As someone who leans left, that rant was pretty convincing! Maybe the real problem with Hasbara is its done by naive people who actually believe their own propaganda.
Going back further I think that it would be more effective if people talked about how the Ottomans allowed the First Aliyah, the Balfour declaration as totally non-binding (and called for Jews in Jordan too?) and was accompanied by the Hussein-McMahon, Ben Gurion was learning Turkish before WWI, the British created the Palestinian flag, the British appointed the mufti, the British created Arab/Palestinian nationalism while Zionism started in Ottoman times, the Ottomans opposed Arab nationalism, the British did the White Paper and made the first actual restrictions on Jewish immigration (the Ottomans deported a few people around WWI... because they feared they were working with Britain), British put Holocaust survivors in concentration camps, the Zionists fought the British for a reason etc. You know to counter the "Zionism = colonialism" bullshit. This is on an earlier timescale.
I... think there were some non-zero colonial overtones to early Zionism, given the existence of the Jewish Colonisation Association and Jewish Colonial Trust. It just wasn't an especially stigmatised concept at the time, and I don't automatically grant the premise that colonial nations shouldn't exist.
There were definitely colonial overtones to Zionism, but not from the Jewish Colonisation Association. Colonisation at the time referred to an entirely different concept from "colonialism" - it just meant a group of people with a shared identity forming a new community in a new place. The Jewish Colonisation Society predated Der Judenstaat and sent Eastern European Jews to live in Argentina (thus the famous Jewish Gauchos of Argentina), Brazil, Canada, the US, Turkey, and yes, Palestine. Nobody would think impoverished Jews setting up tiny farming communities in Saskatchewan or Moises Ville were attempts to "colonize" Canada and Argentina, respectively. The purpose of the organization was just to get Jews away from the Czar.
Yeah, I realise the JCA specifically was active in plenty of areas aside from Palestine, but no-one in the modern era would call their refugee re-settlement NGO a "colonisation" enterprise. (Even if it's perhaps more accurate.)
My broader point, in any case, is that the intended strategy of early Zionism *was* to move enough Jewish settlers into Palestine that they would form an ethnic supermajority and the remaining Arabs would have to assimilate to the norms of Jewish culture within a new state. Forced expulsion didn't become the mainstream position until much later in the game, but it's hard to argue that Zionism's goals weren't "colonial" in the classical sense.
I'd prefer that Israel's ashkenazim-elite advocates just copped to this and said something like "look, we colonised the middle east at a time when colonialism was considered totally normal and was fully in vogue in europe. Then when the political fashions turned, we didn't really have anywhere else safe to go. We still don't, to be frank. We also went about it more humanely than the average european nation, have real cultural and genetic ties to the region, let in the mizrahim and other third-worlders, invented about a third of modern science, etc. Doesn't this count for something?"
I'm not sure I would agree that this was their goal (especially the last part), but I also don't think "mov[ing] enough Jewish settlers into Palestine that they would form an ethnic supermajority and the remaining Arabs would have to assimilate to the norms of Jewish culture within a new state" is colonial in the classical sense either.
Their plan, at its most generic, was to move to a settled area with a recognized government (at the time, the Ottoman Empire) and negotiate with that government for a level of autonomy, hopefully at some point,, culminating in some kind of sovereignty. They moved there at the sufferance of the Ottoman government, purchased land and built homes under Ottoman law, and never took up arms against the government. At various points in time, the Ottoman government alternatively tolerated, persecuted, and expelled them.
If it's a form of colonialism, it's a very weird one, if not unique. I don't know of any other colonizers who subjected themselves to the legal system of the area they were colonizing.
> "If it's a form of colonialism, it's a very weird one, if not unique."
Sure. But it's the strategy you'd adopt if you didn't have the logistic base and military force of an existing nation-state to back you up in the first place. (Also, plenty of RW discussions regarding modern-day mass immigration in the western world essentially look at muslim/indian/chinese ethnic enclaves as reverse colonialism, and I don't think that's a crazy concern.)
The point about "never taking up arms against the government" also seems a bit selective? The Ottoman Empire had ceased to exist by the point where Zionist settlers had established themselves enough where armed resistance could be feasible, and they were certainly happy to take up arms against the British administration in the region. Not, to be clear, saying that the British did nothing wrong- that's a separate discussion- but if the Ottomans had still been in charge at the time I'm pretty sure the Irgun/Lehi/Haganah or their equivalents would have been mobilised against them.
They were "colonial" in the sense of colonizing Mars. They were most definitely NOT a colonial nation like the USA or Rhodesia. Not in the sense of it being settlers from the mother country.
I too don't automatically grant the premise that colonial nations should not exist either. Happy July 4. And Ian Smith was a hell of a lot better than Mugabe.
Yes plenty of room for development. Even on the eve of partition there were few people in the whole Mandate (Jews and Arabs) than there are Arab citizens of Israel today.
But anyway I did not mean to use the Mars analogy to suggest that no one lived there. That wasn't the point. I just meant that when they talked about "colonizing Palestine", the meeting was not the same as colonialism as commonly understood, with settlers from the mother country. In some ways it is colonialism like how we would talk about "colonizing Mars".
I'm certainly not against states created by settlers from the mother country of England like the US, the late Rhodesia, and Australia, just to be clear. Even if Israel were a European colonial state, it would be preferable to Hamas in the same way that Ian Smith was preferable to Mugabe. But it's just not.
Does the Israeli Right not understand how vital the Oslo Accords were for Israel to be as fully integrated into the world economy as it is today? Would they prefer the national GDP of the 1980’s?
The premise was as long as a just resolution with the Palestinians seemed to be an eventuality, western nations were willing to overlook the nature of the occupation and embrace Israel. Maybe that economic integration is irreversible at this point and Israel has become too indispensable for its security and other tech exports, but maybe not.
When one sees the Emmanuel Macrons and Joe Bidens of the world trying to prop up the corpse of the two-state solution with performative gestures, they are not doing that with the Israelis or Palestinians in mind, but rather for their own domestic political reasons. The dilemma is real and is not going away, if the political Id you describe is accurate. It’s a recipe for endless quagmire, conflict, and humanitarian disasters in the Middle East with Israel to be broadly viewed as the main antagonist. Who in their right mind wants to be tethered to that?
It seems the Israeli Right, as you describe it, and the Western Left are coming to a kind of agreement: Israel is willing to accept economic and diplomatic isolation in pursuit of its perceived security and territorial interests, and western liberals will be all to happy to let them have it good and hard.
No, why would they understand it? Right Wing media won't tell them, and if they pay any attention to Left Wing media, it won't tell them either.
Hell, you could say 'do New York Primary voters not understand that they just voted to live in a dysfunctional Latin American country?' because that's what they just voted for (this probably won't happen, but only because Mamdani won't be able to implement his policies). People don't really understand economics or want to think about it.
Another angle is that the most committed Right Wingers actually don't care. They think the ideal is to live in shacks in the Shomron, and that Israel could replace its military with popular militias.
