Netanyahu Depicts Grim Economic Future for Israel, Need to Become an Autarky, “Super Sparta” Due to Isolation; Are There More Meanings?

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is an extremely wily politician. So what is one to make of what looked like a major admission against interest in a speech Monday at the Finance Ministry’s accountant general, that Israel is being cornered economically and has no ready way out? As we’ll discuss, Netanyahu attempted to walk his remarks back the next day after the Israel stock market had a wee sad and business leaders and politicians pushed back.

But what Netanyahu said cannot be unsaid, particularly in light of evidence that the Israeli economy has taken serious damage below the water line. And anyone with an operating brain cell knows Israel cannot become an autarky, or even an autarky as in terms of its own weapons supply. Larry Wilkerson, who both regularly reads Israel press and has many contact, has repeatedly said Israel has taken such serious economic and societal damage that he predicts it will no longer exist in ten years.

So what might have led him Netanyahu to admit serious weakness while packaging it in prototypical “Israel is the David who will prevail against odds”? Is Wilkerson’s that trajectory now starting to become painfully evident even at top level is Israel? Or might Netanyahu be trying to create the justification for even more radical action?

Perhaps Netanyahyu can no longer deny that Israel’s extermination of Palestinians and belligerence in the region, which is overextending its military, is putting Israel in a long-term untenable position. The fact that the next day, a UN commission of inquiry released a report finding that Israel has engaged in four of five genocidal activities as defined by relevant law puts even more pressure on the ethnosupremacist state. The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide places strong obligations on member states to act to stop genocide.¹ Nevertheless, this finding makes it harder for governments facing calls from citizens to Do Something about the genocide to shy from taking action against Israel. Expect a lot more like this:

🚨Jeremy Corbyn MP has written to Yvette Cooper asking for an immediate statement on the UN Commission of Inquiry's finding that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

"Does the government accept the findings of the UN report?", he asks. pic.twitter.com/y7yU6O2Aov

— Declassified UK (@declassifiedUK) September 17, 2025

And the report named potential corporate targets for action.

Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Palantir, IBM and HP are named in a groundbreaking UN report for their role in automating apartheid and accelerating genocide.

Tech companies and weapons manufacturers are the most complicit enablers of Israel’s economy. Escalate BDS pressure against… pic.twitter.com/C1Zg5yIvye

— BDS movement (@BDSmovement) September 12, 2025

What if states that are starting to sanction Israel like Belgium were to sanction them if they don’t cut ties to Israel? And others nations joined them? Goldman might seem to be immune to pressure…but what if a nation were to sanction Goldman and any domestic banks and brokers that traded with them? The threat of license suspension wonderfully focuses the mind.

GOLDMAN SACHS YOU CAN'T HIDE!

Goldman Sachs is the biggest holder of Israeli bonds and a key investor in the weapons companies making the bombs Israel drops on Gaza.

We must take our money out of this violent and extractive war economy.

BOYCOTT & DIVEST! pic.twitter.com/imX6Xg9Tob

— CODEPINK (@codepink) September 4, 2025

I believe Netanyahu made the Finance Ministry’s accountant general speech in Hebrew, since I cannot find it on the English language version of the English language version of the Prime Minister’s Office site.² But the Times of Israel went through it in detail in Netanyahu admits Israel economically isolated, says will need to become ‘super-Sparta’:

“Israel is in a sort of isolation,” Netanyahu acknowledged…

“We will increasingly need to adapt to an economy with autarkic characteristics,”…

Faced with a scenario of “Athens and Sparta,” Israel would be “Athens and super-Sparta,” Netanyahu said. “There’s no choice; in the coming years, at least, we will have to deal with these attempts to isolate us.”

Israel is facing two new threats since the start of the war, Netanyahu explained: demographic changes in Europe as a result of immigration from Muslim-majority countries and the influence of anti-Israel actors on digital platforms, aided by new technologies.

“I am a believer in the free market, but we may find ourselves in a situation where our arms industries are blocked. We will need to develop arms industries here — not only research and development, but also the ability to produce what we need,” he said.

