Netanyahu is not the cause of the Gaza genocide. Zionism is

Abed Abou Shhadeh

17 July 2025

Reducing the catastrophe in Gaza to the ambitions of a single man ignores a key question: why does the Israeli public continue to support this war?

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/netanyahu-product-zionist-logic-his-removal-would-change-nothing

A recent extended feature in the New York Times presents readers with a long-form analysis of the genocide in Gaza. The central claim made by the authors is that the continuation of the war serves Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s personal interest in clinging to power. 

This is particularly relevant given his ongoing corruption trial, and the severe blow to his political standing after the 7 October military failure. According to the Times article, this convergence of events has pushed Netanyahu to prolong the war as a means of survival.

But this framing, popular among liberal Zionist circles, dangerously reduces the catastrophe in Gaza to the ambitions of a single man. 

It ignores the broad public support in Israel not only for the genocide in Gaza but for attacks throughout the region. Israel’s military actions - especially in the context of the sectarian violence in Syria - can only be understood as those of an imperial power seeking to impose its will on the region through force, intimidation, and the threat of territorial expansion.

It conveniently ignores a deeper question: why, after nearly two years of horrifying footage from Gaza, does the Israeli public continue to support the war - and in fact, demand its escalation? 

At the heart of Israeli public discourse today lies not the morality of the war, but the question of who should bear the burden of fighting it. The main debate is over drafting ultra-Orthodox Jews, who have so far been exempt from military service and want that to be enshrined in law. 

The secular and national-religious public demands “equality in sacrifice”, assuming that the war must go on - only more fairly. 

When the Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox party United Torah Judaism recently announced its departure from the government over the conscription issue, it was not a protest against the war itself, but rather a dispute over who should serve in it.

Global backlash

This framing comes at a moment of growing international backlash. The global boycott movement has penetrated academia, with the International Sociological Association recently calling to sever ties with the Israeli Sociological Society over its failure to condemn the Gaza genocide. 

Cultural boycotts, while less visible, are also on the rise. Politically, US support for Israel - once bipartisan - is now openly debated in both parties. Discussions range from ethical questions over the Gaza genocide to concerns about the disproportionate influence Israel holds in American politics.

At the same time, ordinary Israelis travelling abroad are encountering global criticism for the first time in their lives. Yet instead of prompting reflection, this scrutiny has driven many deeper into denial. 

For much of the Israeli public, the problem is not what is happening in Gaza - it’s the world’s antisemitism, both western and eastern. In their eyes, the world has turned against them, and thus no soul-searching is needed.

Netanyahu, who lived a significant portion of his youth in the US, understands American politics well. When he says the Gaza war has not “achieved its objectives”, he is not referring to conditions on the ground, but rather to his standing in the polls. The recent strikes on Iran, despite failing to produce any strategic outcome, modestly improved his approval ratings.

Worse still, both Netanyahu’s allies and his so-called opposition have successfully encouraged and normalised genocidal rhetoric, to the point that it has become mainstream. 

According to recent polls, 82 percent of Jewish Israelis support the transfer (expulsion) of Gaza’s population. Lacking any ability to convince countries to accept these refugees, what is emerging is a de facto concentration camp in Gaza. 

In this context, discussions about a ceasefire are structurally hollow. Israel has shown - to Hamas and others - that it does not honour agreements: not in Gaza, not in Lebanon, not in Syria. Israeli diplomacy is fundamentally built on military power and the unilateral ability to break promises.

Ruthless strategies

Even as the Israeli public grows increasingly impatient with the Gaza war, demanding the release of hostages and watching with concern the mounting death toll among Israeli soldiers, it is disturbing to see no-one questioning the state’s ruthless strategies, which aim to confine millions of Palestinians into an area comprising less than a quarter of Gaza. 

There is open discussion of reviving Giora Eiland’s “General’s Plan”, which explicitly recommends starvation as a tool of forced displacement.

But the catastrophe unfolding in Gaza is not the work of one man. It is enabled by broad public consensus, a judiciary that legitimises it, and a political culture that has long relied on the dehumanisation of Palestinians. In the occupied West Bank, the same logic plays out: Israeli soldiers, police and judges either ignore or actively assist settlers in carrying out pogroms against Palestinians.

The current crisis marks a desperate attempt - by some - to “save Israel from itself” by offering Israelis a ladder to climb down from the tree. The hope is that Israel may return to its pre-Netanyahu posture: endless negotiations, rhetorical peace processes, and a fantasy of a Palestinian state that was never meant to materialise. This illusion served the world well, allowing western nations to defend Israel’s actions while pretending a two-state solution was still viable.

But demography and ideology have shifted. Israel cannot go back.

The scale of destruction in Gaza has reopened the core of the Palestinian question: what happens when there are no refugee camps left, no territories to push people into, and no countries willing to absorb them? The conversation then turns - unavoidably - to the right of return for Palestinians expelled in 1948.

Blaming Netanyahu in isolation is intellectually dishonest. He is not an aberration, but a product of Zionist logic - a logic that has always viewed Palestinians as inferior.

Without addressing this foundational belief system, replacing Netanyahu will change nothing. We may get a leader who is less aggressive, more polished - but the structural violence will persist, merely in a softer form.