"here was an intelligent and cultured group ruling over miscellaneous dumb and uncultured groups. The latter benefitted from being ruled over the former, but they also resented it and thought they should get more because that’s what being dumb and uncultured means. The dumb and uncultured were too numerous to be repressed and, eventually, they succeeded in calling in outside help and taking power, destroying in the process what made it worth taking over in the first place. For half of the globe, this is the tale of the second half of the 20th century, basically, and there are places where it turned out a lot worse than Lebanon."
Does it strike you like Israeli rightists are similarly rebelling against the secular Ashkenazi leftist elite and their current USSR-origin allies? It certainly feels that way with the rightists' attempts to do things such as judicial reform and repealing the Grandchild Clause. HeTows on Twitter previously wrote about this. He talked about First Israel and Second Israel, with First Israel being the accomplished, mostly leftist Ashkenazi and ex-USSR segment of Israeli society, while Second Israel is the unaccomplished rest, and Second Israel resents the domination of First Israel but any attempt by Second Israel to replace First Israel will simply severely screw over Israel due to Second Israel's lesser amount of competence.
Yes. I always tell people that the simplest one sentence description of Israeli politics is it's like Latin America except the labels 'Left' and 'Right' are reversed.
But you are wrong about ex-USSR being part of ישראל ראשונה. Some are, but a lot aren't.
BTW, in regards to your post about memetic fertility, any chance that, post-war, a lot more Ukrainians could start admiring those religious, hyper-patriotic Ukrainians who have multiple children? I feel like the war has really turbo-charged Ukrainian nationalism and helped facilitate social cohesion and a common national identity. Perhaps comparable to some extent to the post-WWII US or Czechia or Poland (which lost almost all of its minorities through border changes and less savory means). Ukraine is one of the few countries where nationalism tends to go upwards, not downwards, with IQ:
On the one hand, I don’t predict a huge post-war Ukrainian baby boom, but on the other hand, I can’t completely rule out the possibility either. Ukraine should become significantly wealthier post-war due to all of the foreign remittances that will be flowing in there from the West. AFAIK, remittances are generally harder to steal.
Question is, can Ukraine create a fertility meme culture better than anyone else in Europe? I kind of doubt it, but I do wonder.
Well maybe they are or maybe they aren't. 4 isn't a lot of kids, and 1 person is not a lot of people, so I would need to see stats before giving an opinion.
In regards to Israelis of ex-USSR descent, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised to see them, or at least the successful ones among them, intermarry in huge numbers with Israel’s secular Ashkenazi elite over the long-run. They’re the only Israeli Jewish group that is mostly cool with intermarrying people who aren’t halakhically Jewish:
You have to be elite to marry into the elite. Soviet gentile immigrants run the gamut, but they don't lean elite. The smarter ones used Israel as a stepping stone to the U.S. Why stay around here if you're not Jewish? Because you like shabby, cramped accommodation?
“Elkin, Malinovsky, Rif and Belenky all noted that while Israelis of “no religion” may not be Jewish according to Jewish law, or halacha, they nevertheless consider themselves to be Jewish. Indeed, a survey by the One Million Lobby found that 94 percent of Russian-speaking Israelis said they identify as Jewish, even though only 74 percent said they are considered Jewish by the Chief Rabbinate.”
Anyway, using Israel as a stepping stone for the US has certain happened, such as in my own parents’ example and also in the case of two of my dad’s friends/acquaintances from Israel. But not everyone is actually lucky enough to be able to immigrate to the US, even if they are skilled.
The impression that I get is that if one identifies as Jewish (even if one’s Jewishness isn’t recognized by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate), then Israel is actually a very nice country to live in, other than the overpopulation, especially in central Israel. There’s great food, a lot of stuff to visit and explore, great culture, et cetera. Israel has the highest number of museums per capita in the world, having over 200 museums in total. If it wasn’t for the terrorism, I certainly enjoyed living in Israel. I prefer the US, of course, but I’d gladly visit Israel if I had some spare money and the situation there was much safer. As I said, there’s a lot of cool and interesting stuff to do in Israel.
