The perils Israel faces

[Cornflake]

Tom Friedman has been covering Israel for something like 40 years. I heard him discuss the matters he raises in this piece a couple of weeks back on TV. I found what he said eye-opening and unsettling. Even if you disagree with his opinions, the facts he discusses are cause for concern. This gift link should get you past the paywall.

www.nytimes.com/2024/06/18/opinion/netanyahu-gaza-congress.html?unlocked_article_code=1.000.3C83.jJXkaa83F0S8&smid=url-share

I know that Millring thinks a lot of us are anti-Israel. I very much want to see it survive and prosper. For that to happen I think it's going to have to change direction.

[epaul]

War, timeout, war, timeout, war, timeout, war, timeout, war, time ... time... time...

I don't think time is Israel's friend.

Maybe it's time to skip the timeout part. Before Iran gets the bomb. While the 6th Fleet is in the neighborhood blasting Houthis. While Russia's hands are full and pocketbook is empty. While the U.S., England, and France (for how much longer) are still its allies. While Saudi Arabia is still ruled by a monarchy that secretly supports it in an enemy of my enemy sense.

Time.

No, time is not Israel's friend. Not as Israel.

Israel could turn Muslim, er, I mean, into an open secular state, with a resultant mass exodus of white Jews with money and means to America and Europe, leaving Palestine for the Palestinians. That is the likely outcome for a colony that just can't sustain itself against time.

My heart is with Israel, to any end. But the attempt to re-create Israel, in non-Biblical reality a colony founded by European Jews in an alien land that had its own occupants, was a mistake. America was the Promised Land. And still is.

[Marshall]

Wow that’s wild thinking, epaul. Not all that possible, but not a bad idea. Leave the “promised land” to the Muslims to squander and destroy. Assimilate the entrepreneurial Jewish people into our Capitalistic Cabal.

Crazy. Impossible. But it could work out better.

[millring]

The most overused, underquestioned, despicably misleading political descriptor of our day -- used to herd the sheep -- is "far right". And Friedman leads with it.

He comfortably lumps Israel with Hitler and nobody calls him on it. Despicable. It was the very ones Israel is continually defending itself from who were and are aligned with Hitler.

[TKennedy]

Reading the comments is always interesting.

[Cornflake]

I hadn't read the comments, Terry, but they are interesting.

[Cornflake]

What struck me when I heard Friedman interviewed a few weeks back was how the strategic situation in the Mideast had changed. Israel has been able to get away with rejecting a two-state solution and taking a hard line because it had a stronger military than its hostile neighbors. Now that Iran is supplying its proxies with sophisticated weapons, that may no longer be the case. The more extreme elements of Netanyahu's coalition may be driving Israel towards a war it can't afford to fight.

[RickW]

I found it interesting that Osama Bin Laden began referring to Israel as a crusader state, and wondered at why he was doing that. One, I’d say he was trying to create as much of the ‘other’ around Israel as he could, that they were not like those around them. But I think he might also have been pointing out what happened to those states. They carved out what is more or less the same space for themselves. They ruled for a little while because they had the support of powerful nations in the west. Once those states got distracted, and stopped sending money, men and weapons — the crusader states disappeared, surrounded as they were by folks who didn’t like them very much.

Israel is much the same, a small country that has punched far above its weight. And in time, whether it’s 10 years, or 50, or 100…. I don’t know if they’ll be around.

Israel was allowed to form because the west saw the terrible things done to Jews, while the west stood by and watched. That they tried to rectify that by displacing an entire nation of people, taking away their land and condemning them to live in refugee camps, and then continuing to nibble away at the small amount of land they had left, wasn’t right either.

I don’t think the problem is ‘solvable’. If a two state solution is formed, Israel will then have a free country on its borders who hates them, and they’ll be entirely unable to halt the flow of weapons. They’ll simply have a much better armed Hamas, or whomever replaces Hamas. If I was Israeli, I’d be looking to leave.

[Marshall]

House Speaker Mike Johnson and his fellow G.O.P. mischief makers decided to reward Netanyahu with the high honor of speaking to a joint meeting of Congress on July 24.