Of course they understand it. That's really doing the opposite of what you did in the post - take the best of your opponent's arguments and deal with that. That's really disappointing.
What they would say is that a high standard of living that's paid for with the eventual death of your country physically, and its soul, is too steep.
You can write off economic integration with the western world as a luxury if GDP were all that's at stake, but you can't do that if having a military capable of fending off a billion angry muslims is high on your list of priorities. Your military is an aspect of your economy.
??? The Israeli Military did fine before it was “integrated” into the something somewhere economy. Israel won 1947-1967 before it “integrated” into the West. In any case tech isn’t necessary, indeed a trap if others believe it offers “clean war” or other salon lounge affectations.
Gaza could have been cleared with bullets and bayonets. The IDF has for instance its own 160mm mortar and ammunition, that and rifles, bayonets could have cleared Gaza.
Just as imposing the same level of blockade the allies imposed on Germany until 1919 worked. Hunger works.
The global community integrates none into trade including we Americans, it drains them dry of money and blood, the only ones who profit are the Soros types. Soros here has the same relationship to Palestine he had with the Hungarian Fascists and Nazis.
What is critical to realize is the global community and its rules prolong all conflicts years and decades past plain old war to keep milking the conflict economically and diplomatically, academically, and as Civil Service/NGO Trust Fund.
That’s all Palestine is, an NGO- Civil Service- UN Trust Fund. The only integration is dealing with both sides, both of whom suffer.
War as War wins fast.
the recent events bear this out, as did Sri Lanka when after 40 years (1968-2008) it kicked out the NGOS then exterminated the Tigers.
Yeah, I realise the GAE also restrains Israel's freedom of action considerably, and the Gaza strip in isolation could have been 'cleared out' by the simple expedient of switching off the water supply and waiting a couple of weeks. But I don't know if you're paying attention to the larger strategic context.
Israel is surrounded by a variety of other Arab/Muslim countries with much larger populations who also have bullets and bayonets, and they can now purchase hypersonic missiles from places like China and Russia, which have to be fended off by the Iron Dome and similar high-tech defence systems that need components sourced overseas. Not to mention all the bombers, submarines, and fighter jets- and nuclear warheads- being items of high technology reliant on complex industrial supply chains to produce and maintain. You need the GAE for all of this, or at least it's going to get a lot more difficult to procure all these fancy toys without it.
Israel, of course, has a high-IQ ashkenazim elite which *can*, under the right conditions, provide extremely effective leadership and battle planning and acts as a large force multiplier for Israel's military strength. And right now, most of Israel's neighbours are either nominally at peace or have been shattered and disrupted by US regime change and/or combined strikes.
However... in a scenario where Israel expels five million Palestinians into Jordan and Egypt and winds up subject to the same level of economic and diplomatic sanctions as... say, North Korea, then... that strategic calculus could change considerably. Maybe not enough to doom the country, and certainly not right away, but the situation gets a lot dicier.
Our 🇺🇸 only interest should be to stop betraying trust especially domestic but also foreign. We can start at any opportunity.
Now for instance.
As far as those items you mention, Israel has 80+ nukes and all the rest it needs, and there’s no Soviet Union, and frankly you had beaten the Arabs yourselves before becoming our “ally” in 1969. The USSR and an actual Communist China are gone … although Foggy Bottom remains.
Russia and China have no real animus with you, their problem is with America.
GAE Alliance? Perhaps Contextual Historic word association may help.
Kabul.
South Africa.
Somoza. Nicaragua
Rhodesia.
Diem.Saigon 1975.
Cuba…1959.
We can go on. As far as North Korea, they still exist, don’t they? Maybe the Juche have lessons for you, they do only what’s good for the Juche. Be Juche-ish.
Sure North Korea is like Detroit… but where is Detroit?
Finally as far as integrating… yeah that was tried in Imperial Germany and Austria… and it certainly played into the results.
🇮🇱 trying to play Vizzini with the real life Dread Pirate 🏴☠️ Roberts, don’t.
"Does the Israeli Right not understand how vital the Oslo Accords were for Israel to be as fully integrated into the world economy as it is today? Would they prefer the national GDP of the 1980’s?"
Thanks for admitting that this was what it was all about - your money or your life.
Give up your birthright, admit that "the Palestinians" were right, you are usurpers, your attachment to the land is a fantasy - and you'll get all the candy.
Did it ever occur to you that the right wing POV, which the author masterfully summed up, is correct, and that giving it up for "integration into the world economy" was blackmail? That all those dead Jews were a cost of business?
I agree the write-up of the POV is masterful and thus very valuable. I’m not admitting anything or even offering my outsider personal opinion on the general state of affairs, but just commenting on my bewilderment on how blinkered the view seems to me out here thousands of miles away. No doubt I have my own blinkers, but still…
The position described is that Oslo was an unmitigated disaster from this POV, but there were obvious critical benefits to joining the Accords that all Israelis shared in that don’t even seem to register with this portion of the public. And if they hadn’t noticed, the Palestinians never got their state under Oslo, which is headed for the dustbin of history. It seems to me their uncompromising maximalism will be their undoing, likely taking Israel along with it. They read just like the Arab nationalists to my eyes.
I recall the first volley of Iranian missiles and drones raining down on Israel through Jordanian airspace last year that were neutralized by Israeli, Jordanian, and US cooperation. A cooperation made possible in large part because of a peace treaty with Jordan that was a direct consequence of Oslo I.
Had the Israeli right had their way (complete mass expulsion of Palestinians into Jordan and Egypt in 1967), they’d probably be in that situation with Muslim Brotherhood-aligned countries on Israel’s east and southern borders having so destabilized those countries 60 years ago.
If not, let’s not second guess the men on the spot.
Their lives, their call.
And Israel had 💩 to fear existentially from 1967 on after its victory plus its atomic bombs.
The MB lol.
Romantic nonsense.
The MB like every other irregular or terror movement are usually crushed in days or weeks without sanctuary or aid, and in the case of Egypt the MB was crushed in the 1950s, Jordan crushed the MB in the 50s and the PLO in 1970.
As we just saw with Iran’s proxies vs Israel without a sponsor that’s a peer competitor any irregular movement is easily crushed, or usually bought.
This is a good point, that Oslo is part of what started the Israeli tech industry and all of that. I think thought that it's irreversible. And once the Gaza war ends so will the diplomatic isolation.
How does it end, at this point? Is Bibi going to suck it up and fund a long-term military occupation, or pull out and leave Hamas to run the place again?
Long-term occupation. Hopefully with regional support and some kind of government backed by Saudi/UAE/Egypt. Seems sustainable. Israel occupied Gaza from 1967 to 2005 and spent much less on it than it has since 2005.
I'm not entirely clear on that. I think NZ explained in another comments section that the expanding population of the Gaza Strip had made the military occupation there increasingly costly, so by 2003 Sharon decided that pulling out entirely and just shoring up the border defences was the cheaper option?
Well... the war did, certainly. Not diverting resources/manpower from Mossad so as to allow Oct 7 would have been cheaper still, though.
