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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/eli-gerzon/livestream-zombie-stage-israel">electronicintifada.net</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Livestream: The "zombie stage" of Israel</h1>
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<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-author"><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/eli-gerzon">Eli Gerzon</a></span>
<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-blog"><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blog/electronic-intifada-podcast">The Electronic Intifada Podcast</a></span>
<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-publication-date"><span class="gmail-date-display-single">14 July 2025</span></span> </p>
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\u201cIt\u2019s not relevant to talk about whether the Israeli economy is going to
collapse because it has already collapsed,\u201d said Shir Hever on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1QtqzR3dqE">The Electronic Intifada Livestream</a> for 10 July.
<p>\u201cIt\u2019s just acting with struts that are imposed by external forces that enable it to continue to exist,\u201d he added.</p>
<p>Hever, author of <em>The Political Economy of Israel\u2019s Occupation</em>, says he faced criticism for prematurely saying the Israel economy was collapsing <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly7qO9fGYZA">a year ago</a> on The Electronic Intifada Livestream.</p>
<p>He admits he didn\u2019t expect the Israeli economy or its genocide to
last this long: \u201cBecause I didn\u2019t anticipate the level of complicity
from the West.\u201d</p>
<p>Israel\u2019s \u201ccomplete lack of control over [its] own destiny\u201d and its
dependence on external support are two reasons why Hever says we are in
\u201cthe zombie stage of the Israeli economy and society.\u201d</p>
<p>Also, Israel\u2019s budget was passed on 17 March with plans to transition
funds away from war to urgent social and economic needs. But the next
day Israel broke the ceasefire and so \u201cThe budget was a sham from the
beginning,\u201d said Hever.</p>
<p>We also covered Israel\u2019s ongoing murders of Palestinians at the Gaza
Humanitarian Foundation\u2019s so-called aid sites \u2013 nearly 800 have been
killed and over 5,000 injured in the past six weeks.</p>
<p>Israel is also trying to revive its discredited 7 October mass rapes
narrative, this time with British funding, as executive director Ali
Abunimah and associate editor Asa Winstanley <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8TcdwUb_z0">reported</a>.</p>
<p>And after heavy losses in June, the Israeli military continued to
lose soldiers amid stepped up resistance operations in Gaza,
contributing editor Jon Elmer <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ipJjZzBHM">revealed in his report</a>.</p>
<p>You can watch the whole program in the video at the top of this article.</p>
<h2>Concentration camps for Gaza</h2>
<p>Israel\u2019s plans to force Palestinians into confined areas in the south
of Gaza have drawn widespread condemnation, with Ehud Olmert, a former
Israeli prime minister, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-said-to-warn-against-gaza-humanitarian-city-ex-pm-brands-it-concentration-camp/">likening</a> it to Nazi concentration camps.</p>
<p>An official described the planned camp as \u201clarge tent city in Rafah where they will have hospitals and plenty of food\u201d <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-07-08/ty-article/.premium/israeli-official-netanyahu-supports-plan-to-concentrate-gazans-into-humanitarian-city/00000197-eb03-d0a0-a1df-efffa1bb0000">according</a> to <em>Haaretz</em>.</p>
<p>The Boston Consulting Group \u201chelped establish\u201d the Gaza Humanitarian
Foundation. The US firm \u201cmodeled the costs of \u2018relocating\u2019 Palestinians
from Gaza and entered into a multimillion-dollar contract to help launch
an aid scheme for the shattered enclave,\u201d according to a <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/c0e661cc-55db-4e2a-b17b-a656e0cf6c14">report</a> by <em>The Financial Times</em>.</p>
<p>Save the Children <a href="https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news/2025/07/08/save-children-suspends-work-bcg-over-utterly-unacceptable-gaza-role">called</a> the work that Boston Consulting Group has done with the GHF \u201cutterly unacceptable.\u201d</p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0uoKFNW3qw">Watch</a> or <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/israel-accelerates-gaza-attacks-amid-plans-concentration-camps-rafah">read</a> associate editor Nora Barrows-Friedman\u2019s Livestream news brief.
