Israel has maintained a continuous state of military engagement since October 2023, confronting various regional adversaries from Gaza to Iran. This series of actions, often presented as demonstrations of national strength, actually reveals a deeper internal crisis, according to several political analysts. The concept of a 'Pax Israelica,' once discussed after the Abraham Accords, has largely dissipated amid ongoing conflicts.
The country’s military has moved through a succession of conflicts, attempting to neutralize its opponents without achieving lasting strategic goals. In Gaza, despite widespread destruction, Hamas continues to operate. In Lebanon, Hezbollah, which Israel had previously claimed to have decapitated, has re-emerged as an active guerrilla force.
Former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who faces charges from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged crimes against humanity, had stated that Hezbollah’s drone and missile stockpiles were destroyed; those systems are now back in use. This pattern repeats. Israeli efforts to target the leadership of Yemen’s Ansar Allah, known as the Houthis, also failed, following a similar lack of success by U.S. forces in 2025.
Most recently, attempts to destabilize Iran’s Islamic Republic, dismantle its military capabilities, or reduce it to a "failed state" status have not succeeded. Now, Israeli leaders are openly discussing Turkey as a potential target. In March, former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett referred to Turkey as the “next Iran,” and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, also wanted by the ICC for similar charges as Gallant, accused Turkish President Erdogan on X of “accommodating Iran’s terror regime and its proxies.” These declarations follow a series of engagements that have not yielded decisive victories.
Many see this constant state of war as a way for Prime Minister Netanyahu to deflect a personal political crisis, including corruption allegations that could lead to jail time. However, the perpetuation of this cycle extends beyond individual political maneuvering. Israel’s military, intelligence, and political establishment have largely consented to this ongoing state of conflict with its neighbors, despite occasional objections reported in the media.
This broad agreement points to underlying systemic factors. One significant driver is the growing influence of the settler-based far right, which has, over the past two decades, integrated into lower echelons of the military and various bureaucratic arms. When these leaders joined Netanyahu's government in 2022, they began openly advocating for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank.
They now possess the political leverage to pursue more aggressive policies. This shift towards a more brutal and messianic version of the state coincides with a critical point in the conflict’s history: the realization of demographic parity between Palestinians and the Israeli Jewish population. This is a major turning point.
What this actually means for your family, whether Palestinian or Israeli, is a future defined by uncertainty and conflict. The policy says one thing, promising security through force. The reality says another, showing escalating tensions and human cost.
Official statistics from both Israel and the Palestinian Authority indicate that approximately 7.7 million people on each side now live under Israeli state control, totaling nearly 16 million individuals. Classic colonial strategies of divide-and-rule have historically minimized the political impact of this demographic reality. For instance, about 2.2 million Palestinians hold Israeli citizenship and can vote.
However, around 5.5 million Palestinians reside under Palestinian Authority civilian control, technically under Israeli occupation. This arrangement provides a convenient legal framework for their disenfranchisement, impacting their passports, mobility, and representation in the Knesset, the body that governs their daily lives. The state’s foundational ideology did not anticipate this demographic outcome.
Early Zionist thought, such as Theodor Herzl's "Der Judenstaat," largely omitted any mention of the native population. By the 1920s, as the reality became undeniable, revisionist Zionism leaders like Ze’ev Jabotinsky debated the feasibility of expelling the entire Arab population, drawing parallels to the 1924 population exchange between Turkey and Greece. After Israel's establishment in 1948, its first Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion, found some relief that Arabs constituted a manageable 20 percent of the population.
However, the 1967 victory, while granting control over desired territories, also brought with it the challenge of integrating a fully functioning Palestinian society. Today, Israel faces what former Australian ambassador to Israel Peter Rodgers described in his book "Herzl’s Nightmare" as “one land, two people.” This situation has been managed, according to Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and B'Tselem, through an apartheid system of racial segregation. Consider the forced relocation of 100,000 Libyans into desert concentration camps by fascist Italy.
Or France's use of massacres, torture, and camps to separate Algerians from the National Liberation Front in the 1950s. Britain established torture and detention camps in Kenya. Portugal used massacres and chemical weapons in Angola and Mozambique.
The list of Israeli actions has intensified over the past three years, including reported systematic torture and sexual violence against detainees, sometimes involving dogs. There are accounts of mass and individual starvation, bodies — both dead and alive — dragged by vehicles, and mass graves, including those of doctors, medics, and children found with their hands tied behind their backs. These are grim reports.
