates to the current government. It is a little old but still valid, the right has only gotten larger in number since it was published:
Every Jew a .22 and MZ-4: The Path from Kahane to Ben-Gvir
The liberal vs right wing Zionist (I just refer to them as Kahanist) split would not have been a risk of open civil war if the Israeli center-left had not collapsed during 2019-2022 when 5 elections were called in less than three years and none of the coalitions could stick together. Very similarly to the US Democrats, there were a number of long-festering issues related to cost of living and social welfare that were ignored so that pontificating and baiting in arenas thought to be safe for special interests could take place instead so nothing too damaging to real estate prices and other special interests had to change. And this enabled Netanyahu to exploit that to cultivate a coalition with parties that had historically be on actual terrorist lists. When 10/7 happened a lot of people here commented on how happy Netanyahu appeared. It was probably because he realized his bet on the right wing had just paid off and his government was going to hold. “They played with fire, and they won.”
So in a lot of ways the right wing vs liberal thing has already been ongoing for years. But generally speaking the social cohesion is due to mass conscription and a lot of the right wing are too extreme to serve (Ben Gvir, for example, was considered too extreme to serve in the IDF) and right now there are cases where haredim are being caught fleeing the draft by running off to other countries. There is also the cultural thing where these right wingers and their settler forces are blatant homophobes (Smotrich talks about being a ‘proud homophobe’) and this is directly opposed to most of the fundamental mythos of secular Israel.
If I had to bet on a side long term I’d go with the side with more social cohesion with the backing of the military (the seculars) however currently the military is led by right wing Zionists and maintaining command discipline. How long that will last if Iran really seriously targets things like the electricity grid or water treatment is the thing that makes me wonder if a military coup is possible. There are too many people with vested interests to support the ‘super sparta’ insanity, everyone knows it is not possible. The trick has been, as Daniil says above, to claw out as much regional dominance as possible during this window before the US fully withdraws to ensure more years of safety for now, and in service of this, many terrible things are being justified.
The fact that the current international order is thoroughly broken, as demonstrated by the lack of any effective actions against the on-going genocide in Gaza and the incipient one in the West Bank, had already been discussed by several readers in this site. I even remarked that the utter powerlessness of the UNO mirrors the one of the League of Nations in the first half of the 1930s in the face of various illegal wars of aggression and other conflicts.
If we push this comparison to its logical conclusion, then it implies that we are careening towards WWIII — I hope this is not the case.
Qatar absolutely knew planes or missiles or both were coming. I’ve listened to many experts and all have said that Qatar has its own radar and air defenses. The jets/missiles flew over Iraq or Jordon or SA or the gulf, everyone in the gulf knew they were coming including Iran. No way everyone in the whole gulf region didn’t know they were there, not to mention the numerous US military bases and ships all around that part of the world. Why did they do nothing is a matter i cannot answer and leave for others.
Again I don’t know but is it Israel driving the US or is the US using Israel?
How you answer sort of gives your world geopolitical view. I’d love to hear John mirsheimer talk to col Wilkerson as they have opposing views.
But maybe it’s that the interests are the same for both countries and so it doesn’t matter who’s driving who.
Some time ago, there was (if memory serves) an antidote pic/video in the NC Links post for that day of a cat grooming a rabbit. A related comment observed that this was a mutually agreeable arrangement because from the cat’s perspective the groomer was the dominant party whereas from the rabbit’s perspective the groomed was instead dominant.
This is how I have come to view the US-Israel relationship.
Post of the week!
At this point I have become thoroughly convinced that Israel is driving the U.S. I am not sure why it is happening, I can only guess that it is because U.S. politicians at the federal level have no core beliefs of any kind, we are basically out of options on all practical issues, and Israel is the only force offering any semblance of direction.
I have a theory of sorts: at least until recently, what reason have they had to actively oppose Israel? That would have won them enmity of the Zionists, both Jewish and gentiles, who are dedicated to their cause even if relatively few in number. They would not have won the support of the others who didn’t have a reason to care about or know anything about things Middle East.
