Zionism’s Death Spiral

Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin discusses October 7th – the context of what led to Palestinian resistance factions breaking out of their Gaza prison, what happened on the day itself and the death spiral Zionism has been on since Israel began its genocide in Gaza.

October 7th. This date and the narrative around it are what have been used by Israel and its allies to justify embarking on a year long genocide which has been broadcast across the world for all to see.

For the Zionists, the clock starts on October 7th – all other context is irrelevant. The 17-year-long blockade that turned Gaza into an open air prison, the restriction of food, water and medicine, the children who died waiting for permits to travel for medical treatment, the unliveable conditions leading up to a historic prison break by the Palestinian resistance – these factors do not matter.

The 2018-19 Great March of Return, when Palestinians from Gaza marched and protested peacefully at the border wall, demanding to be allowed to return to their ancestral homes, only to be mowed down by Israeli snipers – this is not worthy of consideration.

The continued ethnic cleansing and expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank and the use of the two state solution as a fig leaf to cover for further annexation of Palestinian land – this is disregarded.

The Nakba – ongoing since 1948 – is irrelevant. All context surrounding Israel’s settler colonial project, backed by Western imperialism, is flattened and ignored. All that matters is October 7th.

Lies to Permit Genocide

In setting October 7th up as the original sin that would justify all that followed, Israel’s propaganda went into overdrive. From the outset, old, racist, colonial tropes were stirred up to create an image of bestial natives – Palestinian terrorists who viciously attacked innocent (Western) civilians. Claims by Israeli officials and media that babies were beheaded were parroted by Western media without a shred of evidence. US President Biden claimed to have seen photos of these atrocities, a claim that the White House later had to admit was untrue. Lies about mass rapes and sexual violence were spread, including by the New York Times, again without any credible evidence. These lies were debunked again and again by outlets like Electronic Intifada, the Intercept, Yes Magazine and Mondoweiss.

As Arun Gupta explains:

“The New Yorker, New York Times, Associated Press, and The Nation treat PHRI’s [Physicians for Human Rights Israel] paper as the gold standard for proof of Hamas’ rape and sexual violence. But the paper is shockingly thin. It lacks original reporting and is based on media reports that are dubious at best with no corroboration—no forensic evidence, no survivor testimony, no video evidence.”

It is also certain that at least some of the Israeli civilians killed on October 7th were killed by Israeli forces, who fired indiscriminately on militants and civilians alike. Some people suspected early on that the Israeli Occuaption Forces (IOF) had employed the Hannibal directive – a tactic previously used to kill Israeli soldiers rather than allow them to be taken hostage. It has now been reported in the mainstream Israeli press that the Hannibal directive was employed on October 7th to kill Israeli civilians en masse in order to prevent the Palestinian militants from taking hostages.

Anti-Colonial Uprising

“The violence which governed the ordering of the colonial world, which tirelessly punctuated the destruction of the indigenous social fabric, and demolished unchecked the systems of reference of the country’s economy, lifestyles, and modes of dress, this same violence will be vindicated and appropriated when, taking history into their own hands, the colonized swarm into the forbidden cities. To blow the colonial world to smithereens is henceforth a clear image within the grasp and imagination of every colonized subject.”

Frantz Fanon, Wretched of the Earth

If we are to properly understand what happened on October 7th, we must reject the Zionist narrative that decontextualises and isolates the events of that day in order to justify all the atrocities that follow. Before October 7th, Israel was on the path to normalisation with Saudi Arabia, having normalised relations with the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan in 2020. It was continuing its ethnic cleansing of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, unimpeded by its Western allies. A 2012 UN report had predicted that Gaza would be unliveable by 2020 if conditions did not change. Israel continued its brutal siege, 2020 came and went, and the miserable conditions imposed on the people of Gaza continued.

Rather than an explosion of mindless violence by savages, this was an anti-colonial uprising – the Gaza Ghetto Uprising, as some have called it – where Palestinian resistance factions broke through their prison walls, attacked IOF bases in the Gaza envelope and took hostages, shattering the myth of Israeli security and provoking a massive shake-up of the prevailing order.

