The grim state of Israeli military policies in the Iran War

Amos Harel in Haaretz delivers a grim, disturbing description of the performance of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) with particular reference to their current war in Lebanon. He doesn’t use the word “colonialist” to describe the illegal Jewish settler movement in the West Bank or the IDF in Lebanon. But he concludes his column this way:

[S]ome of the seeds of this aberrant behavior were definitely sown on the hilltops of Samaria in the northern West Bank and made their way into the IDF and Israel proper. When coalition lawmakers talk with glittering eyes about pioneering that restores land in the territories to Jewish hands, we have to understand that these are calculated moves geared toward ethnic cleansing, even if this is still being done in small numbers. The whole story is about as romantic as that of the Ku Klux Klan in 1960s Mississippi. [my emphasis] (1)

It’s worth recalling here that in 1967, Southern white segregationists, despite being antisemitic for the most part, began to view Israelis as “white” people fighting against barbaric Arabs – or “sand n*****s,” in SegregationSpeak. That impression is very much part of the sentiment among Christian Zionists in America today, a key part of the Trumpista political coalition.

Israel has a national election scheduled later this year on October 27. Netanyahu faces prosecution on corruption charges once he is no longer Prime Minister. The wars he’s conducted since the October 7 attack in 2023 and is conducting right now against Iran and Lebanon have allowed him to postpone the time he has to face elections. And he has maximum political incentive to portray himself as the only one who can protect Israel from its enemies.

Israeli citizens have lived in a liberal democracy. But Netanyahu has gone a long way with his project of turning it into an authoritarian system. But the hasbara claim that Israel is “the only democracy in the Middle East” has continued. Samuele Arioli reported in 2024 for the V-Dem think tank:

For the first time in 50 years, Israel is downgraded from the liberal democracy category. … [V-Dem maintains a widely-used rating of countries according to measure of liberal democracy.]

Government attacks on the judiciary are becoming more frequent. In 2019, amid corruption charges, Prime Minister Netanyahu accused key figures in the judiciary of conspiring with police forces in a joint “attempted coup”. In 2023, the Knesset passed a bill that severely curtailed the Supreme Court´s powers to overrule government decisions and invalidate laws passed by parliament. Mass protests quickly gained momentum to denounce this plan of judicial overhaul against the most important Israeli court.

Moreover, international observers point at the widespread discriminatory practices that Israeli authorities employ towards minorities, resulting in arbitrary law enforcement. Administrative detentions, degrading treatment of prisoners, and incidents of torture have worsened significantly in 2023, in the context of the war against Hamas. This is reflected in the recent decline in the indicators of transparent laws with predictable enforcement and freedom from torture. [my emphasis] (2)

Netanyahu’s wars and his authoritarian politics have had grim implications for Israel and its army. Harel:

[ Reserve IDF Col. Udi Evental wrote that] Netanyahu is departing from the principles laid down by Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion [Israel’s Prime Minister and Defense Minister during the 1948 Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians]. Israel's wars should be as short as possible, he averred, based on an understanding of the country's weaknesses. However, Evental writes, overturning that approach is liable to leave Israel with less, not more, security.

We have, he explains, passed "from a policy that sought to lengthen the periods of quiet between the wars on the basis of managing risks in the face of threats, and striving for settlements, to a policy that preserves an unbroken sequence of wars without political moves, while devouring the state's resources and imposing a growing load on the regular army, the reserves and the economy."

Harel’s column also points out that the current war in southern Lebanon against Hezbollah forces is encountering a great deal of difficulty and is also practicing familiar criminal methods:

Because most of the Hezbollah force in southern Lebanon was disabled or retreated northward, the bulk of the IDF's activity in the area looks like a copy-paste version of its activity in the Gaza Strip in 2025: systematic destruction of houses in villages, on the grounds that this constitutes the demolition of terrorist infrastructures.

This is very much a part of the Iran War. Hezbollah is an allied force of Iran’s. It’s often referred to as an Iranian “proxy”, but in fact it is Lebanon’s only real military force. The official government forces are much weaker and are incapable on their own of defending their country from Israel attacks.

Gideon Levy offered these thoughts on May 1 on the current state of the Iran War, including Lebanon. And also on state of the Israeli press. Levy himself is a columnist for Haaretz: (3)

Notes:

(1) Harel, Amos (2026): Wishful Thinking Won't Topple Iran or Protect Israeli Soldiers From Drones. Haaretz 05/01/2026. Gift link: <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-security/2026-05-01/ty-article/.premium/wishful-thinking-wont-topple-iran-or-protect-israeli-soldiers-from-drones/0000019d-e009-db36-a1fd-e20f1cf50000?gift=e04652150fc242dfb0458b5b77c32073> (Accessed: 2026-01-05).

(2) Arioli, Samuele (2024): Democracy in Decline in Israel. V-Dem 11/28/2024. <https://v-dem.net/weekly_graph/democracy-in-decline-in-israel> (Accessed: 2026-01-05).

(3) 'Destroying southern Lebanon': Is Gaza now Israel's playbook for the whole region? Middle East Eye YouTube channel 05/01/2026. <https://youtu.be/jfUnnMYT6xQ?si=m1auN1RBMWG2qXnt> (Accessed: 2026-01-05).