One Shabbos a few months ago we had guests and there was a problem with our freezer door and it started beeping during the meal. I needed a gentile to press the button to make it stop, but our Arab neighbour was away so I waited on the street outside for a bit to find a Russian. One very obviously not Jewish couple walked past and I tried to start the conversation, but they got all pissed and told me 'כולנו יהודים פה'. So the freezer kept beeping. I'd honestly prefer it if they didn't identify as Jewish.
Honestly, if you would have approached me, I'd have gladly done this for you. I obviously identify as Jewish, but I don't follow the Jewish religious rules. So, working on the Shabbat is not a problem for me.
If you would have questioned my Jewishness, then I would have been hurt, but I would have still helped you out with your fridge. But alas, I currently live in a different country in comparison to you.
But you know what the moral of this story is, right? Israel needs even more Russians! If 80% of the non-halakhic ones (20% out of 26% or so; 74% are considered halakhically Jewish) identify as Jewish, then bringing more non-halakhically-Jewish Russians over to Israel through the Grandchild Clause will produce about one who doesn't identify as Jewish for every four that do. That one can go and fix your fridge in a comparable future situation. Or maybe those four will if you will actually be nice about it and NOT question their Jewishness!
Maybe you should have just asked them to fix your freezer without questioning their Jewishness? Maybe that could have produced a more successful outcome both for you and for them?
there are lots of terms that ultimately just refer to being on one end of a bell curve. that doesn't mean they're not meaningful or the phenomena they refer to don't exist
Right, there are term like stupid and clever that are meant to illuminate reality, and there are terms like 'notbeingabletounderstandcomplexthings specific disorder' which are meant to obscure and distort reality.
I'm personally sensitive to this because I worked as a special needs reading teacher for many years, and it was the only job I really enjoyed. One - not false but superficial - analysis of how the system works is that affluent parents buy up diagnoses of dyslexia to divert resources to their children away from equally deserving once with less affluent parents. But the reality is that these middle-class parents are only conning themselves because the resources are then thrown down the drain on methods designed to combat 'dyslexia' when all kids who are naturally bad at reading need is the exact same thing kids who are naturally good at reading need, just more, and with more patience. And dyslexia is the least fraudulent dys____. See this book: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/dyslexia-debate/9A6FB53788DB1830CFA83ED5168133A6
i mean sure, i have no investment whatsoever in dyspraxia as a formal medical diagnosis, and i would rather be tortured in an idf prison than join the "neurodiversity community" or whatever. i'm just not very good at catching thrown objects; this does not make me magically different from other people. but words are not exhausted by their uses, and "dyspraxic" remains a good and useful word that can illuminate reality by succinctly describing what i was like as a child. you seem to have come away with a petty good idea!
You should create another substack to teach aspiring substackers how to game the system. I’ve been enjoying that aspect of non-Zionism almost as much as the content.
"There was an intelligent and cultured group ruling over miscellaneous dumb and uncultured groups. The latter benefitted from being ruled over the former, but they also resented it and thought they should get more because that’s what being dumb and uncultured means."
Lebanon was doomed to fail not because of Israelis or Palestinians (who certainly didn't help), but because of this precise point. The original decision to make the state a Greater Lebanon, with no clear Christian majority, was a ticking time bomb. A smaller, more ethnically and religiously homogeneous state based around the boundaries of the Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate, allied to the West, could have persevered. There are obvious lessons here for Israel.
That's a common analysis, but I don't buy it. If the Maronites had plumped for a smaller, less diverse country, then it would have become even richer without all the dead weight. It would then have been surrounded by a bunch of poor people in acute distress who would have invented all sorts of reasons why they should have been allowed to raid Lebanon, why they should have been allowed to immigrate to Lebanon and, once there, why they should have been allowed to take over Lebanon. The only really durable solution would have been to have an imperial protector, but it was the 20th century so too bad.
