Is Israel in trouble – or at least under pressure?
JVL Introduction
Here is an assessment of the state of play for Israel at the moment in various arenas. Despite its superior military might, it has damaged, but not defeated, Hamas – and Hezbollah and the Houthis. The USA has experienced a number of defeats in recent years, Afghanistan being the most obvious and the US leadership has made it clear that it will not sanction the annexation of the West Bank (even though it is happening by default….) or send its own troops into Gaza to monitor the Ceasefire agreement. The article also touches on internal problems such as the number of people leaving Israel.
It is getting harder for criticism of Israel to be suppressed, although many countries, not least the UK are trying. The USA and, indeed, those western powers such as France, Canada and the UK in their recognition of Palestine, are desperately trying to save Israel (from itself). Meanwhile the movement in support of Palestinian rights continues to grow and show up week after week on the streets across the world. The writer notes also that “(t)he loss of Jewish support for Zionism is spectacular, especially in the United States, where between one-third and half of the world’s Jews live.”
Keeping up the pressure is crucial and we will continue to work for justice for the Palestinians and equality for all who live between the river and the sea.
LL
This article was originally published by Counterfire on Sat 25 Oct 2025. Read the original here.
Under pressure: Israel’s predicament
While there is no reason to believe a word Trump or Netanyahu say, the background to the current ceasefire is that Israel is in deep trouble
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An insightful commentary. However, IMO, one needs to take care conflating BB N and his gang of genocidal racist ultra nationalist war criminals with the basic concept of Zionism.
I feel, slightly, relieved to read this! Well balanced. Thank you.
The 7 October incursion into Israel from Gaza should be likened to the Tet Offensive in Vietnam. The attack failed but undermined the resolve of the US to the extent that committment to the war ended and civil resistance in the US hugely increased’
Excellent and helpful.
Bernie Graham warns us to “take care conflating [the Netanyahu government] with the basic concept of Zionism”. I agree that we must “take care” how we use these concepts and not conflate distinct things.
On the other hand, two points occur to me. (1) From the Palestinian point of view, “the basic concept of Zionism” was behind the 1948 Nakba and all the oppression they’ve suffered ever since. If they “conflate” the current fanatical regime with Zionism in general, I think it’s a forgiveable error. And (2): the horrific last two years have made many of us try to trace when and how it all went so wrong. This is not conflating, but attempting to spool back and identify the point where Israel veered away from its “basic concept” towards the “genocidal racist ultra nationalist war criminals”, as Bernie accurately describes them. Was it in the aftermath of 7 October 2023? The 2018 Basic Law that gives Jews and only Jews the right to self-determination and downgrades the Arabic language? The indifference of the Israeli state to settlers’ crimes against West Bank villagers and farmers? The murder of Yitzhak Rabin – a rare example of a political assassination that achieved its purpose? Baruch Goldstein’s massacre of Muslim worshippers in Hebron? The occupation of Palestinian lands in 1967? Golda Meir’s famous assertion that there is no Palestinian nation? The more we try to disentangle “basic” Zionism from its subsequent crimes, the more we find consistent threads of anti-Arab racism running through the Zionist project of a majority-Jewish “democracy”. Professor Avi Shlaim’s book ‘The Iron Wall’ explains this far better than I can. Without any “conflating”, he shows how and why many of us have grown out of our Zionism and are now rejecting both its frenzied attempts to dominate Jewish life and its “basic concept”.
I agree with your analysis.