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The Fall of Israel: The Degradation of Israel's Politics, Economy & Military
The path to the obliteration of Gaza was paved by the confluence of a set of longstanding forces. This great conjuncture has transformed Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories while driving the region to the edge. In The Fall of Israel, Dr Dan Steinbock connects the dots among these lethal headwinds.
What makes The Fall of Israel unique is its comprehensive scope. It covers Israel's political, economic, social and military changes, the shifts in the Palestinian struggle for sovereignty, Israel's degradation into apartheid rule, the attendant atrocities, the regional and global reverberations and the human and economic costs, both prior and subsequent to Israel’s fatal war on Gaza. There, its nightmarish actions have led to the engagement of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, renewed international boycotts, and massive domestic and international protests.
The Fall of Israel outlines the central drivers of this simmering the serial expulsions of Palestinians, the expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, a half century of failed U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East and Israel’s militarization, enabled by the symbiotic bilateral ties with the U.S. and massive U.S. military aid. In the Gaza War, these ties fostered paradigms of devastation, such as the Dahiya doctrine and mass assassination factories, backed by pioneering artificial intelligence. The settlements have contributed to the destabilization of the broader region since the early 1970s, and are now compounding its politico-economic and geopolitical crisis.
This book addresses the efforts to institute a Jewish rather than a secular state. It shows how the postwar labor alignments were replaced by the hard-right coalitions, thanks to U.S. neoliberal economic policies, assertive neoconservatism and Jewish-American donors. It also explains the causes behind the rise of the Messianic far-right, centrist parties, and the failure of the Left. The corrosion of Israeli society and politics was already reflected in and driven by an economy constrained by adverse erosion, as reflected by the liabilities of its high-tech cluster, the talent “brain drain,” the threatened welfare state and subsidized religious sector. But now, the already evident politico-economic costs to Israel of the Gaza war have set the stage for extraordinary uncertainty in the foreseeable future.
What makes The Fall of Israel unique is its comprehensive scope. It covers Israel's political, economic, social and military changes, the shifts in the Palestinian struggle for sovereignty, Israel's degradation into apartheid rule, the attendant atrocities, the regional and global reverberations and the human and economic costs, both prior and subsequent to Israel’s fatal war on Gaza. There, its nightmarish actions have led to the engagement of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, renewed international boycotts, and massive domestic and international protests.
The Fall of Israel outlines the central drivers of this simmering the serial expulsions of Palestinians, the expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, a half century of failed U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East and Israel’s militarization, enabled by the symbiotic bilateral ties with the U.S. and massive U.S. military aid. In the Gaza War, these ties fostered paradigms of devastation, such as the Dahiya doctrine and mass assassination factories, backed by pioneering artificial intelligence. The settlements have contributed to the destabilization of the broader region since the early 1970s, and are now compounding its politico-economic and geopolitical crisis.
This book addresses the efforts to institute a Jewish rather than a secular state. It shows how the postwar labor alignments were replaced by the hard-right coalitions, thanks to U.S. neoliberal economic policies, assertive neoconservatism and Jewish-American donors. It also explains the causes behind the rise of the Messianic far-right, centrist parties, and the failure of the Left. The corrosion of Israeli society and politics was already reflected in and driven by an economy constrained by adverse erosion, as reflected by the liabilities of its high-tech cluster, the talent “brain drain,” the threatened welfare state and subsidized religious sector. But now, the already evident politico-economic costs to Israel of the Gaza war have set the stage for extraordinary uncertainty in the foreseeable future.
- GenresHistory
520 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2025
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February 2, 2025
The Zionist fantasy is that “Israel is the only safe haven for world Jewry; and thus only in Israel Jews can feel safe and secure. Yet, the ability of Hamas (on October 7th) to undermine the illusion so thoroughly, even after 75 years of Israeli existence, suggests that the Zionist project has failed.” Did you know according to the Israeli financial newspaper Calcalist, the present price tag for Israel’s punishment of Palestinians is “$255 million per day”? That sure sounds sustainable, doesn’t it? Especially considering that Hamas is only getting stronger as the one-sided slaughter continues. Oops… “The war in Gaza is now the most expensive in the country’s history and its costs could soar to $67 billion through 2025.” “Staying the course will effectively bankrupt the economy (p.242).” “Ever since its creation, it (Israel) has been effectively at war.” You’d think that having almost half of the world’s Jewry living in Israel would noticeably decrease anti-Semitism. Not even a week after October 7th, Israel’s intelligence ministry prepared a memorandum that recommended “the forcible transfer of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents to Egypt’s Sinai.” This was a classified memo which was soon leaked sparking obvious concern about intentional ethnic cleansing. You can’t remove Hamas, but if US citizens keep staying asleep, you CAN remove (or kill) the remaining Palestinians and score some AWESOME beach-front property for Jared Kushner and friends.
Fun Quote by Netanyahu no Zionists Will Repeat Today: “Anyone wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas. This is part of our strategy.” Netanyahu delivered “hundreds of millions of dollars of covert aid to Hamas” – see this story verified in the Times of Israel, Ha’aretz, and the NYT.
