2. The independence of the Israeli court system will be destroyed. Judges’ decisions will be made subject to veto by politicians. (That’s why Bibi will stay free.)
3. There will be a “Third Intifada”, involving the deaths of thousands of Palestinians and dozens or perhaps even a few hundred Israelis.
4. The new Israeli government will not strive to head off this disaster, because it will distract domestic and international opinion enough to permit a very large expansion of the Jewish settlement project in the occupied West Bank.
5. Neither the United States nor Israel’s new Arab friends (the “Abraham Accords”) will put major pressure on Netanyahu’s government to stop that from happening. They all have bigger fish to fry elsewhere.
6. There will not be a civil war. As Anshel Pfeffer wrote last week in Ha’aretz: “For all Israel’s problems, life here is still too good, for all of Israeli communities, to risk a civil war. Losing what is left of Israel’s fragile and limited democracy will be a terrible blow for many, perhaps even most, Israelis — but it won’t be worth going to actual war for.”
So then, how did I do? Netanyahu is still free, and will be so long as his coalition with the religious right and settler parties survives. With their support, he is renewing his attempt to “overhaul” (ie, neuter) Israel’s Supreme Court after many weeks of mass protests forced him to suspend the project in April.
Netanyahu still faces a major risk of being convicted of corruption offences in his ongoing criminal trial, so ensuring his government gains the right to override any court decision against him is his highest priority. That’s why he made his deal with the settler extremists in the first place, but it’s going to take a war as well: the “Third Intifada”.
Big military confrontations with “terrorists” will distract lots of people who otherwise might start protesting again about the strangulation of Israeli democracy, so they serve Netanyahu’s purposes. They also serve the settlers’ agenda of seizing ever more Palestinian land.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, the senior settler in Netanyahu’s cabinet, is calling for “a military operation to take down buildings, exterminate terrorists — not one or two but tens and hundreds, if necessary thousands”. “Hilltop youth”, as Jewish vigilantes in the West Bank are known, will provide the provocations, and the Israeli Defence Forces will do the clearances.
That’s the plan, and so far it’s going well. President Biden strongly disapproves of the company Netanyahu keeps, but he is not going to waste his limited political capital on trying to protect the Palestinians. Israel’s Arab “frenemies” (Egypt and the Gulf countries) aren’t up for a fight either, although the relationship is rapidly cooling.
Is there going to be a civil war among Israelis? Of course not. Anshel Pfeffer is still right: secular or religious, right-wing or the dwindling left, they all have it too good.
Predicting all this took neither special knowledge nor a gift for prophecy. It was practically written on the walls, and anybody who was paying attention knew it four months ago.
■ Gwynne Dyer’s latest book is The Shortest History of War.