I mean... in the long term the Gazan population was only going to get ever larger and more deranged over time, absent some major shakeup to the status quo, which I don't think was sustainable. But occupying the place is probably going to be a lot more costly now than it was in the 90s.
Excellent article, summarizing what I call the "butterfly counter-theory" on the conflict in M.E. There is this frame among Western leftist, which is indeed reminiscent of the famous "butterfly effect" theory, according to every time the IDF shoots a Palestinian, someone will feel compelled to draw a swastika on the walls of a synagogue in Paris or NY (or even worse, throwing some Auschwitz survivor out the window).
Well, along the lines, you can say every time leftist artists, activists, and intellectuals in the West start sperging about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the odds of Bibi getting crowned God-Emperor of Israel increase by 100 percent.
Congratulations, you really have done a great job at steelmanning the views of the Israeli far-right!
My particular favourite was the "reverse domino theory", postulating that each time Israel makes a concession, it is taken as a sign of weakness by Arabs/Palestinians who pounce on it and demand additional concessions again.
It's interesting that the two-state solution was originally only embraced by the far-left. Was it really such a fringe view? My guess is that that the Israeli elite of the 1950s-1960s-1970s had hoped that the Palestinians would eventually assimilate into neighboring countries instead of remaining "refugees" forever.
Yes, the 2 state solution with the PLO was a very fringe view. Moderate Israelis were open to land for peace with neighboring states, but not a Palestinian state.
The response from the Netanyahu government to Oct 7 attack was far more restrained that I would have been. There would have been no refugees to discuss. Israel should never capitulate again.
You are absolutely right. If I were in charge. "Hostages. You have 24 hours. Return them to safety. If not, Gaza strip becomes a crater. You have no bargaining chips. Just to prove I'm not bluffing, I have destroyed a factory. Remember that I am completely insane. You have 24 hours."
I would have leveled the northern half of the strip without warning and then stated: "This is now Israeli territory. You have 24 hours to return the hostages. Every 24 hours you do not return them, we take another 1 mile."
Perhaps this can all be summed up with a comment from Meir Kahana (who I vehemently oppose) “Israeli policy should only take Israeli interests into account and complete ignore world opinion from both their enemies and friends because in the end the world is going hate you anyway” The end of that sentence is the best way to sum the way Israel is viewed. And always has been.
This is just not true. There was a massive wave of sympathy for Israel after Oct 7th. Zionists obsess about how disgusting leftoids and Muslims reacted because it makes them feel better about how they spunked all the goodwill through incompetence in Gaza.
For that I'll quote Golda Meir. "We would rather deal with the worlds condemnations than it's condolences" I (and more importantly, Hamas) knew that within a few weeks of ANY Israeli response that wasn't symbolic the condemnations would start pouring in. Like they always when Israel responds in any way that has a remote chance of lessening such attacks again. .
I was actually surprised at how long the sympathy lasted, especially from the Europeans. This is the longest war that Israel has ever fought, and the ones that's caused the most harm to enemy civilians, and the world let Israel just do what it wanted for a year. And they basically ignored Israel doing whatever it wanted in Syria and were positively giddy when Israel bombed Iran.
Every bully has their victimization narrative. If you had asked a Nazi in 1935 they would have had a victimization narrative to justify themselves. The question is what you yourself are doing and the situation you have gotten yourself into, not the set of excuses for it, which in this case are weak. The notion that Israel since 1967 has been a country repeatedly trying to make peace and getting punished for it isn’t going to fly for anyone not already convinced.
While I agree with the author that a two-state solution is not practical anymore, it was the actions of the Israeli right that contributed to make this happen, actions such as supporting the rise of Hamas to weaken PLO or expanding West Bank settlements. Unfortunately, Israel is in a perilous moment. The fantasy of a militarized state surviving in the midst of countless enemies is simply this. Sparta eventually disappeared in the mist of time. Israel’s existence is ultimately tied to the waning ability of the U.S. to support it. It has a limited window of time to change this course. And frankly, the only solution I see is to take ownership of the Palestinian problem. If the U.S. empire is retreating, Israel itself must become a mini-empire. I will agree with the author that the radicalization of Palestinians is a real problem. Israel must deprogram them and make them its best ambassadors in the region. This will take effort and blood but it is the only way for Israel to survive. It would result in a state that is perhaps less Jewish but able to reach its full potential. Unfortunately, neither the Israeli right nor the Israeli left recognize this. In fact, the comments of the author about coexisting with Arab Israelis show that Israel itself is diving across ethnic lines and in response, the Israeli right is seeking a pure ethnostate. So I will be mourning for Israel. It started as a fundamentally noble project that fell victim to human nature.
Well, that's why I missed that out, but the way they see it, either you are moving forward or moving backwards. It relies on reasoning through images and phrases, rather than semantics, which is what most people do.
Fair enough but it’s ultimately not going to end well. I understand you are a pragmatic right winger but I think Yair Golan’s call for civil separation and security control is the only possible solution.
(i) it makes it harder for the traitorous left to pursue a two state solution by increasing the cost of any territorial withdrawal (and though they won't acknowledge this by increasing enmity between Jews and Palestinians in the West Bank and the frequency of attacks on settlements and "price tag" counterattacks such that any prospect of coexistence or a deal is impossible)
(ii) it shows the Palestinians that there is no future for them where they control the West Bank because we will inexorably, acre by acre, hilltop by hilltop, fill every nook and cranny in the land and there is nothing they can do about it. Today it's an illegal outpost, but tomorrow it will be legalized, and after that a core community that can never be removed. They might as well leave or lobotomize themselves into understanding that any hope for improving their situation depends on our pleasure.
Also, they are religious and so they also just believe on a fundamental level the only way to truly dwell securely in the land of Israel is to do what God wants, and that redeeming and living in all parts of the land and taking it away from the goyim is what God wants them to do so.
Seems like a huge mistake for anyone to sign on to that campaign, especially any US Jewish orgs. It’s not a defensible position and gives antizionists a chance to look sane by comparison.
I spent the weekend in the Shomron. Over shabbat I told the story of the decades-long Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and how it was finally resolved in September 2023 in Azerbaijan's favor. No one had heard of it. They were shocked. I asked everyone at the table why we aren't doing the same thing; even the Ben Gvirists at the table, with their Glocks and Gilboa rifles, objected - oh, no, the world wouldn't let us do that!
Doing the same thing would mean creating a Palestinian state that Palestinians could go to, just like the Armenians had Armenia to go to. It would also mean having good relations with most countries in the region and around the world, and strictly repressing democracy in order to have a well thought out long-term foreign policy. In other words it would mean putting your ignoramus friends in the Shomron in prison, or, at any rate, their leaders.
On top of that it was 100,000 people, from a territory deep inside of Azerbaijan. The idea that the only relevant criteria is whether we are cowards or not is you being infected with the narcissistic meme that pervades Israeli Right Wing politics according to which אם תרצו is seen as some kind of law of political science rather than a slogan.