Settlements are favored by Israelis because historically they mean having your own place at an affordable price. Settlements offer chronically angry settlers a fancier lifestyle all at the expense of theft from people they think they are better than, what’s not to like?
After Israelis pulled out of Gaza, all that changed was that now Gaza was controlled “from without.” The substance of occupation did not change. You are still forced to live in a highly controlled prison, only now you didn’t have to see violent scumbags on your hilltops visually threatening and spitting on you. East Jerusalem is considered part of the West Bank and thus Palestinian territory under international law. Settlements (every acre of their land is stolen) within the West Bank mean the physical line of defense is five times the length it would be w/o the settlements. 80% of the IDF job in the West Bank is protecting the illegal settlers. Security for pissed-off thieves, while none for the occupied.
After October 7th, Bernie Sanders called Gaza, “Biden’s Vietnam.” Nikki Haley signed artillery shells with the inscription “Finish Them”. Today there are almost six million Palestinian refugees. In Gaza alone 1.7 million of the 2.3 million Palestinians are already refugees from elsewhere.
The US as Rogue State: After WWII, the delusional US declared that its wartime allies, China and the Soviet Union were now enemies, then comically declared its enemies Germany, Italy and Japan allies. The US instantly became the fair-weathered friend your mom warned you about. “From 1776 to the 1970’s, US Armed Forces were deployed in up to 20 instances per year. Between 1969 and 1999, these tripled to 34 annually. In the past decade, they almost quadrupled to 140.” R U seeing an increasing pattern of aggression here? “As former defense secretary Robert Gates once put it, ‘the US military has more musicians in its marching band than the State Department has diplomats’.”
Israel’s costs of repelling Iran’s recent missiles was huge, the WSJ said it was comparable to Israel’s costs during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. This book said it was $1.1 to 1.4 billion because “One Arrow missile used to intercept an Iranian ballistic missile costs $3.5 million, while the cost of one David Sling missile is $1 million, in addition to the sorties of aircraft that participated in intercepting Iranian drones.” Imagine US media daring tell you about the huge cost of deflecting incoming missiles, and how vulnerable Israel really is. And this was Iran showing restraint.
Part of the Begin Doctrine is that the opposing side mustn’t acquire nuclear weapons. This is why Begin attacked Saddam’s Osirak reactor in 1981. Bullies don’t like competition. Israel can call up more reservists than other countries. For example, France has a much bigger population yet has only 24,000 reservists, while Israel has 465,000. As such, Israel’s per capita spending on its military is higher than every other country except the US. I guess the most intentionally paranoid rogue states think alike. Funny how “even in 2023 Israel’s spending was 50% more than that of Ukraine.” Presently, Israel is the world’s larger exporter of military drones, all happily tested on civilians in Gaza. War Crimes R Us.
When El Salvador was busy killing 75,000 civilians (1980-1992), Israel sold napalm, bullets, rifles and grenades to it. Fun Fact: “A genocide is declared only after innocents have been butchered. If a meteorological report could be released only after a tornado, it would be useless.”
AI: Israel is big into AI with its Lavender program which is linked to “Israel’s mass assassination factories. What would you call the mindset of targeting Hamas militants at home, so you know you will kill their entire families? Reminds me of the US in Philippines when the killing rationale was “nits make lice.” Lavender kill lists were also employed when Israel knew there was 10% margin of error. No problem, when every Palestinian is delightfully considered a terrorist. “Reportedly, for every Hamas operative marked by Lavender, it was permissible to kill 15-20 civilians. Backed with AI, the Israeli military purposely used ‘dumb bombs’ hitting these homes.” Hey, let’s do what our Hasbara says we NEVER do! (be indiscriminate) The author calls murder by AI, “algocide” - allowing algorithms to determine who will die, and ignore the 10% of innocents who are killed as well. Heck, if every Palestinian baby is seen by you as upcoming evil, then genocide can be seen as a moral responsibility. Hitler’s paranoid racist logic happily reapplied by his victim.
Israel’s Hannibal Directive (intentionally killing your own so there are no hostages): On October 7th Col. Nissim Hazan fires a shell at a kibbutz killing 12 of the 14 hostages held by Hamas. On October 7th at 11:22 AM a military message came across: “Not a single vehicle can return to Gaza.” After October 7th all the bombed cars were buried rather than forensically examined to find who did that. These weren’t people, but vehicles, granted some with traces of blood but not enough to worry about the sanctity of the already deceased. The author says some of the jarring images of October 7th can be traced to “The handiwork of tank crews and helicopter pilots blanketing Israeli territory with shells, cannon fire, and Hellfire missiles.” Lest Zionist readers say, “I’ll bet the author is just a liar and Jew hater”, “According to Ha’aretz, Israeli police investigation confirmed that Israeli Apache helicopters killed numerous Israeli civilians at and around the Nova electronic music festival. Subsequently, the police slammed the claim.” But in Israel’s defense, sometimes electronic music can really be annoying.
