Israel’s actions in Gaza have trashed its global standing and, paradoxically, left Jews less safe worldwide. The long-term consequences are only beginning to surface.

Paradoxically, not only has Israel’s genocide in Gaza trashed its international reputation - even amongst its most loyal supporters in the United States – it has also managed to destroy Israel’s official raison d’être: providing a safe haven for Jews across the world.

One of the consequences of unconditional US support for Israel’s genocide, the apartheid system Israel has constructed, and the ongoing occupation of Palestinian land, is that Israel has never been more militarily powerful and Jews have never felt less safe.

Israel’s relationships with its neighbours in the region are at an all-time low. It is at war with most of them. It continues to steal more land in Syria and Gaza, bomb Lebanon and keep killing Palestinians despite a US-brokered ‘ceasefire’. By unilaterally invoking “security buffers” as an unchallengeable justification, Israel remains free to ignore international law, the International Court of Justice and the UN system generally.

In Europe, North America, East Asia and the Pacific, opposition to Israel and support for BDS (Boycotts Divestment Sanctions) is significantly higher than amongst the governments which represent their increasingly restive populations. At some point, whether it is over Eurovision, a sporting boycott, weapons sales or diplomatic protection, this gap will have to close.

Bipartisan opposition to a Palestinian state in the Knesset not only places Israel outside the international consensus, it also renders the policies of its traditional supporters – which have been unchanged for decades – untenable. Even Donald Trump cannot publicly endorse Tel Aviv’s “one state solution”.

Accordingly, Israel’s erstwhile backers like Australia have to play along with the absurd charade that Benjamin Netanyahu’s consistent opposition to a Palestinian state was either never stated or, if it was, shouldn’t be taken seriously. Unsurprisingly, avoiding the issue entirely or voting in meaningless UN General Assembly resolutions calling for a Palestinian state is their preferred approach.

Several university studies in the US have shown that the behaviour of the Israeli government, its military in Gaza and its settlers in the West Bank are the primary cause of the rise of antisemitism around the world, even if the number of incidents has been overstated for political motives. The NSW Police has conceded that in its collection of data a “significant” number of cases were found not to meet the criteria for antisemitism incidents and were unconnected to prejudice or hatred.

We should not be surprised, however, that the killing of tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza – including medics, journalists, aid workers – as well as the wholesale destruction of civilian infrastructure such as schools, universities, mosques and hospitals has had an effect: not only on the reputation of the Israeli Government and IDF but also on those who have publicly defended these crimes.

And yet those who shout loudest about the moral crisis of antisemitism in The Australian, for example, take great pains to separate it entirely from the violent actions of the Israeli state in Gaza. How else do they explain the spike?

The confected aspects of the antisemitism ‘crisis’ is a trojan horse to punish the Albanese Government’s for recognising the State of Palestine, to smear those protesting Israel’s crimes as supporters of terrorism, and to penalise and criminalise individuals and institutions for any criticism of the Jewish state. To put it simply, their aim is to legally codify the conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism.

Meanwhile, Israel has bigger domestic challenges to overcome. Its technocratic, professional class is leaving or wants to leave and this brain drain is only being replaced by poor Russian immigrants and messianic religious zealots, many of whom refuse military service.

Its loudest and most vociferous supporters in the diaspora have no intention of moving to live in Israel or fighting in the IDF: the only frontlines these keyboard warriors in the Facebook brigades will see are from the safe spaces of social media. Many, wisely, believe it is too dangerous to even travel there. A significant number have never visited Israel and have no intention of doing so.

The split in the MAGA-Republican base centres around those in the US Congress on the lobby’s payroll who still consider that Israel (rather than their constituents) deserves their primary loyalty, and those who no longer believe unconditional support for Israel and its influence over policy-makers is in the US national interest.

Israel’s economy is a shambles, and would fall further without US aid and high-tech investment. Tourism has collapsed while debt has sky-rocketed. Even the subsidisation of settlers on Palestinian land in the West Bank is at risk. Some of this is a result of the military’s drain on the civilian sector because all wars are expensive.

In time, boycotts, sanctions and disinvestment will make an economic recovery even slower. And if sanctions are applied, Israel’s economic recovery could be premised on regime change. If Israel cannot rehabilitate its international reputation with more sophisticated hasbara and skewed algorithms across social media, or cannot ensure that these platforms are transferred to Israel-first billionaires in the US, its short-term future is dire.

Internationally, Israel’s political leadership is toxic and its Prime Minister and former Defence Minister have been indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity, making travel to and across ICC-signatory countries either a risk or impossible.

Dual nationals are being questioned by airport immigration officers about their military service in Gaza. And Israeli tourists are finding themselves increasingly unwelcome at their regular holiday destinations in Europe.

Meanwhile, reports of desertions and suicides in the IDF have begun to emerge, tarnishing the fantastical reputation of the ‘most moral army in the world’ which has not only targeted children for assassination but taken sadistic glee in posting its criminal exploits on social media.

Opinion polls in the country confirm overwhelming public support for Israel’s genocidal crimes in Gaza (upwards of 75 per cent), which is not surprising for a number of reasons including the collapse of the political Left in the country, the impunity for its crimes granted by Washington and much of Europe, and the information bubble of an alternative universe in which many Israelis complacently live.

Unbeknown to most of them, however, a reckoning is coming. And it won’t be pleasant.