Does every democratic nation have really bad long-term foreign policy, though? I'm not intimately familiar with the history of the nordic countries, but, e.g, Finland seems like a reasonably stable place.
a) Israel has a much lower IQ than Finland, and is also much worse on other relevant traits like time preference, patience, prosociality etc.
b) Finland is very homogenous, whereas Israel, even excluding the Arabs, is very diverse and the common culture is Judaism which most people don't even believe in (!). It's really a disaster zone as far as having a public square goes.
c) Israel is a lot more democratic than Finland, both in terms of its electoral system, but more importantly its very egalitarian demotic culture. Politicians here get in shouting matches with random members of the public and it's seen as normal. [One advantage Bibi has is that he's seen as the only one who is above the fray and maintains some dignity].
Communist elites dying or fleeing to Russia and the communist (and later the far-right) party being outlawed helped stabilize inter-war Finland, but shooting random factory workers just created bitterness for little gain.
If the Winter war had happened 20 years earlier, before those fractures were somewhat healed, it's unlikely the nation would have been united enough to withstand aggression. Bloodlust is seldom rational.
Democracy has trouble having a unified front but surfaces can be deceiving- if democracy is mobilized it has tremendous advantages.
The problems of client states aren’t alleviated by democracy, nor any other solution that comes to mind other than Independence.
Democracy isn’t the problem here nor solution.
Finland actually is a model but of course it had to earn that respect.
It simply wasn’t worth it to Stalin to go in again.
Even Hitler respected Mannerheim enough to let him smoke a cigar in his presence- Hitler normally wouldn’t allow that… but again the Finns paid in blood to earn that respect.
The problem of this particular state Israel is it’s the client state of a distant country whose interests have changed.
Moreover America has a bad track record with clients… because in truth we don’t need them. All of this is legacy of our 20th century adventures, themselves not absolutely essential.
Our only real imperatives are the Western Hemisphere and the Oceans. The rest are dangerous vanities and indulgences that will not stand a real test.
Israel- and all the rest- should go their own way on their own terms.
Indeed Finnish leaders were smart to save the country by concluding the Winter war by ceding more land to Russians than they now claim from Ukraine. After ww2 Finland was wise to bend over to not get occupied, though it affected its spine such that it started to bend as a habit more than it had to ("Finlandization"). This spinal problem carried to post-Soviet anti-Nato sentiment, only the Ukraine war finally acting as a surgical fix for that.
Arguably the same mentality manifests in Finland's relation to the EU which it subsidizes through various schemes without major protests. Such subservient impulses are a net-positive for a small border nation as you can't expect instinct to distinguish between necessary and pointless bending. If you're smol take a knee, this ain't a movie.
> "If you're smol take a knee, this ain't a movie"
Right, fair enough, I'm not saying Finnish foreign policy was always blazingly courageous (although they certainly seem to have punched above their weight in the Winter War.) My point is that it doesn't seem to have been objectively stupid or lacking in long-term strategic vision either, despite being democratically governed. (As opposed to... I don't know, relentlessly attacking a nuclear superpower with overwhelming military advantages over you because you have the "right to return", or whatever.)
I'm curious if NZ's identification of democracy as the reason for Israel's lack of viable long-term foreign-policy initiatives is (A) even real, (B) not more attributable to Israel's substantial internal ideological and ethnic fracturing and/or (C) just a function of low IQ among mizrahim/arabs/ethiopians/etc.?
A: Depends on the alternative rulers - by which process would they be chosen? Voting access restricted by an IQ-proxy? A real-world elders of Zion?
B: Maybe. I get the feeling that the settlers might have heckler's veto?
C: If Mizrahim are even half as third-worldist as NZ thinks then yes.
In any case Israel isn't as politically small as Finland because its diaspora will foster pro-Israeli policies in the US and, for whatever reason, the evangelicals seem to fetishize the Jewish state. Of course their enemies are more numerous and they should probably spend their goodwill-points better than bombing Gaza from the orbit for years on end.
> "A: Depends on the alternative rulers - by which process would they be chosen? Voting access restricted by an IQ-proxy? A real-world elders of Zion?"
I don't think IQ is the only relevant qualifier for being in leadership positions, but... I was more trying to get at whether Israel's foreign policy is objectively so terrible? My understanding is that Israel was pursuing a normalisation process with Saudi Arabia and was nominally at peace with Jordan and Egypt before Oct 7.
> "In any case Israel isn't as politically small as Finland because its diaspora will foster pro-Israeli policies in the US and, for whatever reason, the evangelicals seem to fetishize the Jewish state."
I don't think that's going to last forever (and it's debatable whether it should- Israel *should* be able to justify it's policies on their own merits without relying on AIPAC, dual citizenship or Christian armageddon-fantasists to prop up political support.)
Jewish liberals basically won't exist by the end of the century if birthrate and intermarriage trends continue, and I think right-wing boomers are being gradually supplanted by a combination of Bannon-style autarky supporters and Fuentes-style ethnocentrists, with a sprinkling of HBD autists and Christian reactionaries. Only one of these groups might have any especial fondness for the ashkenazim, and that might or might not translate to support for Israel.
In any case, this is tangential to my original question about whether democracy (or some form of representative government with a broad franchise) is just objectively Bad Government or depends situationally on other factors.
"Speak softly and carry a big stick" is indeed the optimal position. Prove your worth so that you can speak yourself out of trouble which Finland arguably did. The opposite of (street)fights for a bruised ego which is third-worldist mentality, whether on collective or individual level.
Each concession Israel has made since has been an admission, tacit perhaps, but unmistakable nonetheless, that this is not our land, that we are strangers, conquerors... We may as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb...
In the short run Israel is probably going to expand and remain untouchable. In the long run, nothing escapes God.
As someone who leans left, that rant was pretty convincing! Maybe the real problem with Hasbara is its done by naive people who actually believe their own propaganda.
Going back further I think that it would be more effective if people talked about how the Ottomans allowed the First Aliyah, the Balfour declaration as totally non-binding (and called for Jews in Jordan too?) and was accompanied by the Hussein-McMahon, Ben Gurion was learning Turkish before WWI, the British created the Palestinian flag, the British appointed the mufti, the British created Arab/Palestinian nationalism while Zionism started in Ottoman times, the Ottomans opposed Arab nationalism, the British did the White Paper and made the first actual restrictions on Jewish immigration (the Ottomans deported a few people around WWI... because they feared they were working with Britain), British put Holocaust survivors in concentration camps, the Zionists fought the British for a reason etc. You know to counter the "Zionism = colonialism" bullshit. This is on an earlier timescale.
I... think there were some non-zero colonial overtones to early Zionism, given the existence of the Jewish Colonisation Association and Jewish Colonial Trust. It just wasn't an especially stigmatised concept at the time, and I don't automatically grant the premise that colonial nations shouldn't exist.
