Unity against chaos. Israel deserves an ‘Italian-style’ security solution

Since the animosity towards Netanyahu has taken on psychotic dimensions, and Israel’s very identity – as well as its indecipherable government crisis – revolves around it, at one of the most difficult and intractable moments in its political, military and moral history, the only acceptable solution is a national coalition government based on political compromise, capable of curing this psychosis. It is remarkable that, despite the measured urging of President Herzog as a third-party authority, no impetus is emerging from civil society and the Diaspora in favour of this reasonableness and this sense of reality. They know how to speak eloquently of peace, humanity, understanding, dialogue, the rejection of fanaticism, a strategic agreement for coexistence, the balance of powers, and democracy for all, but those very same writers, religious figures, secularists, old establishment figures, champions of security and neutral powers in a country that has been under siege for decades – those very same people who speak incessantly of values and principles – well, when it comes to putting those values into practice in politics, they are unable to establish even the minimum conditions for internal pacification, which is a prerequisite for finding serious solutions to long-standing problems of millennia-old significance and gravity.

A state of mental confusion and illogicality is driving the anti-change bloc centred on Gadi Eisenkot, which came second in the elections behind Netanyahu’s governing bloc, and whose strength lies solely in an ambiguous political relationship with elected representatives of the Arab-Palestinian minority or, at most, with those among the Haredim willing to betray the coalition they belong to—which had emerged in the lead—in order to secure advantages and privileges, replacing political enmity and the spirit of opposition with symbolic and personal hatred. Netanyahu, and even more so his non-pragmatic allies – or at least those who tend to remain loyal to his political-electoral bloc – respond with the same tactics. Yet everyone knows that Netanyahu did not kill Rabin in 1995, however appalling the Likud’s propagandistic bluster employed against him in the political struggle may have been, and however threatening the tone of a Ben-Gvir—who is, after all, part of Netanyahu’s bloc—may be: in reality, the strategy of direct dialogue with the Palestinian political authorities to reach a compromise agreement – peace in exchange for land – had already failed when Rabin was killed by a fanatic; and ultimately, following Ariel Sharon’s dramatic rise to power in the West Bank and Gaza, it was Netanyahu himself who took over the political reins in the name of strategic change.

Setting aside the discourse on the ‘new Sparta’, it is evident that the new course entailed alliances with the Sunni petro-monarchies of the Gulf, a political shift in the special relationship with the United States, military confrontation with Iran and its proxies, and a transformation in the very face of Israel, which has adopted a right-wing, nationalist and security-focused profile. Now, following the errors, vulnerabilities and even horrors of the gruelling phase of the war to eradicate the pogromists of 7 October – and, before that, the pre-nuclear powers of Tehran’s nihilistic fanaticism – at a time when the successes so hard-won and ruthlessly secured by the intelligence and combat forces of the Israeli National Army are reshaping the country’s image and the status of the Jewish people, survivors of the extermination of Judaism in Europe, now subjected to anti-Semitic treatment of the sort meted out by Abdulrahman Mohamed El Sayed and other anti-genocidal practices, that it is not possible to initiate, at least as a preliminary step, the search for a Zionist coalition to restore at least the cohesion and negotiability of Israeli policy towards the community of Israeli citizens and towards the world – well, it is truly a paradox bordering on the psychotic. They say that once the Sabbath is over, and following a few phone calls between non-religious leaders squeezed in on the sly over the next 24 hours, we shall learn something of the anxieties surrounding the deadlock. Of the messes that are looming. Let us hope so. Israel, with its system of pure proportional representation, deserves an ‘Italian-style’ security solution: one that is inclusive, combative and not naïve.