Israel and Fascism |

Is the state of Israel a fascist state? The formal answer is No. Is it becoming a fascist state? The answer should be yes. Of course it is important not to bandy around the term ‘fascist’ and misuse it. But the case that Israel is becoming a fascist state is about direction of travel not the final outcome. The importance of understanding this process is to arm the democratic forces and highlight the danger. It is a call for the working class to expose and resist Israeli fascism.  

Of course, the Netanyahu government contains neo-fascists in the Cabinet. This does not by itself make the state fascist. Yet it is an obvious warning of a state that can tolerate fascist politicians in government. Before the war the state adopted racially discriminatory laws within Israel and in the West Bank where the rule of law was described as a form of apartheid. Since the insurrection in Gaza, the Zionist state has de facto annexed Gaza and the West Bank. Is the state of Greater Israel ‘from the river to the sea’ a kind of fascism? 

Today in Gaza there is no democracy, rule of law, civil liberties or rights. The Zionist state is carrying out genocide by terrorizing the population with bombings, military occupation, assassinations and torture. The state has made starvation and the spread of disease a weapon of war and a means of genocide. In the West Bank, fascist gangs armed by the state are carrying out pogroms with the support of the IDF. There are no rights, no democracy, no civil liberties, arbitrary arrests, bulldozing houses and imprisonment without trial etc. The treatment of Palestinians is fascism in practice. 

The roots of the present situation go back to the Holocaust and foundation of Zionist state of Israel in 1948 by the ethnic cleansing of Arab Palestinians. A settler-colonial state was established by force with aim of building a liberal ‘social democracy’ in the Middle East, where Arab citizens have democratic rights and political parties in the Knesset. This vision came to an end after 1967 illegal occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. The 2018 nation state law was a breach with the norms of liberal democracy by placing the existing racism or racial supremacy at the official heart of its constitution. 

Before October 2023 Zionist Israel was a racist colonial settler not fascist state. In Israel there were still free elections, rule of law, civil liberties, free press and trade unions. The norms of liberal democracy still existed in Israel but in not the occupied territories or blockaded and sanctioned Gaza. Prime Minister Netanyahu in office for seventeen years (96-99, 2009-21, 22-24) since 1996 was a corrupt far right populist not a fascist. However, since 2022 he has been PM facing three corruption trials and remaining in office because of the support of neo-fascists. He set out to remain in power and out of jail by changing the constitution by curbing the powers of the Supreme Court.

Liberal Israelis saw danger in this crossing a red line from liberal democracy towards dictatorship and fascism. It drew mass liberal democratic opposition with political strikes and demonstrations of IDF soldiers. Israel was facing a ‘crisis of democracy’ with deep divisions ‘at home’ whilst living next door to their Palestinian neighbours oppressing them, denying democracy and self-determination and stealing their land. All this was about to explode with the armed uprising on 7 October 2023.

In a democratic state, Netanyahu government should have resigned or been forced from office and a general election called. It should be brought to a national debate about the disastrous policy of following far right populism and how to secure the release of the hostages and build a long-term democratic peace. Such a path was never possible in the kind of Israel founded on Zionism and built into an ethno-nationalist regime. Fascism is the logical extension of a ‘crisis of democracy’ that keeps the same government in office in coalition with fascists.

The Israeli state has been operating under “a special state of emergency”. (Israeli Democracy Institute 16 October 2023). In Israel, Ministers announced further ‘state of emergency’ measures for September 2024 in response to the situation in Lebanon. The IDF was given powers to issue instructions to the Israeli public, to ban gatherings, limit studies and issue additional instructions and control the press. In Gaza and the West Bank the IDF has imposed military rule on the Palestinian people. It has adopted the barbaric and brutal methods of fascism to terrorise the population and suppress the insurrection. 

Despite the civil war Israel is not yet a fascist state with a fascist constitution but a liberal parliamentary state using fascist methods of racism, assassination, and detention without trial, torture and fascist gangs to intimidate its enemies. There is a major contradiction between Israel as a liberal democracy and a fascist state. It is being resolved by a policy of war. The liberal opposition is calling for a ceasefire and the return of the hostages and calling Netanyahu to account for his corruption and failures. The forces of fascism are strengthening their grip on power by stoking fear, ethnic cleansing, genocide and the extension of imperialist war. Netanyahu’s policy of permanent war with all its unknown consequences keeps him in power and public opinion swinging towards him.  

Fascism replaces a liberal democratic constitution and its civil liberties, rule of law, free press, and independent trade unions etc. with dictatorship and unrestrained state violence. History shows the importance of the cult of the strong racist ethno-nationalist leader who wages ruthless war against the ‘enemies’ of the state not least the organized working class. Netanyahu is the obvious candidate for Israel’s Mussolini. His roots are in far right ethno-nationalism traced back to Yitzhak Shamir and Lehi, the Zionist terrorist organization known as the Stern gang. Yet his position is not secure. In October 2023 Netanyahu was compromised and blamed for failure. 

One year later he has transformed himself into Israel’s aggressive war leader taking the fight to Iran. 

Israel is becoming a fascist state but neither the Palestinian resistance nor the liberal opposition is yet defeated. Fascism is the policy in Gaza and the West Bank. Liberal democracy is weak and compromised by its own Zionism and restricted by the war with no ending in sight. We could describe new Greater Israel (or Israel-Palestine) as semi-fascist with half the population of surviving or dying under fascist rule. The other half is divided between support for Netanyahu’s fascist policy and those who oppose it. I have deliberately steered clear of using the term ‘Nazi’ because of the historical experience of the Jewish people. The left is at ease with describing Israel as racist and settler-colonialist and since 7 October as genocidal. We must now put our finger on the nuclear button by saying the unsayable that Israel faces a real and present danger of becoming a fascist state. It is in the interests of democracy and the working class to say this out loud.