I did say "allied to the West" to address that point, but it's fair to counter that an alliance with the West is an unreliable guarantee of security. Unlike the broader West, however, Israel has skin in the game in the region. If a smaller, more Christian Lebanese state was an ally of Israel, it could also latch on to Christian Zionism (quite seamlessly, since the state would actually be Christian!) for durable American support.
Now this hypothetical Christian Lebanese state (let's call it Phoenicia) has an imperial protector, after all. As for immigration, Phoenicia could welcome Christian immigrants from Iraq, Egypt, Syria, etc, through a form of indigenous Christian Zionism. Since Christianity is a missionary religion, the state (backed by American evangelical muscle) could also encourage the conversion of recalcitrant minorities to further solidify its demographics.
The attitude of the Maronites to Zionism is interesting. As a rule, Middle East Christians saw Zionism as an obscenity, more so than Muslims, but the Maronites do seem to have been a bit of an exception, though I need to look into it.
Yes, much of Middle Eastern Christianity inherited old-school, theological antisemitism, plus sociopolitical rivalry from the Ottoman days (Christians were considered a higher class of dhimmi). However, attitudes are not monolithic, and "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" can be a strong motivator. Certain branches of Middle Eastern Christianity reject or question pan-Arab ideology and even Arab identity (eg, Phoenician-identifying Maronites, Assyrians, Chaldeans) and would thus make natural allies of Israel if leaders on both sides were forward-thinking enough.
Now do that for Israel and how arabs started coming more and more to the Land because Jews with money started moving in before the state. See, no matter the argument it’ll never be up to your standards. Had the elite Ashkenazim socialists kept power instead of Begin something else would have happened to threaten their awesome ubermenchenism. You gotta just work with what you got
You are exaggerating the extent of Arab immigration, but I already wrote an article about how the chief problem with Zionism is the demographic question.
If one thought Israel was practicing evil foreign policy, they might think that destroying all the surrounding states was the goal. People in the smoky cigar room backstage think that hezbollah is less threatening than a functioning syria or Egypt.
These men concern themselves with destroying modern armies. Tanks and planes scare them. Hezbollah armed with rockets and small arms and whatever else that can be bargained from Russia doesn’t trip their radar, even if hezbollah is more motivated and competently trained. Time will tell who was more right.
> There was an intelligent and cultured group ruling over miscellaneous dumb and uncultured groups. The latter benefitted from being ruled over the former, but they also resented it and thought they should get more because that’s what being dumb and uncultured means. The dumb and uncultured were too numerous to be repressed and, eventually, they succeeded in calling in outside help and taking power, destroying in the process what made it worth taking over in the first place.
Basically what's happening to Israel in 20 years as the Arabs and the ultra Orthodox takeover. You had a run lads. Also it's a waste of time to sign peace treaties with Arabs. Trusting an Arab is like leaving a paedophile with a kid alone.
It just so happens that the majority of haredi parties were for Oslo.
The primary issue with Haredi politics today is that they still have a shtetl askanus ( what can we get form the government for our community) mindset. They have yet to recognize that as a significant part of government they need to start taking governing seriously.
Why would you consider supporting Oslo as a good thing? As I mentioned Arabs are foundationally untrustworthy. They're the types of people who will take your money and spit on your face while doing it.
No. In retrospect. However it does demonstrate that when approaching broader issues they don’t necessarily behave “ dumb and uncultured “ although their society is that way. It is a question of how serious their leadership will be, as they are a top down society.
"here was an intelligent and cultured group ruling over miscellaneous dumb and uncultured groups. The latter benefitted from being ruled over the former, but they also resented it and thought they should get more because that’s what being dumb and uncultured means. The dumb and uncultured were too numerous to be repressed and, eventually, they succeeded in calling in outside help and taking power, destroying in the process what made it worth taking over in the first place. For half of the globe, this is the tale of the second half of the 20th century, basically, and there are places where it turned out a lot worse than Lebanon."
