Let's look at the Gaza issue from another angle

Following the attack launched by Hamas from Gaza, the war that broke out with Israel's disproportionate retaliation—ignoring human rights, the laws of war, and all manner of humanitarian values—reached its fourth month yesterday.

The number of Palestinians who have lost their lives is nearing 30 thousand. 

According to data updated by Anadolu Agency on February 3, 27 thousand 131 Palestinians have been killed and 66 thousand 287 have been injured in Israeli attacks since October 7. 

561 Israeli soldiers have lost their lives in the clashes.

These numbers are increasing every hour that the war continues.

Gaza has been virtually razed to the ground and has become uninhabitable. A humanitarian crisis has emerged in the truest sense of the word.

Despite the toll of the war becoming heavier with each passing day, the Israeli army has announced that the war will continue throughout 2024.

While a humanitarian tragedy is unfolding before the eyes of the world, neither the reaction of the international public nor the International Criminal Court has been able to stop Israel.

The Middle East has once again turned into a bloodbath.

From Yemen to Jordan, from Iraq to Syria, and from Palestine to Lebanon, the entire region is facing the bitter realities of the new world order led by the US and imperialism.

The side of the great chessboard facing the Middle East is practically stained with blood. The possibility of the war spreading to include Iran cannot be ignored. 

This is a nightmare scenario not just for the countries in the region, but for the entire world.

The Gaza issue has been discussed in detail on both news channels and social media since October 7. 

It has been put on the table almost every day in its political, strategic, economic, and predominantly military aspects. However, apart from cheap demagoguery and the propagandist approaches of the political Islamist mentality, the psychopolitical aspect of the issue from Israel's perspective has not been discussed much.

Having made this introduction, let us put on our reading glasses.

In fact, for those who evaluate foreign affairs analytically, the writing was on the wall.

Following the elections on November 1, 2022, Benjamin Netanyahu, the politician who has held the prime ministerial seat for the longest time in Israel, had formed the most right-wing coalition in the country's history. 

However, there was no strong majority behind the government.

Despite this, Yariv Levin, whom Benjamin Netanyahu appointed as Minister of Justice, announced on January 5, 2023, that they were planning a law that would limit the powers of the Israeli Supreme Court, reduce the judiciary's influence on the selection of judges, and allow the Parliament to invalidate court rulings.

With the new regulation, the government would have the sole say in the appointment of judges.

It was clear that Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to consolidate all power in his hands, escape judicial oversight, and govern Israel as a one-man ruler.

His approval of the controversial law allowing coalition partner Aryeh Deri, who had previously been convicted of corruption, to serve as a minister was the final straw in the country.

Israel turned into a powder keg in a short time. In a country with a population of 8.5 million, 80 thousand people took to the streets.

The reaction of the Israeli public did not subside for months; it continued to grow. While everyone was waiting for the Benjamin Netanyahu government to fall like a ripe pear, someone pressed the button on October 7 and Hamas attacked Israel.

You know what happened next.

A ruthless retaliation and a Gaza reduced to rubble...

If the religious and racist masses in Israel—that is, a significant portion of society—had not brought Benjamin Netanyahu to power, would these things have happened?

It has not been questioned much, but how could politics in Israel, one of the two countries in the Middle East governed by democracy, have settled on such a religious and racist foundation in less than a quarter of a century?

Is it possible to explain this only by keeping security-oriented policies constantly on the agenda and fueling a climate of fear? 

We can look for the answers to these questions in recent history. 

In fact, Israel had always been governed by coalition governments since the day it was founded. For this reason, Israeli politics was always shaped by “compromise” throughout its short history. Coalition governments became the essential element of Israeli political culture.

The fact that the Jewish community diversified with migrations from almost every region of the world after the establishment of the State of Israel fostered a culture of compromise.

If we evaluate the issue from a political and strategic perspective, it was of critical importance for Israel to develop a culture of compromise in order to survive and remain strong within the Arab geography.

Moreover, there was no concept of a “leader” or “one-man” rule in the political history of the Jews. Throughout history, Jewish politics matured by delegating decision-making processes to an assembly or a convention, and this becoming a norm.

Although politics before modern Israel seemed limited to the framework of regulating only the “communal affairs” of Jews in the diaspora, collectivism became a characteristic feature of Jewish society, from economy to politics, and from social life to the daily routines of individuals. 

In other words, the Jewish community has been acting collectively for thousands of years; it has been debating, making decisions, determining its strategic goals, and forming political behavioral patterns accordingly. It would not be wrong to say that this form of collective thinking, decision-making, and implementation has been embedded in the “genetic codes” of the Jewish community!

However, whatever happened, things changed after the end of the Cold War. Starting from the mid-90s, the culture of compromise in Israeli politics gradually gave way to polarization.

The identity politics imposed by the US after the Cold War increasingly came to the fore. Along with this, religious and racist politics in Israel increased its power. The social and political fault lines in the country became fragile. 

With the imposition of the US, just as in Turkey, class politics was set aside in Israel. The society that had adopted a culture of political compromise gave way to masses that preferred to come under the rule of a “strong leader” who clung to sub-identities such as religion, sect, and ethnicity.

Within approximately 25 years, rational approaches in Israeli politics disappeared, and populism, religiousness, and racism came to the fore.

Although it may seem to point to a critical contradiction, the US approach of reshaping the Middle East through identity politics and bringing Arab countries that are not in the wake of imperialism into line through political Islam had struck Israel, one of its two truly strategic partners in the world, right in the heart.

In short, identity politics and the populism that strengthened as a natural result of this politics eroded the Jewish community's thousands-year-old culture of compromise and its tradition of collective decision-making and acting together, polarized the country's politics, and left Israeli democracy at the mercy of right-wing, racist, and religious politics.

Whether they did it by planning or whether it was a regional side effect of the strategy they developed for the Arab geography, it is difficult to make a definitive assessment, but the political game-makers in the US have changed the “genetic codes” of Israeli society that prioritize compromise and collectivism through identity politics.

Before wrapping up the article, let's ask the ten-point expert question in a few items.

Could the Gaza crisis be a turning point for the Jewish community?

Will Israel return to the ground of rational politics?

Will Israel's return to the ground of rational politics affect the US's plans for the Middle East? 

Or how will it affect them?

Will this be in the US's interest?

Let us leave the answers to the questions above, which also closely concern regional and even global developments, to a subsequent article and put a period here for now.