The global research literature addresses existential threat as one with a clear potential to cause real harm to a state's ability to successfully deal with external and internal threats. Therefore, it is everything that threatens the existence of the state, its sovereignty, and its agreed-upon identity. The concept of existential threat in “Israel” is of particular importance, as it refers, in the “Israeli” case, according to Israeli security experts, to three main levels of existential threat: at the physical level; The fatal damage that may befall the State of Israel, from which it will be impossible to recover and return to performing its normal functions. At the sovereign level; Gradually losing control of state institutions over the population and its resources; At the level of identity, it means losing the identity of the state, that is, losing “Israel” as an independent, “democratic” and sovereign Jewish entity, capable of achieving its destiny, or in other words; That the State of “Israel” loses its status as the national state of the Jewish people.

Although “Israel” was able, during its 74 years of existence, to develop great military, economic, and political strengths, and it became an “existing fact” and was recognized by a large part of the international community and its “neighbors,” it still faces security challenges to this day. It includes what she calls “enemies who call for and even struggle to destroy it.” Israeli experts summarize the potential serious threats that may expose “Israel” to existential danger in the future, and disrupt the functioning of its vital systems and its identity as a “Jewish and democratic” state, with a set of threat scenarios, three of which are security-military: “forming a regional military alliance against Israel, expanding nuclear proliferation in Middle East, and the collapse of Israeli defense systems due to a comprehensive, integrated and accurate missile attack led by Iran and its proxies.” Two of the threats are political and social: the loss of international legitimacy through international isolation and boycott of Israel, and finally the disintegration of Israeli society and the loss of elements of its social cohesion and identity as a “Jewish and democratic” state. Although researchers emphasize the strength of the Israeli military, security and political pillars, and that the State of “Israel” does not currently face immediate external existential threats, “Israel”, which has been in existence for more than 74 years, is still experiencing the dilemma of “justifying its existence” and realizes that its legitimacy It is a subject of conflict, and its leaders realize, intuitively, that it will last as a “state” for a long time only if it can be defended, in both the material and moral senses. In the short term, political entities with “questionable right to exist” can survive through the use of physical force. However, in the long run, only countries that have a justification for their existence in the eyes of the public who live in them and are associated with them are capable of continuity and sustainability. Therefore, this issue for “Israel” is not just a matter of theoretical intellectual debate, but rather the matter is directly related to its “chances for survival,” because it will be impossible to protect the “Jewish state” if a large portion of its population believes that this “project” is unjustified. Therefore, it is not worth protecting.

Israel, which was born in sin and continues to live in it, constructs its behavior to reinforce the basis on which “attempts to justify its existence” are based, and overwhelmingly uses the “continuing existential threat” to itself and its Jewish identity to justify the harm it inflicts on others. Just as Israel played the “Holocaust” card to the core, today it continues to feed the existential anxiety of its citizens, and market it to the world as well, to reap political profits from this scarecrow, whether within “Israel” or on the international scene. In order to continue to control the “collective consciousness” of this society, the Israeli security theory relies and revolves around the Zionists’ view of the Arabs surrounding them, as it is based on feeding the constant feeling that the Arabs and the world are lurking over them, and therefore Israeli society must remain armed to the maximum extent in view of the war with the Arabs. An indispensable fact through which “Israel” guarantees an armed society and ensures the sustainability of its imperialist means of supply and aid. Today, this threat is left behind in a malicious, intentional way, like an open wound that will not heal, and “Israel” realizes the meaning of playing to keep this “scarecrow” alive in the memory of its people. A look at the Israeli discourse on the “existential threat” reveals all the smallest and most graphic details of the “intensity of terror” that it instills in the minds of its citizens, allowing “them” to judge that their “state” is threatened by a terrible danger that allows ignoring its status as an occupying power or as an oppressive colonial power. .

With all cunning, “Israel” continues to use this “scarecrow” to legitimize what it is doing in front of its citizens and to indoctrinate them with beliefs and ideas that it uses to create a feeling of constant existential threat among them, leading to every cry against “the Jews” becoming a vulgar, vulgar, demagogic story. This approach of “excessive” employment leads to “natural” security and civil threats being transformed and presented as if they are real existential threats, which frees the hand of political parties, the government, security forces, and even individuals, and gives them an excuse to take far-reaching measures to put an end to these “existential threats.” !.

Therefore, it is no wonder that some in Israeli society attribute to the Palestinians the desire to complete Hitler’s work, as if the Palestinian public is continuing the path of the Nazi Party! It is certainly a kind of heresy, but this is what happens when nationalism, hatred and intolerance towards others, violence under the guise of an “existential threat,” “patriotism,” and education in “Jewish superiority” are part of daily Israeli-Jewish behavior. The expected result is that the public will tend to The Jew seeks to underestimate the price that the Palestinians have paid, and are still paying, in exchange for the Jewishness of the “country” and its continued survival. Training hearts and minds to accept the exclusion of an entire human group and the denial of their basic rights paves the way for more atrocities, and the scope of such atrocities expands with the increasing doses of feeling of “existential threat” that Israeli society receives daily from various state agencies. Exaggerating the threat presented and deceiving regarding the seriousness of the “Lions’ Den” group or the “Jenin Battalion”, for example, or the stabbing operations of Israelis, or individual Palestinian attacks and presenting the situation as an “existential threat” creates public legitimacy for unrestrained and excessive use of force. Anyone who follows the presentation of events in the Israeli media and on the lips of the military and political leaders in “Israel” imagines that an armed Palestinian infiltration of a military base, the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers, or an attack on the Palestinian border are existential threats, according to what these circles present. Presenting the threat resulting from a shooting attack carried out by a Palestinian boy, for example, as a “threat of annihilation,” “defense of existence,” and “defense of sovereignty,” as an existential threat that requires confronting it with very strict measures commensurate with the nature of this threat. In fact, all the security incidents that “Israel” dealt with in the past, and which the occupation security services deal with on a regular basis, including what is happening today in Jenin and Nablus in the context of the Palestinian national liberation struggle, and in light of the imbalance of power between the two parties, were not surprising or surprising. Absolutely out of the ordinary! But for the extremist Ben Gvir and the occupation leaders, it is always important to portray to the Israeli public and to the world that this type of threat is much deeper than we think!

“Israel” justifies its actions under the pretext of “self-defense” as a permanent basis for using excessive and lethal force against the Palestinians. Palestinian “terrorist” organizations declare that they intend to destroy “Israel” and send thousands to storm the border fence in order to achieve this goal, and their leadership is “evil and bloodshed.” Therefore, “Israel” faces “destruction” no less! And in the face of an existential threat, “as you know, all means are permissible”! In fact, cultivating these illusions of “imminent danger” can lead any nation, even if it pretends to be “democratic and enlightened,” to commit atrocities, such as bombing civilian populations, killing children, imposing sieges and starvation, demolishing homes, deporting residents, or denying self-evident human rights.

Muhammad Halasa

Occupied Jerusalem

30/01/2023