Orono, Maine (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – PM Benjamin Netanyahu has alienated many in Israeli society, some of whom now revile his leadership: The Times of Israel reported on a Pew Survey finding that in April, 2025, 53% Of Americans had an unfavorable view of Israel compared to 42% in 2022, and “over half don’t trust PM Benjamin Netahyahu to do the right thing.”
Israel’s Haaretz reported that “200 students at Cheltenham High School in suburban Philadelphia have petitioned for the school’s alumni hall of fame to eject Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who graduated from the school in 1967.”
A protest march and rally held [recently] in the northern Israeli town of Sakhnin under the banner, “No to Starvation in Gaza”, called for an end to the war…a reminder of the…position many Arab citizens of Israel find themselves in: …unwilling to stay silent in the face of…a humanitarian catastrophe befalling the people in Gaza.
Theodore Sasson of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv noted: “The dangers of diminished US support, particularly as it reflects long-term and deeply rooted trends, cannot be overstated…Israel needs the support of the [American] superpower for the foreseeable future”. A former U.S. State Dep’t official observed that: “…younger Americans, including Jewish Americans, are [much] less supportive of Israel than their parents were.” The war in Gaza has catalyzed this phenomenon.
Dr Guy Shalev, Director of Israel’s “Physicians for Human Rights” commented: “We must be committed to the truth. That truth lies in the details and the bigger picture…we published a report on Israel’s actions in Gaza and [after] analyzing those actions, [came to realize they] led to the destruction of the living conditions necessary for the survival of Palestinians in Gaza. The ”destruction of the healthcare system, the…starvation [and], blockade, the weaponization of humanitarian aid, displacement, destruction of homes and sanitation infrastructure, the spread of communicable diseases …are all contributing factors. When examining all these together, we identify a clear pattern that indicates [an] intent [to destroy the living conditions necessary for the survival of Palestinians in Gaza”]
Five Israeli university presidents called on PM Netanyahu to tell the IDF to ramp up efforts to “solve the horrible hunger issue in Gaza,” adding that … we have a special duty to act using all available measures to avoid and avert cruel and indiscriminate harm to innocent men, women and children.”
The most powerful repudiation of Netanyahu’s leadership has come from Ehud Barak, former PM of Israel who recently declared that “Israel is becoming a pariah state. We need massive “Nonviolent Civil Disobedience” until Netanyahu Is ousted. “This is an emergency call asking people to courageously confront reality and take action to stop the landslide [of worldwide condemnation]. Barak continued: “The Israel of the Declaration of Independence and the Zionist vision is collapsing. The present emergency [which needs to be faced] requires us to answer five key questions [beginning with]: What is happening to us? Who is responsible for this?… Barak accuses the current regime of “attempting to transform Israel into a non-democratic entity and…that the protests, including general strikes, [appear to have] reached a level …preceding government collapse”.
The use of overwhelming power in the destruction of the infrastructure of Gaza by Israel’s IDF displays few compunctions as they make full use of American weaponry during their onslaughts in Gaza, including the shooting of Palestinians receiving food aid. Despite this lethal and indiscriminate use of power there are some surprisingly active peace organizations already using demonstrations and strikes in “Nonviolent Civil Disobedience” while promoting a more just system. This coalition, known as ALLMEP, includes 160 peace activist organizations.
File photo Gaza July 2024 by Emad El Byed on Unsplash
The Israeli-American professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University, Omer Bartov, has asserted publicly that the destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure and the continuing attempt to make Gaza uninhabitable, constitute Genocide. Fifty-five other Genocide Studies scholars have signed a letter expressing similar sentiments. Bartov, who served in the Israeli military for four years, noted in an interview on NPR, that the systematic destruction of schools and universities and hospitals, convinced him that the Israeli government, with its authoritarian proclivities may eventually turn its violence upon its own internal critics.
In “Jewish News” the well-known Israeli historian Yuval Harari, in a discussion in front of a London audience, warns that a “spiritual catastrophe for Judaism” is taking place in its “ethnic cleansing campaign in Gaza and the West Bank”. He states that “the intention is to create a new Israel based on an ideology of Jewish supremacy”. Such intentions, Harari states, are the result of “anti-Jewish values” and are taking place in the framework of an even “wider collapse of the global world order”. This “global world order” was originally conceived by the U.S. but, ironically, is now being destroyed by the U.S., a paradoxical happening that few in American leadership positions seem able to grasp. The reality is that the moral underpinning that provided U.S. leadership in the creation of “the global world order” has badly fractured and this is happening while most Americans are oblivious. One of Yuval’s acute observations is “that history is carried out by only five or ten percent of the population, the rest sit at home” [perhaps uncomprehending the full significance of events taking place in their name].
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