</p>
<h2>\u201cRegime change\u201d in Israel?</h2>
<p>\u201cWe should not let ourselves be distracted,\u201d by Israel\u2019s war with
Iran, Hever said. He emphasized that what really matters to Israel and
Zionism is Palestine. \u201cBecause it\u2019s a settler colony in the process of
being decolonized,\u201d he said.</p>
<p>According to Hever the timing of Netanyahu\u2019s attack on Iran was driven by domestic political considerations.</p>
<p>In April, newly appointed Israeli army chief Eyal Zamir <a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-850080">reportedly told</a>
the cabinet that they should abandon their \u201cfantasies\u201d about what they
want to achieve in Gaza, because the military does not have enough
soldiers to control the territory.</p>
<p>This increased pressure in Israel, including from soldiers, for the
Ultra-Orthodox community, who are exempt from compulsory service, to be
drafted into the army.</p>
<p>Ultra-Orthodox ministers called a no-confidence vote over the issue, threatening to bring down Netanyahu\u2019s coalition government.</p>
<p>Hever says Netanyahu told them he was going to attack Iran and the
Ultra-Orthodox would be called traitors and hunted in the streets if
they voted against him.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/11/magazine/benjamin-netanyahu-gaza-war.html">According</a> to <em>The New York Times</em>,
Netanyahu leaked information about the top secret attack on Iran to
Moshe Gafni, one of the Ultra-Orthodox party leaders, in order to
dissuade him from proceeding with the no-confidence vote.</p>
<p>In the end, Netanyahu <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israels-coalition-survives-vote-dissolve-parliament-over-army-draft-tensions">survived that vote</a> on 12 June. Early in the morning of 13 June, Netanyahu started bombing Iran.</p>
<p>After the 12-day war, \u201cYou saw the biggest critics of Netanyahu
writing articles that said: he\u2019s our amazing strategic leader and he has
saved us all,\u201d according to Hever.</p>
<p>\u201cAnd I think we\u2019ve now entered a different stage in the Israeli
system of government. Now the supreme leader of Israel rules like never
before.\u201d</p>
<p>In response to the question as to whether Netanyahu attacked Iran to do regime change, Hever said: \u201cYes, but not in Iran.\u201d</p>
<h2>BDS wins</h2>
<p>Until recently Hever was coordinator of the military embargo campaign
for the Palestinian Boycott National Committee (BNC). He shared some
good news.</p>
<p>In June, Irish publication <em>The Ditch</em>, <a href="https://www.ontheditch.com/spanish-company-sent/">revealed</a> that Spanish firm Sidenor had been selling steel to Elbit, Israel\u2019s largest weapons manufacturer.</p>
<p>Less than a month later, <a href="https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/spain-sidenor-steel-shipment-to-israel-cancelled-amid-ongoing-war-on-gaza-following-protests-from-unions-palestinian-solidarity-movements/">Sidenor announced</a> it was suspending steel sales to Israel through Barcelona port.</p>
<p>Also on 10 June, a report <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/report-france-has-been-supplying-weapons-consistently-israel-beginning">revealed</a>
that France has been shipping weapons to Israel through Charles de
Gaulle airport in Paris, including parts for US-made F-35 warplanes.</p>
<p>Some of the military equipment was transported aboard an Air France flight.</p>
<p>The French union SUD Arien Solidaires <a href="https://www.sudaerien.fr/articles/2025-07-07-non-au-transport-de-materiel-militaire-a-destination-disrael">announced</a> its members\u2019 refusal to handle military material destined for Israel.</p>
<p>In contrast with a few years ago, \u201cwe\u2019re now at a stage where we
don\u2019t need to start from the beginning and explain why it\u2019s illegal to
trade weapons with Israel,\u201d according to Hever. \u201cEveryone knows it by
now. it\u2019s just a question of exposing it.\u201d</p>
<h2>Israel tries to revive mass rapes hoax</h2>
<p>Israel is trying to revive its <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/mass-rape-accusation">discredited 7 October mass rapes hoax</a>.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.radiosefarad.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/The-Dinah-Project-full-report-A4-pages_web.pdf">new report</a>
by the Dinah Project, a British-government funded Israeli organization,
