Since the Second Intifada, a hawkish ideology called neo-Revisionism has permeated and paralyzed the political domain.

The Hamas attacks in October 2023 that started the war in Gaza shocked Israeli and international analysts. How had Hamas managed to carry out such a large and devastating operation, given Israel’s formidable military and intelligence capacities? The events of Oct. 7 certainly marked a failure for Israel’s military and intelligence establishment, but they were also a political failure. That day was the deadly culmination of Israel’s refusal, over the previous two decades, to engage meaningfully with the Palestinians. This catastrophic failure of policy was strengthened by the perception, widespread among Israeli Jews since the early 2000s, that the conflict with the Palestinians could never be solved — only managed.

To understand the political and strategic failures that led to Oct. 7, the rationale behind Israel’s ongoing annihilatory campaign in Gaza and the broad support for that campaign among Jewish Israelis, we need to examine the state’s political and ideological landscape, with a focus on two defining questions: How and why did mainstream Israeli politics shift over the last half century from the center-left to the far right? And what role do the political parties that represent Israel’s 2 million Arab-Palestinian citizens play in national politics?

To read the full article, click here.