70 Years in War and Conflict, What Future for Israel?
Prof. As’ad Abdul Rahman
The Zionist state began in 2018 to act with exaggerated pride as if about to achieve the “final victory” in the century-old confrontation. This arrogance would not have been possible without the Trump administration which competes as rightist with the rightist government of Benjamin Netanyahu. The latter exploited all the great gifts offered by Washington, which made Israeli insolence the most prominent in most of the issues and dealings, not only with the Palestinians, or the Arabs, but with some respectful heavy weight countries as well.
According to the israeli Peace Now movement, there has been a marked rise in the colonialist movement in the occupied Palestinian territories since Trump took office. Not only that, a meeting was held in Tel Aviv, under the auspices of the government, to establish a new Israeli organization called the “Coalition for the Golan Heights”, aimed at advancing international recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Syrian Golan Heights. “Right now, it is more appropriate to work with President Trump’s administration, Israel’s friend, to cancel the possibility of a demand to us to withdraw from the Golan Heights,” said the initiator of the meeting, Tzvi Hauser, the Israeli government secretary between 2009 and 2013. He added “with the civil war in Syria close to resolution, the superpowers will seek compromises, and there is fear that Israel will be asked to contribute to this goal by withdrawing from the Golan Heights.”
On the other hand, and together with the increased efforts to delegitimize Israel mainly through the calls of the international movement (BDS) to boycott Israel, some Israeli officials warned that the year 2018 would see the start of an investigation by the Hague International Criminal Court into complaints filed years ago about the war on the Gaza Strip and the continued construction of Jewish colonies. Moreover, the Israeli National Security Council meeting with the members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, have warned that the right-wing Zionist practices are no longer hidden. Israel persists with its crimes, confident of its absurd and astounding impunity, thanks to President Trump’s administration.
Along different level, leftist writer Kobi Niv wrote saying “seventy years of the Israeli state in the relationship between the Ashkenazi and the Sephardim, while we, Jews, are all brothers, in blood and arms, what hope can we have one day for a prospective future to reach a real dialogue, not only to talk about peace and equality, with our brothers and the sons of our country, the Palestinians? Without accepting them, we will live here forever on the edge of the sword until we become victims and devastation befalls us.” Daring writer Gideon Levy said:”Maybe the Israeli insolence has not reached an end. Maybe the good comes from evil and Israel will realize that it cannot control and cannot even live forever only on the edge of the sword, nor on its advanced planes. The doctrine, which says that everything can be solved by force, must be resolved through force, above all by force, always by force and only by force, is broken.” He sarcastically concluded: “insolence pays off!”
What is more striking is the fact that the Zionist state (which today enjoys a broad margin of movement not available to any other country in the world and consequently commits crimes without consideration or punishment or even a look at the unknown future) has roused fears of former heads of the intelligence agency (Mossad) about the future of the Zionist state, as well as extreme fear of the direction towards which Israel is heading at the beginning of the eighth decade of its existence. On the eve of the 70th “Independence Day (al-Nakba)”, the daily Yedioth Ahronoth published excerpts of a joint interview with six former Mossad chiefs, Zvi Zamir, Danny Yatom, Nahom Admoni, Shabtai Shavit, Aviram Halevi and Tamir Pardo. They spoke about the political stagnation, fear of social divisions and disputes, their concern for the future of the state and concern about the Israeli leadership. They agreed that “Israel is critically ill.” In this respect, Pardot was quoted as saying: “It’s the problem of the core values, of divisions. We need a leadership able to navigate between crises and the right places, unfortunately, that does not exist today.” Zamir was most critical saying “I’m not sure that for the Prime Minister (Benjamin Netanyahu) and the senior officials surrounding him that public interests prevail over their personal interests of more money and more power.” He warned: “We are in a critical medical state. It could be that the country had symptoms when Netanyahu took over, but he has brought it to the grave condition of a malignant disease.” Halevy criticized Netanyahu, saying his “need for headlines and obsession with his public image versus running the country and managing its security matters is problematic.” Admoni said his main concern with Israel today was the “growing rift between Israelis”. He asserted that “the divide between religious and secular populations was worse than it has ever been.” “It just keeps growing” he said. “As intelligence people”, Shavit concluded, “our most important skill is being able to anticipate the future. So I ask myself what kind of country will my grandchildren inherit, and I cannot give an answer to that!!!”