Netanyahu fingered China and Qatar as the prime “anti-Israel actors on digital platforms”. Continuing with the Times of Israel account:

Netanyahu first addressed demographic changes in Europe, where “limitless migration” has resulted in Muslims becoming a “significant minority — very vocal, very, very belligerent.” These countries’ Muslim citizens are pressuring European governments to adopt anti-Israel policies, he claimed.

“Their focus isn’t Gaza, it’s opposing Zionism in general, and sometimes an Islamist agenda that challenges those states,” the premier added….

“This is creating limitations, and all sorts of sanctions, on Israel….It’s a process that’s been at work for the last 30 years, and especially in the last decade….Clear as day,” he said.

The situation could bring arms embargoes and — though these are only threats for now — “the beginnings of economic sanctions,” the prime minister warned…

“This puts us in a sort of isolation,” he said, adding that Israel can fight demonization and incitement if it invests “very large sums” into efforts to counter those narratives.

So per Netanyahu, the calls for sanctions on Israel and BDS campaigns are all the doing of Muslims, and not decent people generally. Back to the article:

The second challenge, according to Netanyahu, is the investment of Israel’s “rivals — both NGOs and states, like Qatar and China” — to “influence Western media with an anti-Israel agenda, using bots, artificial intelligence, and advertisements.”…

Israel can fight demonization and incitement if it invests “very large sums” into efforts to counter those narratives.

But for now, he said, Israel must quickly establish the capacity to produce everything it needs militarily without depending on foreign trade.

Netanyahu regularly says deranged things, but they hew to well-established tropes, like Israel is the blameless victim of Hamas savagery. This is an entirely new line. And it’s as ludicrous as his Zionist chest-thumping. Israel produce everything it needs militarily without trade,.as in without chips, unless it takes to the Russian practice of harvesting them from washing machines? Or will Israel rely on slingshots and nukes?

And as for information dominance, the fact that Israel has succeeded in enlisting governments in the West to suppress of pro-Palestine protests and even speech aggressively says otherwise. The Israel protection racket also likely explains the limited information available about the poor condition of Israel’s economy.

When we pointed to the initial sharp contraction after October 7, and the level of professionals leaving particularly in tech, readers argued that Israel could still be propped up with infusions of external cash. We said that would not work long term if enough skilled people departed and did not return. Experts estimated that Israel depended on a mere 300,000 professionals and technicians. And those would skew to the Ashkenazi who have been more and more politically marginalized as right wing extremists have taken the helm. What is left is not an economy of productive manufacturers and services but a welfare state.

That appears to be what has happened.

UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese is 100% Right

Israel’s economy was collapsing after Oct 7, but banks, charities & universities stepped in to fund and profit from the genocide pic.twitter.com/MGadsTaIhU

— Ryan Rozbiani (@RyanRozbiani) September 8, 2025

Similarly, Shir Hever describes Israel as having a zombified economy:

ISRAEL IS A ZOMBIE ECONOMY

Israeli scholar, Dr. Shir Hever says all economic indicators show Israel’s economy has collapsed & no sane person should give Israel any credit or expect repayment on Israel Bonds

So why is our Gov passing laws to force us to purchase Israel Bonds? https://t.co/stlJLqYZ4A pic.twitter.com/o9pRo8hIqV

— GenXGirl (@GenXGirl1994) August 14, 2025

From an interview at Electronic Initifada at around the same date as the video clip above, Hever unpacks his argument a bit more. Hever is prominent in the BDS movement, so one might argue he has a bias. And he initially argued that Israel was collapsing after the October 7 raid, But he admits to his error in not foreseeing how big infusions of foreign funds could prop Israel up.

A key section at 4:55:

Hever; And that’s why I call it the zombie stage of of the economy because of course the the economic crisis is terrible and everyone who is able to leave is trying to leave except for for people who are basically committed to sacrificing themselves and their families and their children and that’s also horrible. Um, and in that in this situation, it’s it’s not relevant to talk about whether the Israeli economy is going to collapse because it has already collapsed. It’s just acting with struts that are imposed by external forces that enable it to continue to exist.

