The future is bright – Elsewhere

Which of the following scenarios will come true we will find out in the coming days.

It’s that simple, the options on how it will continue with the state of Israel are the following:

1. The first reform bill will pass
In this scenario the consequences will be turmoil on the streets and then after the heat will cool off it will all depend on how the establishment and the government will position themselves and how the population will digest the new facts and whether there will be violence and how that will be handled.

The sure thing is that the economy will suffer greatly. Foreign investors will increasingly withdraw form Israel and cancel projects. As a consequence, everything will get even more expensive, and Israel will get isolated increasingly on the international arena.

2. Prime Minister Netanyahu will postpone the reforms on last minute
In that case the tensions will calm down over time as it did last time in March. Yet the existing rift in society will continue to deepen and polarise even more to the extreme, just as it did up until now. “Us-against-them” narratives will become even more mainstream and conspiracy theories will become more popular as they already are.

Consequently, this will lead to more hatred in society and when the reform bills are again on the brink to be voted into law the situation will be more tense, more violent, and more dangerous than it is now.

3. Military coup (also possible after the bill passes)
This has been seen in other countries where a government tried to impose something and the military stepped in.
A military coup has two possible outcomes.

Either the coup is successful in which case the military will take over until elections will be held and a new government will be chosen. The reforms would be shelved.

The other scenario is a failed military coup as we have seen Turkey. Then the military and any other institution that has any power would be “cleansed” of the “traitors”, and all positions of power would be filled with loyalists. Of course the reforms would be passed.

It wouldn’t take long until the country would become isolated internationally and needless to mention that the economy would suffer greatly.

4. War with Hezbollah
A war would most probably have the consequence that the reforms will have to wait.
In return the country will suffer a heavy hit on the home front with civilian casualties and damaged and destroyed infrastructure as never seen before (IDF assessment). And probably the need to have also boots on ground in Lebanon which equals many fallen IDF soldiers as well as many civilian casualties on the other side.

This will result in a hit for the economy, and the reform will probably continue to be implemented afterwards.

5. Mahmud Abbas will die
This will lead to an immediate power struggle in the Palestinian ruled West Bank which will swap over to the rest of the West Bank. This will call the IDF to intervene as it did recently in Jenin, just on a wide scale in probably all bigger West Bank cities.
One can imagine that if the focus is on Palestinian terrorists the IDF can’t deal also with settler violence who then will probably commit more attacks like the one on Huwara.

Also here, the consequence will be that the reforms will have to wait until calm will have returned. Yet again, the longer it waits the deeper the polarization of the Israeli society advances.

Plus, the more civilian casualties such an operation will cause the weaker Israel’s stand internationally will be and hence also economically.

6. Netanyahu dies
First, the Israeli society will be shocked and try to find solutions on how to deal with this situation. Someone will stand in as interim Prime Minister until new elections will elect a new Prime Minister. The reforms will be shelved until then and his successor will decide on how it will be continued.

Given those options, if you can think of other options be my guest, the future of Israel is on a decisive crossroad.

In the coming days we will witness it. Good luck to all of us.