Israel's electorate and low-threshold (3.25%) proportional representation electoral system results in government being perpetually in thrall to small Kahanist and other one-issue parties of the type Ben-Gvir and Smotrich lead.
The Basic Law doesn't provide for a strong executive of the American type - ministers have their own electoral base and discretionary power within their ministries. They can't just be fired without bringing the government down. An individual like Netanyahu concerned with maintaining power at all costs can't compromise, because his government depends on the nutballs. This has been a problem in Israel for years. Not to absolve anyone of moral responsibility, but systems produce circumstances.
I don't think it will change, and thus there should be an international intervention. That would be as much of a realist solution as a humanitarian idealist one.
"It’s no coincidence that the genocide in Gaza comes after both the fall of the Marxist-Leninist Soviet Union, which for a time put the Palestinian Question at the center of an 'anti-Imperialist' ideology that was simply an extension of imperialism by other means..."
This is a bold claim. Not one I'm necessarily inclined to dismiss out of hand, mind. But it might be worth exploring further in a later post—particularly in the context of the Russian Federation's support for Iran, Chinese investment in sub-Saharan Africa, etc.
John, when you describe "a philosemitic and anti-Zionist faction and an explicitly anti-Zionist and antisemitic faction," don't you really mean to say "a philosemitic and pro-Zionist faction"? It would seem so from the context. Or am I missing something?
When the Russian invasion started and the first Ukrainian hospitals and schools were bombed, the Russian discourse was “it wasn’t us, Ukrainians bombed hospitals themselves, but we’re happy that the hospitals got bombed”. And after talking to a couple of aboriginals I surmise that it was a sincere(!) belief, at least on some level of consciousness. With time passing, no one obviously says or believes that anymore.
My theory is that there exists an “inertia of ethical norms” — when ethical norms are blatantly violated, humans try to distance themselves from the violation, and it takes time to internalize the new ethical reality and stop pretending. Similar to Overton window in a way. So “Gazans aren’t starving” will remain the position until the acceptance of the genocide “sinks in”, and then it becomes a “natural way nations fight for survival”.
There are huge merits to what Brad Lander said in Ezra Klein's latest NYT column :
"“ The world where everybody gets a right-wing ethnostate is not going be good for the Jews, even if we get one,” Lander said. “We all go to Netanyahu’s Israel because we’re not welcome here and it’s well armed, so maybe we have a chance? That is a dark timeline that I don’t want to live in, no matter how great a military you give me. That’s not a Jewish timeline, you know?”
New York City, he continued, has stood as the opposite of that vision. “It’s incredible what this place has been for us for a century-plus now, after 2,000 years of getting the crap kicked out of us all around the world. To have been able to flourish here. To be not just safe but where everyone has to answer what their bagel order is in the mayor’s race. It’s an amazing Dominican city and Chinese city and lots of other things, but it’s an amazing Jewish city, and to me, it proves the point that there is some resonance between Jewish flourishing and inclusive multiracial democracy,” Lander said."
...This is not only a question for Jews, too. The political choice between multicultural/multiracial democracy and fascistic ethnostate is the choice all of us are currently facing.
I will be frank that I do not know much about the author/org that published this but found this breakdown of how MAGA is actively constructing a state definition of Judaism to be really compelling:
It lays out pretty clearly that what John is saying is not theoretical or potential.
They are using us today and their construction of “valid” Judaism, measured by proximity to present day Israel, gives them clear direction on which of us to begin tossing out tomorrow.
I think the argument in the linked piece is weakened by its focus on the Christian right driving this “good Jew” [pro-Israel] vs. “Bad Jew” campaign. The vulgar eschatology of evangelicals may be the blunt spear of the ideology, but I think this focus lets liberal Israelists off the hook too easily.
Apart from the obvious part the Biden admin. exercised in underwriting this ideology, here in Canada - where the Christian right plays virtually no role in national politics - liberal gov’ts under both Trudeau and Carney have, every step of the way, implicitly endorsed the idea that “good Jews” are unconditional zionists and the rest are tokens.
It’s often explicit, of course, as happened in a curious mini-drama at the University of Ottawa. A former gov’t executive, ambassador, and senior intelligence agency manager called Artur Wilczynski was appointed by the university to be its “anti-discrimination special advisor” in June 2024. Until the assault on Gaza began, Wilczynski’s post-gov’t public profile was basically squishy liberal human rights and LGBTQ activism. He has a very busy online life and the tone was fairly standard liberal highbrow sanctimony.
