The Cult of Israel, Power and ImpunityThe Structure of Impunity Backed by American Power
(Credit: MEM) The history of the modern Middle East cannot be understood without recognising the project that created the state of Israel and the consequences that followed for the region and its people. The comparison made by critics between the state and a cult reflects the scale of violence, exclusion and expansionism that has defined Israeli policy since its establishment in 1948. What began as a colonial project supported by external powers became a militarised state, entrenched by nuclear capability, and defended politically, economically and militarily by the United States and its western allies. The outcome has been decades of conflict, displacement, and systematic destruction of the indigenous Palestinian population, combined with repeated wars against neighbouring states, and continuous pressure on the international system through lobbying and narrative control. This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. The origins of Israel’s creation lie in the Balfour Declaration of 1917, when Britain promised to establish a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, despite the fact that 94 per cent of the land was inhabited by Arabs. Scholars such as Ilan Pappé have documented how the Zionist leadership saw Palestine not as a place to coexist with its inhabitants but as territory to be cleared for a settler state. In his detailed archival study The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006), Pappé demonstrates how Zionist militias executed a deliberate plan in 1947–48 to expel over 700,000 Palestinians, destroy hundreds of villages, and erase the existing Arab presence. This event, known as the Nakba, remains the defining trauma for Palestinians. The Israeli narrative frames it as a war of independence, but independent historians and researchers outside mainstream state institutions characterise it as a colonial conquest carried out under the cover of post-war geopolitical shifts. The “Cult” behind the creation of Israel placed religion as central to the political project that created and sustained the Israeli state, not as a matter of personal faith but as a tool of mobilisation and justification. Zionism drew upon ancient religious texts and the idea of a biblical homeland to claim legitimacy for a modern colonial enterprise, turning scripture into a charter for territorial conquest. This use of religion was less about theology than about constructing a narrative of divine entitlement, one that could persuade Jewish communities worldwide to support settlement in Palestine and convince western powers to underwrite the project. Over time, religion became fused with state identity and military policy, producing a culture in which violence against Palestinians was framed not as aggression but as fulfilment of a sacred mission. The invocation of divine promise has served to neutralise legal, moral and humanitarian criticism, since opposition could be portrayed as hostility to the Jewish faith itself rather than as objection to state policies. Scholars such as Shlomo Sand and Ilan Pappé note that this weaponisation of religion transformed a nationalist ideology into a form of political theology, where secular state actions, from land seizures to military campaigns, were clothed in the language of biblical destiny, providing both internal cohesion and external protection for policies that would otherwise be recognised as settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing. The transformation of this settler project into a heavily armed state was made possible through external support. From the 1960s onwards, Israel became the largest cumulative recipient of United States foreign aid, receiving more than $150 billion in direct assistance according to figures compiled by the Congressional Research Service. This included advanced weaponry, intelligence support, and diplomatic cover in the United Nations Security Council, where Washington has used its veto power more than forty times to block resolutions critical of Israeli actions. Israeli military superiority is therefore not a self-generated phenomenon but a consequence of integration into the western security system during the Cold War and beyond. Independent commentators such as John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, in The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (2007), argue that the relationship is driven not by broad American interest but by an organised lobby network that enforces political compliance in Washington and suppresses dissent within academic, journalistic and political life. Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons, though never officially acknowledged, is widely documented. The Federation of American Scientists estimates the arsenal at between 80 and 90 warheads, developed secretly in the 1960s at the Dimona facility. Unlike every other nuclear-armed state, Israel has refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty and faces no serious pressure from the West to disarm. Former US officials such as Grant Smith, director of the Institute for Research, Middle Eastern Policy, have shown how American intelligence was aware of Israel’s nuclear activities but political leaders chose to cover them up. This exemption from global rules places Israel outside the structures of accountability applied to others, producing a form of impunity that reinforces the sense of a state operating beyond the normal constraints of international law. The violence against Palestinians since 1948 has not been episodic but perpetual and structural. Reports by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in 2021 and 2022 both concluded that Israeli policies amounted to apartheid, defined as systematic oppression and domination of one ethnic group over another. This includes military occupation of the West Bank, the blockade of Gaza, settlement construction, land confiscation, home demolitions, arbitrary arrests, and a dual legal system that gives privileges to settlers while imposing military law on Palestinians. Independent United Nations rapporteurs such as Michael Lynk and Francesca Albanese have echoed these findings, despite consistent efforts by Israeli and allied institutions to discredit or marginalise them. The ongoing bombardments of Gaza, which have killed thousands of civilians, are presented in mainstream western media as defensive operations, but field investigations by organisations such as the Norwegian Refugee Council and Médecins Sans Frontières describe them as disproportionate attacks on civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools and refugee camps. The pattern extends beyond Palestine. Israel’s wars with Lebanon in 1978, 1982, 1996 and 2006, its repeated strikes on Syria, its assassinations of Iranian scientists, and its reported role in covert operations across the region illustrate a state that uses military force not only for defence but as a tool of regional dominance. Independent analysts such as Professor Avi Shlaim, one of the “New Historians” who re-examined Israeli archives, argue that Israel consistently sought