From Genocide to Regional War

The destruction that has been wrought on the people of Gaza since October 7th is beyond comprehension. 66% of buildings have been damaged or destroyed and virtually the entire population has been displaced, with nowhere to go. The official death toll is over 42,000. This is a massive undercount, as only those who have been confirmed to have been killed by bullets or by missiles – direct casualties of war – are counted. Moreover, the near total destruction of Gaza’s health infrastructure means that keeping an accurate count of the dead is nigh on impossible. Recent analysis by Devi Sridhar puts the true estimated death toll at 355,000 people, as of September.

Yet while Israel continues its genocide in Gaza, it has been unable to achieve its stated goal of “eradicating Hamas”. Palestinian resistance factions continue to operate in Gaza and the IOF has been unable to take full control of the territory. Israeli casualty figures – likely to be downplayed by the IOF – are reported to be over 10,000 killed and wounded.

Much has been made of Netanyahu’s own political crisis as a personal motivation for pursuing this genocide. Some argue that he is prolonging the war in order to avoid prosecution for corruption when things ultimately come to a halt. While there may be some truth in this, it is also the case that the entire Israeli political establishment is in favour of continuing the genocide in Gaza.

This is the logic of Zionism being followed to its ultimate conclusions – a settler colonial death drive of colossal proportions. Netanyahu and the Zionist leadership are aware that this is a do-or-die moment. Either bring the genocide to completion and consolidate Israeli control over all of historic Palestine, or risk the end of the Zionist project. There is no off ramp with which they could return to the pre-October norm, where they could engage with the rest of the world as a relatively “normal” state. Once they stop, the consequences of the genocide will catch up with them.

Israel is now expanding its war. In the past week alone, aside from its continued massacres in Gaza, it has bombed Lebanon, the West Bank, Syria and Yemen. Lebanon has been on the receiving end of indiscriminate bombing in civilian areas and more than 2,000 people have already been killed. Netanyahu has repeatedly threatened to “turn Beirut into Gaza” if Hezbollah continues to fire rockets into Northern Israel. For its part, Hezbollah’s only condition for a ceasefire is the end of the genocide in Gaza and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip. Israel began its ground invasion of Lebanon last week.

Meanwhile, there is already a push from within Israeli society for even further expansion. The Jerusalem Post published an article providing a religious argument that Lebanon is part of Israel’s territory. A settler group is promoting real estate ads in Lebanon.

This rabid, settler colonial expansionism is possible because of the total refusal by the Biden administration and its EU and UK allies to put the brakes on Israel’s assault. For all Biden’s talk of wanting a ceasefire, the weapons continue to flow from the US. The US granted an additional $8.7 billion in military aid just over a week after Israel’s terrorist pager attack in Lebanon that killed 32 people and injured thousands more. The Western establishment is now attempting to paint Iran as the destabilising force in the region after its retaliatory rocket attacks against Israel last week. Meanwhile, Israel continues to have carte blanche to continue its rampage.

Zionism in Crisis

Behind Israel’s relentless onslaught lies a state and a society in deep crisis. Almost 500,000 Israelis left Israel in the months after October 7th and have not returned – hardly the sign of a successful settler colony. The cost of the war between 2023-25 is expected to be in the region of $55.6 billion. Israel’s GDP fell by 20.7% in the final quarter of last year. It has imposed strict controls on the movements of Palestinian workers, resulting in the loss of 160,000 workers. Between 300,000 and 350,000 reservists were called up to serve in the IOF when Israel began its attacks on Gaza. Many of these served for months and did multiple tours. This meant that they were no longer working and that certain economic centres were shut down. The impact of their absence from the economy has been doubly felt as the IOF paid their full monthly salary while they were serving. The Finance Ministry is now making plans to cut the pay of reservists.

Israel is opening up another ground invasion in Lebanon at a time when many reservists have returned to work, when there is a deep crisis of mental health in the IOF and when the number of disabled soldiers is reported to be “unprecedented”. And having failed so far to defeat Hamas in Gaza, it faces a significantly larger, better equipped military force in Hezbollah.