Following the script almost everywhere, the blind Israelism of the liberal zionist kicked into high gear after Oct. and continued uninterruptedly up to his U. of O. appointment in June 2024. By that point, of course, Israel’s campaign of indiscriminate destruction was crystal clear and the ICJ had already issued its provisional measures on the legal obligation of states to prevent genocide.
By the time of his appointment, Wilcznski was in full Likudnik “everybody is an antisemite” mode (while retaining the righteous tone of int’l human rights crusader), and it was clear he intended to use his position as “anti-discrimination advisor” for little more than policing pro-Palestinian activism on campus. It obviously never occurred to him that, for example, no non-Jewish student would have trusted him for a nanosecond with a discrimination complaint, and he descended into routinely referring to Israel-critical Jews as “tokens”.
By September he was gone from U. of O. (fired or asked to resign), nominally for praising the pager attacks in Lebanon (for which he later apologized), but his presence there was obviously untenable.
Apologies for the long story here, but it’s just to illustrate that, even in political cultures with no significant Christian right influence, the “good Jew” - who identifies wholly with the state of Israel - is thoroughly institutionalized in liberal zionist thinking. In slightly less imprudent language than Wilczynski’s, in word and deed everything coming from liberal gov’ts here since October 7 is consistent with this ideology (the public statements of the gov’t’s erstwhile official “special envoy on combatting antisemitism”, Deborah Lyons, are essentially indistinguishable from Likud propaganda).
In early Nov. 2024, during Francesca Albanese’s speaking tour of Canada, nobody in the Trudeau gov’t would meet with her or even acknowledge her presence in the country, and within a couple of weeks of that the gov’t was denouncing the ICC warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.
Everything you say is 100% true, especially the “alliance of the ethnic supremacists”, but there’s another simple aspect: I think some of the less ideological Trump supporters align with Israel simply because they see their sworn enemies - university students - align with the Palestinians.
As to Israel, I can offer some personal insight as a former Israeli (and former writer at Haaretz) with immediate family members living there. They know full well that, the settler far-right aside, the takeover of the right in Israel is permanent, at least for a generation. I once contrasted the situation with the one in America to an American colleague. At the very worst, the American political divide is 50-50, and any left-of-Trump person has (at least for now) the reasonable expectation of a change within the next few years. In Israel, the split is at least 70-30 in favour of “ethnic separatists” (and anything to the right of that), there’s virtually zero chance of a fundamental cultural change in the next decade or two, and the despair is permanent. Those who can leave do, but most can’t. This understanding manifests in two ways: despair to the point of tears over the realisation that alternative forms of Zionism will not become viable any time soon (I don’t want to use the term “liberal Zionism”, because it’s too coloured by actual positions of people who identify as such rather than ideas it may represent, such as Buber’s “spiritual Zionism), and clinging to the hope that maybe things aren’t so bad, because how can one live in such a permanent state of despair?
I admire those who fight a fight they know they have little chance of winning in their lifetime (whether they call themselves Zionist or not is less important, as the word has little fixed meaning), and I’m deeply disappointed by Jews who don’t realise that opposing Israel’s behaviour - in action and not just words - may be the best kind of help they can offer a country they claim to love (not that it would necessarily be of much help - there is actual antisemitism among Israelis toward non-right-wing Jews to the point of referring to them using antisemitic slurs - but it will have some impact).
There’s a lot of long-term woe balanced on the backs of some short-term desperation for these huge egos mired in corruption.
Whatever institutions we erect in the wake of this dreadful period, we must ensure they are equipped with means for defenestration of those who attempt to subvert the system from the summit.
Did Kahane look to Zeʼev Jabotinsky, father of Revisionist Zionism and Netanyahu's father's sometime-boss, despite Z.J.'s secularism? (A relative of mine had been in the Warsaw Betar, though near-starvation made a socialist of him, and when in later life _despised_ the Israeli Haredi pseudo-yeshivniks for not serving in the I.D.F.—the notion that such 'preserved Israel', even if they actually did study, was to him a 'bubbe meiseh'—I got the impression that it was Betar speaking tgrough him.)
<edit>(…and I'd had no idea that Kahane owed so much to Fanon—and likely neither did he.)</edit>
Maybe Kahane has been a proximate influence, but I see nothing in the Israeli government's current crimes and errors that I can not see in Jabotinsky's "The Iron Wall".
I was curious what you made of Yuri Slezkine's The Jewish Century. I found the notion of Zionist statebuilding as a way to become an 'ordinary' civilisational complex compelling but felt, as a gentile, conflicted about it
Israel's electorate and low-threshold (3.25%) proportional representation electoral system results in government being perpetually in thrall to small Kahanist and other one-issue parties of the type Ben-Gvir and Smotrich lead.
