It was a stark image and a bleak headline: “Israel Alone.”
The Economist’s cover story last week was eye-catching. The journal explained that the article and cover photograph were chosen to “illustrate how, even at a moment of military ascendancy, Israel’s long-term future is under threat.”
Part of the starkness, I realized, came from a missing question mark. Israel’s isolation was a statement of fact.
Explaining the background to the cover image and story, The Economist wrote: “If ceasefire talks fail, Israel could be locked in the bleakest trajectory of its 75-year existence, featuring endless occupation, hard-right politics, and isolation. Today many Israelis are in denial about this, but a political reckoning will come eventually. It will determine not only the fate of Palestinians but also whether Israel thrives in the next 75 years.”
Calling Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza “a justified war of self-defense” and acknowledging that the terrorists who invaded the southern communities on October 7 “had committed atrocities that threaten the idea of Israel as a land where Jews are safe,” The Economist states that “in important ways, [Israel’s] mission has failed.” There are clearly failings on the diplomatic front and the battle fought in social and conventional media.
The story behind the choice of the cover picture says a lot. The magazine noted it had mulled several possibilities: “One option included an image of an Israeli soldier against the backdrop of destroyed buildings in Gaza. That could point to how Israel’s reluctance to help provide or distribute aid has led to an avoidable humanitarian catastrophe...
“The hard-right government of Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected plans for post-war Gaza to be run by either the Palestinian Authority (PA) or an international force. The likeliest outcome is a military reoccupation. Israel’s trajectory will intensify its ethno-nationalist politics and pose legal threats to the economy. As estrangement from the West deepens, so deterrence may weaken. Firms could be blacklisted. Bosses could move hi-tech businesses abroad or, if they are reservists, be arrested there.”
A second photo option “also included devastated buildings in the background, but this time the image showed a pair of IDF troops chatting in the foreground. It captured an important point. The bleak outlook for Israel is not always acknowledged in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. Many Israelis believe the unique threats to their country justify its ruthlessness and that the war has helped restore deterrence.
“Many see no partner for peace – the PA is rotten and polls say 93% of Palestinians deny Hamas’s atrocities even took place. Occupation is the least bad option, they conclude. Israelis would prefer to be popular abroad, but condemnation and antisemitism are a small price to pay for security.”
The option The Economist went with “was an eloquent riposte to that line of thinking. An Israeli flag supported by a slender branch is buffeted by the wind and set against the ruins of Gaza. Israel faces a long-term threat from Iran and its proxies, including Hezbollah. Deterring this requires a military partnership with America that needs bipartisan backing, and ideally Gulf Arab support, too. The economy depends on tech exports and experts with access to global markets. And, rather than making Israelis safe, permanent occupation poisons politics by emboldening the hard Right and breeding Palestinian radicalism. Israelis are right that they have no partner for peace today, but they are best placed to break the cycle.
“A struggle for Israel’s future awaits. The battle in Gaza is just the start.”
The cover story suggests the US should unilaterally dispense more humanitarian aid and refuse to supply Israel with weapons for a campaign in Rafah. It also calls for more sanctions “against settlers and right-wing fanatics” – lumping the half a million Jews who live over the Green Line together with a minority of right-wing extremists (as if no other country has people living in disputed areas or a radical fringe). It then raises the “two-state peace negotiation possibility.”
“The good news is that there are grounds for hope,” concludes The Economist. “Polls suggest that centrists in Israel command perhaps 50-60% of votes, institutions like the Supreme Court are still strong, and better leaders exist.”
The Economist falls into a common trap – the assumption that if only Netanyahu were to be removed as prime minister, there would be peace in the Middle East. But Netanyahu is not the main problem. Whichever government Israelis democratically elect won’t change the desire of Hamas or Hezbollah – and their Iranian sponsor – to entirely eradicate the Jewish state “From the river to the sea.”
It’s worth considering why Israelis elect right-wing and religious parties. The fact is that today’s voters have lived through endless rounds of terrorism and wars. They have all felt the effects of the failed Oslo Accords of the 1990s, which blew up in a wave of Hamas suicide bombings; the intifadas that followed rounds of peace proposals, each round rejected by the Palestinians; and, above all, the colossal failure of the complete Israeli disengagement from Gaza in 2005.
The world’s attention and sympathy are focused on the Gazans – although many civilians and members of UNRWA and other international bodies have been complicit in the atrocities and holding of hostages.
The plight of Israel’s displaced doesn’t make for headline material. Nor do reports of the ongoing rocket attacks from Lebanon on the North and from Gaza on the South.
The calls for coercion of Israel underscore the inherent injustice of the current situation. The world finds it easier to put pressure on Israel – a sovereign, democratic state – than on Hamas, an Islamist terrorist organization. Israel is expected to give in – at its own detriment – while Gaza’s intransigent terrorist regime is given a free pass. Hence the constant calls for ever greater quantities of “humanitarian aid,” fueling the Hamas regime.
During the negotiations taking place in Qatar for the release of the remaining 134 hostages, Hamas raises its demands as if it were a legitimate partner, not a monstrous ISIS-like movement that brutally murdered some 1,200 people and abducted more than 250.
Imagine what would happen were Qatar to decide that it would not allow Hamas leaders to live in luxurious homes and hotels in Doha while they hold the hostages to ransom – while they hold the whole Gaza Strip hostage. The US could threaten to revoke Qatar’s status as a “major non-NATO ally” if it continues to provide the Hamas leadership with a refuge. Instead, the West expects Israel to fight with one arm tied behind its back.
The US this week declined to use its right of veto for the UN Security Council (non-binding) resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, at least for the remainder of Ramadan, but not conditioning this on the immediate release of the hostages. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, visiting Tehran, gloated over Israel’s “unprecedented political isolation.” There is nothing splendid about it.
The Economist headline reminded me of the biblical quote: “Lo, it is a people that dwells alone, not reckoned among the nations” (Numbers 23:9). Seeking comfort, I abandoned The Economist for commentary by the late and much-missed Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks. He pointed out that the phrase came in the context of the story of Balaam cursing the people of Israel and praising them instead. Recalling the period leading up to the infamous “Zionism is racism” Durban Conference in 2001, Rabbi Sacks wrote:
“As we prepare ourselves for the next battle in the long fight for freedom, it is vitally important not to believe in advance that we are destined to be alone, to find ourselves without friends and allies, confronting a world that neither understands us nor is willing to grant us a place to live our faith and shape our future in loyalty to our past.
“To be different is not necessarily to be alone. Indeed, it is only by being what we uniquely are that we contribute to humankind what we alone can give. Singular, distinctive, countercultural – yes: These are part of the Jewish condition. But alone? No. That is not a blessing but a curse.”
Sacks also wrote: “When, therefore, Jews fight for the right to be, whether as a nation in its historic home or as a religious group in other societies, they fight not for themselves alone but for human freedom as a whole.”
Distancing Israel brings terror regimes closer to the rest of the world. Israel alone cannot fight the battle against global jihad.