On the elephant - Alon Pinkas in Haaretz:

‘The elephant in the room is Israel gradually but inexorably being divided into the State of Israel – a high-tech, secular, outward-looking, imperfect but liberal state – and the Kingdom of Judea, a Jewish-supremacist, ultranationalist theocracy with messianic, antidemocratic tendencies that encourage isolation.

This is what happened between (roughly) 796 B.C.E. and the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E., and again from 140 B.C.E. to 63 B.C.E. when the Hasmoneans ruled until the Roman conquest. The divisions were most acute during the First Jewish Revolt of 66 C.E., leading to the destruction of the Second Temple in 70, resulting in exile and statelessness until 1948.

It is no longer "Tel Aviv versus Jerusalem" but increasingly "Tel Aviv versus Masada." The modern day versus the extremist, messianic Sicarii cult in Masada in 73. In recent years, Israel has been ruled by a modern-day version of those Jewish Zealots.’

(…)

‘Israel is not only occupying territory but approximately 5 million Palestinians. In effect, for 57 years Israel has been living in a recurring loop of the seventh day of the Six-Day War. That reality, which in the 1970s was termed "protracted temporariness," has become a permanent feature of Israel's political and geopolitical ecosystem.’

(…)

‘Israel and Judea do not share a common perception or idea of a Jewish state. The Judeans, whom Netanyahu succeeded in meshing into a voting bloc consisting of the right-wing, the far right, the religious ultra-Orthodox and his cult followers, are not a majority, But they are in power. Their current go-to claim is that "Tel Aviv is a bubble," an echo chamber detached from the "real Israel." If they are the "real Israel," then it is no longer the Israel of the Zionist enterprise.’

(…)

‘The confluence of the catastrophe of October 7 and Israel's 76th anniversary may blunt the political debate for a while, but they cannot hide the reality: There are two states here, with contrasting visions for the future and essence of the nation.’

Read the article here.

Another problem is demography, the zealots tend to produce much more children than the non-zealots. Of course, not every child of a zealot will turn out to be a zealot, but still.

Zealots in power can produce statelessness, the history of the Jewish is just an example, but the question is, if a state with an atomic bomb can disappear into oblivion. This is no the time of the Roman Empire anymore.

On the other hand, Iran proves that a theocracy can survive longer than expected.