Is Zionism Collapsing? w/ Historian Ilan Pappé
YouTube Channel: BreakThrough News
Published date: September 20, 2025
What we’re witnessing in Gaza is not just another chapter of Zionism — it’s the final stage. That’s the argument of Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, who joins Rania Khalek on Dispatches to explain how Zionism is in fact “collapsing” even in its most ruthless moment. He discusses Israeli society is fracturing from within, the impact of Trump’s return, Israel’s widening regional war, and what a post-Israel Palestine could look like.
* * *
RANIA: Hello everyone, I’m Rania Khalek and this is Dispatches. Is Zionism nearing its end? That’s the argument of Ilan Pappé, Israeli historian, professor, and author of many books, including The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine and his latest, Israel on the Brink. He’s called the genocide in Gaza the last stage of Zionism. Not because things aren’t horrific, but precisely because they are. Based on his study of history, Pappé says Zionism has entered its final phase—marked by brutality, disintegration, and eventual implosion.
Today, we’ll unpack why he believes this, what it means for Palestine, and what comes after.
Ilan Pappé, welcome to Dispatches. It is an honor to have you on.
PAPPÉ: Thank you, Rania. It’s a great pleasure to be with you on this program.
RANIA: Well, there’s so much I want to ask you about, and I think our audience is really going to enjoy hearing from you, because you have been making a very important argument—describing Gaza as the last stage of Zionism. I think we’re all feeling quite defeated and depressed as we reach this two-year mark of the horror we’re witnessing in Gaza. I’ve been watching your recent speeches, I’ve read all your recent work, and you’ve specifically said you’re not coming at this from a place of optimism—like Zionism is coming to an end—but rather this conclusion comes from history. After all, you are a historian. So I want to start there. Could you walk us through the processes you see that demonstrate Zionism nearing its end?
PAPPÉ: Yeah. First of all, I have to preface and say clearly that I’m talking about the beginning of an end—namely, this is a long process. I wish I could have good news for the people of Gaza, the West Bank, or Palestinians wherever they are, and say that somehow I can see something in the very near future that would change dramatically the way they live and the way they are exposed to Israel’s aggression and policies. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
What I feel confident enough to say is that there are undercurrents below the surface—processes I can already detect—that I believe have potential. Not each process by itself, but when these processes come together in a moment in history, in our case in a moment in the future, they have the potential to transform dramatically the reality in historical Palestine, and in effect change the lives of Palestinians who are also refugees living in exilic communities.
The first process I can see—and you rightly said, I’m not seeing it as an activist. I’m analyzing it as a political scientist, as a historian, as a scholar—is the implosion of Israeli Jewish society from within. This has little to do with the Palestinians, but it is very important for the future of Palestine. A Jewish society that lacks cohesion, that is suffering from what one can call almost a civil war between two distinct groups who find it very difficult to establish a common base, always thought that maybe the so-called common enemy from outside—or the enemy from within, the Palestinians—would be enough cement to create a collective identity, a collective sense of responsibility. All that Gaza has proved is that this is not working.
These are two different interpretations of what it means to be a Jew in historical Palestine. For one, it is a liberal, Western interpretation of Judaism which, while fully accepting the apartheid state and criminal policy toward the Palestinians, nonetheless thinks that Jewish life should be democratic and open. The other sees Jewish life as theocratic, and sees secular Jews as much enemies as the Palestinians, obstacles to building the “right” kind of Jewish state.
It used to be an intellectual debate, but now it has become political and ideological. The group I call the “State of Judea”—those who believe in theocracy and want to build a Greater Israel not only over Palestine but also over parts of Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan—is now in power. This causes the other side to leave rather than fight. That is a fundamental weakness, and it leads to other weaknesses.
It leads to policies we have seen in Gaza. The other side of the genocide is the exhaustion of the Israeli army and economy. This is such a liability in economic and military terms that it will not be easy, even when this chapter ends, to rebuild a viable economy or to sustain an army. The army may be able to deal with guerrilla forces like Hezbollah or Hamas, but should there ever be a change in how Arab countries perceive Israel—if they again see it as an existential danger, as they did in the past—then this army has little chance of avoiding or confronting military pressure. After the attack on Qatar, you can already see the return of such a discussion.
