Two years on from the October 7 Hamas terror attack, Israel is a pariah state
President Donald Trump, left, greets Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House last Monday. Picture: AP /Evan Vucci
Two years on, are the gloves finally coming off?
Tomorrow is the second anniversary of the October 7 Hamas terror attack in which 1,200 Israelis were murdered. In the two years since, Gaza has been virtually destroyed, and 66,000 Palestinians have been killed in a relentless Israeli military assault.
The 20-point peace plan announced by US president Trump last week may eventually bring an end to the war; the remaining 20 kidnapped Israeli hostages may be released in the coming days or weeks, but there is no going back to October 6, 2023, for either Israel or the Palestinians.
With the Netanyahu government remaining as bellicose as ever and its opposition to a Palestinian state deeply entrenched, the growing international isolation and near-pariah status of Israel are not going away anytime soon.
But an end to the war will not alter the diplomatic trajectory that Israel faces, as it stares down the barrel of imminent and meaningful economic sanctions.
The signs are ominous for the Israeli government.
Just last month, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, signalled her support for ending the practice of consensus-based decisions, saying it was time to “break free from the shackles of unanimity” on Israel.
With Von der Leyen's words, targeted sanctions, economic embargoes, academic boycotts, and expulsion from preferential trade agreements have potentially been given the green light.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, is clearly worried.
In a recent bizarre speech, the prime minister solemnly announced to the nation that Israel was facing international "isolation", and the country would need to become economically and militarily self-sufficient. “We're going to be Athens and super Sparta," Netanyahu declared.
The reaction was swift. The Israeli shekel fell 6.5% against the euro in the week or so since the super Sparta speech.
With Ursula von der Leyen's statement, the Irish Government’s Occupied Territories Bill, perhaps to its dismay, has now been given a new lease of life. The learned supranational judicial — some might argue, entirely political — arguments against the bill by mandarins in the upper echelons of the public service are now beginning to evaporate.
Many European nations will likely follow Ireland's lead on initiating targeted sanctions on Israel. What remains uncertain is their scope, severity, and how Israel will respond to them.
In late August, Norway, the owner of the world's largest national wealth fund, announced it would divest from five Israeli banks.
Targeted and small-scale sanctions, such as the Occupied Territories Bill, matter for two reasons.
First, in the absence of agreed-upon and sweeping European penalties, such sanctions are more likely to gain traction domestically.
Secondly, if such sanctions clearly distinguish between Israel proper and the occupied territories, they might help nudge middle Israel away from the irredentist path of the messianic far right and maybe encourage support for a two-state solution.
There are perhaps too many ‘ifs, “mights”, and “maybes” in that sentence. The omens are not encouraging.
The political reaction in Israel to the recognition of a Palestinian state two weeks ago was overwhelmingly hostile across the (Zionist) political spectrum.
Even the leader of the supposed left-wing Democrats — the most dovish Zionist party in Israel, currently on just 10% in opinion polls — voiced hostility. Its leader, Yair Golan, said recognising a Palestinian state now was “destructive” and “extremely damaging” to Israel.
Apparently, most Israelis agree with him. In a poll this summer, Pew Research found just 16% of Jewish Israelis think Israel and a Palestinian state can coexist peacefully.
Arguably, Ireland’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state, a full 18 months before the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Australia, and others did so, appears now to have been a precursor and not an outlier of global Western government political opinion.
So, what might be next for Ireland? There are already some clues. In June, Trinity College Dublin became the first university in the global west to "comprehensively cut ties with Israel”. Calls for wider cultural and sporting boycotts are increasing in Ireland and worldwide.
More recently, more than 400 international artists announced their participation in No Music For Genocide, a new cultural boycott initiative that removes their music from streaming platforms in Israel.
Last month, Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez called for Israel to be excluded, as South Africa once was, from international sporting events.
Israel's economy, of course, is more resilient today than South Africa’s was in 1992 — the year that country effectively abolished apartheid. According to the World Bank, Israel's GDP per capita, at $54,000, has now surpassed France and is about 35% higher than in Italy and 54% higher than in Spain.
In 1992, South Africa's GDP per capita was just 18% of the OECD average. Today, Israel’s GDP per capita, despite being battered by two years of war, is some 112% of the OECD average.
Israel has also, in recent years, pivoted economically away from Europe to Asia. The country is a high-tech global leader, and per capita, it is the world's largest exporter of armaments. It is perhaps no coincidence the Israeli stock market has soared some 102% percent since the Hamas terror attack and the start of the war on October 7, 2023.
Of course, with biting economic sanctions, all those numbers can shift more quickly than many Israelis might imagine. Europe still accounts for one-third of Israeli exports. In the absence of meaningful political progress on Palestinian self-determination on the ground, international calls for additional sanctions and boycotts are only likely to intensify.
More than half — 55.6% — said they were “not at all troubled”. Looking ahead, a general election in Israel is scheduled for next year — but even if, and it’s a big if, the unholy alliance of secular-right-wing, centre-left and Arab opposition parties win, and Netanyahu and his far-right religious allies are ousted from power, there is no going back to Israel's status on October 6.
And make no mistake, despite the intense and fierce opposition to Netanyahu's right-wing messianic government in Israel, there is no left-wing peacenik government waiting in the wings.
If polls are to be believed, the former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett is expected to return as Israel's prime minister. Bennett has long been an ardent opponent of a two-state solution.
But in a Facebook post published this summer, Bennett wrote: "The truth is clear. Israel's standing in the United States is collapsing." The country is increasingly viewed as a "pariah state".
Perhaps a small glimmer of hope can be gleaned from that stark admission.
Whatever happens in the days and weeks ahead, there is no going back to October 6 2023 for Israel.
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