There were definitely colonial overtones to Zionism, but not from the Jewish Colonisation Association. Colonisation at the time referred to an entirely different concept from "colonialism" - it just meant a group of people with a shared identity forming a new community in a new place. The Jewish Colonisation Society predated Der Judenstaat and sent Eastern European Jews to live in Argentina (thus the famous Jewish Gauchos of Argentina), Brazil, Canada, the US, Turkey, and yes, Palestine. Nobody would think impoverished Jews setting up tiny farming communities in Saskatchewan or Moises Ville were attempts to "colonize" Canada and Argentina, respectively. The purpose of the organization was just to get Jews away from the Czar.
Yeah, I realise the JCA specifically was active in plenty of areas aside from Palestine, but no-one in the modern era would call their refugee re-settlement NGO a "colonisation" enterprise. (Even if it's perhaps more accurate.)
My broader point, in any case, is that the intended strategy of early Zionism *was* to move enough Jewish settlers into Palestine that they would form an ethnic supermajority and the remaining Arabs would have to assimilate to the norms of Jewish culture within a new state. Forced expulsion didn't become the mainstream position until much later in the game, but it's hard to argue that Zionism's goals weren't "colonial" in the classical sense.
I'd prefer that Israel's ashkenazim-elite advocates just copped to this and said something like "look, we colonised the middle east at a time when colonialism was considered totally normal and was fully in vogue in europe. Then when the political fashions turned, we didn't really have anywhere else safe to go. We still don't, to be frank. We also went about it more humanely than the average european nation, have real cultural and genetic ties to the region, let in the mizrahim and other third-worlders, invented about a third of modern science, etc. Doesn't this count for something?"
I'm not sure I would agree that this was their goal (especially the last part), but I also don't think "mov[ing] enough Jewish settlers into Palestine that they would form an ethnic supermajority and the remaining Arabs would have to assimilate to the norms of Jewish culture within a new state" is colonial in the classical sense either.
Their plan, at its most generic, was to move to a settled area with a recognized government (at the time, the Ottoman Empire) and negotiate with that government for a level of autonomy, hopefully at some point,, culminating in some kind of sovereignty. They moved there at the sufferance of the Ottoman government, purchased land and built homes under Ottoman law, and never took up arms against the government. At various points in time, the Ottoman government alternatively tolerated, persecuted, and expelled them.
If it's a form of colonialism, it's a very weird one, if not unique. I don't know of any other colonizers who subjected themselves to the legal system of the area they were colonizing.
> "If it's a form of colonialism, it's a very weird one, if not unique."
Sure. But it's the strategy you'd adopt if you didn't have the logistic base and military force of an existing nation-state to back you up in the first place. (Also, plenty of RW discussions regarding modern-day mass immigration in the western world essentially look at muslim/indian/chinese ethnic enclaves as reverse colonialism, and I don't think that's a crazy concern.)
The point about "never taking up arms against the government" also seems a bit selective? The Ottoman Empire had ceased to exist by the point where Zionist settlers had established themselves enough where armed resistance could be feasible, and they were certainly happy to take up arms against the British administration in the region. Not, to be clear, saying that the British did nothing wrong- that's a separate discussion- but if the Ottomans had still been in charge at the time I'm pretty sure the Irgun/Lehi/Haganah or their equivalents would have been mobilised against them.
They were "colonial" in the sense of colonizing Mars. They were most definitely NOT a colonial nation like the USA or Rhodesia. Not in the sense of it being settlers from the mother country.
I too don't automatically grant the premise that colonial nations should not exist either. Happy July 4. And Ian Smith was a hell of a lot better than Mugabe.
Palestine was hardly 'uninhabited' at the time. There was plenty of room for development, sure, but comparing with Mars? Really?
Yes plenty of room for development. Even on the eve of partition there were few people in the whole Mandate (Jews and Arabs) than there are Arab citizens of Israel today.
But anyway I did not mean to use the Mars analogy to suggest that no one lived there. That wasn't the point. I just meant that when they talked about "colonizing Palestine", the meeting was not the same as colonialism as commonly understood, with settlers from the mother country. In some ways it is colonialism like how we would talk about "colonizing Mars".
I'm certainly not against states created by settlers from the mother country of England like the US, the late Rhodesia, and Australia, just to be clear. Even if Israel were a European colonial state, it would be preferable to Hamas in the same way that Ian Smith was preferable to Mugabe. But it's just not.
Does the Israeli Right not understand how vital the Oslo Accords were for Israel to be as fully integrated into the world economy as it is today? Would they prefer the national GDP of the 1980’s?
The premise was as long as a just resolution with the Palestinians seemed to be an eventuality, western nations were willing to overlook the nature of the occupation and embrace Israel. Maybe that economic integration is irreversible at this point and Israel has become too indispensable for its security and other tech exports, but maybe not.
When one sees the Emmanuel Macrons and Joe Bidens of the world trying to prop up the corpse of the two-state solution with performative gestures, they are not doing that with the Israelis or Palestinians in mind, but rather for their own domestic political reasons. The dilemma is real and is not going away, if the political Id you describe is accurate. It’s a recipe for endless quagmire, conflict, and humanitarian disasters in the Middle East with Israel to be broadly viewed as the main antagonist. Who in their right mind wants to be tethered to that?
It seems the Israeli Right, as you describe it, and the Western Left are coming to a kind of agreement: Israel is willing to accept economic and diplomatic isolation in pursuit of its perceived security and territorial interests, and western liberals will be all to happy to let them have it good and hard.
No, why would they understand it? Right Wing media won't tell them, and if they pay any attention to Left Wing media, it won't tell them either.
Hell, you could say 'do New York Primary voters not understand that they just voted to live in a dysfunctional Latin American country?' because that's what they just voted for (this probably won't happen, but only because Mamdani won't be able to implement his policies). People don't really understand economics or want to think about it.
Another angle is that the most committed Right Wingers actually don't care. They think the ideal is to live in shacks in the Shomron, and that Israel could replace its military with popular militias.
Of course they understand it. That's really doing the opposite of what you did in the post - take the best of your opponent's arguments and deal with that. That's really disappointing.
What they would say is that a high standard of living that's paid for with the eventual death of your country physically, and its soul, is too steep.
You can write off economic integration with the western world as a luxury if GDP were all that's at stake, but you can't do that if having a military capable of fending off a billion angry muslims is high on your list of priorities. Your military is an aspect of your economy.
??? The Israeli Military did fine before it was “integrated” into the something somewhere economy. Israel won 1947-1967 before it “integrated” into the West. In any case tech isn’t necessary, indeed a trap if others believe it offers “clean war” or other salon lounge affectations.
Gaza could have been cleared with bullets and bayonets. The IDF has for instance its own 160mm mortar and ammunition, that and rifles, bayonets could have cleared Gaza.
Just as imposing the same level of blockade the allies imposed on Germany until 1919 worked. Hunger works.
The global community integrates none into trade including we Americans, it drains them dry of money and blood, the only ones who profit are the Soros types. Soros here has the same relationship to Palestine he had with the Hungarian Fascists and Nazis.
What is critical to realize is the global community and its rules prolong all conflicts years and decades past plain old war to keep milking the conflict economically and diplomatically, academically, and as Civil Service/NGO Trust Fund.