To that you can add Israel’s international isolation, which so far is mainly within global civil society, but is beginning to influence policies from above. That means boycotts could be replaced by sanctions. You can add to this a young Jewish generation, especially in the United States, that is disassociating itself from Israel.
Finally, I would say two things. First, the Palestinian liberation movement is not in a good moment. Its political elite, its leadership, its unity—it is fragmented. But the younger generation is building, and has the potential to build a far more united and organized liberation movement, which will also be a very important factor. They have a different vision of what the future should be, and that would force the region and the international community to take seriously a Palestinian position very different from what they hear today from the PA.
And the last is the Arab world. I don’t think we have seen the end of changes in the Arab world—neither in Lebanon nor in the Mashriq as a whole—and therefore I do think that any such changes are for the benefit of the Palestinians and would weaken the kind of Zionist regime we are witnessing today.
RANIA: There are so many threads I want to pull on from what you just said, but before I do, I want to go to the issue of the insane level of brutality we’re witnessing and how that plays into this. I heard you talk about this before in terms of parallels to other places in the world over the last hundred years, where near the end they acted out with the most insane levels of atrocity and criminality. Could you make those parallels here?
PAPPÉ: This is an important point because a counterargument to my optimism is: how can you be optimistic when you see the brutality of the Israeli government—unprecedented brutality even compared to their past behavior? I say yes, but that’s exactly what I mean from a historical perspective. Because this regime is under pressure and has extensive fractures in its foundations, it uses more lethal and brutal force to try to sustain itself—because anything else is not working. I gave the example of the apartheid regime in South Africa, which was particularly brutal in its last days. Even if you were a member of the ANC, in those last days you did not feel hopeful about defeating it because it was so brutal. But that brutality happened very near to the collapse of the regime. There are other historical examples like that.
So that brutality is a bitter realization. On the one hand you see who the victims are, and you don’t wish for brutality, but once it’s there you may also see something that can come out of it—like seeing the moon rising after a dark night. It’s realistic to say that what we’re talking about here is probably decolonization, which in history is not a nice affair. It’s never easy, and it’s not nonviolent as many wish it to be. It has upheavals and many hurdles. But it’s important to ask: are we at the beginning of that? If we are, it gives some hope for the future.
RANIA: I’d like to zoom in on Israeli Jewish society, because you were talking about ruptures within Zionism: the two sections of society, secular liberal Jews of European variety and the more religious messianic types who’ve taken power—the “State of Judea,” as you called it. Can you elaborate on the form you see that implosion taking? Are we talking about immigration? We have seen numbers of dual nationals leaving the country over the last couple of years for various reasons, including constant cycles of rockets, ballistic missiles from Iran, or attacks from Yemen. And then there’s infighting within Israeli Jewish society.
PAPPÉ: What I call the State of Judea is the group that emerged in the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and expanded into Israel itself, attracting mainly second- and third-generation North African Jews and Jews who came from Arab countries, but not only them—also Jews from Russia and other places. These are people pushed to the social, economic, and geographical margins of Israeli society after they arrived as immigrants, and they built a power base in the country. They went unnoticed for a while because people didn’t take them seriously, and we know from the history of fascism that that’s how fascist parties come into power, in the West. Eventually they aligned themselves with Netanyahu, who for his own reasons used them as allies because they were the only allies likely to keep him in power.
Now they have taken over, in many ways, the military elite, the security elite, and the political institutions. They are not yet controlling the economic elite or the judicial system, but they are making headway in those areas. So one has to ask who will oppose them and how. I think the attempt of the other side—the old State of Israel—will be to have massive demonstrations, which are becoming more and more violent by the day, and to try to keep at least the judicial system and academia under their control.
You are right. Many of them—because of their dual nationality and because they have professions they can reignite elsewhere—are leaving in great numbers. Nobody really knows the real numbers; it might be half a million, but the Israeli bureau of statistics is very coy about that. My prediction is they will eventually leave the battle. So it’s not an implosion in the sense of an ongoing, never-ending civil war like we have seen in Lebanon. It’s more a takeover by an ideological group that will make it very difficult for anyone who supports Israel today—apart from lunatic populist presidents like Trump or other similar figures—to continue providing the same immunity Israel has enjoyed. Whether they are Arab rulers or prime ministers of countries all over the world, they would find it much harder to continue the same policy.