The Basic Law doesn't provide for a strong executive of the American type - ministers have their own electoral base and discretionary power within their ministries. They can't just be fired without bringing the government down. An individual like Netanyahu concerned with maintaining power at all costs can't compromise, because his government depends on the nutballs. This has been a problem in Israel for years. Not to absolve anyone of moral responsibility, but systems produce circumstances.
I don't think it will change, and thus there should be an international intervention. That would be as much of a realist solution as a humanitarian idealist one.
"It’s no coincidence that the genocide in Gaza comes after both the fall of the Marxist-Leninist Soviet Union, which for a time put the Palestinian Question at the center of an 'anti-Imperialist' ideology that was simply an extension of imperialism by other means..."
This is a bold claim. Not one I'm necessarily inclined to dismiss out of hand, mind. But it might be worth exploring further in a later post—particularly in the context of the Russian Federation's support for Iran, Chinese investment in sub-Saharan Africa, etc.
John, when you describe "a philosemitic and anti-Zionist faction and an explicitly anti-Zionist and antisemitic faction," don't you really mean to say "a philosemitic and pro-Zionist faction"? It would seem so from the context. Or am I missing something?
yeah sorry will fix
> It didn’t happen. But they deserved it.
When the Russian invasion started and the first Ukrainian hospitals and schools were bombed, the Russian discourse was “it wasn’t us, Ukrainians bombed hospitals themselves, but we’re happy that the hospitals got bombed”. And after talking to a couple of aboriginals I surmise that it was a sincere(!) belief, at least on some level of consciousness. With time passing, no one obviously says or believes that anymore.
My theory is that there exists an “inertia of ethical norms” — when ethical norms are blatantly violated, humans try to distance themselves from the violation, and it takes time to internalize the new ethical reality and stop pretending. Similar to Overton window in a way. So “Gazans aren’t starving” will remain the position until the acceptance of the genocide “sinks in”, and then it becomes a “natural way nations fight for survival”.
There are huge merits to what Brad Lander said in Ezra Klein's latest NYT column :
"“ The world where everybody gets a right-wing ethnostate is not going be good for the Jews, even if we get one,” Lander said. “We all go to Netanyahu’s Israel because we’re not welcome here and it’s well armed, so maybe we have a chance? That is a dark timeline that I don’t want to live in, no matter how great a military you give me. That’s not a Jewish timeline, you know?”
New York City, he continued, has stood as the opposite of that vision. “It’s incredible what this place has been for us for a century-plus now, after 2,000 years of getting the crap kicked out of us all around the world. To have been able to flourish here. To be not just safe but where everyone has to answer what their bagel order is in the mayor’s race. It’s an amazing Dominican city and Chinese city and lots of other things, but it’s an amazing Jewish city, and to me, it proves the point that there is some resonance between Jewish flourishing and inclusive multiracial democracy,” Lander said."
...This is not only a question for Jews, too. The political choice between multicultural/multiracial democracy and fascistic ethnostate is the choice all of us are currently facing.
I will be frank that I do not know much about the author/org that published this but found this breakdown of how MAGA is actively constructing a state definition of Judaism to be really compelling:
https://lpeproject.org/blog/how-the-trump-administration-is-constructing-jewishness/
It lays out pretty clearly that what John is saying is not theoretical or potential.
They are using us today and their construction of “valid” Judaism, measured by proximity to present day Israel, gives them clear direction on which of us to begin tossing out tomorrow.
Incoming rather long story.
I think the argument in the linked piece is weakened by its focus on the Christian right driving this “good Jew” [pro-Israel] vs. “Bad Jew” campaign. The vulgar eschatology of evangelicals may be the blunt spear of the ideology, but I think this focus lets liberal Israelists off the hook too easily.
Apart from the obvious part the Biden admin. exercised in underwriting this ideology, here in Canada - where the Christian right plays virtually no role in national politics - liberal gov’ts under both Trudeau and Carney have, every step of the way, implicitly endorsed the idea that “good Jews” are unconditional zionists and the rest are tokens.
It’s often explicit, of course, as happened in a curious mini-drama at the University of Ottawa. A former gov’t executive, ambassador, and senior intelligence agency manager called Artur Wilczynski was appointed by the university to be its “anti-discrimination special advisor” in June 2024. Until the assault on Gaza began, Wilczynski’s post-gov’t public profile was basically squishy liberal human rights and LGBTQ activism. He has a very busy online life and the tone was fairly standard liberal highbrow sanctimony.