Barrows-Friedman: Sher, let’s uh talk a little bit more of like the granular details of um of the the economic uh impact. Um Israel is facing a budget crisis. It had been projecting an already large deficit of about 5% of its GDP, its gross domestic product. But uh just uh in the last few days, credit rating agency Moody’s says that Israel’s budget shortfall is more likely to be about 8% of GDP, which works out to be about 43 billion of spending that it can’t cover just for 2025 alone. and Moody’s, which had uh previously downgraded Israel’s credit rating to the lowest level ever, maintained a negative outlook in its most recent analysis following um the Iran war….

Hever: what is precedented is the complicity of organizations like Moody’s or SNP these I mean what you’re describing as negative outlook is in fact sugarcoating the actual situation and and this is still um an assessment by these credit ratings as if they expect Israel to ever be able to pay its debts. Maybe they say the risk has increased that Israel will not fully be able to pay its debts. But this is not the reality. The reality is that these debts have no guarantee and no nothing to to uh cover them. Last time we had this conversation, it was shortly after the budget was passed. And I remind you that the budget was passed on March 17th, one day before Israel violated the ceasefire. The only way that Israel was able to pass the budget is by saying h that this is a ceasefire budget. Meaning that resources will be uh trans transformed from the military to very necessary, very urgent social needs, the collapsing education system, transportation system, health system that cannot wait any longer. Uh but as long as the military says we need more uh weapons, more bombs, more soldiers, no the reser cannot go back to work, then all of these things are are not possible and Israel passed the budget and then violated the ceasefire. So the budget was was a a sham from the beginning. Now, according to this budget, the Israeli Ministry of Defense was supposed to get a massive increase in spending, but um this massive increase has already been exceeded within the first month after Israel violated the ceasefire and that is before the war in Iran, the the war with Iran, right? So really the the budget has no meaning in and any other country which would be breaking its own budget in this way and spending without any consideration to what it means and getting deeper and deeper into debt at such an alarming rate. any other country that would be doing this sort of policy would be done shut down by the international community which has happened to Argentina in 2000 and to Greece in 2007 but it’s not happening to Israel because of this complicity.

Note that even though the US has guaranteed Israel bond issues up to set dollar limits, that program expired in 2023.

Right before the speech, top experts took a shot at Netanyahu. . From YNet:

Earlier Monday, eighty of Israel’s most senior economists warned that a full-scale invasion and military occupation of Gaza would cause unprecedented economic harm to the country, deepening an already severe crisis caused by the ongoing war.

In a letter obtained by Ynet, the economists said the government’s plan to capture Gaza City and displace about one million people in a months-long military operation would lead to an exodus of young professionals, long-term damage to Israel’s international standing and devastating effects on its economy and society.

Netayahu’s “autarky” remarks generated fierce responses both from critics of his policies and key members of the business community. Again from Times of Israel:

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid said in a statement: “Isolation is not fate. It’s a product of a wrongheaded and failed policy by Netanyahu and his government, who have turned Israel into a third-world country, and aren’t even trying to change the situation.”…

Manufacturers’ Association of Israel President Ron Tomer said that Netanyahu “said publicly what we’ve been feeling and warning against: The Israeli brand, of creativity, demand, and success, has been seriously harmed in the world.”

“Israeli industry will ensure that we are never lacking — not in security, not in food, and not in anything vital to the Israeli economy. That being said, an autarkic market will be a disaster for Israel’s economy and will influence every citizen’s quality of life,” he said.

And the fallout continues two days later. From Globes:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks yesterday, that, because of its diplomatic isolation, Israel would have to “adapt to an economy with characteristics of autarky” and become a “super Sparta” struck many with dismay. Senior economists, including some who have worked closely with Netanyahu, are wondering what to make of such an extraordinary statement.