So it’s an implosion in the sense that the society stops hiding its racist, fascist, aggressive, expansionist ambition, which would pose a big challenge to everyone who in the past helped establish and maintain the state of Israel. Even right-wing Republicans would ask themselves: is this really an asset to America? If the State of Judea swallows the State of Israel, it would cost the American taxpayer much more than it costs today, because it would not generate its own wealth and would need American help.
That’s the process I think might take place.
RANIA: It’s interesting because of how Israel responds to the region as a whole. Since October 7, we’ve seen the most insane statements—not just toward Palestinians, but now Israel goes to the UN and talks about the “cuties” (the way they speak about Palestinians) after they bombed Doha, which is hard to wrap your head around. We watched from here thinking, “What?” So I want to ask: do you think October 7 altered Israel’s trajectory internally and regionally? In Lebanon people speak as if we’re in a Greater Israel moment—Israel trying to expand into Syria and Lebanon, bombing Doha, bombing Yemen, and not even trying to align itself or speak nicely to regional actors who might ally with it, like the new government in Syria, for example.
PAPPÉ: This is the moment. I stress again: it’s a moment, not an eternity. It’s a critical moment. The best way to explain it is to go into the mindset of the current political elite that runs Israel. Put Netanyahu aside for a moment—he seems primarily focused on staying in power. What matters are his ideological allies: they have a clear ideology and vision. They believe this is a rare historical moment. Some Christian Zionists agree with them—seeing this as a necessary explosion to rebuild God’s kingdom on earth. Different versions in Jewish fundamentalism and Christian fundamentalism, but the trajectory is similar.
So the war in Gaza is welcomed by them because it’s part of the explosion they see as necessary. They aim to reconstruct the biblical kingdoms of David and Solomon described in the Old Testament, stretching not only over historical Palestine but into neighboring countries, creating a Jerusalem-centered regional power to which everyone submits—or else is punished. That’s how they justify bombing Qatar, Syria, Lebanon: they feel they are now the masters of the region.
The feeble reaction of the Arab states gives them no reason to think otherwise. That encourages them to believe the trajectory is right. I don’t think they will succeed. I really don’t. I see them as a major factor in the disintegration of the Zionist project, but they will attempt to implement such a vision—and implementing it will victimize many people, especially Palestinians. That is the mindset driving these actions.
It’s the same mindset of the minister of national security in Israel, Ben Gvir, who goes to the prison to meet Marwan Barghouti in order to show him aerial photos of the wiping out of Rafah and Gaza City. It’s the same mindset—a very primitive orientalist way of looking at Arabs, believing you should show them how powerful you are, and an almost insane belief in your own power to do whatever you want. They will learn this is not the case, but history teaches us it doesn’t happen in a day or two.
RANIA: Absolutely. When you look at the region right now—what I see is a place that’s been completely subjugated and pacified. Whatever country you look at, whether the ones already normalized like Jordan and Egypt with police states that make it impossible for people to do anything, or the Gulf states (a different can of worms), or places like Lebanon and Syria. In Lebanon, you have the U.S. and Israelis doing a pretty successful job so far of attempting to turn the Lebanese government and army into a kind of Palestinian Authority–type institution that works to disarm people and doesn’t even try to protect them from Israeli aggression. That’s playing out here in a very dangerous way. And then you have the Syrians: there was a change in government and now this new government is basically begging the Israelis to be their friends—and Israel is still bombing them and destabilizing as it does.
It seems to me the resistance in this region has done everything it can do and can only go so far. The rest of the pressure has to come from the rest of the world. I’ve heard you say this—and it’s depressing—but you basically say Gaza can’t be stopped. Two years on, we see that. There’s been no red line. I was naive at the beginning, thinking Western countries would eventually say, “Okay, enough”—after two months, five months. But we’re almost two years in and nobody is shutting off weapons supplies or sanctioning Israel. Now we see the Israelis going after the West Bank. Do you see any way to prevent the worst?
PAPPÉ: I can see a scenario in the near future that has the potential—not to change everything dramatically—but to tame Israeli actions in some way. I don’t think anybody is going to stop the Israeli army from going into Gaza City as they’re already doing. Nobody will stop them from mass-expelling people into Khan Younis and other places. I think they will begin to wear out on two fronts, which would bring a lull that one prays the international community would use to make an impact that does more than just stop the genocide.
