Could Israel Become a Failed State?

Interview by Aaron Bastani (2024)

Film Review

Author of a Very Short History of the Israeli-Palestine Conflict, Ilan Pape describes the deep division between Israel’s secular Jews and those who support Messianic Zionism. This demographic crisis is worsened by the departure of 600,000 members of Israel’s economic and cultural elite (European Jews with dual passports) since October 2023.  Translating into major brain drain (with the loss of many of Israel’s high tech engineers) and capitol flight (they took their money with them), it’s led Moody’s to downgrade Israel’s financial rating to “junk” status, ie unsafe for investment.

Along with an unwinnable war on three fronts, this has begun a slow motion economic collapse. According to Pape, in 15-20 years Israel will likely be a failed state like Libya, Syria and Yemen.

Netanyahu himself isn’t a Messianic Zionist. He supports Israel’s current military agenda because he believes it will keep him in power. However the loss of much of Israel’s economic/political elite means the there will be no viable opposition to offer an alternative at the next election.

The demographic supporting what Pape calls the “state of Judea” (a theocratic state in which laws are based on God’s law) consists of 1) Messianic Zionists who believe the current war in Israel signals impending Armageddon 2) 700,000 West Bank settlers representing both secular and ultra-orthodox Jews** and increasingly 3) Mizrati Jews (the Arabic Jews indigenous to Palestine).

Paper believes current birth rates (with ultra orthodox Jews producing an average of 6 kid to the 1.5 kids produced by educated liberals) makes the current effort to convert Israel into a theocracy inevitable. He also believes this internal division is a bigger threat to Israel than Iran. There is no support whatsoever in Europe or the US for a theocratic state of Judea, except for a small contingent of fundamentalist Zionist Christians.

For me, one of the most interesting parts of the interview was the history of Jordan and its recent support for the attacks on Gaza. The Hashimite princes*** founded the state of Trans-Jordan in the 1920s after the Arab Revolt drove them out of the Arabian peninsula. British spy T. E Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”) had promised Hashimite leader Sharif Hussein ibn Ali that his sons would be kings of the new states the French and English would create (Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Transjordan and Lebanon) after conquering the former Ottoman empire during World War I.

The Zionist Jews arriving from Europe helped them consolidate the Transjordan state, and the Hashimites’ failure to oppose the 1948 Nakba led Israel to support Jordan’s annexation of the West Bank 1950. In 1988 (a year after Palestinians launched the first Intifada), Jordan officially ceded the West Bank to Israel.

*Moody’s Cuts Israel’s Rating: Warns of Drop to Junk Status

**Excludes Neturai Carter – ultra orthodox Jews who support the state of Palestine.

***Descendants of Mohammad who ruled Mecca for more than 700 years. Jordan  opposes Israel’s current attacks on Lebanon. See Jordan Reiterates Full Support of Lebanon: Condems Israeli Aggression