Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, famously said: “Our future does not depend on what the gentiles will say, but on what the Jews will do.” His argument was that the Jewish people could no longer be dependent on others as they had been for 2,000 years. Instead they were independent, self-reliant and creators of their own destiny.
Today, faced by mounting diplomatic isolation over its war in Gaza – to the extent that Israel is now seen by some nations as a pariah state – Ben-Gurion’s maxim has gained renewed traction for many Israelis. These include the far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who quoted it when rebutting an international court of justice (ICJ) ruling ordering Israel to cease its military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
A UK Foreign Office official says that for all Israel’s talk of public diplomacy, or hasbara, the reality is that the instinct within its military has always been to rely upon itself, and not to wrestle for world opinion. “The IDF [Israel Defense Forces] does not care what people think about them. This is a security state. It does not want to be loved. It wants to be feared and respected. The IDF thinks the Israeli foreign office does the yoga, hot tubs and cleanups, but the IDF has always played hardball, relied on escalation dominance and never seen war as a popularity contest.”
