August 1, 2024
A somewhat premature comment on the conflict between the Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant and Minister of National Security (and convicted radical) Itamar Ben-Gvir:
𝕏 10:36 AM · Jul 30, 2024 Hussein @EyesOnSouth1 - 𝕏 10:36 AM · Jul 30, 2024
The disintegration of the Zionist society is happening earlier than expected. This will exacerbate the more Israelis become aware that war failure is inevitable. Civil war is very likely, but almost a third of the population (liberals & affiliates) would leave rather than fight.
This is not a clash between two officials, this is an ideological clash between two schools of thought who are at the complete opposite spectrum.
This will not stay between Ben-Gvir & Gallant/Halevi, it will become a conflict between the army and the police/militias.
The current conflict between Gallant and Ben-Gvir comes after the Military Police arrested nine soldiers accused of raping a Palestinian prisoner.
The Israeli investigation of the rape became necessary after reports by CNN, the New York Times ( archived) and the Washington Post ( archived) about prisoner abuse and murder in Israeli jails. The reports threatened to trigger international investigations:
Judicial officials told Ynet that the serious suspicions must be investigated. "An internal Israeli investigation is better than an international probe," the said.
"Abuse of prisoners could cause unprecedented damage internationally. Internal investigations protect Israel from the International tribunals in the Hague. If we do not investigate, we are ensuring the political and military leaders end up before those courts and Israel subjected to grave steps. The suspects were detained for questioning and not arrested. They will receive a fair and just due process."
Lawyers for the suspected reservists denied the accusations of rape and said the prisoner refused a search when he was moved to the Sde Teiman facility and was restrained by force.
To describe a brutal anal gang rape as "restrain by force" requires some chutzpah.
The arrest of the the rapists led to wild scenes at two Israeli military bases:
Israel experienced hours of chaos on Monday after far-right protesters encouraged by ultranationalist politicians from the governing coalition broke into a military base where Hamas militants are detained and another base hosting the Israel Defense Forces military court.
...
The incidents began when Israel Defense Forces (IDF) military police on Monday detained nine reservists who served in the "Force 100" unit at the "Sde Teiman" military base. Sde Teiman was used as a detention facility for Hamas militants involved in the Oct. 7 attacks, and suspects arrested by the IDF in Gaza have also been brought to the base for questioning.
...
The protesters then moved to another military base 30 minutes north of Tel Aviv that hosts military police headquarters, an IDF detention center and the IDF court. They broke into the court and tried breaking into the detention center to release the reservists.
...
The chaotic incidents indicate how much ultranationalists in Israel have been emboldened under Netanyahu's governments, especially after Oct. 7.
It is also a sign of the disintegration of the IDF chain of command and the military's internal law and order, encouraged by ultranationalist politicians who for years called the military a "liberal" institution and said it was part of a "deep state" that needs to be dismantled.
The police, under command of Be-Gvir, did not intervene in the attacks on the military bases.
It will be interesting to see how the conflict plays out if or when the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahoo orders an attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon:
Israeli ministers authorized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense chief Sunday to decide on the "manner and timing" of a response to a rocket strike in the Golan Heights that killed 12 children and teens, and which Israel and the United States blamed on Lebanese terror group Hezbollah.
...
Members of the Druze community held funerals Sunday for 11 of the 12 young victims of the strike on a soccer field in the town of Majdal Shams, amid fury and grief over the tragedy, which occurred just steps from a bomb shelter, and already sky-high tensions sparked by 10 months of nearly daily rocket attacks on northern Israel and tit-for-tat strikes in southern Lebanon.
The killed children where Syrian Druze in the Syrian Golan Height which is illegally occupied by Israel. It is doubtful that a Hizbullah missile would have intentionally targeted that community.
Any Israeli attack on Lebanon and Hizbullah will see an equivalent retaliation from the Resistance side. Netanyahoo will be careful. While under pressure from the right to attack Hizbullah Netanyahoo knows that Israel has no chance to win against it in a larger conflict.
Such a conflict would only accelerate the inevitable dissolution of the colonial entity.
Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama.