Self-Destruction: Has Israel’s End Begun?

The time has come for approaches to analysing Israel's current situation to shift from examining and anticipating the "limits of expansion" to analysing the "indicators of decline". It is no exaggeration to suggest that Israel has activated a process of "self-destruction", with the gravest threat to its continued existence now emerging from within. Yet not every state confronted with an existential crisis necessarily collapses.

Nor does the possession of power necessarily guarantee the ability to endure. History shows that some states begin to erode while still possessing a superior military, a resilient economy, and allies willing to provide support. The decisive turning point comes when the very sources of strength that once underpinned their superiority begin instead to perform the opposite function. Against this backdrop, this analysis does not seek to predict Israel's fate, nor does it proceed from the assumption that its end has become inevitable. Rather, it poses a different question: Have the very foundations that ensured Israel's survival for decades begun to lose their capacity to fulfil the role for which they were originally intended?

Since its establishment, Israel has relied on a set of pillars that formed the foundation of its strategic advantage: international support that afforded it an unprecedented degree of political cover, military superiority that reinforced its deterrent capability, an economy capable of attracting investment and talent, and a society that maintained a minimum level of cohesion despite its internal contradictions. The current landscape, however, suggests that these pillars are no longer moving in the same direction. Instead, they have come under simultaneous pressure that has redefined both their role and the limits of their effectiveness. Deterrence is gradually giving way to attrition; international legitimacy is no longer as robust as it once was; internal divisions are extending beyond political disagreement to encompass questions of identity and the future of the project itself; and the cost of supporting Israel for its allies is rising in ways that were not evident in earlier periods.

This does not mean that Israel stands on the brink of collapse tomorrow. It does, however, raise a question worthy of careful consideration: What happens when the very factors that once generated strength begin instead to produce weakness? And do the current transformations represent a passing crisis, or do they reflect a transition to a new phase in which the very sources of Israel's advantage have themselves become part of the equation of attrition?

To address this question, the analysis does not examine developments as isolated events. Rather, it seeks to explore the interplay between military, political, social, and economic transformations, and how their interaction may reshape the environment that has sustained Israel's continuity over the past decades.

There is a fundamental distinction between entities that collapse under the weight of defeat and those that begin to exhaust themselves from within. Defeat is an event; erosion is a process. States may succeed in overcoming military defeats or economic crises, yet they face a far greater challenge when the very factors that once underpinned their strength begin to lose their original function or start producing outcomes contrary to those they were intended to achieve. The issue, therefore, is not one of sudden collapse or imminent disappearance, but of a gradual shift in the nature of the environment within which the political project operates. As the strategic context evolves, the very instruments that once conferred advantage may themselves become sources of cost and attrition, even though their outward form remains unchanged. It is this dynamic that the present analysis seeks to examine in the Israeli case.

Since its establishment, Israel’s endurance has rested neither on military superiority alone nor on Western support alone, but on the interaction of a set of mutually reinforcing pillars. International legitimacy provided political cover, military superiority sustained deterrence, the economy attracted investment, and internal cohesion enabled society to bear the costs of prolonged conflict. The question today, therefore, is not whether these pillars still exist, but whether they continue to perform the same functions they fulfilled for decades.

When each of these pillars begins to lose part of its effectiveness, and these shifts occur simultaneously, it becomes reasonable to speak of a transition from a phase of crisis management to one in which the very foundations of power are themselves subject to attrition. From this perspective, the analysis does not treat military, political, or social developments as discrete crises but rather as interconnected stages within a single trajectory, defined by a single overarching question: Has Israel begun to lose its ability to regenerate the very sources of its strength?

No power can sustain itself on the basis of its own capabilities alone. Military superiority, however formidable, is insufficient to guarantee survival if political cover is lost. Likewise, an economy cannot thrive indefinitely in an environment where legitimacy is eroding, and the costs of conflict continue to escalate. For this reason, the decisive factor in Israel’s rise was not simply its possession of power, but its success in cultivating an international environment that came to regard its continued existence as a political, security, and moral imperative. That environment did not emerge by chance.

Rather, it was built upon a narrative that portrayed Israel as a strategic ally of the West, a democracy surrounded by threats, and a state whose survival merited protection and support. Over time, this narrative became one of Israel’s most valuable strategic assets. It generated not only sympathy, but also political legitimacy, military assistance, investment, and diplomatic protection within international institutions. Yet the very factors that underpinned Israel’s strength for decades were never immutable.

Political narratives, like balances of power, are themselves subject to reassessment as the environment in which they emerged evolves. Today, the most significant shift appears to lie not in a decline in Western support for Israel as such, but in a change in the foundations upon which that support has rested. The debate in Western capitals is no longer centred on Israel’s right to exist; rather, it increasingly concerns the cost of sustaining support in the form it has taken over the past decades.

It is precisely here that the first signs of Israel’s structural transformation begin to emerge.

For decades, Israel was regarded by the United States and many European countries as a strategic asset—a partner that reinforced Western influence in the Middle East while delivering benefits that outweighed the costs of supporting it. Today, however, a different equation appears to be taking shape, not because the region has diminished in strategic importance, but because the political and diplomatic costs of maintaining unconditional support for Israel have increased, both in relations with the Global South and within Western societies themselves. This shift does not signify the collapse of these alliances. It does, however, suggest that the political environment which once provided Israel with almost automatic support is no longer functioning with the same degree of effectiveness.

As the costs continue to rise, defending Israeli policies requires increasingly extensive justification. This gradual shift is reflected first in political discourse, then in the positions adopted by institutions, and ultimately in public policy. The question, therefore, is no longer whether the West still supports Israel, but whether it can sustain the same level of support if current conditions persist. That is an altogether different question.

The strength of states and armies is measured not only by the weapons they possess, but also by their ability to preserve the legitimacy of using that power. Legitimacy is not merely an abstract moral value; it is a strategic asset that affords states greater freedom of action, reduces the cost of their decisions, and helps secure the continued support of their allies, even in times of crisis.

For this reason, Israel’s superiority over the past decades was not the product of military strength alone, but also of the political umbrella and a framework of values that—at least outwardly—appeared consistent with those of the West. This led most Western capitals to regard Israel’s security as integral to their own security and strategic interests. Unlike military power, however, legitimacy cannot be stockpiled. It is built gradually, yet it can erode just as quickly as the political environment and public opinion evolve.

It is precisely here that the current shifts appear more consequential than any military development. The international landscape is witnessing not merely a decline in the level of sympathy for Israel, but a change in the very nature of the questions being asked about it. For decades, the prevailing question was: How can Israel be protected? Today, however, the question in many Western capitals has become: To what extent can the costs of continuing this support still be borne?

The difference between these two questions may appear subtle. Still, it reflects a profound shift in the way Israel itself is perceived: from a cause that once commanded broad political consensus to an issue that is generating growing divisions across parliaments, political parties, the media, and even public opinion. This is far more than a symbolic change. As legitimacy declines, the political cost of defending Israeli policies increases, compelling Western governments to balance their traditional commitments against mounting pressures within their own societies.

Perhaps Israel’s most effective instrument since its establishment has not been military force, but its narrative. For decades, it successfully cultivated an image built around three core elements: a victim of history, a democracy in a turbulent region, and an indispensable ally of the West. This narrative not only generated sympathy, but also afforded Israel considerable scope to justify its policies and mobilise international support. Yet narratives, like all political constructs, do not exist outside the passage of time.

A narrative endures only so long as it remains capable of explaining reality and persuading its audience. When facts on the ground change—or when the way those facts are perceived changes—the narrative itself begins to lose its persuasive force. This is precisely what has unfolded in recent years. Throughout its history, Israel built its narrative around the image of a “besieged democracy” shaped by a “historical victimhood”. Today, that narrative has lost much of its traction, while among younger generations Israel’s image has increasingly shifted towards that of an “apartheid regime” and a settler-colonial project.

This shift has been clearly reflected in recent opinion polls conducted by organisations such as the Pew Research Center and Gallup. Taken together, they point to a striking change: more than 60% of Americans aged 18–29 now view Israel unfavourably and express support for Palestinian rights at levels that, for the first time in modern history, exceed their support for the Israeli narrative.

Conversely, traditional media outlets, which have historically been sympathetic to Israel, are no longer able to control the vast flow of information, images, and videos on platforms such as TikTok and Instagram, where views of pro-Palestinian content have outpaced pro-Israeli content by a ratio of five to one.

As a result, traditional media are no longer the sole arbiters of the narrative, nor does the flow of information pass exclusively through the channels that monopolised the shaping of public opinion for decades. Digital platforms have fundamentally altered the rules of the game. Millions of people now witness events in real time and compare competing narratives without relying on traditional gatekeepers.

For the first time, Israel is no longer competing with its adversaries solely on the battlefield; it is also competing with them in the battle over the narrative. This is a fundamentally different kind of contest, because defeat in it is measured not by territorial losses or military setbacks, but by the erosion of the political and moral capital upon which Israel has relied for decades.

International alliances are not moral contracts but calculations of interest that evolve with the strategic environment. States do not preserve their alliances simply out of habit; they do so because they judge the cost of abandoning them to be greater than the cost of maintaining them. By this logic, Western support for Israel over the past decades was not merely an expression of political or historical commitment, but also a strategic investment. For the West, Israel served as a forward strategic outpost in a turbulent region, a security and intelligence partner, and an anchor for Western interests in the Middle East.

Yet alliances are never immune to reassessment. As the cost of an ally rises, or its ability to deliver the benefits that once justified support diminishes, questions inevitably begin to emerge—not about the importance of the relationship itself, but about its nature and limits. From this perspective, the significance of the current shifts in Europe and the United States lies not in the prospect of declining support, but in the fact that the question itself has changed. Whereas the debate once centred on how to strengthen Israel’s security, it is now increasingly focused on the political, economic, and diplomatic costs of sustaining that support in its traditional form.

This shift does not mean that the West is abandoning Israel. It does, however, mean that the relationship is no longer insulated from calculations of cost and benefit—calculations that, for decades, were largely absent from political debate.

The figures indicate that the shift in Europe’s stance towards Israel is no longer confined to press statements, but has evolved into an institutional pattern of behaviour, clearly reflected in a marked change in official rhetoric. A statistical analysis examining approximately 900 official statements issued by the European Union found that the proportion classified as “strongly critical and negative” towards Israeli policies rose from 29% before October 2023 to 46%.

Meanwhile, the share of statements expressing unequivocal support or a positive assessment fell to just 8%. Even Germany, historically the strongest pillar of support for Israel in Europe, has witnessed a notable shift in the rhetoric of its political leadership. Friedrich Merz, leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), stated that certain Israeli actions “can no longer be justified”. At the same time, the European Parliament has intensified calls for a ban on products originating from Israeli settlements and for a review of the EU–Israel Association Agreement.

The shift in Europe’s position may appear linked to developments in the Middle East, but, in an important respect, it also reflects what is happening within Europe itself. A continent facing economic slowdown, pressure on welfare systems, rising defence expenditure, and security challenges unparalleled since the end of the Cold War no longer has the same room for manoeuvre it enjoyed in previous decades.

As these priorities have shifted, European governments have become increasingly inclined to direct their resources towards pressing domestic challenges, while showing less willingness to bear the costs of external issues whose political sensitivity continues to grow. The European shift, therefore, should not be understood as a sudden change in position so much as the outcome of a reordering of priorities under the weight of accumulated internal crises. From this perspective, Europe’s waning enthusiasm is driven not only by Israel’s actions, but also by what Europe itself is no longer able to sustain.

In the United States, the picture is more complex. The alliance with Israel remains one of the enduring constants of American foreign policy. Yet, it no longer commands the same degree of consensus within society and the political establishment, particularly among younger generations and segments of the Democratic Party’s base.