Does it strike you like Israeli rightists are similarly rebelling against the secular Ashkenazi leftist elite and their current USSR-origin allies? It certainly feels that way with the rightists' attempts to do things such as judicial reform and repealing the Grandchild Clause. HeTows on Twitter previously wrote about this. He talked about First Israel and Second Israel, with First Israel being the accomplished, mostly leftist Ashkenazi and ex-USSR segment of Israeli society, while Second Israel is the unaccomplished rest, and Second Israel resents the domination of First Israel but any attempt by Second Israel to replace First Israel will simply severely screw over Israel due to Second Israel's lesser amount of competence.
Yes. I always tell people that the simplest one sentence description of Israeli politics is it's like Latin America except the labels 'Left' and 'Right' are reversed.
But you are wrong about ex-USSR being part of ישראל ראשונה. Some are, but a lot aren't.
BTW, in regards to your post about memetic fertility, any chance that, post-war, a lot more Ukrainians could start admiring those religious, hyper-patriotic Ukrainians who have multiple children? I feel like the war has really turbo-charged Ukrainian nationalism and helped facilitate social cohesion and a common national identity. Perhaps comparable to some extent to the post-WWII US or Czechia or Poland (which lost almost all of its minorities through border changes and less savory means). Ukraine is one of the few countries where nationalism tends to go upwards, not downwards, with IQ:
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/ukraines-uniqueness/
On the one hand, I don’t predict a huge post-war Ukrainian baby boom, but on the other hand, I can’t completely rule out the possibility either. Ukraine should become significantly wealthier post-war due to all of the foreign remittances that will be flowing in there from the West. AFAIK, remittances are generally harder to steal.
Question is, can Ukraine create a fertility meme culture better than anyone else in Europe? I kind of doubt it, but I do wonder.
Do these religious hyper-patriotic Ukrainians who have multiple children actually exist?
Well, Petro Poroshenko is one such Ukrainian. He has four children, to my knowledge.
Or are you suggesting that their numbers are too small, unlike with the Haredim in Israel?
Well maybe they are or maybe they aren't. 4 isn't a lot of kids, and 1 person is not a lot of people, so I would need to see stats before giving an opinion.
In regards to Israelis of ex-USSR descent, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised to see them, or at least the successful ones among them, intermarry in huge numbers with Israel’s secular Ashkenazi elite over the long-run. They’re the only Israeli Jewish group that is mostly cool with intermarrying people who aren’t halakhically Jewish:
https://en.idi.org.il/articles/47496
You have to be elite to marry into the elite. Soviet gentile immigrants run the gamut, but they don't lean elite. The smarter ones used Israel as a stepping stone to the U.S. Why stay around here if you're not Jewish? Because you like shabby, cramped accommodation?
FWIW, some Israeli Jews actually did make efforts to make life and integration in Israel more attractive for ex-USSR olim:
https://www.jpost.com/aliyah/article-808078
I think that the term gentile is offensive to refer to them when the lion’s share of them identify as Jewish:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/even-among-its-advocates-changing-the-law-of-return-proves-trickier-than-expected/
“Elkin, Malinovsky, Rif and Belenky all noted that while Israelis of “no religion” may not be Jewish according to Jewish law, or halacha, they nevertheless consider themselves to be Jewish. Indeed, a survey by the One Million Lobby found that 94 percent of Russian-speaking Israelis said they identify as Jewish, even though only 74 percent said they are considered Jewish by the Chief Rabbinate.”
Anyway, using Israel as a stepping stone for the US has certain happened, such as in my own parents’ example and also in the case of two of my dad’s friends/acquaintances from Israel. But not everyone is actually lucky enough to be able to immigrate to the US, even if they are skilled.
The impression that I get is that if one identifies as Jewish (even if one’s Jewishness isn’t recognized by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate), then Israel is actually a very nice country to live in, other than the overpopulation, especially in central Israel. There’s great food, a lot of stuff to visit and explore, great culture, et cetera. Israel has the highest number of museums per capita in the world, having over 200 museums in total. If it wasn’t for the terrorism, I certainly enjoyed living in Israel. I prefer the US, of course, but I’d gladly visit Israel if I had some spare money and the situation there was much safer. As I said, there’s a lot of cool and interesting stuff to do in Israel.