Advance Knowledge of October 7th Ignored: Was there a stand-down on October 7th, “in order to create a transformational event that would legitimate a broad scale invasion and, ultimately, a war of obliteration?” An Egyptian intelligence official said Israel had ignored repeated warnings that “an explosion of the situation is coming, and very soon, and it will be big.” “Why was the abundant intelligence on the impending Hamas attack deliberately ignored?” Why were the Israeli hostages effectively abandoned? Two Israeli female lookouts said they saw red flags but were ignored. One of them “Rotenberg frequently saw many Palestinians dressed in civilian clothing near the border fence with maps scrutinizing the ground around it and digging holes.” Another soldier added, “we saw what was happening, we told them about it, and we were the ones who were murdered.” Israeli elites thinking their opponents are idiots then waking up on October 7th and realizing their $$$ Iron Wall was clearly not “impenetrable.” Hubris 101. In fact, on October 7th the wall was breached at a whopping 44 different points. Were the guards busy having a circle jerk? How do you miss 44 breaches? I guess if you ignore all advance warnings and think you are personally chosen by God (like Charlie Manson, Jim Jones, and Hitler did), shit can happen. Too much 10/7 evidence is missing (intentionally) but the looming question remains: Was the Israeli October 7th military response remarkable neglect or deliberate? Just as was the US military response on 9/11, remarkable neglect or deliberate? New evidence shows clear US elites ignoring foreknowledge of the attack on Pearl Harbor, in order to bring the US into the Pacific War, so why would October 7th any different?
Ze’ev Jabotinsky wrote: “Zionism is a colonizing venture and it therefore stands or falls by the question of armed force.” In 2012, Avraham Burg, the former chair of the Knesset and interim president of Israel, said, colonizing Palestinian lands has made Israel “the last colonial occupier in the Western World.” Raytheon changed its name to RTX. Who makes those 2,000 pound bombs that Israel loves to drop on crowded civilian areas? I’m glad you asked. They are made in the US by General Dynamics where they are coldly called MK-84/BLU-109/GBU-31 bombs. Within 100 feet, you die, but lethal fragments reach 1,200 feet. “Nothing like this has been seen since Vietnam.” These bombs recently caused in civilian areas “more than 500 impact craters 40 feet in diameter.” General Dynamic stockholders will be pleased to know that these bombs are four times heavier than the bombs “the US dropped on ISIS in Mosul, Iraq.” Dropping white phosphorus artillery shells on civilians is a war crime yet “between December 2008 and January 2009, the IDF repeatedly exploded white phosphorus munitions in the air over populated areas.”
Different Strokes: Ariel “Sharon suffered two strokes. The first was a minor one. The second stroke killed him.” Page 209 is a graph showing how in Israel from 1999 to 2024, the right wing has grown from 40% to over 60% while the Left has shrunk from 30% to around 10% - proving that change will only come from external pressure. “The first year of the most far-right government in Israel’s history was an economic disaster.” Recently in just three years the number of Israelis with academic degrees emigrating has doubled. Spending now largely goes to the occupation and colonial settlers rather than “investing in science and technology”. Less innovation = less return on investment. American Zionists don’t want you to know most Israeli Jews are secular. So much for anti-Zionism = anti-Semitism. “In 2023, nearly 14% of the total Jewish population (in Israel) were Haredim (Orthodox).” Since Haredim don’t serve in the military, “If secular Israel were to give way to a Haredi Israel, it would mean economic suicide.” Re: the genocide in Gaza, American citizens fund “most of the carnage.” This is why Hasbara is presently on steroids; Israel is losing the greater battle.
Speaking of losing money, “By 2013, the World bank estimated that the Wall, coupled with ‘checkpoints and movement permits’ caused up to $185 to $229 million in costs.” “By the early 2020’s, there were over 700 road obstacles across the West bank, including 140 checkpoints.” Gotta keep your occupied from getting to work and making their lives miserable in violation of the sacred Jewish values of tikkun olam. “Israel’s blockade was a deliberate attempt to push the area’s economy to the brink of collapse.”
Hamas: Think of it as 30,000 troops getting stocked from tunnels to Egypt or by boat. Their primitive missiles by 2014 could reach most of Israel. And the 2023-2025 over-the-top Israeli attack on Gaza is ONLY making Hamas stronger, so what exactly is Israel’s present plan?
Comedy Time: “McDonald’s announced that the boycott campaign had resulted in financial losses of approximately $7 billion.”
Genocide & Holocaust: Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish lawyer, who coined the term “genocide” did so to preempt the rise of “future Hitlers”; he didn’t say “ONLY non-Jewish Hitlers” he said “future Hitlers.” His objective was reached when the UN approved the Genocide Convention in 1948. “Lemkin considered colonial acts inherent in genocide.” “Until the 1967 War, the Holocaust was largely shunned in American life, including American-Jewish life (p.306).” The phrase “Never Again” was “popularized by rabbi Meir Kahane in his 1971 book “Never Again!”
