Great analogy Bibi. Way to pick a nation that eventually fell. Sparta's identity and influence exists only in history and legends. I can't recall the last Spartan I
Amazingly prophetic quote from Arendt. It’s all a tragedy, and I’m not sure what someone who cares deeply about the wellbeing of Israeli Jews despite my serious disagreements with them, and Palestinian human rights, can even do.
Sparta was a slave owning society terrified of slave revolts! They lost to pluralist, multi ethnic polities! They were crushed by the Macedonians, the Thebans, and the Romans!
Very fash vibes using the term “autarky” in reference to oneself. At one point the last pm said they wanted to be “Silicon Valley + Sparta”; I guess they’ve dropped the former.
In the endless cycle of perverse ironies Israel lays before us, Netanyahu’s Sparta tribute positively invites erasing the distinction between Israeli civilians and soldiers, which of course is the genocidal premise propelling the destruction of Gaza.
He’s also implicitly endorsing Haim Bresheeth-Zabner’s argument in “An Army Like No Other” (2020) - which recalls Frederich von Schrötter’s characterization of Prussia as “not a country with an army, but an army with a country” - that describes a society in which civil, industrial, political and research institutions are all networked into a “seamless security continuum”. Bresheeth-Zabner would likely just consider Sparta a new metaphor acknowledging a long-standing de facto state of affairs.
Another possibility : Netanyahu rewatched 300 to get himself in the mood as the IDF was getting ready to invade Gaza City, and fancies himself as some kind of Leonidas, as he sends other men kill starving people.
Funny anecdote on attempts to make Jews "normal." Apparently, there was a rich Jew in the early 20th century who decided that normality involved being farmers, which Jews were of course prohibited from being in the Russian Empire. So he decided to sponsor Jews to go to Canada and gave them land. Of course, they all ended up in Montreal.
Great analogy Bibi. Way to pick a nation that eventually fell. Sparta's identity and influence exists only in history and legends. I can't recall the last Spartan I
met.
It's an especially strange analogy since both Athens and Sparta lost.
Amazingly prophetic quote from Arendt. It’s all a tragedy, and I’m not sure what someone who cares deeply about the wellbeing of Israeli Jews despite my serious disagreements with them, and Palestinian human rights, can even do.
I think SM stands for Stephen Malkmus. Hey Steve.
Sparta was a slave owning society terrified of slave revolts! They lost to pluralist, multi ethnic polities! They were crushed by the Macedonians, the Thebans, and the Romans!
Very fash vibes using the term “autarky” in reference to oneself. At one point the last pm said they wanted to be “Silicon Valley + Sparta”; I guess they’ve dropped the former.
In the endless cycle of perverse ironies Israel lays before us, Netanyahu’s Sparta tribute positively invites erasing the distinction between Israeli civilians and soldiers, which of course is the genocidal premise propelling the destruction of Gaza.
He’s also implicitly endorsing Haim Bresheeth-Zabner’s argument in “An Army Like No Other” (2020) - which recalls Frederich von Schrötter’s characterization of Prussia as “not a country with an army, but an army with a country” - that describes a society in which civil, industrial, political and research institutions are all networked into a “seamless security continuum”. Bresheeth-Zabner would likely just consider Sparta a new metaphor acknowledging a long-standing de facto state of affairs.
Another possibility : Netanyahu rewatched 300 to get himself in the mood as the IDF was getting ready to invade Gaza City, and fancies himself as some kind of Leonidas, as he sends other men kill starving people.
Youre my people all the way John.
I've never been sanguine about gathering-in all or most Jews into a small land in a nuclear age.
Funny anecdote on attempts to make Jews "normal." Apparently, there was a rich Jew in the early 20th century who decided that normality involved being farmers, which Jews were of course prohibited from being in the Russian Empire. So he decided to sponsor Jews to go to Canada and gave them land. Of course, they all ended up in Montreal.
Perhaps Samaritans are the only ones who could fully claim to be real Israelis, and there are not many of them left.
This is an ugly sentiment. Getting stuck in arguments about who's "more indigenous" is a surefire way to obscure what's really at stake.
The Samaritans (and maybe more than a few others) would do well to not identify themselves in such a way, because to claim such "realness" is a trap.