That’s all Palestine is, an NGO- Civil Service- UN Trust Fund. The only integration is dealing with both sides, both of whom suffer.
War as War wins fast.
the recent events bear this out, as did Sri Lanka when after 40 years (1968-2008) it kicked out the NGOS then exterminated the Tigers.
Yeah, I realise the GAE also restrains Israel's freedom of action considerably, and the Gaza strip in isolation could have been 'cleared out' by the simple expedient of switching off the water supply and waiting a couple of weeks. But I don't know if you're paying attention to the larger strategic context.
Israel is surrounded by a variety of other Arab/Muslim countries with much larger populations who also have bullets and bayonets, and they can now purchase hypersonic missiles from places like China and Russia, which have to be fended off by the Iron Dome and similar high-tech defence systems that need components sourced overseas. Not to mention all the bombers, submarines, and fighter jets- and nuclear warheads- being items of high technology reliant on complex industrial supply chains to produce and maintain. You need the GAE for all of this, or at least it's going to get a lot more difficult to procure all these fancy toys without it.
Israel, of course, has a high-IQ ashkenazim elite which *can*, under the right conditions, provide extremely effective leadership and battle planning and acts as a large force multiplier for Israel's military strength. And right now, most of Israel's neighbours are either nominally at peace or have been shattered and disrupted by US regime change and/or combined strikes.
However... in a scenario where Israel expels five million Palestinians into Jordan and Egypt and winds up subject to the same level of economic and diplomatic sanctions as... say, North Korea, then... that strategic calculus could change considerably. Maybe not enough to doom the country, and certainly not right away, but the situation gets a lot dicier.
I’m American.
And no not Jewish.
Our 🇺🇸 only interest should be to stop betraying trust especially domestic but also foreign. We can start at any opportunity.
Now for instance.
As far as those items you mention, Israel has 80+ nukes and all the rest it needs, and there’s no Soviet Union, and frankly you had beaten the Arabs yourselves before becoming our “ally” in 1969. The USSR and an actual Communist China are gone … although Foggy Bottom remains.
Russia and China have no real animus with you, their problem is with America.
GAE Alliance? Perhaps Contextual Historic word association may help.
Kabul.
South Africa.
Somoza. Nicaragua
Rhodesia.
Diem.Saigon 1975.
Cuba…1959.
We can go on. As far as North Korea, they still exist, don’t they? Maybe the Juche have lessons for you, they do only what’s good for the Juche. Be Juche-ish.
Sure North Korea is like Detroit… but where is Detroit?
Finally as far as integrating… yeah that was tried in Imperial Germany and Austria… and it certainly played into the results.
🇮🇱 trying to play Vizzini with the real life Dread Pirate 🏴☠️ Roberts, don’t.
"Does the Israeli Right not understand how vital the Oslo Accords were for Israel to be as fully integrated into the world economy as it is today? Would they prefer the national GDP of the 1980’s?"
Thanks for admitting that this was what it was all about - your money or your life.
Give up your birthright, admit that "the Palestinians" were right, you are usurpers, your attachment to the land is a fantasy - and you'll get all the candy.
Did it ever occur to you that the right wing POV, which the author masterfully summed up, is correct, and that giving it up for "integration into the world economy" was blackmail? That all those dead Jews were a cost of business?
I agree the write-up of the POV is masterful and thus very valuable. I’m not admitting anything or even offering my outsider personal opinion on the general state of affairs, but just commenting on my bewilderment on how blinkered the view seems to me out here thousands of miles away. No doubt I have my own blinkers, but still…
The position described is that Oslo was an unmitigated disaster from this POV, but there were obvious critical benefits to joining the Accords that all Israelis shared in that don’t even seem to register with this portion of the public. And if they hadn’t noticed, the Palestinians never got their state under Oslo, which is headed for the dustbin of history. It seems to me their uncompromising maximalism will be their undoing, likely taking Israel along with it. They read just like the Arab nationalists to my eyes.
Your money means your life? Or their lives?
I recall the first volley of Iranian missiles and drones raining down on Israel through Jordanian airspace last year that were neutralized by Israeli, Jordanian, and US cooperation. A cooperation made possible in large part because of a peace treaty with Jordan that was a direct consequence of Oslo I.
Had the Israeli right had their way (complete mass expulsion of Palestinians into Jordan and Egypt in 1967), they’d probably be in that situation with Muslim Brotherhood-aligned countries on Israel’s east and southern borders having so destabilized those countries 60 years ago.
Sure. Paul are you in Israel? Physically?
If not, let’s not second guess the men on the spot.
Their lives, their call.
And Israel had 💩 to fear existentially from 1967 on after its victory plus its atomic bombs.
The MB lol.
Romantic nonsense.
The MB like every other irregular or terror movement are usually crushed in days or weeks without sanctuary or aid, and in the case of Egypt the MB was crushed in the 1950s, Jordan crushed the MB in the 50s and the PLO in 1970.
As we just saw with Iran’s proxies vs Israel without a sponsor that’s a peer competitor any irregular movement is easily crushed, or usually bought.
Well I don’t know if Oslo was necessary for the Israel-Jordan peace treaty. Wasn’t necessary for the one with the UAE.
I agree the Kahanists would have fucked it up but Bibi is no Kahanist.
This is a good point, that Oslo is part of what started the Israeli tech industry and all of that. I think thought that it's irreversible. And once the Gaza war ends so will the diplomatic isolation.
How does it end, at this point? Is Bibi going to suck it up and fund a long-term military occupation, or pull out and leave Hamas to run the place again?
Long-term occupation. Hopefully with regional support and some kind of government backed by Saudi/UAE/Egypt. Seems sustainable. Israel occupied Gaza from 1967 to 2005 and spent much less on it than it has since 2005.
I'm not entirely clear on that. I think NZ explained in another comments section that the expanding population of the Gaza Strip had made the military occupation there increasingly costly, so by 2003 Sharon decided that pulling out entirely and just shoring up the border defences was the cheaper option?
If Sharon decided that then it was a wrong decision by him. You can look at the results of the last two years. The Gaza War has cost tens of billions.
Well... the war did, certainly. Not diverting resources/manpower from Mossad so as to allow Oct 7 would have been cheaper still, though.
I mean... in the long term the Gazan population was only going to get ever larger and more deranged over time, absent some major shakeup to the status quo, which I don't think was sustainable. But occupying the place is probably going to be a lot more costly now than it was in the 90s.
If we had kicked out the Arabs in 1967 we would not be in this mess. Leftism is mental illness.
Well you didn't, so now what?
Where would they have gone, and what would they have done there?
Neighbouring Arab and Muslim majority lands. What would have they done there? Don't know, don't care.
What if they formed paramilitaries and attacked Israel, like they did in Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank and Gaza before 1967?
What if, what if, what if, ad nauseam
Excellent article, summarizing what I call the "butterfly counter-theory" on the conflict in M.E. There is this frame among Western leftist, which is indeed reminiscent of the famous "butterfly effect" theory, according to every time the IDF shoots a Palestinian, someone will feel compelled to draw a swastika on the walls of a synagogue in Paris or NY (or even worse, throwing some Auschwitz survivor out the window).
