The Israeli plan to occupy Gaza City has deepened the crisis of legitimacy facing the terror state and its Western backers.

The Israeli security cabinet voted on Friday to approve prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s plan. This would involve forcibly displacing thousands of people and making the already-dire humanitarian situation worse.

Netanyahu has gone against the advice of the Israeli military chief of staff and some of the families of the Israeli prisoners held in Gaza.

It exposes the hypocrisy of the Western refrain, “Return the hostages,” whenever someone dares say that history did not begin on 7 October 2023.

Why is Netanyahu so hell bent on it? The answer lies in the dynamics driving the Israeli government.

Israel has always been a racist endeavour. It was born in a storm of settler colonial violence in 1948 as Zionist forces ethnically cleansed over 800,000 Palestinians in the Nakba, or Catastrophe.

But it is now a racist endeavour with a far right government that fantasises about genocide in the driving seat. A far right government led by Netanyahu, self-described “homophobic fascist” Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir who organises violent pogroms in the West Bank.

A far right government that wants to build a concentration camp on the rubble of Rafah. A far right government that embraces Europe’s far right—notorious antisemite Viktor Orban in Hungary, Italy’s fascist prime minister Giorgia Meloni and French fascist leader Marine Le Pen.

The right wing trajectory of the Israeli state—and society—is no accident.

As a settler colonial project, Israel has continued to grab more and more Palestinian land. But it doesn’t want to rule over Palestinians—it has always obsessed over keeping what it calls a “Jewish demographic majority”.

Each time the Israeli state fails to crush the Palestinian resistance, it gives birth to a more right wing version of Zionism that promises to deal with it.

Israel has vacillated between apartheid and genocide as a way of dealing with the “Palestinian problem”. The liberal Zionists who oppose Netanyahu want a return to the status quo before 7 October—apartheid.

But Israel’s rulers have come down firmly on the side of elimination and fantasise about finishing off the job through a Second Nakba.

The road will not be easy for Netanyahu’s government. As Al Jazeera reports, “His chief of staff has told him again and again that after 22 months of war, the troops are tired, the reservists are also tired.

“He has told him that they would have to redeploy troops from elsewhere, including the occupied West Bank or the border with Lebanon or in Syria.”

Alon Liel, former director general of Israel’s foreign affairs ministry, says the plan to take over Gaza City will isolate Israel even further. He said, “We complain here that countries are recognising Palestine.

“But by this decision we are not recognising the whole international community which thinks that this war should come to an end. So, I’m very sad as a diplomat that Israel is ignoring the whole world. I am worried about the implications because it will bring to a total isolation of Israel.”

This points to how the war has opened up splits in the Israeli state—and the latest operation could deepen them.

Netanyahu has demanded “absolute victory” over Hamas, but all the Palestinian resistance has to do is survive to deny Netanyahu his aims. This week the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, said it had fired on several Israeli control and command centres in central and southern Gaza.

The armed brigades of other resistance organisations, such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, report small-scale operations taking out military vehicles. These counter-attacks came ahead of the impending occupation of Gaza City.

Meanwhile, sections of the Israeli state do not want to occupy Gaza, fearing the military would be locked into a state of permanent counter-insurgency.

Over 500 Israeli security officials have written a letter to the president of the United States, Donald Trump, to appeal for an end to the war. They include former heads of the Mossad and Shin Bet spook agencies and the army.

But Israel’s far right is hell-bent on ethnic cleansing—for example, Ben-Gvir has called for occupation since 7 October.

Netanyahu, whose coalition government would collapse without the far right parties, has sided with keeping the war going. If the coalition fell apart, he would lose his legal immunity amid ongoing corruption trials.

The West has armed, funded and supported Israel’s genocide in Gaza—but now they face a crisis of legitimacy.

On Friday, German chancellor (prime minister) Friedrich Merz said that the government will not approve any exports of military equipment that could be used in Gaza. This was a direct response to Israel’s plan to occupy Gaza City.

It’s a temporary but extraordinary move by a state that enthusiastically backed Israel and viciously repressed the Palestine movement on its streets.

Britain’s Labour prime minister Keir Starmer said the plan was “wrong”. “This action will do nothing to bring an end to this conflict or to help secure the release of the hostages,” he said.

Starmer and French president Emmanuel Macron earlier this month promised to recognise a Palestinian state at some point too.

What’s behind such moves? It’s not the sign of a moral conscience, but fear that people will see the emperor has no clothes.

The West has painted Israel as the “one democracy in the Middle East” and launched wars under the guise of “bringing democracy”.

But Israel is so brazenly carrying out a genocidal war and disregards even the pretence of respecting “human rights”. It means that the image of “democratic” Israel has been shattered for millions of people.

So Western leaders have criticised Israel as an attempt to re-establish their legitimacy, fearing their ability to justify imperialist wars in the future. The liberal Zionists share a similar fear about Israel’s loss of legitimacy and talk of Netanyahu “harming” Israel.

In Britain, the Palestine solidarity movement is winning the argument and the state is losing the argument.

Starmer’s vague and inadequate promises to recognise a state of Palestine—with conditions in the future—won’t save his credibility.

As Israel starves people in Gaza, the British government should starve it of arms. It should stop all arms sales, cut off all trade, sanction Netanyahu, Smotrich, Ben-Gvir and all the war criminals—and shut down the Israeli embassy in London.

The task of the Palestine solidarity movement is to deepen those divisions and make those demands a reality.