“A statement like this in the twenty-first century amounts to saying that we’ll go back to the Stone Age,” Prof. Manuel Trajtenberg told “Globes.” “The Israeli economy is very simple,” he says, “We sell brains to the world, and we buy all the rest. Autarky means that you sell Jewish brains to one another, and produce all the rest.

“There is no way that the Israeli economy in its present format can exist if we go in the direction of reducing economic ties with the world. We’re talking about the essence of the Israeli economy,” Trajtenberg says. “The upshot will be not just a dramatic fall in the standard of living, but in our ability to maintain an army, security, and of course all our social services.”

From the Jerusalem Post: “The main indices on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange continued to fall this morning.”

And Forward:

In a speech yesterday, he shocked Israelis by warning that Israel may soon be forced to become a globally isolated “super-Sparta” with “autarkic features” — meaning little or no engagement with international trade. This vision is a disaster that would erase the qualitative edge that has enabled Israel to build a society that is not only a refuge but also a magnet — for immigrants, investors, trade, cultural exchange and tourism. A preview of the isolation it would bring was evident in today’s United Nations committee ruling that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

And Haaretz:

In his “Super Sparta” speech, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unwittingly admitted his resounding failure and then announced that he planned to continue marching Israel deep into the pit that he dug for it….

Behind the visions of Sparta lies a simple demand: to permit Netanyahu unrestricted, one-man rule, all in the name of the forever war. To establish these enormous arms factories, he said, every legal or bureaucratic obstacle must be removed from the prime minister’s path. This was the bottom line of his speech: Remove all restrictions from his path; end the bureaucracy; end the legal limitations: Netanyahu alone will decide, and no one will stop him.

Haaretz, which has had the misfortune to have to follow Netanyahu attentively, may be correct that this was not a misfired effort at a “blood, toil, tears, and sweat” speech but a justification for a power grab.

Another clue may be his call for “very large sums” to counter messaging by the likes of China and Qatar. This level of alarm may have been intended to spur the moneybags that have kept Israel on life support to dig even deeper.

A third possibility is that Netanyahu was trying to gin up the argument for Israel again attacking Iran and hopefully getting US support. Iran is an autarky. The necessity of creating Fortress Israel would justify the US coming to Israel’s aid to subdue Iran to keep Project Israel going. That line of reasoning, of Israel’s increasingly desperate condition, would also justify a nuclear attack.

Let us hope I am wrong.

____
¹ As most readers know, the means of effecting these punishments would be the International Criminal Court, and Israel, the US, and Russia among others have opted out of its jurisdiction. However, Article VIII below does open a path for to act against Israel, as opposed to individuals, such as the current case making its way through the International Court of Justice, which has jurisdiction over all UN members. However, given that a ruling is not imminent, the commission of inquiry finding and report is more likely to have near-term inpact, via emboldening more governments and businesses to take action individually:

Article IV
Persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals.
Article V
The Contracting Parties undertake to enact, in accordance with their respective Constitutions, the necessary legislation to give effect to the provisions of the present Convention, and, in particular, to provide effective penalties for persons guilty of genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III.
Article VI
Persons charged with genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III shall be tried by a competent tribunal of the State in the territory of which the act was committed, or by such international penal tribunal as may have jurisdiction with respect to those Contracting Parties which shall have accepted its jurisdiction.
Article VII
Genocide and the other acts enumerated in article III shall not be considered as political crimes for the purpose of extradition. The Contracting Parties pledge themselves in such cases to grant extradition in
accordance with their laws and treaties in force.
Article VIII
Any Contracting Party may call upon the competent organs of the United Nations to take such action under the Charter of the United Nations as they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III.
Article IX
Disputes between the Contracting Parties relating to the interpretation, application or fulfilment of the present Convention, including those relating to the responsibility of a State for genocide or for any of the other acts enumerated in article III, shall be submitted to the International Court of Justice at the request of any of the parties to the dispute.

² If any readers can find it and will be so kind as to send me a link to yves-at-nakedcapitalism-dot-com, I will run it through an online translator and post it as an embed at the end of this article. Please put “Netanyahu speech” as the subject line.