A CIA report has said that Israel is at risk of a civil war and “total state collapse” amid its various military campaigns in the Middle East.
Along with its genocide in Gaza, Israel is involved in attacks on Iran and Lebanon that have caused major instability in the region.
But an unpublished report from the CIA’s Red Cell has found that the conflicts are degraded Israel’s political, economic and social fabric.
The assessment was uncovered by Drop Site News and Capital & Empire and is titled Fracture From Within.
It highlights growing anger over the exemption of ultra-Orthodox Haredi men from military service, the number of soldiers returning from Gaza and cost-of-living crisis as factors that could spark an internal conflict in Israel.
READ NEXT: Israeli opposition criticise Netanyahu for being ‘too pro-Palestine’
An intelligence source told the publications: “Famously the Freikorps of Germany were PTSD-addled veterans with weapons and bloodthirst. I’m not saying Israel post-Gaza is Germany post-WWI but there are certainly aspects of this that ring similar to me.”
There are also political tensions in Israel ahead of elections at the end of this month. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing growing opposition after three years of conflict and particularly over his failure to prevent the October 7 attacks by Hamas, which he is alleged to have been warned about in advance.
Netanyahu has also sparked a constitutional row this year after refusing to comply with a supreme court ruling in regards to Israel’s broadcasting regulator.
A source in the intelligence community told Drop Site News that the CIA’s report had been compiled by Israel experts, and that “we should take seriously their conclusion that Israel is one spark away from real internal conflict.”
Potential ‘sparks’ mentioned in the report are Hamas or Hexbollah managing to exploit domestic weakness or tech companies choosing to pull out of Israel, causing economic problems for the country.