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Rabat – The ongoing war on Gaza is likely to have a long-term catastrophic impact on the Israeli state, according to American Professor John J. Mearsheimer.
Appearing on a podcast, Professor Mearsheimer discussed the current state of the Israeli war on Gaza, and its long-term consequences on the state. He sees depleted Israeli forces, and a country in turmoil that could potentially escalate into a civil war.
John J. Mearsheimer is an American academic and R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor, teaching at the University of Chicago since 1982. Mearsheimer is an international relations expert, and the world’s foremost contemporary proponent of Political Realism. His favored theory explains conflict and inter-state competition from a framework of an anarchic international structure in which states compete for power in order to ensure their survival.
Mearsheimer also co-authored — with Stephen Walt, another realist foreign policy luminary — the 2007 book “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy,” in which he details the deep influence pro-Israeli lobbies have on the levers of power in the United States.
Regularly appearing on the “Judging Freedom” podcast, hosted by former Fox news host Andrew Napolitano, Mearsheimer applies his academic theory of Political Realism to poke through propaganda and assess the state of affairs, primarily in the Gaza and Ukraine wars.
Israel’s influence
Speaking on August 27 about the ongoing war in Gaza, Mearsheimer said he didn’t believe that Israeli propaganda was having its desired effect abroad. “There’s just limits to what the Israelis can do to disguise the genocide that they’re engaged in in Gaza and the provocative behavior towards Iran and Hezbollah,” the academic commented.
While recognizing that Israel used to have a sophisticated propaganda machine, Mearsheimer described Israeli current efforts to propagandize the US as “smash mouth politics,” aimed just at silencing critics within the country.
He pointed to the Israeli lobby funding campaigns against three out-spoken Democratic politicians who had been vocal about the Gaza genocide, and saw their careers ended due to millions of Israeli campaign contributions to their political opponents.
The professor highlighted that four ivy league university presidents have been fired due to pressure from the lobby, and that even the Democratic National Convention had “iced out” any Palestinian voices in their pre-election campaign festival.
Mearsheimer however highlighted that the zionist lobby in the US is now incapable of stopping critiques of Israel getting to the mainstream, pointing to Daily Show host John Steward’s mocking the Democrats for their silencing of Palestinian voices at their convention.
Internal conflict in Israel
Meanwhile, Israel’s strategic and tactical choices are having a profound negative effect on the Israeli state. Podcast host Napolitano highlighted statements by Ronen Bar, head of Israeli Security Agency Shin Bet. Bar had pointed to violent conflict in the West Bank between Israeli militias and the national army and police, describing it as “Jewish terror.”
Mearsheimer described this a as symptom of a larger problem, highlighting recent events where an Israeli mob fought police and Israeli soldiers as they attempted to free 9 Israeli soldiers accused of raping a Paletsinian prisoner. Mearsheimer explained that it was not a large-scale conflict, but a “harbinger of things to come.”
Napolitano then asked for a comment on a statement by prominent retired Israeli Major General Yitzhak Brik who this week predicted that the Israeli state would collapse in one year and that Israeli Prime-Minister Benjamin Naatenyahu would “die with the Philistines,” because he had lost “his humanity, morality,norms,values and sense of responsibility.”
In response, Mearsheimer explained that the way Israel is responding to its “external threat environment,” means Israel “is in an almost hopeless situation.” Israel’s recent attacks on Hezbollah and Iran did not have any meaningful effect, he argued.
Mearsheimer further warned that Israeli leaders like Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich would lead to increasing internal conflict and extremism inside the country, potentially leading to a future civil war in Israel.
Threats to Israel
“Israel doesn’t have solutions to its external problems, and to its internal problems,” Mearheimer explained. He added that the idea of a two-state solution could only become a reality if it was forced on the Israelis, after Napolitano pointed out they have “perpetrated 70 years of dehumanization of the Palestinians.”
There is also the matter of the patience of Israel’s neighbors, where the great majority of people oppose the war, despite the acquiescence of their governments.
Mearsheimer expects that these governments can’t do much, as Egypt and Jordan are especially economically dependent on the US. “Those governments are paralyzed when it comes to getting tough on Israel, and they have n military option against Israel,” Mearsheimer pointed out, while highlighting that the support for Israel could even lead to internal uprisings in both countries.
Tukey is the one country that has leverage over Israel, Mearsheimer explained, as they could cut off their oil supply. But Mearsheimer doubts that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan would be willing to “play hard ball” in the face of both the US and Israel.
Yet, despite the lack of a significant foreign threat, Israel’s greatest troubles lie within itself. Mearsheimer explained that the current political trajectory in Israel is likely to produce ever more extreme politicians like Smotrich and Gvir. The country’s foreign threats matter less, the professor argued, saying “look at these conflicts on the street between groups and you can tell a story where Israel does have a real civil war.”
Depleted Israeli military
As the current violence between Israel and Hezbollah threatens to escalate, Mearsheimer sees no incentive for Iran or Hezbollah to act soon, undermining Israeli narratives that they have deterred an attack through their “preemptive” attacks.
Napolitano agreed and added that “it further degrades the IDF, which is already exhausted, depleted, humiliated, defeated,” saying that Israeli leaks have pointed out that soldiers would be unwilling to fight another war.
Mearsheimer emphasized that the Israeli army is “worn out,” and has trouble calling up reservists for another tour as “they’re exhausted because these constant call-ups are doing harm to their home life and their businesses.” Israel is in real trouble in a protected war,” Mearsheimer concluded, echoing the statements by retired General Yitzhak Brik.
This gives Iran and Hezbollah the opportunity to wait and “draw out the conflict in order to keep the Israelis and Americans waiting for the eventual strike,” Mearsheimer theorized.
The current state of Israeli desperation was aptly pointed out in the opening segment of the podcast, as Napolitano and Mearsheimer discussed the Israeli messaging on a recent Hezbollah attack. Major news outlets reported on Israel’s success in warding off the attack with their Iron Dome system.
“The mainstream media is pretty much on the same page on the issue,” Mearsheimer pointed out, before Napolitano showed the photo that accompanied the news — a close up of a purported Hezbollah missile being intercepted the day before. In reality, the photo was a year old, and taken in clear daylight, while the 20-minute long Hezbollah barrage had taken place at night.
Both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal published the photo without question, while Israel blocked journalists’ access to any site it claimed was not damaged by the attack.
Mearsheimer analysis is clear. While Israel retains a tight grip on the US political scene and media, it’s losing its grip at home and across most of the globe.
While Israel’s opponents can do little militarily to harm the country, Israel’s greatest threat is at home as the country is divided between a growing number of extremists and those that oppose the lingering conflict.