One Shabbos a few months ago we had guests and there was a problem with our freezer door and it started beeping during the meal. I needed a gentile to press the button to make it stop, but our Arab neighbour was away so I waited on the street outside for a bit to find a Russian. One very obviously not Jewish couple walked past and I tried to start the conversation, but they got all pissed and told me 'כולנו יהודים פה'. So the freezer kept beeping. I'd honestly prefer it if they didn't identify as Jewish.
Honestly, if you would have approached me, I'd have gladly done this for you. I obviously identify as Jewish, but I don't follow the Jewish religious rules. So, working on the Shabbat is not a problem for me.
If you would have questioned my Jewishness, then I would have been hurt, but I would have still helped you out with your fridge. But alas, I currently live in a different country in comparison to you.
But you know what the moral of this story is, right? Israel needs even more Russians! If 80% of the non-halakhic ones (20% out of 26% or so; 74% are considered halakhically Jewish) identify as Jewish, then bringing more non-halakhically-Jewish Russians over to Israel through the Grandchild Clause will produce about one who doesn't identify as Jewish for every four that do. That one can go and fix your fridge in a comparable future situation. Or maybe those four will if you will actually be nice about it and NOT question their Jewishness!
Maybe you should have just asked them to fix your freezer without questioning their Jewishness? Maybe that could have produced a more successful outcome both for you and for them?
there are lots of terms that ultimately just refer to being on one end of a bell curve. that doesn't mean they're not meaningful or the phenomena they refer to don't exist
Right, there are term like stupid and clever that are meant to illuminate reality, and there are terms like 'notbeingabletounderstandcomplexthings specific disorder' which are meant to obscure and distort reality.
I'm personally sensitive to this because I worked as a special needs reading teacher for many years, and it was the only job I really enjoyed. One - not false but superficial - analysis of how the system works is that affluent parents buy up diagnoses of dyslexia to divert resources to their children away from equally deserving once with less affluent parents. But the reality is that these middle-class parents are only conning themselves because the resources are then thrown down the drain on methods designed to combat 'dyslexia' when all kids who are naturally bad at reading need is the exact same thing kids who are naturally good at reading need, just more, and with more patience. And dyslexia is the least fraudulent dys____. See this book: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/dyslexia-debate/9A6FB53788DB1830CFA83ED5168133A6
i mean sure, i have no investment whatsoever in dyspraxia as a formal medical diagnosis, and i would rather be tortured in an idf prison than join the "neurodiversity community" or whatever. i'm just not very good at catching thrown objects; this does not make me magically different from other people. but words are not exhausted by their uses, and "dyspraxic" remains a good and useful word that can illuminate reality by succinctly describing what i was like as a child. you seem to have come away with a petty good idea!
It's cringe, do a poll of your readers. They'll tell you.
You should create another substack to teach aspiring substackers how to game the system. I’ve been enjoying that aspect of non-Zionism almost as much as the content.
"There was an intelligent and cultured group ruling over miscellaneous dumb and uncultured groups. The latter benefitted from being ruled over the former, but they also resented it and thought they should get more because that’s what being dumb and uncultured means."
Lebanon was doomed to fail not because of Israelis or Palestinians (who certainly didn't help), but because of this precise point. The original decision to make the state a Greater Lebanon, with no clear Christian majority, was a ticking time bomb. A smaller, more ethnically and religiously homogeneous state based around the boundaries of the Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate, allied to the West, could have persevered. There are obvious lessons here for Israel.
That's a common analysis, but I don't buy it. If the Maronites had plumped for a smaller, less diverse country, then it would have become even richer without all the dead weight. It would then have been surrounded by a bunch of poor people in acute distress who would have invented all sorts of reasons why they should have been allowed to raid Lebanon, why they should have been allowed to immigrate to Lebanon and, once there, why they should have been allowed to take over Lebanon. The only really durable solution would have been to have an imperial protector, but it was the 20th century so too bad.