At home, protests against Netanyahu’s government have continued, bringing Tel Aviv to a halt on numerous occasions. These are not protests against the genocide, but against Netanyahu’s failure to secure a truce and bring the hostages home. Nevertheless this is another symptom of a society that, while unified in its commitment to the Zionist settler colonial project, is at a loss as to how to strategise a way out of this crisis.

Regional Escalation

Netanyahu’s gambit in recent weeks has been to continuously escalate the war and to raise the spectre of Iran as a bogeyman that poses an existential threat to “Western values” and “Western democracy”, in order to drag the US and its allies along in support of it. This is laughable given what Israel has proven itself to be capable of over the last year. Iran has responded to the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian soil and the killing of their ally, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, by firing rockets at Israeli military targets. Israel’s response has been to decry this as an attack on civilians while simultaneously bragging that Iran failed to kill any civilians. The damage to military targets is being downplayed by Israel and played up by Iran – it is difficult to ascertain the true impact of the attack.

Rather than impose any red lines, the Biden administration has continued to provide political, economic and military support to Israel since October 7th. Nor can we expect any major change in direction whether it is Kamala Harris or Donald Trump that is elected in November. Israel’s heinous crimes, and the West’s association with them, have shattered the idea of Western democracy and a “rules-based order”. Nevertheless, the US’ reliance on Israel as an ally in the Middle East means that despite the damage to its own image, it continues to back Israel’s escalation.

Netanyahu understands the value of Israel to the US and the West. What would the implications be for the US if its colonial outpost no longer existed? The only way out for Zionism is through, but it cannot get through without dragging the US along with it. This means the danger of further, catastrophic escalation is very real.

We need a principled anti-imperialism

The deepening crisis highlights the critical importance of building a Palestine solidarity movement that is grounded in principled anti-imperialism. The Iranian regime – authoritarian at home,to be sure, and with its own regional aspirations – will be painted as the enemy of the West and the root cause of instability in the Middle East. We will be expected to forget the horrors inflicted by Israel over the past year. Likewise, Hezbollah in Lebanon will be painted as another terrorist organisation, deeply conservative, anti-LGBT, and so on.

For those who are genuinely concerned with democracy, women’s rights and LGBT rights in Iran, we must be clear that Western escalation against Iran will not further any of these causes. Imperialist intervention will only make it more difficult for those fighting for progressive causes to do so, as they will be smeared as being in bed with US imperialism. In the case of Hezbollah, people who rose up against them and the rest of the Lebanese political establishment in 2019 will support their resistance against the IOF.

As Elia Ayoub put it recently:
“Even myself, with all of my baggage against Hezbollah, cannot in good conscience oppose any retaliation by the group if Israel invades. There would be no moral argument against supporting anyone in Lebanon doing whatever they need to do to stop an advancing army. Even if you want to ignore Israel’s past 18 year-long occupation, you have to understand that everyone in Lebanon has seen what the IDF does in Gaza and the West Bank. Even some of the most ideologically hardcore opponents of Hezbollah will shut the f- up if the IDF is at their doorsteps.”

The challenge arising from this new reality will be to build an anti-imperialist solidarity movement that goes beyond simply opposing the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. As Israel rains American and European bombs down on Palestine and Lebanon, we must assert the right of the people there to resist their annihilation, including through the use of armed resistance. 

We must understand that the goal of the Zionist project is the total destruction of Palestine and that it may not even stop at that. We must also recognise that, despite the unspeakable horror of the last year, the Zionist state is in an existential crisis. It has been totally delegitimised on the global stage. Its imperialist backers in the US and Europe understand that while it is a key ally for them in the region, they risk even more damage to their own image if they continue to support it.

We need to build the kind of global anti-imperialist movement that can force the Western imperialist powers to withdraw their support for Israel. We must bring about the total isolation – political, military, economic and cultural – of the Zionist state, in order to create the space for the Palestinian people to win their own liberation.

Zionism is in a death spiral. We must prevent it from taking humanity with it.