One is the economic and military burden on soldiers and society as a whole becoming very visible in Israel. There is a time limit on continued military operations in Gaza, which might de-escalate or decelerate some actions. More importantly, I believe the Egyptian government will not open the border for a million or a million and a half Palestinians to cross over, which is what Israel and Trump are dreaming of. Instead, they will try to build what they’re already beginning to plan—a “refugee city,” a big city adjacent to the border between Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula. This will bring constant friction with the Egyptian army. Egypt has already, understandably, violated its peace treaty with Israel by sending forces to the border. A constant heavy Israeli military presence on the border with Egypt would cause such tension that the Americans, especially, would be alarmed.
I’m talking about pain pills for a real disease. It’s not dramatic change, but hopefully it creates a very long lull in the attacks, because as we speak the Israeli air force is bombing high-rise buildings in Gaza. People are being killed queuing for food and medicine.
And the carnage is a daily business in the Gaza Strip and not that far from that in the West Bank. So we should hope at least for that, even if that of course is not a let-off in terms of Israeli policy. There are factors that can first of all tame the Israelis and eventually at least stop the present carnage. Much depends a lot on Europe.
What is really quite incredible is that the Europeans were blowing out of proportion the myth—a lot of people believe it also in the Arab world—that the only way of stopping Israel is through Washington, that the key is in Washington. This is very convenient for the Europeans because it absolves them from doing anything: “What do you want from us? It’s the Americans.” But this is not true. The main trade partner of Israel is the EU. And if the EU would stop trading with Israel, if it would impose sanctions, if it would throw Israel from UEFA, the Football Association, or the Eurovision—which are symbolic acts, but very important symbolic acts—this could have a very strong effect on the Israeli government and its policies. Again, not to change dramatically its perception and vision of the future, but at least to stop for a while and end the killing fields of Gaza. That is something I hope Europeans are beginning to understand.
In that respect, what we talked about before, the passive policies of the Arab governments at least should count for something. It is true that they are not eager to go into military confrontation with anyone. And Europe for years accepted the Israeli narrative that they need to be the strongest army in the world and to have 250 nuclear bombs because—what do Arab regimes do? They keep contemplating and planning every day to destroy the state of Israel. We can see this is not true. This is absolutely not true. And it’s exactly the opposite. In fact, they’re just looking for a way to appease the Israelis so that they would leave them alone. And they are pressured by their own societies, of course, to show solidarity with the Palestinians. But at least that should convince the Europeans.
The problem here is not Egypt, Syria, or Lebanon in terms of instability and violence in the region. There is only one state that uses its army to terrorize and intimidate, and that country, that state, is considered by Europe to be almost an organic part of the EU. That has to change. That has to change dramatically.
RANIA: Yeah. You know, I am curious—you are a historian who’s a scholar of the Nakba. You have a book called The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine that details the massacres, the depopulation, and what the founding Zionists did to create the state of Israel. You’ve studied what’s happened since, and you’re witnessing Gaza—we’re all watching it live-streamed. And you come from this society, but you’ve come out quite differently than most people in Israeli Jewish society.
So I guess I’m just curious on a personal note: are you surprised by the behavior of the Israeli military? Maybe not surprised by atrocities—we’ve all seen for decades Israelis committing atrocities across the region—but by the level of depravity, and just how far right, how fascist, the place has become. Does that surprise you?
PAPPÉ: No, I don’t think I was. Unfortunately, I wrote in 1999 an article published in the Journal of Palestine Studies in which I examined the Israeli educational system, the state educational system. And I wrote in that article that twenty years from 1999, this system would produce only one kind of graduate: racist, lacking any human sympathy and compassion for anyone who is not Jewish, and totally anti-democratic in political orientation. And I was right.
I saw the kind of collective mentality that the young generation of Israeli soldiers had already in action in the checkpoints in the West Bank, in the previous military assaults on the Gaza Strip, and in their behavior towards Palestinian citizens of Israel. So I was not surprised at their total inhumanity and lack of compassion towards children, women, and so on.