I did say "allied to the West" to address that point, but it's fair to counter that an alliance with the West is an unreliable guarantee of security. Unlike the broader West, however, Israel has skin in the game in the region. If a smaller, more Christian Lebanese state was an ally of Israel, it could also latch on to Christian Zionism (quite seamlessly, since the state would actually be Christian!) for durable American support.
Now this hypothetical Christian Lebanese state (let's call it Phoenicia) has an imperial protector, after all. As for immigration, Phoenicia could welcome Christian immigrants from Iraq, Egypt, Syria, etc, through a form of indigenous Christian Zionism. Since Christianity is a missionary religion, the state (backed by American evangelical muscle) could also encourage the conversion of recalcitrant minorities to further solidify its demographics.
The attitude of the Maronites to Zionism is interesting. As a rule, Middle East Christians saw Zionism as an obscenity, more so than Muslims, but the Maronites do seem to have been a bit of an exception, though I need to look into it.
Yes, much of Middle Eastern Christianity inherited old-school, theological antisemitism, plus sociopolitical rivalry from the Ottoman days (Christians were considered a higher class of dhimmi). However, attitudes are not monolithic, and "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" can be a strong motivator. Certain branches of Middle Eastern Christianity reject or question pan-Arab ideology and even Arab identity (eg, Phoenician-identifying Maronites, Assyrians, Chaldeans) and would thus make natural allies of Israel if leaders on both sides were forward-thinking enough.
Now do that for Israel and how arabs started coming more and more to the Land because Jews with money started moving in before the state. See, no matter the argument it’ll never be up to your standards. Had the elite Ashkenazim socialists kept power instead of Begin something else would have happened to threaten their awesome ubermenchenism. You gotta just work with what you got
You are exaggerating the extent of Arab immigration, but I already wrote an article about how the chief problem with Zionism is the demographic question.
Israeli Jew here, who pretty much agrees with everything you wrote.
A thought though - if you're trying to appeal to "leftists" or do anything to change their minds, posts like this won't achieve it.
This post contains several phrases that making any liberal feel "heresy" for lack of a better term, and turn off their phones.
Specifically: describing Islam as a terrible sect of mohhamedism, and Muslims in Lebanon as dumb and uncultured.
I am actively not trying to appeal to leftists.
If one thought Israel was practicing evil foreign policy, they might think that destroying all the surrounding states was the goal. People in the smoky cigar room backstage think that hezbollah is less threatening than a functioning syria or Egypt.
If they think Lebanon with Hizb'Allah is more dangerous that Lebanon without Hizb'Allah then it's not cigars they are smoking.
These men concern themselves with destroying modern armies. Tanks and planes scare them. Hezbollah armed with rockets and small arms and whatever else that can be bargained from Russia doesn’t trip their radar, even if hezbollah is more motivated and competently trained. Time will tell who was more right.
It's very good of you to inform us of their plans.
I don’t have much of a dog in the fight either way. I just don’t think this angle would prove that fruitful.
> There was an intelligent and cultured group ruling over miscellaneous dumb and uncultured groups. The latter benefitted from being ruled over the former, but they also resented it and thought they should get more because that’s what being dumb and uncultured means. The dumb and uncultured were too numerous to be repressed and, eventually, they succeeded in calling in outside help and taking power, destroying in the process what made it worth taking over in the first place.
Basically what's happening to Israel in 20 years as the Arabs and the ultra Orthodox takeover. You had a run lads. Also it's a waste of time to sign peace treaties with Arabs. Trusting an Arab is like leaving a paedophile with a kid alone.
It just so happens that the majority of haredi parties were for Oslo.
The primary issue with Haredi politics today is that they still have a shtetl askanus ( what can we get form the government for our community) mindset. They have yet to recognize that as a significant part of government they need to start taking governing seriously.
Why would you consider supporting Oslo as a good thing? As I mentioned Arabs are foundationally untrustworthy. They're the types of people who will take your money and spit on your face while doing it.
No. In retrospect. However it does demonstrate that when approaching broader issues they don’t necessarily behave “ dumb and uncultured “ although their society is that way. It is a question of how serious their leadership will be, as they are a top down society.