Time and again, western political elites and opinion leaders have blamed Israel’s “far-right” government for atrocities committed in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Given that Israel is often given a free pass in the West, it is notable that some criticism is finally being directed at Israeli policy. But much of this critique has focused narrowly on the right-wing coalition currently in power – particularly Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich – while ignoring the broader political apparatus and societal consensus that enables and supports ongoing crimes against Palestinians.
There are countless examples. Throughout much of the current war on Gaza, former US President Joe Biden publicly criticised the Israeli government, targeting Netanyahu, Ben Gvir and Smotrich by name.
The European Council and various European heads of state have also singled out the Israeli far right, and the UK has imposed sanctions on Ben Gvir and Smotrich. The US and EU have additionally sanctioned certain “extremist” Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.
A growing number of American politicians, including Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer, have condemned Netanyahu’s coalition.
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Mainstream western media figures have joined the chorus of criticism: CNN’s Jake Tapper issued a harsh rebuke of the Israeli right’s “extreme speech”, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman explicitly attacked Netanyahu’s leadership, and broadcaster Piers Morgan acknowledged he was wrong to defend the Israeli government against genocide allegations.
Yet while this rhetoric might appear to mark a shift in the political and media landscape, it ultimately functions as a convenient scapegoat. Criticising Israel’s right wing serves as a safe outlet for western concern, allowing officials and commentators to distance themselves from Israeli war crimes without challenging the broader ideological and institutional foundations of Israeli policy.
In short, Israel’s far right has become a fig leaf for mainstream Israeli violence.
Broad support for genocide
What is often lost in this discourse is that Israel’s genocidal and apartheid policies are not the product of one faction. They are widely supported across the Israeli political spectrum.
Israeli opposition parties have largely endorsed the forced displacement, mass killing and deliberate starvation of Palestinians in Gaza. Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid offers a useful case in point: though positioned against Netanyahu, he has promoted core Israeli government narratives in international forums.
In a recent interview with Egyptian journalist Emad Adeeb, Lapid said that Palestinians are starving in Gaza because Hamas steals humanitarian aid, and that civilian casualties are primarily the result of Hamas using them as “human shields”.
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The Israeli opposition also supports the longstanding blockade on Gaza and the programme of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. Far from offering a meaningful alternative, they have enabled – and even cheered on – many of the current government’s most criminal actions. Moreover, when afforded the chance to govern, liberal and centrist Israeli governments have consistently upheld Israel’s core occupation policies.
Just as significant is the role of Israeli society – particularly Israeli Jewish society – in supporting and legitimising criminal policies. A Pew Research poll conducted more than five months into the Gaza war, when the Palestinian death toll had surpassed 30,000 and a growing number of experts were accusing Israel of genocide, found that only four percent of Israeli Jews believed Israel had “gone too far” in its military actions.
More recent surveys paint an even bleaker picture. A poll commissioned this past March by Penn State University and the Israeli polling firm Geocartography Knowledge Group found that 65 percent of Israeli Jews believed in the existence of a modern-day Amalek, referencing the biblical population that the ancient Israelites were commanded to annihilate. Eighty-two percent supported the mass expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, while 47 percent openly endorsed killing all Gaza residents.
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A separate Hebrew University poll conducted more recently found that 64 percent of Israeli Jews believed there were no innocent people in Gaza.
The Viterbi Family Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research at the Israel Democracy Institute conducted a new poll this week, finding that 79 percent of Israeli Jews “are not so troubled or not troubled at all” by reports of famine in Gaza.
Such results suggest that extreme views are not confined to fringe political actors, but are widely held across Israeli society.
Although a small number of anti-war protests have taken place in Israel -typically attracting only a few hundred participants – they remain marginal, particularly given polling data showing that the overwhelming majority of Jewish Israelis support the war effort and dismiss civilian harm.
Public discourse has also reflected this disturbing normalisation of cruelty. In recent months, Israeli TikTok users have popularised a number of viral trends mocking the suffering of Palestinian children and a bombed foreign journalist. These videos emerged after Israeli soldiers were criticised for posting social media videos mocking Palestinian victims in Gaza.
In this context, scholar Norman Finkelstein’s description of Israel as a “lunatic society”, and Israeli academic Menachem Klein’s characterisation of it as a “genocidal society”, do not appear hyperbolic. The evidence – both quantitative and cultural – points to a population desensitised to mass death and committed to the elimination of Palestinians.
Western discourse that confines blame to Netanyahu and his far-right allies misdiagnoses the nature of the problem. This is not merely a story of extreme leadership gone rogue; it is a reflection of longstanding mainstream ideology and practice rooted in ethnic supremacy, settler-colonialism and militarism.
Focusing narrowly on the far right obscures the systemic nature of Israeli violence and absolves the rest of Israeli society from accountability. Worse still, it encourages the illusion that a change in leadership would bring about meaningful change. In truth, the problem is much deeper.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
