[News] Self-engineered decay: Why Israel’s political collapse cannot be separated from its war crimes

[Anti-Imperialist News]

 Comments <https://english.palinfo.com/opinion_articles/>
Self-engineered decay: Why Israel’s political collapse cannot be separated
from its war crimes
Ramzy Baroud <https://english.palinfo.com/authors/ramzy-baroud>

Thursday 28-May-2026

For those unfamiliar with the intricate machinery of Israeli politics, the
unanimous 110-0 vote to dissolve the Knesset on May 20 appears to be an
earth-shattering event. On the surface, it looks as if the days of Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition of far-right extremists are
numbered. The reality, however, is far more complex.

Israel’s current political implosion is fundamentally tied to its failure
to escape the ghosts of October 7. When the country’s military defenses
collapsed on that day, Israel was transformed from a state with a
formidable reputation as an invincible regional superpower into one trapped
with a struggling army, structurally incapable of decisively winning a
single war.

Since the launch of the devastating genocide in Gaza, neither the Israeli
government nor the military establishment has been able to answer two
fundamental questions:

One, how did the world’s self-proclaimed “invincible army” collapse in a
matter of hours, leaving the entire Southern Command—whose sole job was to
keep Gazans besieged—in total shambles?

Two, why has that same heavily funded military machine failed to achieve a
decisive victory despite the near-total destruction of the Strip and the
unprecedented slaughter and wounding of much of its population?

Complicating the matter is Benjamin Netanyahu’s pathological refusal to
honestly investigate either the October 7 intelligence failure or the
subsequent conduct of the Gaza war. Instead, he focused entirely on
domestic damage control and image management, aggressively marginalizing or
firing intelligence official, or high-ranking bureaucrats who challenged
his narrative. Rather than pursuing a viable exit strategy, Netanyahu
treated the defense apparatus as a public relations shield.

Consequently, opposition voices—initially led by Yair Lapid and his Yesh
Atid party—began demanding Netanyahu’s resignation and snap elections. What
began as predictable political fallout quickly evolved into a sweeping
popular movement.

Public confidence in the government continues to plummet. Recent opinion
polls consistently show that a vast majority of Israelis believe Netanyahu
acts out of personal political survival rather than national interest. Data
suggests that if elections were held today, his right-wing bloc would
suffer a catastrophic defeat at the hands of a newly consolidated
opposition—namely Beyachad (‘Together’), the newly formed unified list
established by Naftali Bennett and Lapid.

Netanyahu, whose legacy as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister is now
defined by strategic failure, subsists in a profound personal and political
crisis. His deliberate escalations of regional conflict served no distinct
military purpose; instead, they merely highlighted his desperation, turning
his rhetorical pledges of “total victory” into a hollow attempt to prevent
his coalition from fracturing.

Meanwhile, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister
Bezalel Smotrich exploited Netanyahu’s vulnerability to advance their own
extremist agendas. Bent on rapid colonial expansion, they accelerated West
Bank annexation, pushed draconian laws to execute Palestinian prisoners,
and tightened the siege on occupied East Jerusalem.

Under normal circumstances, the sheer scale of the domestic, economic, and
diplomatic harm engineered by this coalition should have removed it from
power. Yet Netanyahu survived by exploiting deep social fractures and
relying on unconditional support from Washington.

This survival shield was further fortified by the initial impotence of a
fragmented political opposition and a perpetual wartime atmosphere that
Netanyahu cultivated to freeze dissent. Not even his corruption trials
derailed his career; he adapted state institutions into instruments of
personal survival.

Yet the ultimate irony of Israeli politics is that pressure came not from
mounting casualties or international isolation, but from compulsory
military conscription of the ultra-Orthodox, or Haredim.

For decades, secular Israelis complained about the sweeping draft
exemptions granted to yeshiva students, but the political elite routinely
shrugged it off as a secondary culture war that could be managed via
backroom political dealings.

Israel’s overextended, multi-front war of attrition completely smashed that
equilibrium. The issue was violently pushed back to the surface because the
military quite literally ran out of bodies. The true gravity of this
manpower crisis was exposed when the army Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal
Zamir, explicitly broke ranks during a closed-door security cabinet meeting
to warn that “the IDF is going to collapse in on itself.”

Zamir reportedly raised “ten red flags” before the political leadership,
stating bluntly that after months of intensive combat across Gaza, the
northern border, and regional theaters, the military was facing an
immediate, unsustainable deficit of over 12,000 combat soldiers.

For over two years, Netanyahu postponed a legal verdict on the Haredi
draft. But mounting military setbacks, particularly on the Lebanese front,
made further delays impossible.

The opposition seeks elections while Netanyahu engages in legislative
theater, using loyalists and parliamentary procedures to slow the process.

Yet this political drama is secondary to the deeper crisis. No coalition
maneuvering can salvage a state facing structural decline. Nothing will
heal Israel’s fractures until it confronts the root cause of its crisis:
endless, unwinnable military campaigns that have devastated Gaza and the
wider region.

The crisis engulfing Israel is self-inflicted—and there can be no lasting
peace until the state’s deep-seated criminality and ongoing genocide and
wars against Palestinians and the wider Arab world come to an end.

*-Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of the Palestine Chronicle.
He is the author of five books. His latest is ‘These Chains Will Be Broken:
Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons’. Baroud is
a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global
Affairs (CIGA) and also at the Afro-Middle East Center (AMEC).*
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