. . . , but the unstated goal of this Republican exercise is to divide Democrats and provoke shouted insults from their most progressive representatives that would alienate American Jewish voters and donors and turn them toward Donald Trump.

Netanyahu knows that this is all about domestic U.S. politics, which is why his acceptance of the speaking invitation is such an act of disloyalty to Joe Biden — who flew all the way to Israel to hug him in the days after Oct. 7 — that it simply takes your breath away.

Interesting. Though mischief makers is dead giveaway as to the author's persuasion.

[epaul]

The opening comments concerning the "Ultra Orthodox". Wow! Wow, Wow, Wow!

I am starting to envision a "two state solution" that could actually work, and work really well. The two states will not be Israel and Palestine. The two states will be "The Religious Nuts & Crazies" and "Normal People who will wear a bathing suit in mixed company and eat a hot dog"*. The names of the two states would have to be shortened somewhat, but the details would be spelled out in the respective constitutions.

But it would work. The Ultra Orthodox and their counterpart Sharia Law Loonies on the other side would be put on large rock somewhere where they could commence with happily stoning each other. And the Secular, governed by personal faith, tolerance, and civic good instead of archaic religious laws that were nuts from the git go and have only gotten dumber, would have a really nice land with palm trees and great beaches.


*Vegans and such would only have to eat one hot dog to get in the new country, and, like everyone else, another each time they want to register to vote. Oh, and they would have to go to the polls in their brightly colored bathing suits.

[Marshall]

**sigh**

The world is heading inextricably to War. I fear for my grandchildren and the world they will inherit.

[Russell Letson]

Jun 19, 2024 6:31:11 GMT -5 millring said:

The most overused, underquestioned, despicably misleading political descriptor of our day -- used to herd the sheep -- is "far right". And Friedman leads with it.

He comfortably lumps Israel with Hitler and nobody calls him on it. Despicable. It was the very ones Israel is continually defending itself from who were and are aligned with Hitler.

First, just to clear some semantic territory: flat left/right metaphors are not adequate descriptors of a complex political space. Nevertheless, they do allow us to locate some actors relative to each other, particularly when specific issues wind up as binary choices or scalar ranges. So it's not a falsification to characterize, say, Netanyahu's coalition government as "far right," especially since at least some Israeli sources call it "far right"--

www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2022-12-12/ty-article/far-right-israel-explained/00000185-063f-dad3-afad-f73fda300000

www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections/2022-10-19/ty-article/.premium/the-israeli-far-rights-plan-to-crush-the-countrys-judiciary/00000183-ec63-d61e-a5df-fc6b38900000

And a nicely detailed description from the diasporic-Jewish source, The Forward:

forward.com/fast-forward/529301/whos-who-in-israels-new-far-right-government-and-why-it-matters/

Even from a distance it's clear that a right-left topography does not do justice to the complexities of Israel's political-social-religious culture and its parliamentary system, which has generally depended on coalitions to operate. And all kinds of linear-scalar tensions do run through their culture along religious and political-economic lines. So as a shorthand approximation of how factions line up and alliances and coalitions form, right/left and the the modifiers "far" or "moderate" are not useless. In Israel, the "right" includes very conservative religious factions and the settler movement, both of which are hostile to Palestinian interests, and there are indeed degrees of right/left positions and programs.

Now about the Friedman piece. At what point does he "lump Israel with Hitler"? I couldn't detect even a dog-whistle. In an earlier column, though, he did characterize the government that Netanyahu was about to form as "a rowdy alliance of ultra-Orthodox leaders and ultranationalist politicians, including some outright racist, anti-Arab Jewish extremists once deemed completely outside the norms and boundaries of Israeli politics." (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/04/opinion/israel-netanyahu.html) In what way is that characterization inaccurate? Is any description of degree (ultra, outright, extreme) a falsification?

[millring]

Jun 19, 2024 10:13:34 GMT -5 Russell Letson said:

Jun 19, 2024 6:31:11 GMT -5 millring said:

The most overused, underquestioned, despicably misleading political descriptor of our day -- used to herd the sheep -- is "far right". And Friedman leads with it.