Zionist Starvathon: “By all estimates, the situation in Gaza in 2024 was “the most intense man-made famine since the Second World War.” Malthus once called starvation a “war of extermination.” After October 7th, Israel “demolished food infrastructure, from bakeries to mills and food retail, and the blockade.” “By May 2024, some 85% of children under five in Gaza spent days without food, while more than half a million Gazans were starving.” In 2023, a minimum of 500 to 600 trucks was required daily to feed the millions of Palestinians in Gaza.” “After October 7th, about 30-50 truckloads of aid entered the Strip in the first MONTH of war.” “The truckloads climbed to 200 in Spring 2024. The number of trucks was at best about half of what was required.” “Measured in terms of total food deliveries into the Strip since October 2023, the figure was 860 kcal. A third less than in the Nazi camps over eight decades ago.” Such compassion.
“In Gaza, Daniel Hagari, the IDF spokesman, stated that early on (post-October 7th) the emphasis of the Israeli ground assault ‘is on damage and not accuracy’.” “From the river to the sea” today means a single democratic state for both Jews and Arabs; Zionists want you believe it ONLY means kill every Jew in a genocide, and you should never know that the original Hamas charter was replaced years ago by a very reasonable one.
Britain: Britain’s famine commissioner in 1876, oversaw the Great Southern Indian Famine that was “estimated at 8.2 million deaths.” (Majd’s great book “The Great Famine” covers the 1917-1919 Brit-led famine in Iran that killed 8-10 million Iranians)
US Costs: “America’s post-9/11 wars’ economic and human costs amount to $8 trillion (Watson Institute).” Post-9/11, more than 15,000 US military and contractors died, while the US killed over 300,000 in Iraq, 266,000 in Syria, 176,000 in Afghanistan, 112,000 in Yemen, and 67,000 in Pakistan (Watson Institute). The punch line was none of these murdered people caused 9/11 – pause to wave American flag. For those who like math, this is called killing “300 times the number of the 9/11 victims” – Attention World: for each one of ours ANYONE kills, we’ll kill 300 non-Americans who had absolutely nothing to do with it. The US loves to hate extremist Muslims yet check out the CIA’s Operation Cyclone from the 1980’s when we armed, financed and trained Islamic fedayeen against the Soviets which gave the world both al-Qaeda and ISIS. Good luck finding mainstream media telling you any of this. The US still has 30,000 to 45,000 US troops in the Middle East according to Pentagon figures. Part of the reason the US funds Ukraine is because it knows that the Chinese were funding it strongly before Putin invaded and we need Ukraine to be under OUR control. This meant scads of aid to insure our first place in line. US elites plan in the Ukraine proxy war to “fight to the last Ukrainian.” Hey, we are not going to die for you, but we’ll pay you to take that risk upon yourself.
Hezbollah & Hamas: Hezbollah was financed by Iran to resist Israel in Lebanon. Former Israeli PM Ehud Barak stated, “It was our presence there (in Lebanon) that created Hezbollah.” Hezbollah’s popularity was increased when Israel left Lebanon after an 18-year occupation. “In 2018, US sources estimated Iran’s support for Hezbollah at $700 million per year. By October 7, 2023, it likely had at least 60,000 fighters.” “Between October 7 and the end of June 2024, Hamas fired 12,000 rockets at Israeli targets while Hezbollah launched more than 8,000 rockets and other explosives into Israel.” Israel “has no solution for 3,000 missiles of various sizes that would attack it daily.” It knows it is more vulnerable than it’s letting on. Continued payback could lead Israel to “mobilize for nuclear confrontation, as it did in 1967 and 1973.” This could trigger what Sy Hersh called the “Samson Option”, where Israel might foolishly kill itself and those who oppose it with nuclear weapons.
Gaza: to clean away the present rubble will cost “up to $700 million; and its rebuilding up to $80 billion over time.” How sad that Jared and Ivanka won’t be able to move into their beachfront property there immediately. And Nikki Haley and Noa Tishby still have to go in with M16s wearing their “Am Yisrael Chai” bejeweled butt plugs and “finish” the rest of the Palestinians. Things to do…
See last paragraph of this review in comment section. like both if you can. thanks...
Fun Quote by Netanyahu no Zionists Will Repeat Today: “Anyone wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas. This is part of our strategy.” Netanyahu delivered “hundreds of millions of dollars of covert aid to Hamas” – see this story verified in the Times of Israel, Ha’aretz, and the NYT.
Settlements are favored by Israelis because historically they mean having your own place at an affordable price. Settlements offer chronically angry settlers a fancier lifestyle all at the expense of theft from people they think they are better than, what’s not to like?
After Israelis pulled out of Gaza, all that changed was that now Gaza was controlled “from without.” The substance of occupation did not change. You are still forced to live in a highly controlled prison, only now you didn’t have to see violent scumbags on your hilltops visually threatening and spitting on you. East Jerusalem is considered part of the West Bank and thus Palestinian territory under international law. Settlements (every acre of their land is stolen) within the West Bank mean the physical line of defense is five times the length it would be w/o the settlements. 80% of the IDF job in the West Bank is protecting the illegal settlers. Security for pissed-off thieves, while none for the occupied.