Well, along the lines, you can say every time leftist artists, activists, and intellectuals in the West start sperging about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the odds of Bibi getting crowned God-Emperor of Israel increase by 100 percent.
Congratulations, you really have done a great job at steelmanning the views of the Israeli far-right!
My particular favourite was the "reverse domino theory", postulating that each time Israel makes a concession, it is taken as a sign of weakness by Arabs/Palestinians who pounce on it and demand additional concessions again.
It's interesting that the two-state solution was originally only embraced by the far-left. Was it really such a fringe view? My guess is that that the Israeli elite of the 1950s-1960s-1970s had hoped that the Palestinians would eventually assimilate into neighboring countries instead of remaining "refugees" forever.
Yes, the 2 state solution with the PLO was a very fringe view. Moderate Israelis were open to land for peace with neighboring states, but not a Palestinian state.
The response from the Netanyahu government to Oct 7 attack was far more restrained that I would have been. There would have been no refugees to discuss. Israel should never capitulate again.
You are absolutely right. If I were in charge. "Hostages. You have 24 hours. Return them to safety. If not, Gaza strip becomes a crater. You have no bargaining chips. Just to prove I'm not bluffing, I have destroyed a factory. Remember that I am completely insane. You have 24 hours."
I would have leveled the northern half of the strip without warning and then stated: "This is now Israeli territory. You have 24 hours to return the hostages. Every 24 hours you do not return them, we take another 1 mile."
Perhaps this can all be summed up with a comment from Meir Kahana (who I vehemently oppose) “Israeli policy should only take Israeli interests into account and complete ignore world opinion from both their enemies and friends because in the end the world is going hate you anyway” The end of that sentence is the best way to sum the way Israel is viewed. And always has been.
This is just not true. There was a massive wave of sympathy for Israel after Oct 7th. Zionists obsess about how disgusting leftoids and Muslims reacted because it makes them feel better about how they spunked all the goodwill through incompetence in Gaza.
For that I'll quote Golda Meir. "We would rather deal with the worlds condemnations than it's condolences" I (and more importantly, Hamas) knew that within a few weeks of ANY Israeli response that wasn't symbolic the condemnations would start pouring in. Like they always when Israel responds in any way that has a remote chance of lessening such attacks again. .
I think Israel got away with quite a lot for a year. They didn't achieve very much militarily, but that's because they didn't have a good strategy.
I was actually surprised at how long the sympathy lasted, especially from the Europeans. This is the longest war that Israel has ever fought, and the ones that's caused the most harm to enemy civilians, and the world let Israel just do what it wanted for a year. And they basically ignored Israel doing whatever it wanted in Syria and were positively giddy when Israel bombed Iran.
Right. That is what they always say...
TIL I'm a right-wing Zionist.
Every bully has their victimization narrative. If you had asked a Nazi in 1935 they would have had a victimization narrative to justify themselves. The question is what you yourself are doing and the situation you have gotten yourself into, not the set of excuses for it, which in this case are weak. The notion that Israel since 1967 has been a country repeatedly trying to make peace and getting punished for it isn’t going to fly for anyone not already convinced.
"Every bully has their victimization narrative. If you had asked a Nazi in 1935 they would have had a victimization narrative to justify themselves"
They certainly did. It was a huge part of German rightoid culture.
Pretty good stuff, and I think it dodges a lot of your usual ~~casual~~ competitive racism (though of course, not completely, but what can you do)
While I agree with the author that a two-state solution is not practical anymore, it was the actions of the Israeli right that contributed to make this happen, actions such as supporting the rise of Hamas to weaken PLO or expanding West Bank settlements. Unfortunately, Israel is in a perilous moment. The fantasy of a militarized state surviving in the midst of countless enemies is simply this. Sparta eventually disappeared in the mist of time. Israel’s existence is ultimately tied to the waning ability of the U.S. to support it. It has a limited window of time to change this course. And frankly, the only solution I see is to take ownership of the Palestinian problem. If the U.S. empire is retreating, Israel itself must become a mini-empire. I will agree with the author that the radicalization of Palestinians is a real problem. Israel must deprogram them and make them its best ambassadors in the region. This will take effort and blood but it is the only way for Israel to survive. It would result in a state that is perhaps less Jewish but able to reach its full potential. Unfortunately, neither the Israeli right nor the Israeli left recognize this. In fact, the comments of the author about coexisting with Arab Israelis show that Israel itself is diving across ethnic lines and in response, the Israeli right is seeking a pure ethnostate. So I will be mourning for Israel. It started as a fundamentally noble project that fell victim to human nature.
This provided no explanation for how radical settlers setting up illegal outposts in Area C helps anyone, because there is no conceivable explanation.
Well, that's why I missed that out, but the way they see it, either you are moving forward or moving backwards. It relies on reasoning through images and phrases, rather than semantics, which is what most people do.
Fair enough but it’s ultimately not going to end well. I understand you are a pragmatic right winger but I think Yair Golan’s call for civil separation and security control is the only possible solution.
I assume the answer would be:
(i) it makes it harder for the traitorous left to pursue a two state solution by increasing the cost of any territorial withdrawal (and though they won't acknowledge this by increasing enmity between Jews and Palestinians in the West Bank and the frequency of attacks on settlements and "price tag" counterattacks such that any prospect of coexistence or a deal is impossible)
(ii) it shows the Palestinians that there is no future for them where they control the West Bank because we will inexorably, acre by acre, hilltop by hilltop, fill every nook and cranny in the land and there is nothing they can do about it. Today it's an illegal outpost, but tomorrow it will be legalized, and after that a core community that can never be removed. They might as well leave or lobotomize themselves into understanding that any hope for improving their situation depends on our pleasure.
Also, they are religious and so they also just believe on a fundamental level the only way to truly dwell securely in the land of Israel is to do what God wants, and that redeeming and living in all parts of the land and taking it away from the goyim is what God wants them to do so.
This is all true, but I am trying to represent the average Right Wing Israeli who typically has little to no idea what happens in Area C.
Sounds really fucked up and racist.
I’ve only ever heard the settlers themselves give one explanation: the Torah says it’s ours.
Obviously not very convincing to anyone besides a very specific type of religious fanatic.
How is it that the rest of the country acquiesces? It’s ultimately suicidal for Zionism.
Seems like a huge mistake for anyone to sign on to that campaign, especially any US Jewish orgs. It’s not a defensible position and gives antizionists a chance to look sane by comparison.
I spent the weekend in the Shomron. Over shabbat I told the story of the decades-long Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and how it was finally resolved in September 2023 in Azerbaijan's favor. No one had heard of it. They were shocked. I asked everyone at the table why we aren't doing the same thing; even the Ben Gvirists at the table, with their Glocks and Gilboa rifles, objected - oh, no, the world wouldn't let us do that!
When did we become such cowards?