Following the script almost everywhere, the blind Israelism of the liberal zionist kicked into high gear after Oct. and continued uninterruptedly up to his U. of O. appointment in June 2024. By that point, of course, Israel’s campaign of indiscriminate destruction was crystal clear and the ICJ had already issued its provisional measures on the legal obligation of states to prevent genocide.
By the time of his appointment, Wilcznski was in full Likudnik “everybody is an antisemite” mode (while retaining the righteous tone of int’l human rights crusader), and it was clear he intended to use his position as “anti-discrimination advisor” for little more than policing pro-Palestinian activism on campus. It obviously never occurred to him that, for example, no non-Jewish student would have trusted him for a nanosecond with a discrimination complaint, and he descended into routinely referring to Israel-critical Jews as “tokens”.
By September he was gone from U. of O. (fired or asked to resign), nominally for praising the pager attacks in Lebanon (for which he later apologized), but his presence there was obviously untenable.
Apologies for the long story here, but it’s just to illustrate that, even in political cultures with no significant Christian right influence, the “good Jew” - who identifies wholly with the state of Israel - is thoroughly institutionalized in liberal zionist thinking. In slightly less imprudent language than Wilczynski’s, in word and deed everything coming from liberal gov’ts here since October 7 is consistent with this ideology (the public statements of the gov’t’s erstwhile official “special envoy on combatting antisemitism”, Deborah Lyons, are essentially indistinguishable from Likud propaganda).
In early Nov. 2024, during Francesca Albanese’s speaking tour of Canada, nobody in the Trudeau gov’t would meet with her or even acknowledge her presence in the country, and within a couple of weeks of that the gov’t was denouncing the ICC warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.
Everything you say is 100% true, especially the “alliance of the ethnic supremacists”, but there’s another simple aspect: I think some of the less ideological Trump supporters align with Israel simply because they see their sworn enemies - university students - align with the Palestinians.
As to Israel, I can offer some personal insight as a former Israeli (and former writer at Haaretz) with immediate family members living there. They know full well that, the settler far-right aside, the takeover of the right in Israel is permanent, at least for a generation. I once contrasted the situation with the one in America to an American colleague. At the very worst, the American political divide is 50-50, and any left-of-Trump person has (at least for now) the reasonable expectation of a change within the next few years. In Israel, the split is at least 70-30 in favour of “ethnic separatists” (and anything to the right of that), there’s virtually zero chance of a fundamental cultural change in the next decade or two, and the despair is permanent. Those who can leave do, but most can’t. This understanding manifests in two ways: despair to the point of tears over the realisation that alternative forms of Zionism will not become viable any time soon (I don’t want to use the term “liberal Zionism”, because it’s too coloured by actual positions of people who identify as such rather than ideas it may represent, such as Buber’s “spiritual Zionism), and clinging to the hope that maybe things aren’t so bad, because how can one live in such a permanent state of despair?
I admire those who fight a fight they know they have little chance of winning in their lifetime (whether they call themselves Zionist or not is less important, as the word has little fixed meaning), and I’m deeply disappointed by Jews who don’t realise that opposing Israel’s behaviour - in action and not just words - may be the best kind of help they can offer a country they claim to love (not that it would necessarily be of much help - there is actual antisemitism among Israelis toward non-right-wing Jews to the point of referring to them using antisemitic slurs - but it will have some impact).
There’s a lot of long-term woe balanced on the backs of some short-term desperation for these huge egos mired in corruption.
Whatever institutions we erect in the wake of this dreadful period, we must ensure they are equipped with means for defenestration of those who attempt to subvert the system from the summit.
Did Kahane look to Zeʼev Jabotinsky, father of Revisionist Zionism and Netanyahu's father's sometime-boss, despite Z.J.'s secularism? (A relative of mine had been in the Warsaw Betar, though near-starvation made a socialist of him, and when in later life _despised_ the Israeli Haredi pseudo-yeshivniks for not serving in the I.D.F.—the notion that such 'preserved Israel', even if they actually did study, was to him a 'bubbe meiseh'—I got the impression that it was Betar speaking tgrough him.)
<edit>(…and I'd had no idea that Kahane owed so much to Fanon—and likely neither did he.)</edit>
Maybe Kahane has been a proximate influence, but I see nothing in the Israeli government's current crimes and errors that I can not see in Jabotinsky's "The Iron Wall".
See Magid's piece and my earlier piece on Kahane. Jabotinsky was a guest in the Kahane household in Meir's youth.
"(…and I'd had no idea that Kahane owed so much to Fanon—and likely neither did he.)"
Thought the same thing
I was curious what you made of Yuri Slezkine's The Jewish Century. I found the notion of Zionist statebuilding as a way to become an 'ordinary' civilisational complex compelling but felt, as a gentile, conflicted about it