These shifts do not mean that Washington is about to undertake a fundamental change in its policy. They do, however, indicate that the political environment which once provided Israel with almost automatic support is no longer as stable as it was. The wider the gap between official positions and public opinion trends, the higher the cost of maintaining traditional policies and the greater the pressure to reassess them.

American aid to Israel—fixed at $3.8 billion annually under the ten-year Memorandum of Understanding—has long been presented as a relatively low-cost investment in safeguarding Washington’s interests. Yet support is no longer confined to supplying military hardware. The United States has also had to deploy aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines, while stationing more than 45,000 American troops at bases across the surrounding region to provide Israel with a direct security umbrella.

This direct militarisation has driven up the cost of emergency operations for the US Department of Defense, the Pentagon, at exceptional rates that were not programmed into ordinary budgets. Washington has also been forced to draw down vast quantities of critical munitions and artillery shells, especially 155mm rounds, from its stockpiles in Europe and the United States to meet Israel’s continuing needs. This has created a crisis within the Pentagon, with military leaders warning that such depletion directly affects America’s readiness to confront major powers such as China in the Pacific. This is not a temporary crisis.

Israel has begun to lose the bipartisan consensus that long underpinned American support, becoming an increasingly divisive issue within US domestic politics. This trend is reflected in two key developments:

• Deepening divisions within the Democratic Party: Electoral data and comprehensive opinion surveys indicate that the Democratic Party’s grassroots have experienced a marked erosion in their emotional attachment to Israel. More than 55% of Democratic voters now support either an embargo on arms exports to Israel or making such transfers strictly conditional on compliance with international law. This places any Democratic president under considerable electoral pressure that could threaten party cohesion.
• The emergence of a new generation of Jewish American intellectual activism: The United States is witnessing a significant shift marked by the rise of younger Jewish American movements such as Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow, which openly reject conflating Jewish identity with Israel’s settlement policies. This development has weakened a traditional instrument used to deter American lawmakers—the accusation that criticism of Israel amounts to antisemitism—thereby allowing more space for critical discourse within Congress.

In an article published in Haaretz, the Israeli military expert and retired general Yitzhak Brick wrote: “We have trapped ourselves in the illusion of technological deterrence. Israel today faces a ring of interconnected, active fronts that has rendered the very concept of secure borders obsolete. The home front has become the primary front, and the army is neither prepared nor does it possess the manpower to wage a multi-front war of attrition across fluid frontiers whose beginning and end we no longer know.”

The reality is that military history is governed by a well-established principle: every doctrine that achieves sustained success carries within it the seeds of its own future crisis. What gives an army a decisive advantage at one stage may, as the nature of conflict evolves, become a source of vulnerability if it continues to confront a changing reality with the same tools. This appears to be the challenge Israel faces today.

For decades, Israel’s security strategy rested on a simple premise: keeping threats away from the home front. The objective was not merely to defend its borders, but to prevent war from reaching Israeli society itself. From this premise emerged the doctrines of deterrence, rapid decisive warfare, and pre-emptive strikes, designed to allow Israel the strategic advantage of fighting its wars beyond its own borders. At the same time, its society continued to function largely uninterrupted. That equation, however, has begun to change—not because Israel has lost its military superiority, but because the nature of the conflict itself has evolved.

For many years, Israel benefited from the absence of finalised borders. This afforded it considerable strategic flexibility, allowing it to reshape realities on the ground whenever the balance of power shifted. Flexible borders formed part of its broader strategic philosophy of expansion and constituted one of its principal sources of strategic advantage. Today, however, what once provided freedom of manoeuvre has become an increasing burden. Every open front demands additional resources, constant readiness, a sustained military presence, and mounting economic and security costs.

As the spectrum of threats has expanded, Israel now faces not merely multiple borders but an increasingly interconnected security environment, in which land, maritime, and regional fronts overlap in ways that no longer permit a clear separation between them. Consequently, the flexibility that once gave Israel greater freedom of manoeuvre has become a factor multiplying its security commitments.

For the first time since its establishment, the central question is no longer “How can Israel expand its strategic depth?”