After October 7th, Bernie Sanders called Gaza, “Biden’s Vietnam.” Nikki Haley signed artillery shells with the inscription “Finish Them”. Today there are almost six million Palestinian refugees. In Gaza alone 1.7 million of the 2.3 million Palestinians are already refugees from elsewhere.
The US as Rogue State: After WWII, the delusional US declared that its wartime allies, China and the Soviet Union were now enemies, then comically declared its enemies Germany, Italy and Japan allies. The US instantly became the fair-weathered friend your mom warned you about. “From 1776 to the 1970’s, US Armed Forces were deployed in up to 20 instances per year. Between 1969 and 1999, these tripled to 34 annually. In the past decade, they almost quadrupled to 140.” R U seeing an increasing pattern of aggression here? “As former defense secretary Robert Gates once put it, ‘the US military has more musicians in its marching band than the State Department has diplomats’.”
Israel’s costs of repelling Iran’s recent missiles was huge, the WSJ said it was comparable to Israel’s costs during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. This book said it was $1.1 to 1.4 billion because “One Arrow missile used to intercept an Iranian ballistic missile costs $3.5 million, while the cost of one David Sling missile is $1 million, in addition to the sorties of aircraft that participated in intercepting Iranian drones.” Imagine US media daring tell you about the huge cost of deflecting incoming missiles, and how vulnerable Israel really is. And this was Iran showing restraint.
Part of the Begin Doctrine is that the opposing side mustn’t acquire nuclear weapons. This is why Begin attacked Saddam’s Osirak reactor in 1981. Bullies don’t like competition. Israel can call up more reservists than other countries. For example, France has a much bigger population yet has only 24,000 reservists, while Israel has 465,000. As such, Israel’s per capita spending on its military is higher than every other country except the US. I guess the most intentionally paranoid rogue states think alike. Funny how “even in 2023 Israel’s spending was 50% more than that of Ukraine.” Presently, Israel is the world’s larger exporter of military drones, all happily tested on civilians in Gaza. War Crimes R Us.
When El Salvador was busy killing 75,000 civilians (1980-1992), Israel sold napalm, bullets, rifles and grenades to it. Fun Fact: “A genocide is declared only after innocents have been butchered. If a meteorological report could be released only after a tornado, it would be useless.”
AI: Israel is big into AI with its Lavender program which is linked to “Israel’s mass assassination factories. What would you call the mindset of targeting Hamas militants at home, so you know you will kill their entire families? Reminds me of the US in Philippines when the killing rationale was “nits make lice.” Lavender kill lists were also employed when Israel knew there was 10% margin of error. No problem, when every Palestinian is delightfully considered a terrorist. “Reportedly, for every Hamas operative marked by Lavender, it was permissible to kill 15-20 civilians. Backed with AI, the Israeli military purposely used ‘dumb bombs’ hitting these homes.” Hey, let’s do what our Hasbara says we NEVER do! (be indiscriminate) The author calls murder by AI, “algocide” - allowing algorithms to determine who will die, and ignore the 10% of innocents who are killed as well. Heck, if every Palestinian baby is seen by you as upcoming evil, then genocide can be seen as a moral responsibility. Hitler’s paranoid racist logic happily reapplied by his victim.
Israel’s Hannibal Directive (intentionally killing your own so there are no hostages): On October 7th Col. Nissim Hazan fires a shell at a kibbutz killing 12 of the 14 hostages held by Hamas. On October 7th at 11:22 AM a military message came across: “Not a single vehicle can return to Gaza.” After October 7th all the bombed cars were buried rather than forensically examined to find who did that. These weren’t people, but vehicles, granted some with traces of blood but not enough to worry about the sanctity of the already deceased. The author says some of the jarring images of October 7th can be traced to “The handiwork of tank crews and helicopter pilots blanketing Israeli territory with shells, cannon fire, and Hellfire missiles.” Lest Zionist readers say, “I’ll bet the author is just a liar and Jew hater”, “According to Ha’aretz, Israeli police investigation confirmed that Israeli Apache helicopters killed numerous Israeli civilians at and around the Nova electronic music festival. Subsequently, the police slammed the claim.” But in Israel’s defense, sometimes electronic music can really be annoying.