He comfortably lumps Israel with Hitler and nobody calls him on it. Despicable. It was the very ones Israel is continually defending itself from who were and are aligned with Hitler.

First, just to clear some semantic territory: flat left/right metaphors are not adequate descriptors of a complex political space. Nevertheless, they do allow us to locate some actors relative to each other, particularly when specific issues wind up as binary choices or scalar ranges. So it's not a falsification to characterize, say, Netanyahu's coalition government as "far right," especially since at least some Israeli sources call it "far right"--

www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2022-12-12/ty-article/far-right-israel-explained/00000185-063f-dad3-afad-f73fda300000

www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections/2022-10-19/ty-article/.premium/the-israeli-far-rights-plan-to-crush-the-countrys-judiciary/00000183-ec63-d61e-a5df-fc6b38900000

And a nicely detailed description from the diasporic-Jewish source, The Forward:

forward.com/fast-forward/529301/whos-who-in-israels-new-far-right-government-and-why-it-matters/

Even from a distance it's clear that a right-left topography does not do justice to the complexities of Israel's political-social-religious culture and its parliamentary system, which has generally depended on coalitions to operate. And all kinds of linear-scalar tensions do run through their culture along religious and political-economic lines. So as a shorthand approximation of how factions line up and alliances and coalitions form, right/left and the the modifiers "far" or "moderate" are not useless. In Israel, the "right" includes very conservative religious factions and the settler movement, both of which are hostile to Palestinian interests, and there are indeed degrees of right/left positions and programs.

Now about the Friedman piece. At what point does he "lump Israel with Hitler"? I couldn't detect even a dog-whistle. In an earlier column, though, he did characterize the government that Netanyahu was about to form as "a rowdy alliance of ultra-Orthodox leaders and ultranationalist politicians, including some outright racist, anti-Arab Jewish extremists once deemed completely outside the norms and boundaries of Israeli politics." (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/04/opinion/israel-netanyahu.html) In what way is that characterization inaccurate? Is any description of degree (ultra, outright, extreme) a falsification?

B.S.

[Marshall]

Jun 19, 2024 10:46:48 GMT -5 millring said:

B.S.

<Baloney>

[millring]

Jun 19, 2024 9:32:23 GMT -5 RickW said:

Israel was allowed to form because the west saw the terrible things done to Jews, while the west stood by and watched. That they tried to rectify that by displacing an entire nation of people, taking away their land and condemning them to live in refugee camps, and then continuing to nibble away at the small amount of land they had left, wasn’t right either.

1. Those who were in that region were not a "nation", but to the extent they were united they were aligned with Hitler during the war. So, yes, the West stood by and watched (and the elite FDR Eastern establishment was not only not ignorant of what was happening, but was itself so antisemitic that it didn't matter to them), but the region itself acted as an Axis State. Whatever it is that we now graciously refer to as "Palestine" (so as to allow the popular modern narrative) wasn't an innocent at the time, put upon by an international decision to establish the new state of Israel.

2. No, they were not "displacing and entire nation of people". Jews were already established and thriving in the region before 1948.

Nevertheless, the rest of what you say is true. We'll never be able to make that region safely part of the Western thinking world. Especially as the Western thinking world is disintegrating before our very eyes.

As to bringing Jews to the USA, I'm all for it. But don't settle them near any Universities if you want then to be any safer than in Israel. Antisemitism is as alive in the US as it is anywhere else in the world.

[Russell Letson]

John, how exactly might one characterize a coalition government that includes--in fact, depends upon--elements that Haaretz calls "far-right," "ultra-orthodox," "once-fringe ultraconservative," "emboldened extremists," and sums up as "the most extreme right-wing, racist, homophobic and theocratic coalition in Israel’s history"?

Now, Haaretz is, in the Israeli media environment, a left/liberal-leaning outlet, but my impression is that it is also close to the center of the European-democratic-socialist ethos that characterized Israel for a long time--it's the NYT or WaPo, not Mother Jones.

