DARK clouds have been hanging over Gaza and the West Bank for a year now. The only useful exercise the international community and media networks can perform, it appears, is to count the dead and report the grotesque statistics with precision, as if death and suffering on this scale can be measured in numbers.

There have been countless speeches and boycotts against Israel that no one in my generation has ever witnessed. The global student protests condemning what Bob Dylan’s classic 1962 song dubbed the “Masters of War” have made not an iota of a difference. That includes the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who have taken to the streets in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to demand their government agree to a ceasefire that would bring the hostages home.

As well, a mountain of diplomatic engagements from the majority of nations including our own, literally pleading for a ceasefire and a “Peace Train to take us home again” that Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) gifted us in 1971, and still, the slaughter of Palestinian lives continues unabated.

As we journey “deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness,” to quote Joseph Conrad, political scientists are no longer talking about state and non-state sanctioned violence, but rather about state and non-state sanctioned brutality. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has weighed-in as well, issuing arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his Minister of Defence, Yoav Gallant, on grounds that they and leaders of Hamas have committed war crimes.

Instead of halting Israeli genocide in Gaza and allow Hamas to free their hostages, the war has expanded into the densely populated city of Beirut and we are witnessing political assassinations at a scale the world has not witnessed in decades. With Hamas and Hezbollah in complete tatters, who is left for Netanyahu and his war cabinet to negotiate peace with?

Netanyahu and his coalition government must know that in committing genocide against the Palestinians, they’re engaging in an act of suicide against their own government. It is the only angle in this carnage that the major international media networks have by and large ignored. What price is Israel paying for the thousands of bombs it has dropped on innocent people in the territories it has occupied long before Oct. 7, 2023?

Shir Hever, a prominent Israeli political economist, believes Israel cannot rescue itself from the debris of Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon. Israel is a country hurtling towards collapse and it will not survive in its current form. Headlines in major Israeli newspapers are routinely ignored by Western media outlets – “The Collapse of Zionism,” “Zionism has failed.” “Will Zionism survive the war?” Israeli historian, Yuval Noah Harari, wrote recently that “Netanyahu is endangering Israel’s survival.”

Historians across the Israeli political spectrum – Zionists and non-Zionists – recently penned an essay published in both English and Hebrew by Haaretz. The title of the essay: “Will Israel reach its 100th anniversary.” The state is only 76 years old. The English version reads: “Israel is headed for a historic defeat.” The Hebrew version is a lot more bleak: “we will die with the Palestinians.” The authors made the following prediction: “a state that gives privilege to one ethnic religious group and doesn’t give equal rights to others is coming to an end.”

Israelis don’t like using the term apartheid. Instead, they use the Hebrew term “hafrada” which means separation. Same thing, as Ta-Nehisi Coates brilliantly outlines in his new book “The Message.” Every major sector of Israeli society is experiencing an unprecedented crisis that is already ripping apart the fabric of its society.

A global boycott of Israeli academics caused the European Union to issue a warning to universities not to terminate Horizon Europe projects with Israeli counterparts. Horizon Europe is the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation. Israeli scholars are no longer receiving invitations to attend conferences and academic publications are refusing to publish the submissions of Israeli academics.

Even the formidable high-tech sector in Israel is on the brink of collapsing as foreign investments are directed elsewhere. In June this year, Intel Corp announced it was cancelling plans to build a $25-billion chipmaker factory in Israel.

The Times of Israel newspaper has reported that well over 60,000 Israeli businesses will be shuttered by the end of 2024. One in ten Israeli hotels are on the brink of declaring bankruptcy as Israel’s tourism industry is being obliterated.

Half a million people have already fled, marking a 285 percent spike in departures. No one really knows the exact numbers. Airports report the number of people departing, but the Population Registry and the National Insurance Agency give wildly different numbers. The Central Bureau of Statistics is unable to provide an accurate figure because their researchers have fled. Things are so bad that Israelis are unable to get a doctor’s appointment because the majority of physicians have fled.

There are never any winners in war except perhaps for those who profit from the misery of others.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.