The landscape is changing little by little: whereas, before, the claim that Israel is committing crimes against humanity would have met with incredulity from most, understandably because the evidence was not that clear and were further obscured by Zionist myths. Now, Zionist fanatics don’t even pretend that they are not committing genocide, on top of ever mounting body piles. For most people who are not Zionists, even if they weren’t paying attention, this knowledge will become increasingly uncomfortable.
Of course, mere discomfort won’t be enough. Many Northerners were uncomfortable with slavery, in many cases even before 1776, let alone 1861. Yet, slavery was acceoted, as long as the institution was kept far away. If the Zionists were smart, they’d keep quiet and pretend nothing is going on. But they are not keeping quiet: they are trying to subvert Constitutional rights in US, they are bombing US allies (which, among others, will hit the US MIC’s bottom line hard in the long run), they are intruding upon our back yards far from the Middle East, full of self righteousness. I see in them pro slavery activists in 1850s, except on global scale. They are poisoning the sentiments so that they will be unwelcome everywhere.
And like the Southerners, they are a one trick pony without resources, without depth, dependent on goodwill and cooperation of the outsiders. And they don’t even have cotton–a real commodity with value. All they have is a guilt over history among the goyyim, which their actions are dispelling fast now.
One of the theories supporting Qatar’s lack of awareness is that the attack was launched by drones from inside the country, not by planes or missiles. I’m not an expert in military matters, but I believe there are also ways to launch missiles that cannot be detected until it’s too late—unless you’re already expecting it, in which case it’s essentially the same as not being aware. That said, I don’t rule out the possibility that they did know.
“This is a failure of the international system—not the first, but arguably the one that delivered the final blow.”
Most likely, since the UN’s genocide ruling is a case of too little, too late. Genocide is supposed to be no longer possible, but (beyond Yemen, at least) the world does nothing. There has been a bunch of noise made by China about the “common destiny of humanity,” and reinvigorating the UN charter. But since they are not only doing nothing, they are still trading with Israel, it would seem this “common destiny of humanity” is stillborn.
The governments of the “Gulf States” are going to keep doing the bidding of those who installed them until the g3n0C1D4L state is ready to become “Greater I5Ra3L” … but when that time comes, it will be too late.
Daniel 5:1-28
Since many years ago, I always thought that the US will be remembered in the future (if there are humans yet) as the country which put (firstly, and until today, only) men on the moon. The rest of their history is interesting, indeed, important, indeed, but not truly different of any other things you can find in a History book. More of the (very) same, or as Curro could say, más de lo mismo. And it was a feat, if Nixon had won in 1960 (handful of votes), no way the US would have done it, maybe the Soviets would have done it quietly and slowly, with a cheaper architecture, or maybe the moon would have not seen humans on its surface. It is expensive, very dangerous, and robots can do the work far better. But it is a human achievement, and it is really huge, massive. It’s ironic that a significant part of Americans themselves believe they didn’t go to the moon, IMHO the greatest historic fact of their whole history.
The NATO-like pact between Pakistan and MbS (Saudi Arabia paid the Pakistani nuclear weapons) nuclearize de facto the whole Near East. Didn’t you like the Iranian bomb? Fine, you have now Arabian bombs. In the very same country which launched a war against Yemen and lost it, and such a war, a bad calculus, I guess. Anyway, we have two regimes that can answer the question “what would have done the Führerbunker in 1945, it means, the war absolutely lost, if they had nuclear weapons?”.
I hope the US won’t be remembered as the country which helped to untie a nuclear interchange, one that can or cannot escalate but no doubt it would change all, if something to change remains. It always was the most terrible idea to allow Israel to have nuclear weapons.
A great discussion here with Judge Napolitano interviewing Prof. John Mearsheimer:
Prof. John Mearsheimer : Is US Democracy In Danger Of Collapse? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JGozKc9Obw
First I heard that Saudi Arabia is potentially forming an alliance with Pakistan, but it makes sense. Pakistan has already stated it would use nukes for Iran (and I thought I heard Turkiye at one time too):
Pakistan to drop nuclear weapon on Israel if Israel nukes Iran, says Rezaei https://www.turkiyetoday.com/region/pakistan-to-provide-iran-with-nuclear-weapons-if-israel-uses-one-iranian-official-3202916
Where does this leave the Abraham Accords?
But it does increase Trump’s odds of getting a Nobel Peace Prize for uniting so many Arab countries. /sarc
Well, if he gets (all the) Arabs, Turks, Chinese, and Persians on the same side, that’d be something that never happened in history (at least for 1500 years) , for sure (and we are more than halfway there.)
The US is playing the long game, and winning. All talk of the US losing influence seems a bit premature.
The US and Israel use each other. Give each other enough of what it wants, while pursuing their own interests. For the US, Israel is the US arrowhead for taking over the Middle East. For Israel, the US is the sugar-daddy until god does his/her thing.
The US is playing the same game all over the ME. Give a country enough of what it wants (usually money), threaten it a bit, and let them skirmish with each other to stop a real power centre from developing. Divide and conquer.
So Turkiye runs the pipeline that supplies Israel’s oil because there’s money in it. The US is getting Turkiye to build and sell weapons to Ukraine, and Turkiye says yes for the money. US influence through NATO running the show there. But Israel is palling up with Turkiye’s hated enemies, the Kurds. Still money wins.
In Syria, Erdogan is being whupped by Israel. He might be behind the new ruler of Syria, but treaties and such have little value when Israel keeps bombing your military with impunity. So, another win for the US.
Divide and conquer in Armenia and Azerbaijan. All pieces of a years long US chess game, where the US is very successfully putting into place a checkmate of Iran and Russia.
And where is Russia? Well, it’s firmly stuck to a tarbaby in Ukraine, and the US is working overtime to make sure that Russia remains stuck there, parked until the US is ready to really deal with it.
Perhaps the achilles heel for the US is the state of it’s military. But while the US can control so many other countries to do its dirty work, and while the countries being encircling mostly keep allowing the US to run the show, the US will continue to get what it wants.
Unfortunately, there is only one solution to this. The same solution that always decides definitively who runs the show.
Described in some detail here: https://x.com/ibrahimtmajed/status/1948675409358303289?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1948675409358303289%7Ctwgr%5Ea384b2364e268c3a5d3a265668a7bcdfbe82315d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nakedcapitalism.com%2F2025%2F09%2Fare-israel-and-turkiye-on-a-collision-course-or-parallel-tracks.html
The tweeter is out over his skis. There is considerable doubt as to whether any economic activity at scale will occur in the Zangezur Corridor. It is too narrow to be secured. As for the David’s corridor, that is at the vaporware stage.
I cannot see any long game here. “Friendship” of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan is decades old, in fact in the Yemen war pakistani forces fought with the Saudis. Saudi Arabia supports Pakistan, and both are good US vassals, or, at most, never will be enemies of the US at least for now. The main loser of this pact is India, not Russia nor Iran (which are clearly winners), and India losing too much, I don’t think it was planned by the US. India cannot trust anymore in Saudi oil with this pact, and you can see today the results (Rosneft signing a massive deal). Actually, India cannot trust anymore in the US, and will react accordingly, and this is truly long game and truly a massive defeat of the US.
About the pakistani nukes, you also can see that Israel is totally mute, it doesn’t care. But Saudi Arabia from now on will seek the way to get the nukes, one way or another, and this is another step and another defeat for the US. Things today, now, make impossible a mutual attack between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Today, not tomorrow.
The US never played a long game. Neither it can, nor it wants even if it could. It has been so since 1945 and even before. In fact, is a Western feature.