confrontation to expand its strategic depth and to prevent the emergence of strong neighbouring states. The constant portrayal of Israel as surrounded by existential threats masks the fact that Israel has the strongest military in the region and enjoys unconditional western backing. Its aggressive posture is therefore less about survival and more about maintaining hegemony. The influence of pro-Israel networks within western societies ensures that criticism is often silenced. Journalists, academics and politicians who challenge Israeli policies face career consequences, from loss of employment to public vilification. The case of Jeremy Corbyn in the United Kingdom illustrates how accusations of antisemitism were used as a political weapon to destroy a leader who supported Palestinian rights. Independent Jewish voices such as Norman Finkelstein, who exposed the exploitation of Holocaust memory for political ends in his book The Holocaust Industry (2000), have been systematically marginalised. University researchers who document Israeli crimes often face funding cuts or public campaigns against them. Laws in the United States criminalising support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement reveal the extent to which state power is mobilised to protect Israel from civil society activism. (Palestine can no longer be considered a viable state, with the devastation of Gaza and the ongoing settlement expansion in the West Bank ensuring that any prospect of a two-state solution has been erased. Talk of reviving such a solution serves only as another political manoeuvre built on empty assurances. States that delayed recognition of Palestine are likely to use this narrative to obscure their complicity in the destruction of Gaza) The media’s role is central to sustaining the narrative of Israel as a democracy under siege. Major outlets in the United States and Europe routinely adopt Israeli framing, describing Palestinian resistance as terrorism while presenting Israeli attacks as security measures. Independent journalists such as Jonathan Cook, based in Nazareth, have documented how language and framing erase Palestinian suffering and normalise Israeli violence. The killing of Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh in 2022 by Israeli forces highlighted both the dangers faced by those who report critically and the unwillingness of western governments to hold Israel accountable, even when evidence is clear and widely available. The contrast between blanket coverage of attacks on western civilians and the muted reporting on Palestinian deaths illustrates the structural bias embedded in mainstream information systems. The growing extremism of Israeli politics in recent years deepens the crisis. Figures such as Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who hold key ministerial posts, openly advocate for the expulsion of Palestinians and annexation of the West Bank. These positions are not even fringe but common place and part and parcel of the governing coalition. International think tanks such as the International Crisis Group have warned that Israeli politics is moving towards a model of permanent ethno-national supremacy, with no space for negotiations or compromise. Yet the United States continues to provide weapons and financial aid, reinforcing the sense that Israel faces no consequences for its trajectory. The wider global implications are severe. Israel’s impunity undermines international law, weakens the credibility of western powers when they condemn aggression elsewhere, and fuels radicalisation across the Middle East. The sense of injustice created by decades of Palestinian dispossession has been a driver of militancy, as noted by independent intelligence veterans in the United States such as the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). By shielding Israel from accountability, western states contribute directly to regional instability. The pattern described resembles a system where a militarised state, armed with nuclear weapons, commits systematic violence with the backing of the most powerful empire in the world, while critics are silenced through media, political and institutional control. The analogy of a cult used by commentators reflects the closed ideological system that sustains this structure. Zionism is not merely a national project but has become a doctrine immune to criticism within western political culture. Dissent is equated with bigotry, debate is shut down, and facts are subordinated to narratives of eternal victimhood and self-defence. The gap between reality on the ground and the image presented in western capitals is stark, and it produces the sense of unreality described in the original metaphor. For independent analysts and researchers, the task is to strip away the illusions and present the facts without fear of the consequences, knowing that those consequences are often severe. The situation resembles a global system in which one state operates above the rules, using the resources and protection of a superpower to pursue policies of dispossession, militarisation and expansion. The inability of international institutions to restrain Israel reflects the capture of those institutions by power politics. The absence of effective opposition within the western political spectrum reflects the reach of lobby networks and the fear of reputational destruction. The growing radicalisation of Israeli politics reflects the failure of decades of appeasement and the entrenchment of settler colonial logic. The destruction of Palestinian society reflects the long-term aim of the project since its inception. These are not matters of debate but are documented in archives, confirmed by eyewitnesses, and acknowledged by independent experts across disciplines. The central fact remains that the Israeli state has developed into a nuclear-armed regional power carrying out systematic violence against an indigenous population, defended by the most powerful western nation and its allies, and insulated from accountability by a global network of influence. This combination produces a level of impunity that appears absurd when described in abstract terms but is very real for those who live under its consequences. The persistence of this situation, decade after decade, demonstrates how entrenched systems of power override morality, law and basic human decency when aligned with strategic interests. The role of independent scholarship, investigative journalism and principled activism is to continue exposing these facts, however uncomfortable, because silence contributes directly to the perpetuation of the crimes. Authored By: Global GeoPolitics Popular Information is powered by readers who believe that truth still matters. When just a few more people step up to support this work, it means more lies exposed, more corruption uncovered, and more accountability where it’s long overdue. If you believe journalism should serve the public, not the powerful, and you’re in a position to help, becoming a PAID SUBSCRIBER truly makes a difference. buymeacoffee.com/ggtv | https://ko-fi.com/globalgeopolitics This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. |