Advance Knowledge of October 7th Ignored: Was there a stand-down on October 7th, “in order to create a transformational event that would legitimate a broad scale invasion and, ultimately, a war of obliteration?” An Egyptian intelligence official said Israel had ignored repeated warnings that “an explosion of the situation is coming, and very soon, and it will be big.” “Why was the abundant intelligence on the impending Hamas attack deliberately ignored?” Why were the Israeli hostages effectively abandoned? Two Israeli female lookouts said they saw red flags but were ignored. One of them “Rotenberg frequently saw many Palestinians dressed in civilian clothing near the border fence with maps scrutinizing the ground around it and digging holes.” Another soldier added, “we saw what was happening, we told them about it, and we were the ones who were murdered.” Israeli elites thinking their opponents are idiots then waking up on October 7th and realizing their $$$ Iron Wall was clearly not “impenetrable.” Hubris 101. In fact, on October 7th the wall was breached at a whopping 44 different points. Were the guards busy having a circle jerk? How do you miss 44 breaches? I guess if you ignore all advance warnings and think you are personally chosen by God (like Charlie Manson, Jim Jones, and Hitler did), shit can happen. Too much 10/7 evidence is missing (intentionally) but the looming question remains: Was the Israeli October 7th military response remarkable neglect or deliberate? Just as was the US military response on 9/11, remarkable neglect or deliberate? New evidence shows clear US elites ignoring foreknowledge of the attack on Pearl Harbor, in order to bring the US into the Pacific War, so why would October 7th any different?
Ze’ev Jabotinsky wrote: “Zionism is a colonizing venture and it therefore stands or falls by the question of armed force.” In 2012, Avraham Burg, the former chair of the Knesset and interim president of Israel, said, colonizing Palestinian lands has made Israel “the last colonial occupier in the Western World.” Raytheon changed its name to RTX. Who makes those 2,000 pound bombs that Israel loves to drop on crowded civilian areas? I’m glad you asked. They are made in the US by General Dynamics where they are coldly called MK-84/BLU-109/GBU-31 bombs. Within 100 feet, you die, but lethal fragments reach 1,200 feet. “Nothing like this has been seen since Vietnam.” These bombs recently caused in civilian areas “more than 500 impact craters 40 feet in diameter.” General Dynamic stockholders will be pleased to know that these bombs are four times heavier than the bombs “the US dropped on ISIS in Mosul, Iraq.” Dropping white phosphorus artillery shells on civilians is a war crime yet “between December 2008 and January 2009, the IDF repeatedly exploded white phosphorus munitions in the air over populated areas.”
Different Strokes: Ariel “Sharon suffered two strokes. The first was a minor one. The second stroke killed him.” Page 209 is a graph showing how in Israel from 1999 to 2024, the right wing has grown from 40% to over 60% while the Left has shrunk from 30% to around 10% - proving that change will only come from external pressure. “The first year of the most far-right government in Israel’s history was an economic disaster.” Recently in just three years the number of Israelis with academic degrees emigrating has doubled. Spending now largely goes to the occupation and colonial settlers rather than “investing in science and technology”. Less innovation = less return on investment. American Zionists don’t want you to know most Israeli Jews are secular. So much for anti-Zionism = anti-Semitism. “In 2023, nearly 14% of the total Jewish population (in Israel) were Haredim (Orthodox).” Since Haredim don’t serve in the military, “If secular Israel were to give way to a Haredi Israel, it would mean economic suicide.” Re: the genocide in Gaza, American citizens fund “most of the carnage.” This is why Hasbara is presently on steroids; Israel is losing the greater battle.
Speaking of losing money, “By 2013, the World bank estimated that the Wall, coupled with ‘checkpoints and movement permits’ caused up to $185 to $229 million in costs.” “By the early 2020’s, there were over 700 road obstacles across the West bank, including 140 checkpoints.” Gotta keep your occupied from getting to work and making their lives miserable in violation of the sacred Jewish values of tikkun olam. “Israel’s blockade was a deliberate attempt to push the area’s economy to the brink of collapse.”
Hamas: Think of it as 30,000 troops getting stocked from tunnels to Egypt or by boat. Their primitive missiles by 2014 could reach most of Israel. And the 2023-2025 over-the-top Israeli attack on Gaza is ONLY making Hamas stronger, so what exactly is Israel’s present plan?
Comedy Time: “McDonald’s announced that the boycott campaign had resulted in financial losses of approximately $7 billion.”
Genocide & Holocaust: Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish lawyer, who coined the term “genocide” did so to preempt the rise of “future Hitlers”; he didn’t say “ONLY non-Jewish Hitlers” he said “future Hitlers.” His objective was reached when the UN approved the Genocide Convention in 1948. “Lemkin considered colonial acts inherent in genocide.” “Until the 1967 War, the Holocaust was largely shunned in American life, including American-Jewish life (p.306).” The phrase “Never Again” was “popularized by rabbi Meir Kahane in his 1971 book “Never Again!”
Zionist Starvathon: “By all estimates, the situation in Gaza in 2024 was “the most intense man-made famine since the Second World War.” Malthus once called starvation a “war of extermination.” After October 7th, Israel “demolished food infrastructure, from bakeries to mills and food retail, and the blockade.” “By May 2024, some 85% of children under five in Gaza spent days without food, while more than half a million Gazans were starving.” In 2023, a minimum of 500 to 600 trucks was required daily to feed the millions of Palestinians in Gaza.” “After October 7th, about 30-50 truckloads of aid entered the Strip in the first MONTH of war.” “The truckloads climbed to 200 in Spring 2024. The number of trucks was at best about half of what was required.” “Measured in terms of total food deliveries into the Strip since October 2023, the figure was 860 kcal. A third less than in the Nazi camps over eight decades ago.” Such compassion.
