Israel seems impaled on the horns of an irresolvable dilemma, one aspect of which is that it is trapped trying to serve 2 masters, or follow the morals and dictates of 2 conceptions of the Sacred: on one side is modern liberal democracy, the West's secular religion, which is defined by civil rights and liberties, equality before the law, and obedience to international human rights laws and treaties etc (which is why Israel is judged so much more harshly than any Arab nation, because Arab nations don't even pretend to respect any of these things); the other conception of the Sacred is the traditonal view of the Nation as being by and for a specific people w specific beliefs and rituals (religion) and a specific history, which in the case of Jews is the even-more-intense bond of their covenant w Jehovah and their ancient homeland of Judea. The former option seems to mean their having to choose some form of suicide, however deferred, and the latter option seems to mean perpetual war and perpetual pariah status.
But one thing Israelis know that safe and rich Westerners cannot imagine is that some people don't embrace liberal democracy as the inevitable terminus of History, that not everyone dreams of becoming deracinated consumers worshipping GDP, but that some people want Vengeance above all and dream of a Promised Land where they can at last bathe in the blood of their enemies—this is Israel's grim reality, but at least they're aware of it, and know that whatever Arabs they're going to have as neighbors will need to have the jihad pummeled out of them, no matter how long it takes or how many of their own people it may cost.
Brilliant, Alan, thank you! This series (and I hope everyone has read all parts of it, highly recommend!) really is a masterpiece: It is comprehensive and detailed, balanced, critical, written, as it seems to me, with decent humility - which is, imho, so important here!
Also highly appreciated that you draw parallels to, e.g., the Ireland conflict (one might hope that we would be able to learn anything from history..).
As stated before, Israel's political system (as well as the problem of biases, especially in intelligence work) had been the main focus of my former political studies; but I've still learned so much from this series, even more so, had to question lots of my own beliefs! And for me, this is what makes this series even more valuable and special!
The ongoing protests in Germany against the horrific strengthening of a far-right movement are accompanied by shouts of, "Why haven't you been on the streets when muslims celebrated the slaughter of Israelis on October 7th?" on one side, and, "Why don't you walk the streets against genocide of Palestinians?" on the other; it's a paradox, a "Gordian knot", as your first part of this series stated. And rare reasonable voices like yours are all the more appreciated, thank you!
And yes, unfortunately, "the clock is still stuck at five minutes to midnight"..
Great job!
Israel seems impaled on the horns of an irresolvable dilemma, one aspect of which is that it is trapped trying to serve 2 masters, or follow the morals and dictates of 2 conceptions of the Sacred: on one side is modern liberal democracy, the West's secular religion, which is defined by civil rights and liberties, equality before the law, and obedience to international human rights laws and treaties etc (which is why Israel is judged so much more harshly than any Arab nation, because Arab nations don't even pretend to respect any of these things); the other conception of the Sacred is the traditonal view of the Nation as being by and for a specific people w specific beliefs and rituals (religion) and a specific history, which in the case of Jews is the even-more-intense bond of their covenant w Jehovah and their ancient homeland of Judea. The former option seems to mean their having to choose some form of suicide, however deferred, and the latter option seems to mean perpetual war and perpetual pariah status.
But one thing Israelis know that safe and rich Westerners cannot imagine is that some people don't embrace liberal democracy as the inevitable terminus of History, that not everyone dreams of becoming deracinated consumers worshipping GDP, but that some people want Vengeance above all and dream of a Promised Land where they can at last bathe in the blood of their enemies—this is Israel's grim reality, but at least they're aware of it, and know that whatever Arabs they're going to have as neighbors will need to have the jihad pummeled out of them, no matter how long it takes or how many of their own people it may cost.
Brilliant, Alan, thank you! This series (and I hope everyone has read all parts of it, highly recommend!) really is a masterpiece: It is comprehensive and detailed, balanced, critical, written, as it seems to me, with decent humility - which is, imho, so important here!
Also highly appreciated that you draw parallels to, e.g., the Ireland conflict (one might hope that we would be able to learn anything from history..).
As stated before, Israel's political system (as well as the problem of biases, especially in intelligence work) had been the main focus of my former political studies; but I've still learned so much from this series, even more so, had to question lots of my own beliefs! And for me, this is what makes this series even more valuable and special!
The ongoing protests in Germany against the horrific strengthening of a far-right movement are accompanied by shouts of, "Why haven't you been on the streets when muslims celebrated the slaughter of Israelis on October 7th?" on one side, and, "Why don't you walk the streets against genocide of Palestinians?" on the other; it's a paradox, a "Gordian knot", as your first part of this series stated. And rare reasonable voices like yours are all the more appreciated, thank you!
And yes, unfortunately, "the clock is still stuck at five minutes to midnight"..