As a result of Israel’s longest war since it was established on the land of Palestine in 1948, some 46,000 companies have closed in Israel, local media has revealed.
Israeli economists believe this will rise to 100,000 by the end of this year.
The brutal Israeli war against Palestinians in Gaza has backfired greatly on the Israeli economy, politics, society, military and all aspects of Israeli life.
On the political level, the Israeli occupation state has never faced such political polarization or contradictions. While unprecedented disagreements inside the war cabinet, which was formed to run the war, led to its dissolution.
For the first time, the views, predictions and opinions of the defense minister and all the high ranking military brass are being ignored by the prime minister, who is considering ousting his military and intelligence aides during the war.
The Israeli military is facing a severe shortage of human resources that pushed the state to seek to extend the time of service of reserve soldiers, to recruit the Haredi community, use mercenaries from the region and from Europe and even Palestinian collaborators from the occupied West Bank.
Despite the generous American financial and military support, the Israeli army is suffering a severe shortage of arms. Some kinds of essential weapons such as 120mm mortars fired by tanks have almost completely run out.
Within Israel, since the start of the war, the community has been divided. A large proportion is against the war while others remain pro-war. The families of soldiers killed in Gaza are marching in support of the war, while the families of the Israeli prisoners held in the enclave are marching against it.
In a show that reflects the deepening decay of the social fabric, complaints of rape and other such issues among the Israelis who were relocated from settlements to hotels have been accumulating in courts and police stations.
The prime minister now faces calls from all corners of society – even from the president – to accept a ceasefire deal with the Palestinian resistance, but his arrogance is preventing him.
In the middle of his war, he started planning to oust his defense minister and his external intelligence chief because both of them, who are from the same political party, were convinced that he is not working to serve the state, but rather looking after his own interests.
Scores of politicians, intellectuals, journalists, officials and former officials have reiterated that the prime minister is not working for the sake of Israel but is destroying it. They stress that this is not their opinion, rather it is a fact.
Many Israelis have started to seriously think that the state of Israel will collapse as soon as the war is over. As a result, around 600,000 have already fled the country and hundreds of thousands are preparing to follow suit.
As a result, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has begged people not to flee.
Speaking with me on the phone, Israeli journalist Merton Rappaport said Israeli society “is completely torn into pieces.”
“Every Israeli has been suffering for a long time,” he explained, adding that “everyone of us wants the war to end as soon as possible,” because it has turned into a nightmare.
-Motasem A Dalloul is MEMO’s correspondent in the Gaza Strip.