You never expect, even in your darkest dream, that kind of carnage, that kind of destruction. Bombing hospitals, schools, universities. Bombing buildings that are world heritage. They bombed some of the most beautiful architectural gems that survived all the occupiers of Gaza since the age of the Mamluks, since medieval times. They survived everything, including two world wars, and Israel bombed them as part of their idea of punitive action—and more than that, as part of their attempt to send the message to the people of Gaza that they cannot stay and live in Gaza.
The level of destruction is something I didn’t predict, but as a whole this did not surprise me. Unfortunately, what did surprise me was the European indifference. I really thought this would be a red line. If genocide is not a red line, what will be a red line? We live in a world now where there isn’t any. That was really something I still find incomprehensible. I still—I wrote articles explaining why, but I’m not satisfied with my own explanation. It’s a partial explanation, because it’s very difficult to comprehend and accept. It really is.
RANIA: And I guess from that, I’d want to ask you: how did you, on your personal journey, come out of this society you just described—almost like an experiment in how fascist you can make people, or whatever conditions you can create to lead to this—how did you come out the way you are? You’re anti-Zionist. You speak Arabic, you speak Arabic with other Arabs, and when I hear you speak, you sound just like the rest of the people around me. So how did you come out so different from the people you grew up with?
PAPPÉ: Well, it was a journey. I should say I’m not the only one. We’re not a large number, unfortunately—I wish we were. And probably each one of us had a little bit of a different trajectory outside of Zionism, but there are some common features.
It’s a journey that, in my case, had a lot to do with the career I decided to pursue as a very young person. Namely, I was very much interested in history, and I wanted to work as a professional historian. I was very attracted to this idea, this kind of work and career, and I thought the best way of doing it was outside of Israel when I was still very much under the influence of Zionist ideology as a young man.
Being able to work on history from the outside, meeting for the first time Palestinians on an equal footing, meeting people from the Arab world that there was no chance I could have met before—this was of course before the age of the internet, so there was no way of meeting people unless you saw them physically. And that contributed.
And it’s a journey. It doesn’t happen in a day. It’s not an epiphany. And I wish I could work out a model by saying, “Okay, let me suggest to others to do the same.”
But it doesn’t—it doesn’t work that easily in other cases. It’s a very personal issue. It has to do with your moral constitution. It has to do with your perception of what is important and not important in life. But there is this moment where you don’t look back.
Of course, I’m always elated when I meet, and I do meet, some young Israeli Jews who are beginning to undertake a similar journey. I’m always despairing and depressed that the numbers are so low. But it’s possible—what I’m trying to say, it’s possible. In fact, it’s one of the main things that really surprises you in a society like Israel.
As a Palestinian, you really have to be very courageous if you challenge Israel as Palestinian citizens of Israel. You are facing a very fierce regime that would punish you. It’s not the same for Israeli Jews. And you know, when Israeli Jews say to me, “We don’t understand how the Germans didn’t do anything during the time of the Holocaust,” I say to them: but you know, a German who dared to challenge the Nazis, at best would be just executed—at best. And you’re not facing at all such a risk. So you’re not challenging the Zionist ideology because you are afraid of being tortured or imprisoned. A Jewish dissident is not treated like that. It might be, I don’t know, but so far they’re not.
So the reason is that you are not convinced that there’s a problem with the ideology, and that’s very difficult to accept. I can accept fear—I may not admire it, but I can understand it if someone says to me, “If I go against them I will be imprisoned for life.” Okay, so yes, not everybody can be so courageous. That’s okay. But if the risk is not that, then it means that it’s not the risk that makes my case and people like me so exclusive. It means that we didn’t overcome fear; we overcame an ideology with which we cannot identify. In fact, an ideology that, in our name, is doing things that turned us into very active people against it.
RANIA: Yeah. I also ask this question because I’ve heard you talking about, and I know in your book—you have a book coming out, I think in a week?
PAPPÉ: Yeah, that’s right.
RANIA: Israel on the Brink, which I’m very excited to read. I’ve seen descriptions of the different parts. In that book you have this imagined future of a one-state, and you’ve been talking a lot about the idea of needing to think about and plan for a day after—just like our enemies do. They’re always talking about a day after, though their day after is very dystopian. We don’t want a dystopian day after, but mostly to avoid chaos and the mess of decolonization, as you’ve described. I think it’s a really interesting question.