“In Gaza, Daniel Hagari, the IDF spokesman, stated that early on (post-October 7th) the emphasis of the Israeli ground assault ‘is on damage and not accuracy’.” “From the river to the sea” today means a single democratic state for both Jews and Arabs; Zionists want you believe it ONLY means kill every Jew in a genocide, and you should never know that the original Hamas charter was replaced years ago by a very reasonable one.
Britain: Britain’s famine commissioner in 1876, oversaw the Great Southern Indian Famine that was “estimated at 8.2 million deaths.” (Majd’s great book “The Great Famine” covers the 1917-1919 Brit-led famine in Iran that killed 8-10 million Iranians)
US Costs: “America’s post-9/11 wars’ economic and human costs amount to $8 trillion (Watson Institute).” Post-9/11, more than 15,000 US military and contractors died, while the US killed over 300,000 in Iraq, 266,000 in Syria, 176,000 in Afghanistan, 112,000 in Yemen, and 67,000 in Pakistan (Watson Institute). The punch line was none of these murdered people caused 9/11 – pause to wave American flag. For those who like math, this is called killing “300 times the number of the 9/11 victims” – Attention World: for each one of ours ANYONE kills, we’ll kill 300 non-Americans who had absolutely nothing to do with it. The US loves to hate extremist Muslims yet check out the CIA’s Operation Cyclone from the 1980’s when we armed, financed and trained Islamic fedayeen against the Soviets which gave the world both al-Qaeda and ISIS. Good luck finding mainstream media telling you any of this. The US still has 30,000 to 45,000 US troops in the Middle East according to Pentagon figures. Part of the reason the US funds Ukraine is because it knows that the Chinese were funding it strongly before Putin invaded and we need Ukraine to be under OUR control. This meant scads of aid to insure our first place in line. US elites plan in the Ukraine proxy war to “fight to the last Ukrainian.” Hey, we are not going to die for you, but we’ll pay you to take that risk upon yourself.
Hezbollah & Hamas: Hezbollah was financed by Iran to resist Israel in Lebanon. Former Israeli PM Ehud Barak stated, “It was our presence there (in Lebanon) that created Hezbollah.” Hezbollah’s popularity was increased when Israel left Lebanon after an 18-year occupation. “In 2018, US sources estimated Iran’s support for Hezbollah at $700 million per year. By October 7, 2023, it likely had at least 60,000 fighters.” “Between October 7 and the end of June 2024, Hamas fired 12,000 rockets at Israeli targets while Hezbollah launched more than 8,000 rockets and other explosives into Israel.” Israel “has no solution for 3,000 missiles of various sizes that would attack it daily.” It knows it is more vulnerable than it’s letting on. Continued payback could lead Israel to “mobilize for nuclear confrontation, as it did in 1967 and 1973.” This could trigger what Sy Hersh called the “Samson Option”, where Israel might foolishly kill itself and those who oppose it with nuclear weapons.
Gaza: to clean away the present rubble will cost “up to $700 million; and its rebuilding up to $80 billion over time.” How sad that Jared and Ivanka won’t be able to move into their beachfront property there immediately. And Nikki Haley and Noa Tishby still have to go in with M16s wearing their “Am Yisrael Chai” bejeweled butt plugs and “finish” the rest of the Palestinians. Things to do…
See last paragraph of this review in comment section. like both if you can. thanks...
July 8, 2025
Dan Steinbock delivers a sweeping, controversial, and meticulously documented account of what he calls the “long arc of collapse” in Israeli society — not just political, but moral, economic, and existential. He traces what he sees as the as Israel’s transformation from a secular democracy into what he repeatedly terms an “ultra-apartheid ethnocracy sustained by military-industrial entrenchment.” And mind you, Dan is a Jewish former Kibbutznick that spent many years in the country.
Steinbock’s core argument, presented early and often, is that Israel is caught in what he terms a “great conjuncture” — a convergence of structural forces driving irreversible decline. These include, in his formulation: “serial expulsions of Palestinians since 1948, settler colonial expansion, the militarized dependency on the United States, and the rise of authoritarian religious-nationalist governance.” These are not viewed as crises in isolation, but as interconnected pillars sustaining the current Zionist project that, in his view, cannot reform itself without meaningful outside pressure.
He asserts that the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack was not a rupture, but “the logical outcome of decades of impunity, occupation, and ethnic dispossession,” and claims what nearly all objective scholars today agree with, that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza. It would be a mistake to dismiss Steinbock’s work as a polemic, it is heavily sourced mostly taking Israel’s leaders in their own words for the last 75+ years.
Steinbock is particularly effective when chronicling the erosion of Israeli liberal institutions. He devotes an entire chapter to the 2023–24 judicial overhaul led by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s coalition, describing it not merely as a power grab but “the final unmasking of an ethno-majoritarian state.” The book documents with precision how this political project is entangled with messianic settler ideology, emboldened by state subsidies and legitimized by security imperatives. “The army no longer defends the state,” he writes. “It defends a theology and occupation.”