So--is your beef with "far right" as a descriptor in any context? And again, I wonder where exactly Friedman is "lumping" Israel with Hitler. I can't find it in the piece referenced--though I know that others have made that comparison, along with unflattering comparisons with apartheid South Africa. But Friedman, not in this essay. (FWIW, the comparison I would make is between Netanyahu and Trump, with the proviso that Netanyahu isn't as ignorant or nuts as Trump.)

[millring]

And Israel is the one blocking the two-state solution?

[millring]

Jun 19, 2024 12:39:36 GMT -5 Russell Letson said:

John, how exactly might one characterize a coalition government that includes--in fact, depends upon--elements that Haaretz calls "far-right," "ultra-orthodox," "once-fringe ultraconservative," "emboldened extremists," and sums up as "the most extreme right-wing, racist, homophobic and theocratic coalition in Israel’s history"?

Now, Haaretz is, in the Israeli media environment, a left/liberal-leaning outlet, but my impression is that it is also close to the center of the European-democratic-socialist ethos that characterized Israel for a long time--it's the NYT or WaPo, not Mother Jones.

So--is your beef with "far right" as a descriptor in any context? And again, I wonder where exactly Friedman is "lumping" Israel with Hitler. I can't find it in the piece referenced--though I know that others have made that comparison, along with unflattering comparisons with apartheid South Africa. But Friedman, not in this essay. (FWIW, the comparison I would make is between Netanyahu and Trump, with the proviso that Netanyahu isn't as ignorant or nuts as Trump.)

You've answered your own questions.

[Russell Letson]

John, is there any characterization--short of several thousand words of carefully researched, historically-rooted analysis--that would provide a satisfactory map of the distribution and interrelationships of any range of political positions and policy-sets, in any polity? Is any set of labels or descriptors sufficiently pure? What exactly is the godseye view of the variety of political/ideological idea-sets?

As someone who has been called a communist on this forum, I'm quite aware of the elasticity of labels and the need to apply parallax correction to any assertions of them--and to be willing to dismiss some as ill-formed or ignorant or not applied in good faith. Nevertheless, label we must, unless we want to wander around a nameless territory without a map.

[RickW]

Jun 19, 2024 12:36:52 GMT -5 millring said:

Jun 19, 2024 9:32:23 GMT -5 RickW said:

Israel was allowed to form because the west saw the terrible things done to Jews, while the west stood by and watched. That they tried to rectify that by displacing an entire nation of people, taking away their land and condemning them to live in refugee camps, and then continuing to nibble away at the small amount of land they had left, wasn’t right either.

1. Those who were in that region were not a "nation", but to the extent they were united they were aligned with Hitler during the war. So, yes, the West stood by and watched (and the elite FDR Eastern establishment was not only not ignorant of what was happening, but was itself so antisemitic that it didn't matter to them), but the region itself acted as an Axis State. Whatever it is that we now graciously refer to as "Palestine" (so as to allow the popular modern narrative) wasn't an innocent at the time, put upon by an international decision to establish the new state of Israel.

2. No, they were not "displacing and entire nation of people". Jews were already established and thriving in the region before 1948.

Nevertheless, the rest of what you say is true. We'll never be able to make that region safely part of the Western thinking world. Especially as the Western thinking world is disintegrating before our very eyes.

As to bringing Jews to the USA, I'm all for it. But don't settle them near any Universities if you want then to be any safer than in Israel. Antisemitism is as alive in the US as it is anywhere else in the world.

Whether they were a nation or not is moot. They lived there, it was their land, and they were displaced. Saying that those people were an “Axis state” is stretching a point so far it disappears, not to mention thinking that somehow makes it all okay. Yes, there were jews there, but there were a lot more Palestinians, or whatever you’d like to call them, and they in the end lost pretty much everything. Are they blameless in what has occurred since? Of course not. But they have also been confined, treated as second class citizens, and continued to have their land removed by Israeli settlers. No, I don’t see asserting that as being in any way anti-semitic, it’s reality. And sadly, I don’t see how any of this is going to be made better.