Haaretz: The defeated Netanyahu has dragged Israel to the brink of collapse.
**Haaretz** strongly criticized Netanyahu’s recent statements against Western countries and his turning the entity’s economy into a closed economy amid the global isolation it is experiencing, emphasizing that Netanyahu, as a defeated leader, has pushed Israel to the brink of collapse and into endless wars.
According to the news website “Sedaye Sama”, following Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent statements about the isolation of the Zionist entity and his plan to turn Israel’s economy into a closed, self-sufficient “Spartan-style” economy, Haaretz published an editorial asserting that the defeated Netanyahu has dragged Israel to the brink of collapse and into endless wars. A few days ago, Netanyahu admitted at a financial conference in Jerusalem that Israel would soon face severe isolation and that its military industries could come under blockade. Haaretz considered these statements as coming from a defeated man, pursued by the International Criminal Court, seeking to impose absolute control over Israel and scare people into relying on themselves—or on him.
In this context, Netanyahu described Europe as an enemy of Israel, claiming that waves of Muslim migrants, along with Qatar and China through ideological and systematic media campaigns, had infiltrated the West. However, the newspaper emphasized that the truth is that Western countries acted in response to the reckless and extreme policies of Netanyahu’s government, and that Israel’s isolation will push its export-dependent economy toward collapse. Haaretz pointed out that the European Union condemned Israel’s war against Gaza and threatened to suspend parts of its trade agreement with Israel, which requires Netanyahu to end the destruction of Gaza and allow Israelis to express their views through early elections.
Amid growing public pressure in Europe calling for a boycott of Israel, particularly a military boycott, Netanyahu blamed the pressure from Muslim minorities, acknowledging that sanctions had made arms imports more difficult. Following these statements, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange collapsed: the Tel Aviv 125 Index fell by 1%, the oil and gas index dropped by 2.2%, and shares in military industries, including Elbit, fell by 2% and NexVision by 4%. Shares of NewMed Energy fell by 2.4%, and Alma Infrastructure dropped by 12.9% after the cancellation of a purchase contract from Bezeq, which economic circles considered an indicator of declining confidence in the entity’s economy.
Economic experts view this collapse not as a temporary moment but as a genuine crisis caused by international isolation and global market restrictions. In this regard, Shahar Turgeman, head of the Entity’s Chamber of Commerce Union, said that Netanyahu’s statements about a “Spartan economy” reflect a dangerous reality for an economy that harks back to the Middle Ages and is unsuitable for a modern economy. He added: “Woe to us if this is Netanyahu’s approach…”