One of the book’s most arresting contributions is Steinbock’s economic critique. He paints a bleak picture of a bifurcated society: a high-tech elite whose globalized ambitions have distanced them from the state, and a growing ultra-Orthodox and settler class increasingly dependent on welfare and subsidy. “Israel’s income inequality is the highest in the OECD,” he notes, “and its economic model is being cannibalized by the very ideology it subsidizes.” The Haredi don’t serve in the military - remember the day before Bibi attacked Iran his government almost fell because he was trying to force them to be drafted and they forced a coalition vote which he passed by 2 votes — and they are largely funded by the state. They have radical messianic views and believe every step towards global war is a step towards the messiah coming to the temple mount in Jerusalem. They have many more kids than the secular Jews, many of which have or are leaving the state for a variety of reasons. Their settlements expand which require more security in occupied areas. It’s a literal ticking demographic and economic time bomb. Something has got to give but unclear what that will be.
In perhaps the book’s most original—and disturbing—chapter, Steinbock introduces the concept of “algocide,” describing the use of AI-enhanced targeting systems to conduct mass assassinations in Gaza. He argues that Israel’s war-fighting has entered a phase in which “machines normalize extermination by spreadsheet,” erasing the human dimension of war. This section, while speculative at times, is deeply researched and has
undergirded by citations to Israeli defense reports and U.N. findings.
The book is a systems level indictment on the social, economic and political systems in place in current Israel. Steinbock takes aim at the United States as well, labeling its military and diplomatic support as the “scaffolding of impunity.” He argues that without U.S. backing, the current Israeli model would collapse under its own contradictions: “It is not the Iron Dome that protects Israel,” he writes, “but the American checkbook and veto pen.”
This book is a fiercely argued, richly sourced great work of middle eastern history and political science. It is a vital addition to the global conversation surrounding the future of the state of Israel post Gaza 2024.
Steinbock’s core argument, presented early and often, is that Israel is caught in what he terms a “great conjuncture” — a convergence of structural forces driving irreversible decline. These include, in his formulation: “serial expulsions of Palestinians since 1948, settler colonial expansion, the militarized dependency on the United States, and the rise of authoritarian religious-nationalist governance.” These are not viewed as crises in isolation, but as interconnected pillars sustaining the current Zionist project that, in his view, cannot reform itself without meaningful outside pressure.
He asserts that the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack was not a rupture, but “the logical outcome of decades of impunity, occupation, and ethnic dispossession,” and claims what nearly all objective scholars today agree with, that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza. It would be a mistake to dismiss Steinbock’s work as a polemic, it is heavily sourced mostly taking Israel’s leaders in their own words for the last 75+ years.
Steinbock is particularly effective when chronicling the erosion of Israeli liberal institutions. He devotes an entire chapter to the 2023–24 judicial overhaul led by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s coalition, describing it not merely as a power grab but “the final unmasking of an ethno-majoritarian state.” The book documents with precision how this political project is entangled with messianic settler ideology, emboldened by state subsidies and legitimized by security imperatives. “The army no longer defends the state,” he writes. “It defends a theology and occupation.”
One of the book’s most arresting contributions is Steinbock’s economic critique. He paints a bleak picture of a bifurcated society: a high-tech elite whose globalized ambitions have distanced them from the state, and a growing ultra-Orthodox and settler class increasingly dependent on welfare and subsidy. “Israel’s income inequality is the highest in the OECD,” he notes, “and its economic model is being cannibalized by the very ideology it subsidizes.” The Haredi don’t serve in the military - remember the day before Bibi attacked Iran his government almost fell because he was trying to force them to be drafted and they forced a coalition vote which he passed by 2 votes — and they are largely funded by the state. They have radical messianic views and believe every step towards global war is a step towards the messiah coming to the temple mount in Jerusalem. They have many more kids than the secular Jews, many of which have or are leaving the state for a variety of reasons. Their settlements expand which require more security in occupied areas. It’s a literal ticking demographic and economic time bomb. Something has got to give but unclear what that will be.
In perhaps the book’s most original—and disturbing—chapter, Steinbock introduces the concept of “algocide,” describing the use of AI-enhanced targeting systems to conduct mass assassinations in Gaza. He argues that Israel’s war-fighting has entered a phase in which “machines normalize extermination by spreadsheet,” erasing the human dimension of war. This section, while speculative at times, is deeply researched and has
undergirded by citations to Israeli defense reports and U.N. findings.
The book is a systems level indictment on the social, economic and political systems in place in current Israel. Steinbock takes aim at the United States as well, labeling its military and diplomatic support as the “scaffolding of impunity.” He argues that without U.S. backing, the current Israeli model would collapse under its own contradictions: “It is not the Iron Dome that protects Israel,” he writes, “but the American checkbook and veto pen.”
This book is a fiercely argued, richly sourced great work of middle eastern history and political science. It is a vital addition to the global conversation surrounding the future of the state of Israel post Gaza 2024.
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