I know you’re not necessarily trying to answer it, because you say Palestinians should be leading that discussion, and I 100% agree. But one thing I’ve heard a lot, especially from Palestinians (though I’d extend it regionally to the Levant), is this: how on earth are we supposed to live with people, with a society that is right now trying to genocide us? Hopefully at some point that will have moved past, but then how do you live with these people?
And it’s a good question. I don’t know the answer. But people who were for one state and still ideally are for one state with democratic rights for everybody are now debating among themselves whether they can even have one state with these people. It’s more a comment than a question, but I’m curious about your thoughts.
PAPPÉ: No, it’s an important point, and I’m fully aware of it and fully understand where it’s coming from. Definitely, I just think there is some responsibility for people like us to strategize. There’s a difference between a very genuine reaction to the genocide and strategy.
What really matters in that discussion you just mentioned is people’s realization of how widely the genocide is supported by Jewish society in Israel. That leads to the legitimate question: how can we live with people whose government is perpetrating a genocide, and who support that genocide? This is something a lot of other people in history have asked when they were victims of genocides.
The strategy is not based on a wish to absolve the people who were the criminals, who committed the crime, who created the ideology for the crime. Their reckoning will come. The question is: can you ignore the fact that there are 8 million Jews living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean? Eight million people do not disappear in a day. They are not there because they had a historical right to be there, but they are there, and have been for more than a century.
Therefore the one-state idea tries to imagine a decolonized Palestine where the Jews who stay are either people who, in the next 15–20 years, internalize some of the issues they must confront, or people who, faced with the choice to stay or to leave, choose to leave. I hope some of the Jews who came from Arab countries will understand they actually belong to the Arab world, and that they were misled in the process of de-Arabization they undertook.
They will then live in a different context that will include what we used to call transitional justice—much like whites who were part of the apartheid regime in South Africa were able to reintegrate into post-apartheid South Africa, whether through a truth and reconciliation committee or something more unique that Palestinians develop.
This is the moment of strategic thinking. It is very difficult to request such thinking at this moment, and I fully understand that. In my new book, in this imaginary diary, I have a conversation between children and their grandfather. They ask, “Many of the Jews who used to live here in Haifa are gone—why is that?” The grandfather, who is Jewish, says: I tried to convince them to stay. I told them it’s much better to live in a democratic Palestine than in an apartheid Israel. But they were not convinced. So I didn’t make a real effort to stop them. It was their choice.
And he tells them this was never a precondition for liberating this country from colonialism.
And I think this is—you know, it’s a fictional conversation, but it’s the one I had with myself and others. And yes, this is part of the process. But I fully understand the present position. And you know, we in the one democratic state, when we meet, we have this great problem of course of expanding our membership, if you want. This is not a very good moment, especially not for people from the inside. I think from the outside, still Palestinians are willing to support, but it’s also a generational thing as well. Of course I can see that the younger generation says, “Come on, we don’t want to think of living with these people.” But sometimes strategy requires a bit more long-term planning and not just understandable reactions to a present reality.
RANIA: Yeah. I mean, I also would sometimes, when I look at Israel from the outside, it reminds me of the right wing in the U.S.—but like if the right wing in the U.S. were a country of just the right wing in the U.S. And there is a very close partnership in that too. The Israel of today is completely mixed in, sewed together with the Republican Party in the U.S. and the far right there. And you’ve always argued that the future of Israel and Zionism is tied to the future of America.
And the current trajectory, or the present of America, is led by Donald Trump, who is in lockstep: “Israel, whatever you want to do, go ahead and do it.” So it seems like from this administration—which, God, I can’t believe we’re not even a year into it yet and it already feels like 10 years, or three years—oh. So we still have quite some time to go. I don’t think there’s going to be any stopping Israel from the Trump administration.
But what I do find interesting, in addition to the massive pro-Palestine movement in the U.S., which is quite large, has gotten so much bigger and is under extreme attack right now, but still just managed to have this beautiful conference in Michigan a few weeks ago where 4,000 people attended, organized by the Palestine Youth Movement—you also have this weird, I don’t want to give it too much credit as a good thing in any way because it’s coming from some really negative places, but this bizarre shift on the right in America with the Tucker Carlsons and the Candace Owens.
