Haaretz Podcast22 Aug 2025

‘Netanyahu will never leave Gaza. War is part of the classic authoritarian playbook’

Israel is approaching the “horrifying” position of becoming a pariah state due to the Gaza war, former MK and Middle East expert Ksenia Svetlova said on the Haaretz Podcast, expressing deep worry that it was dangerously close to following in the footsteps of her native Russia.

Western nations' refusal to cooperate with Russia due to its aggression in Ukraine, she noted, means Moscow is now lagging behind in the fields of technology, science and beyond “by decades” – and Israel could easily share that status soon.

“A crackdown on civil society in a way that it happened in Russia will indeed deem Israel to the same level, and will impose on it the very unwanted and frankly horrifying status of a pariah," she said.

Svetlova believes that without any “real pressure” from U.S. President Donald Trump’s White House, she is doubtful Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will reject any agreement that would end the conflict and halt the current Gaza City offensive.

Ongoing war, she noted, “is in the classic authoritarian playbook.”

Before that conversation, Haaretz’s Linda Dayan reports on last Sunday’s massive anti-war strike and demonstrations in support of a hostage deal/cease-fire.

Although the protest had no apparent effect on the Netanyahu government’s policies, she said, organizers “felt it was successful in that it showed that no matter what the country’s leadership says, the people are behind them, the people are united in what they want. To see a literal big percentage of the national population come out to make sure that people here and abroad know that this is what they believe – that really bolstered people.”

Hundreds of Thousands of Israelis Flood Tel Aviv Demanding a Hostage Deal to End Gaza War

Marching on the Gaza Border, Hostage Families Say: Gaza Takeover Plan Is a Death Sentence

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