claims to be \u201cthe most comprehensive assessment to date of the sexual
violence that occurred during and after the attack.\u201d</p>
<p>But after reading it Abunimah and Winstanley found nothing to
substantiate the central claim of the report: that Hamas organized,
ordered and implemented a mass rape campaign on and after 7 October.</p>
<p>\u201cIt includes no firsthand testimony of any rape,\u201d <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8TcdwUb_z0">Abunimah said</a>.</p>
<p>Rather, it is a rehash of uncorroborated or already debunked accounts.</p>
<p>The few new elements include very little detail and no evidence. The
report relies on supposed witnesses, including members of the \u201cfirst
responder\u201d group <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/zaka">ZAKA</a>, who are proven liars.</p>
<p>In contrast to this total lack of evidence, there are reports from UN
agencies and independent human rights organizations containing
extensive evidence of rape and other sexual violence by Israelis against
Palestinians in torture camps, including first-hand accounts.</p>
<p>\u201cAnd that is given absolutely no airtime,\u201d noted Barrows-Friedman.</p>
<p>The Israeli report suggests lowering legal standards in order to make up for the lack of evidence, according to Winstanley.</p>
<p>That includes: transitioning \u201cfrom a victim-centered evidentiary
model to a broader approach that accounts for the systematic silencing
of victims.\u201d</p>
<p>Winstanley called this \u201cjargon\u201d aimed at obscuring the fact that, to
date, Israel has still not identified a single victim, living or dead,
of a 7 October 2023 rape.</p>
<p>The report also suggests that individual Palestinians should \u201cbear
responsibility for the full range of atrocities committed as part of
that assault even if they did not personally commit each specific act\u201d
in other words it attempts to legitimize the type of collective
punishment and guilt Israel already uses against Palestinians.</p>
<p>The Dinah Project is named after a Bible story where Jacob\u2019s sons
massacre all the men and boys in Shechem \u2013 modern-day Nablus \u2013 and take
all the women and girls into slavery in retaliation for the rape of
Jacob\u2019s daughter. Even secular Israelis \u201cknowingly chose to name their
project after a genocidal Bible story,\u201d said Winstanley.</p>
<p>\u201cIsrael\u2019s feminists are treating the mass rape hoax as a warrant for genocide,\u201d Winstanley concluded.
</p>
<h2>Resistance surge</h2>
<p>\u201cIsrael\u2019s plans are often and continually thwarted by the resistance,\u201d said contributing editor Jon Elmer <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ipJjZzBHM">speaking on the Livestream</a> about Israel\u2019s plan to force Palestinians south into Rafah.</p>
<p>June was one of the deadliest months for Israel in Gaza and July has
continued that trend according to Elmer. He counted 30 operations
against Israeli vehicles in Khan Younis in one week from 3 July to 10
July alone.</p>
<p>One complex deadly operation exposed to the Israeli public the
Israeli army\u2019s lie that it controls that area of Gaza. \u201cThey clearly do
not,\u201d Elmer said.</p>
<p>One of the resistance\u2019s deadliest attacks also happened last week in
the northern town of Beit Hanoun: at least five Israeli soldiers were
killed and 14 wounded.</p>
<p>To comply with YouTube\u2019s standards, The Electronic Intifada has to
edit resistance videos shown during the Livestream. You can watch the
uncensored videos on <a href="https://x.com/jonelmer">Elmer\u2019s X account</a>.</p>
<p>You can watch the program on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCWzluxvoRI">YouTube</a>, <a href="https://rumble.com/v6vyir0-breaking-news-and-analysis-on-day-643-of-the-gaza-genocide-the-electronic-i.html?e9s=src_v1_cbl%2Csrc_v1_ucp_f">Rumble</a> or <a href="https://x.com/intifada/status/1943339496591991022">Twitter/X</a>, or you can listen to it on your preferred podcast platform.</p>
<p><em>Tamara Nassar produced and directed the program. Michael F. Brown
contributed pre-production assistance and this writer contributed
post-production assistance.</em></p>
<p><em>Past episodes of The Electronic Intifada Livestream can be viewed on our <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@TheElectronicIntifada/streams">YouTube channel</a>.</em></p><p><em>Ali Abunimah contributed reporting for this article.</em></p></div></div></div></div></div></div>