UN General Assembly Resolution 181 from 29 November 1947 was a plan, it was not binding. It proposed to give 55% of the land of British Mandate Palestine to 600,000 Jews (who had legal title to 7%) and 45% of the land to 1,350,000 indigenous Arabs. It proposed a commission to implement the plan. The plan forbade forced displacement of populations. It was not taken up by the Security Council and thus not legally binding, per the charter.
Instead, what was implemented was Plan Dalet, which called the for expulsion of all Arabs from historic Palestine. It was beyond the capacity of the then forces and with an agreement with the Trans-Jordanians stopped with the new Israeli State taking 71% of historic Palestine.
History since then has been the completion of Plan Dalet.
Off the top of my head.
Zionist society wants a cease fire so they can get their prisoners of war out of Gaza but the majority wants native Palestinians removed from the neighborhood by any means necessary including extermination.
I don’t see that as a basis for a civil war.
The slaughter will continue.
In deeds done
Fie!
As I’ve note in another comment a large part of the population is liberal, while another, smaller but increasing, part can be described as radical Zionists, and they are armed. When the latter does not have an external enemy, or at least no one they can directly fight (like the Palestinians), how long will it take them to turn on the liberals? Not long, I think.
It’s the nature of radicalism and extremism to end up turning on itself.
A new hegemony! That’s the next sign in the West’s / US’ decline. After watching and reading about the West’s decline, I’ve been watching for the next milestone. The movie, Civil War, was a flawed but fun attempt at predicting the end stage of domestic America decline. But no one had a concrete view of what the foreign decline would be. Well, here it is. Israel stepping out on its own and the Gulf States just have to bow down. The US won’t save them.
Carrying this idea a step further, others have suggested that Japan and South Korea might “break away” from strictly following American foreign policy to pursue a different economic policy, but without spelling out any concrete steps. But here, with Israel’s actions, is such a possible step: not asserting an economic shift, but a military one. And no, I’m not saying either country will, in the near future, would do such a thing, but this is a way forward. American overseas military bases are not just a means of projecting American power, they also serve to prevent the projection of other countrys’ power.
Israel needs land- it is after all around 150 miles long x 50 miles wide approximately. The entire Zionist project is about land. period.
The small skirmesh with Iran has shown that it can get severly damaged in a short time. The article places too much faith on Netanyahu’s ability to think logically when clearly he and Likud party leaders are not when they bomb everyone and have lost a bit in the PR war and the sheen of Israel as a Democratic civilized nation. The fact that the American conservative and far right talking heads have turned on them is also a big loss .
There is a Chinese professor who runs a YT channel who talks about pushing the army towards a river so that the last resort is to either fight or drown. Israel is facing this moment in my view. And the river being Palestine and Arab world. The Arab world will unite at some point if not now. Empires collapse. Ottoman empire’s collapse led to the Middle East as we know today- America will fall and take Israel with it . New powers will emerge.
And why does Israel need land any more than Lebanan, FFS, which is only half the size of Israel and was a vibrant and prosperous society, with Beirut famed as the Paris of the Mediterranean, until Israel invaded them? This is an utterly spurious argument.
This claim is hasbara. I’m letting this through to scold you but further Making Shit Up will not be approved.
Thank you!
One of the best analyses on the topic. But, what needs to said by more people is who architected the decline of the US economy? Beginning with Milton Friedman, Volker et al…. So far, given the many “Israeli ‘Americans’” in sensitive US Foreign Policy and security positions, it’s clear that, that alone, provides Netanyahu comfort.