Rather, it has become: How can Israel manage that strategic depth without allowing it to become a permanent burden?

Perhaps the most significant change in recent years is that Israel’s home front is no longer insulated from the conflict. Israel’s security doctrine was built on the assumption that wars should be fought beyond its cities, allowing society itself to remain shielded from direct attrition.

Recent military developments, however, have undermined this assumption to an unprecedented degree. Precision missiles, drones, and the growing reach of non-state actors have all narrowed the traditional distinction between the battlefield and the home front.

Israeli society now experiences, to varying degrees, the effects of a conflict that was once expected to remain at a distance. The issue is not simply the scale of the losses, but the changing nature of the sense of security itself. Deterrence is not measured by the number of missiles intercepted, but by a society’s confidence that everyday life can continue despite the presence of a threat. That is the central dilemma.

Israel has sought to respond to this increasingly fluid security environment by constructing the largest network of concrete and electronic barriers in modern history, along its borders with Gaza, the West Bank, Egypt, and Lebanon. Yet these barriers have evolved from instruments of protection into what can be described as a “strategic dilemma”, manifested in the following:

• The exposure of technological barriers: Events on the ground have demonstrated the structural limitations of relying exclusively on “smart barriers” equipped with sophisticated sensors. Such systems have proven vulnerable to alternative tactics, tunnels, and guerrilla warfare. A barrier that cost billions of dollars to build was breached within hours, underscoring that technology alone cannot resolve the problem of “fluid geographic security”.
• The psychological retreat of the settler: At the psychological level, Israeli society has shifted from an “offensive, initiative-driven society” to one that increasingly sees itself as “a society besieged behind walls”. This represents a structural contradiction with the very premise of the settlement project, which is founded on expansion and unconstrained control. It also reinforces among settlers the perception that they are living in “a temporary military camp” rather than in a stable and secure state.

If external pressures test the resilience of any state, the more difficult test invariably lies within. History shows that powers do not collapse simply because they face formidable adversaries, but because they become less capable of managing their own internal contradictions. From this perspective, the most important question today concerns not only the challenges Israel faces beyond its borders, but also what is unfolding within Israeli society itself.

Military power can be rebuilt, and alliances may shift only to be restored. But once the social contract binding society to the state begins to erode, rebuilding it becomes far more complex than reconstructing any military capability. Among the most prominent of these internal challenges are the following:

• From Political Disagreement to a Crisis of Identity: Since its establishment, Israel has experienced sharp political and partisan divisions, yet these have generally remained within a broader consensus over the nature and overall direction of the Zionist project. Today, however, the character of that division appears fundamentally different. The dispute is no longer confined to the policies of a particular government or coalition; it has expanded to encompass questions about the nature of Israeli society, the character of the political system, the relationship between religion and the state, the limits of judicial authority, and even the definition of the Israeli project itself.

This marks a qualitative shift. Political disagreements can be managed through elections, but disputes over the project’s identity are inherently deeper and far more enduring.

• When Demography Becomes a Strategic Issue: Demographic change in Israel is not a new phenomenon. What is new is that it has begun to move from the social sphere into the strategic one. The rapid growth of religiously conservative communities, alongside continuing shifts in the country’s demographic composition, poses not only a cultural challenge but also raises questions about the labour market, public expenditure, military service, and the nature of relations among different segments of society. The significance of these developments lies not in the numbers alone, but in the way they redistribute burdens and privileges across society. The more one group perceives itself as bearing a disproportionate share of the costs while another enjoys broader advantages, the greater the likelihood that mutual trust will erode—the very trust upon which any social contract ultimately depends.
• The Brain Drain: The Loss That Does Not Appear in Military Statistics: The strength of states is typically measured by the size of their armed forces, the scale of their economies, and their military expenditure. Yet there is another, quieter indicator—one that is arguably more revealing over the long term: a country’s ability to retain its most talented people. When scientists, entrepreneurs, physicians, and engineers begin to envision their futures abroad, the problem lies not simply in the number who leave, but in what that trend signifies. Migration is often less a vote against the present than a vote against the future. Any increase in the emigration of highly skilled professionals, therefore, represents not only a loss of human capital but also a decline in confidence that the domestic environment can provide the stability required by its most productive and innovative citizens.