Doing the same thing would mean creating a Palestinian state that Palestinians could go to, just like the Armenians had Armenia to go to. It would also mean having good relations with most countries in the region and around the world, and strictly repressing democracy in order to have a well thought out long-term foreign policy. In other words it would mean putting your ignoramus friends in the Shomron in prison, or, at any rate, their leaders.
On top of that it was 100,000 people, from a territory deep inside of Azerbaijan. The idea that the only relevant criteria is whether we are cowards or not is you being infected with the narcissistic meme that pervades Israeli Right Wing politics according to which אם תרצו is seen as some kind of law of political science rather than a slogan.
Does every democratic nation have really bad long-term foreign policy, though? I'm not intimately familiar with the history of the nordic countries, but, e.g, Finland seems like a reasonably stable place.
Others have said much of what I want to say but:
a) Israel has a much lower IQ than Finland, and is also much worse on other relevant traits like time preference, patience, prosociality etc.
b) Finland is very homogenous, whereas Israel, even excluding the Arabs, is very diverse and the common culture is Judaism which most people don't even believe in (!). It's really a disaster zone as far as having a public square goes.
c) Israel is a lot more democratic than Finland, both in terms of its electoral system, but more importantly its very egalitarian demotic culture. Politicians here get in shouting matches with random members of the public and it's seen as normal. [One advantage Bibi has is that he's seen as the only one who is above the fray and maintains some dignity].
> "Politicians here get in shouting matches with random members of the public and it's seen as normal"
That almost sounds endearing, though it does remind me a little of those MEMRI clips where fights break out between guests in the studio.
Sure after 1945. The stability that comes from internal Civil War and killing the Finnish Communists, then later fighting 1940-44/45 against the USSR.
The fighting part wasn’t democratic.
Communist elites dying or fleeing to Russia and the communist (and later the far-right) party being outlawed helped stabilize inter-war Finland, but shooting random factory workers just created bitterness for little gain.
If the Winter war had happened 20 years earlier, before those fractures were somewhat healed, it's unlikely the nation would have been united enough to withstand aggression. Bloodlust is seldom rational.
But it was 20 years later.
Democracy has trouble having a unified front but surfaces can be deceiving- if democracy is mobilized it has tremendous advantages.
The problems of client states aren’t alleviated by democracy, nor any other solution that comes to mind other than Independence.
Democracy isn’t the problem here nor solution.
Finland actually is a model but of course it had to earn that respect.
It simply wasn’t worth it to Stalin to go in again.
Even Hitler respected Mannerheim enough to let him smoke a cigar in his presence- Hitler normally wouldn’t allow that… but again the Finns paid in blood to earn that respect.
The problem of this particular state Israel is it’s the client state of a distant country whose interests have changed.
Moreover America has a bad track record with clients… because in truth we don’t need them. All of this is legacy of our 20th century adventures, themselves not absolutely essential.
Our only real imperatives are the Western Hemisphere and the Oceans. The rest are dangerous vanities and indulgences that will not stand a real test.
Israel- and all the rest- should go their own way on their own terms.
Indeed Finnish leaders were smart to save the country by concluding the Winter war by ceding more land to Russians than they now claim from Ukraine. After ww2 Finland was wise to bend over to not get occupied, though it affected its spine such that it started to bend as a habit more than it had to ("Finlandization"). This spinal problem carried to post-Soviet anti-Nato sentiment, only the Ukraine war finally acting as a surgical fix for that.
Arguably the same mentality manifests in Finland's relation to the EU which it subsidizes through various schemes without major protests. Such subservient impulses are a net-positive for a small border nation as you can't expect instinct to distinguish between necessary and pointless bending. If you're smol take a knee, this ain't a movie.
> "If you're smol take a knee, this ain't a movie"
Right, fair enough, I'm not saying Finnish foreign policy was always blazingly courageous (although they certainly seem to have punched above their weight in the Winter War.) My point is that it doesn't seem to have been objectively stupid or lacking in long-term strategic vision either, despite being democratically governed. (As opposed to... I don't know, relentlessly attacking a nuclear superpower with overwhelming military advantages over you because you have the "right to return", or whatever.)
I'm curious if NZ's identification of democracy as the reason for Israel's lack of viable long-term foreign-policy initiatives is (A) even real, (B) not more attributable to Israel's substantial internal ideological and ethnic fracturing and/or (C) just a function of low IQ among mizrahim/arabs/ethiopians/etc.?
A: Depends on the alternative rulers - by which process would they be chosen? Voting access restricted by an IQ-proxy? A real-world elders of Zion?
B: Maybe. I get the feeling that the settlers might have heckler's veto?
C: If Mizrahim are even half as third-worldist as NZ thinks then yes.
In any case Israel isn't as politically small as Finland because its diaspora will foster pro-Israeli policies in the US and, for whatever reason, the evangelicals seem to fetishize the Jewish state. Of course their enemies are more numerous and they should probably spend their goodwill-points better than bombing Gaza from the orbit for years on end.
> "A: Depends on the alternative rulers - by which process would they be chosen? Voting access restricted by an IQ-proxy? A real-world elders of Zion?"
I don't think IQ is the only relevant qualifier for being in leadership positions, but... I was more trying to get at whether Israel's foreign policy is objectively so terrible? My understanding is that Israel was pursuing a normalisation process with Saudi Arabia and was nominally at peace with Jordan and Egypt before Oct 7.
> "In any case Israel isn't as politically small as Finland because its diaspora will foster pro-Israeli policies in the US and, for whatever reason, the evangelicals seem to fetishize the Jewish state."
I don't think that's going to last forever (and it's debatable whether it should- Israel *should* be able to justify it's policies on their own merits without relying on AIPAC, dual citizenship or Christian armageddon-fantasists to prop up political support.)
Jewish liberals basically won't exist by the end of the century if birthrate and intermarriage trends continue, and I think right-wing boomers are being gradually supplanted by a combination of Bannon-style autarky supporters and Fuentes-style ethnocentrists, with a sprinkling of HBD autists and Christian reactionaries. Only one of these groups might have any especial fondness for the ashkenazim, and that might or might not translate to support for Israel.
In any case, this is tangential to my original question about whether democracy (or some form of representative government with a broad franchise) is just objectively Bad Government or depends situationally on other factors.
I think the Finns earned respect enough to have their own country.
Not by taking a knee.
( You have some talk about smol and take a knee that’s either coming from a large sociopath.. or more likely no street at all. )
"Speak softly and carry a big stick" is indeed the optimal position. Prove your worth so that you can speak yourself out of trouble which Finland arguably did. The opposite of (street)fights for a bruised ego which is third-worldist mentality, whether on collective or individual level.
Each concession Israel has made since has been an admission, tacit perhaps, but unmistakable nonetheless, that this is not our land, that we are strangers, conquerors... We may as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb...
In the short run Israel is probably going to expand and remain untouchable. In the long run, nothing escapes God.
Good summary
Nothing wrong in it
Now that you’ve convinced all your readers to become right-wing Zionists you surely need a follow up explaining why you changed your mind.