Commentary
To save Israel, we must face reality
Whether and how this fascistization might be reversed is the question of the moment. We cannot remain mere spectators in the face of this reality. Effective external pressure is necessary.
Israeli society is deeply sick. If only it were enough to sanction Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has become indispensable to the longest-serving prime minister in the history of a country steeped in violence – a country from which more and more of those who can do so are emigrating, and that even the nationalist right-wingers who once admired its brutality are beginning to turn away from.
That did not have to happen, but it is happening.
As painful as it is to admit, Israel’s fascist transfiguration is a process that can be seen more from the bottom up than from the top down at the highest level of its institutions. You can see it in the widespread mockery of the Aravim (few people in Israel call Palestinians by their actual name); in the arrogance of the settlers that is now corrupting the conduct of young soldiers; in the unpunished display of cruelty, experienced as a manifestation of power; in the misogynistic contempt for a submissive, “feminine” Europe; and in the delight taken in offending other people’s religions.
Are such behaviors seen in only a minority of Israelis? True. Will democratic elections almost certainly take place in September, potentially sending Benjamin Netanyahu home? True. Have the legislative attempts to undermine the Supreme Court’s oversight functions failed? True.
But the recklessness with which the government has engineered a sequence of endless wars – in an attempt to satiate the need for security among Israelis anguished by the existential threat of October 7 – foreshadows exactly what fascist regimes have always done when they become isolated and distrusted: they turn their weapons against the internal enemy. A civil war sparked by the settlers and Ben-Gvir’s militias would not be a remote possibility if a new Israeli leadership – forced by the US and the EU – were to decree territorial concessions in favor of a nascent Palestinian state.
Whether and how this fascistization might be reversed is therefore the question of the moment. We cannot remain mere spectators in the face of this reality. Effective external pressure is necessary – a halt to military supplies and trade agreements – from allied governments whose benevolence has thus far led Israel to conceive a project of regional hegemony that is simultaneously criminal and unachievable.
But it is within the Jewish world that the decisive battle is being fought over the future of a state that – due to persisting in supremacist expansionism and the persecution of the Palestinians – has no other choice but to definitively transform itself into an authoritarian regime.
During a recent visit, I was struck by just how widespread the instinct to deny the crimes perpetrated by the Israeli armed forces is, even among Netanyahu’s opponents (who make up the majority) and among the enlightened seekers of peace with the Palestinians (who are now a minority). The act of becoming aware of just how far Israel has fallen means watching the collapse of the image you had formed of the place dearest to you – often the safe harbor your family reached after immense suffering. For many, leaving is impossible, and for those who can, it still equates to a failure.
However exhausting it may be, overcoming the instinct to deny reality is essential to strengthening one's immune defenses in the face of civilizational decay. The problem of fascism and fanaticism in Israel is not a new one. What is new, if anything, is the danger of ending up without any antibodies.
As early as 1934, having just fled Nazi Germany for Tel Aviv, the psychoanalyst Erich Neumann wrote to Carl Gustav Jung: "Everything is pushing toward fascism, regardless of the starting point. The Jews are merging into a horrible society." Yet Neumann himself later provided an invaluable cultural contribution to the building of an open society. On June 7, 1967, when the first Israeli unit broke through into the Old City of Jerusalem, Shlomo Goren, the chief rabbi of the IDF, floated the idea of demolishing the mosques built on the esplanade where the ancient Temple once stood: "So that we may rid ourselves of the problem once and for all," he explained. But he was threatened with immediate arrest if he dared to publicize that mad proposal.
That baseline of secularism risks being lost in an Israel whose leaders idolize the sanctity of the conquered land.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/per-salvare-israele-va-accettata-la-realta on 2026-05-22