Zionism was founded on the promise of attracting Jews from around the world by offering a secure and stable homeland that would provide opportunities unavailable to them in their countries of origin. Yet the realities of life in Israel today are undermining those very promises, pointing to the erosion of this foundational “psychological covenant.”

For example, according to the 2026 Global Peace Index, Israel fell to 159th place out of 163 countries included in the ranking. This places Israel in the red zone, among the five least peaceful and secure countries in the world.

This comes in addition to the sharp decline in Israelis’ sense of personal security, compounded by deepening internal divisions that have fuelled a climate of social tension. Perhaps the most consequential aspect of these domestic shifts is not the divisions themselves, but the erosion of trust: trust between citizens and state institutions, trust among different segments of society, and trust in the state’s ability to manage crises as it once did. Such indicators are difficult to quantify, yet they often precede major historical turning points. States do not enter their most critical phases simply because their societies are divided, but because different groups begin to question the system’s ability to represent or protect them.

For this reason, the real question is no longer whether Israeli society is experiencing internal divisions. That is well established and has been examined repeatedly.

The question now is whether Israel’s institutions still possess the capacity to contain those divisions, or whether they have themselves become part of them.

Economic crises are not always the starting point; more often, they are the outcome of transformations that begin in politics, spill over into security, and only then manifest themselves in the economy. For this reason, Israel’s economic indicators cannot be understood in isolation from the broader context that preceded them. An economy does not operate in a vacuum. It responds to levels of trust, stability, and the state’s capacity to manage risk.

As uncertainty intensifies, the cost of financing rises, investment declines, and sustaining previous rates of economic growth becomes increasingly difficult. The economic question, therefore, is not whether the Israeli economy remains strong, but whether it can sustain that strength amid mounting security and political pressures.

Historically, the Israeli economy has been distinguished by its ability to recover quickly from crises, supported by a highly advanced technology sector, substantial investment inflows, and stable external backing. The prolonged persistence of security pressures, however, introduces a fundamentally different equation.

Each additional day of attrition translates into higher defence spending, greater pressure on the public finances, rising borrowing costs, and a diminished appetite for investment risk. The challenge lies not in the existence of these pressures, but in their persistence. Economies can absorb temporary shocks; they face a far greater test when a shock ceases to be temporary and becomes permanent.

Capital does not seek profitability alone; it also seeks predictability. As the political and security environment becomes more volatile, investors begin to reassess their calculations, even when the economy continues to display strong macroeconomic fundamentals. For this reason, a decline in investment, the relocation of some companies, or rising financing costs should not be viewed as isolated financial developments, but rather as reflections of a deeper shift in confidence about the future. In innovation-driven economies, confidence is an economic asset no less important than capital itself.

Back to the Central Question

This analysis does not offer a definitive answer, because history is not written in certainties, nor do states follow predetermined trajectories. The indicators examined here, however, suggest that Israel is confronting a different pattern of challenges. The issue is no longer simply the scale of the external threats it faces, but whether the Israeli system can continue to reproduce the conditions that sustained its superiority and ensured its endurance over the past decades.

If international support is coming under increasing strain, if maintaining military superiority is becoming more costly, if internal divisions are deepening, and if the economy is growing more vulnerable to the security environment, then the question is no longer whether each of these challenges exists in isolation, but how they interact with one another. That is the central argument of this analysis.

The problem is not that Israel is confronting multiple crises. It has faced even greater crises in the past and succeeded in overcoming them. The problem is that these crises are unfolding simultaneously, placing concurrent pressure on the very foundations that have underpinned Israel’s superiority and ensured its endurance since its establishment.

For this reason, the question that will shape Israel’s future in the years ahead is not whether it will continue to expand, prevail, or endure. Rather, it is whether it can regenerate the sources of its strength before those very sources themselves become enduring liabilities and drivers of sustained attrition.