With U.S. support, political and military leaders have called on Palestinians in Gaza to leave the territory or face death. Settlers have carried out violent attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank. The army has erased dozens of villages in south Lebanon since March.
The air force has killed hundreds in strikes on apartment blocks, often targeting only a few individuals. Assassinations of foreign leaders have become overt government policy. Prime Minister Netanyahu publicly boasts about these policies, framing them as an effort to reshape the regional order.
However, interpreting these actions solely as a manifestation of power misreads the nature of power itself, which involves more than just the ability to inflict death. It also misinterprets the underlying societal dynamics that coalesce around this policy of endless war. Israel has, in the view of some analysts, become a chaos agent, capable of sowing death and destruction but failing to achieve any strategic goals of stability or the much-vaunted regional hegemony.
Its military relies heavily on air power. Its ground army, designed for conflicts like those in 1967 and 1973, has shown limitations since Hezbollah forced its withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000. Rights abuses and violations of warfare norms sometimes appear to fill the void in capabilities.
Furthermore, Israel and its Western allies, according to these analyses, often fail to fully understand or respect their adversaries. They may interpret a lack of missile fire as missile depletion, as with Hezbollah in 2024. Or they might see a low civilian death toll from an opponent, like Iran in 2025 and 2026, as a sign of military weakness.
Beyond reinforcing a narrative of invincibility, this chaos serves a deeper purpose: to satisfy a visceral desire to postpone Israel’s fundamental crisis, the crisis of Zionism itself. Until recently, Israel's main counter-argument to the discourse of settler coloniality was its demographic success. From the river to the sea, the imported population was numerically superior to the native communities for decades.
This allowed the state to avoid the political fractures that a Palestinian state in the occupied territories would have created. Integrating all Palestinians would, of course, be even more challenging for the Israeli body politic. As this demographic advantage erodes, the constant wars serve to externalize the problem, pushing it onto surrounding countries and delaying the final reckoning with Palestinian population numbers.
Yet, while this policy of endless war aligns with an ideological logic, Israeli society itself is showing signs of strain. A growing trickle of Israelis are emigrating, seeking to avoid economic uncertainty, regional instability, and domestic extremism. In March, former Vice Prime Minister Tzipi Livni stated that violent apartheid was “dismantling the State of Israel.” Military Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir reportedly warned that the army would “collapse in on itself” without rigorously applied conscription to support operations that have continued for some 900 consecutive days since October 2023.
This is a stark warning. Both sides claim victory in various skirmishes. Here are the numbers: the human cost continues to climb, and regional instability spreads.
The second Iran war, for instance, has been framed around the problem of Iran—whether its regime will survive, if it will retain its proxy network, or if it will abandon nuclear ambitions. But beneath this immediate focus, the real crisis, for many, remains that of Zionism. Palestinians have demonstrated a resilience far beyond what the ideology ever envisioned.
Israeli politics and society appear increasingly desperate in their efforts to manage this enduring challenge. - Israel's military engagements since October 2023 have not achieved stated strategic goals against Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, or Iran. - The ongoing conflicts are seen by some analysts as a political tactic for Prime Minister Netanyahu and a response to internal demographic shifts. - Demographic parity between Israeli Jews and Palestinians under Israeli control is a critical factor influencing current policies. - Societal fraying and increasing emigration are reported consequences of the sustained state of conflict. This continuous state of conflict carries significant implications for working families across the region, deepening economic precarity and hindering any prospects for long-term stability. The cross-border effects are undeniable, impacting trade routes, diplomatic relations, and the daily lives of millions.
As the situation evolves, observers will be watching for any shifts in Israel's internal political landscape, particularly regarding the influence of the far right. International reactions, particularly from the United States, will also be critical. The trajectory of Palestinian-Israeli demographics and the potential for new approaches to governance will determine the region’s future.
Without new thinking, the current trajectory suggests continued instability. What happens next will shape the lives of generations.
Key Takeaways
— - Israel's military engagements since October 2023 have not achieved stated strategic goals against Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, or Iran.
— - The ongoing conflicts are seen by some analysts as a political tactic for Prime Minister Netanyahu and a response to internal demographic shifts.
— - Demographic parity between Israeli Jews and Palestinians under Israeli control is a critical factor influencing current policies.
— - Societal fraying and increasing emigration are reported consequences of the sustained state of conflict.
Source: Middle East Eye