For instance,” Former IDF soldier, Amos J. Hochstein, is an American businessman, diplomat, and former lobbyist. He , nonetheless, was appointed by several Democratic Presidents to a variety of key diplomatic positions.” …“In June 2022, The Washington Post reported that Hochstein was serving as President Biden’s top energy advisor, or “energy whisperer,” in both domestic and international energy issues. “… “During the Israel–Hezbollah conflict, Hochstein made multiple trips to Lebanon as a special U.S. envoy to negotiate a resolution to the conflict. His strategy was to push Hezbollah to pressure Hamas into accepting a ceasefire agreement to end the Gaza war.” (Wikipedia). During his many trips to Lebanon, met with Hezbollah’s chief, whose whereabouts were clearly shared with Israel, thus the Israeli attack that decimated Hezbollah’s leadership.
Then there’s Wall Street and financial control of the nation and world: With the likes of Larry Fink controlling what passes for the stock market, Netanyahu also knows that financing mitigation of Congressional and public opposition and controlling the press gives him an additional sense of imperious power. Economist Thomas Ferguson found that weekly hourly wages between 2021-2024 increased a meager 0.4%, but oligarchical fortunes exploded in greater proportion than after the government rescue after the 2008 Great Recession.
The article mentions that none of the aggrieved parties are doing much to mitigate Israeli abuse. In the US, it’s beginning to pick up, perhaps it was lead to Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Details around it are murky, at best and the GrayZone mentions Netanyahu’s fingerprints. Who knows? But, real investigation is needed. Meantime, the p.r. machine is running in PBS, for instance, yet another Holocaust “documentary”, because you know, unique suffering and all. Whereas, killing 15,000 Palestinian children under the age of five is self-defense.
“ Netanyahu himself has warned that isolation is on the horizon.”. IIRC climate models, using a business as usual scenario, predict a 4 degree C increase by the end of the century in Gaza and Israel, which, when combined with a pariah status, makes me wonder where the people remaining in the area will find refuge. Who will let them immigrate?
I’m still not convinced that the next excursion against Iran won’t come from all directions and that the support for Israel next time will be in the forefront on day 1. It’s been said over and over again that they won’t be able to take days or weeks of mostly one on one with Iran without something seriously breaking in Israel.
The support has to be full force and in the forefront on day 1.
I guess then it will be seen what all the scurrying about in the Gulf means in reality.
“About the pakistani nukes, you also can see that Israel is totally mute, it doesn’t care.”
Bacchunin (above).
Is it not possible Israel is mute because Pakistani nukes have long been neutralised by US which, it well knows?
Pakistan has been home to several terrorist organisations, 9/11 had Pakistani connection, and even bin Laden was sheltered by its military. So, US might have well become concerned that these weapons or their dirty versions could someday be used against it either because the Islamists had come to possess them or the government itself had gone Islamist.
Pakistan’s economy has long been a basket case, repeatedly bailed out by IMF. Its army generals are corrupt, who having siphoned off from country’s meagre wealth, do not settle down in Pakistan after retirement, but move abroad, mainly to US, where many of their relatives and children are already living or getting education. It is inconceivable therefore Pakistani generals may not have succumbed to US pressures/threats/inducements to exercise control over their nukes, or even disable them.
Israel must surely be knowing this, which is why it does not raise such a hue and cry against them as it does against possible Iranian ones.
Modi and Netanyahu are friends, and it is possible latter may have told the former that ‘emperor has no clothes’. This perhaps explains why lately Modi has responded to alleged Pakistani terrorist activities in Kashmir very aggressively, completely disregarding its ‘nuclear blackmail’.
Viewed against this perspective of Pakistani nuclear capabilities having been hollowed out, the recent Saudi-Pak defence pact loses most of its ‘threat’, both to Israel and India. It looks like Saudi ruling family views Pakistani praetorian guards more reliable for its security than its home grown, or American, which lately has become so amenable to Israeli influence.
> that the [Doha] emergency meeting was only a PR exercise to placate public opinion
I would note that it hasn’t worked. The meeting was universally ridiculed on Arab social media and by public intellectuals, and even the most pro-regime propaganda personalities are openly embarrassed by it. It’s kinda like Trump’s birthday parade: everyone knows it was ridiculous and unimpressive, and the MAGAsphere are pretending it never happened.