I wish Israel didn’t exist. It is bad PR to have a state acting in the name of Jews. Even if that state was the best country in the world, someone, somewhere, would find something to complain about, and blame it on all Jews, collectively. As Non-Zionism says, Israel makes Jews less safe:
There can be no lie more offensively preposterous than the claim that Zionism makes Jews safer, which is, naturally, why so much effort is invested in proclaiming it.
If it were up to me, Zionism would have never been invented. Instead, all Jews would move to America. I want Jews to move to America, because America needs talent, and Jews have talent.
My theory of the world is as follows:
Borders are bad;
Wars are bad;
Globalism solves this;
Globalism requires the overwhelming superiority of a single state;
America is that state.
I want to abolish Israel, along with all other borders. I would divide up all 195 countries into semi-autonomous provinces with a population of 10-20 million each (between the size of Michigan/Sweden and New York/Romania).
With exceptions made for island, geography, and ethnicity, this would result in 837 provinces. America would be simplified to 34 states, rather than the 50 we currently we have.
This will assimilate, amalgamate, or destroy many rare local cultures. English will replace the diversity of languages. Religions will evaporate, as Christians and Muslims secularize. Billions will mix.
This doesn’t mean that racism would be abolished; and that isn’t my primary goal. Racism would be managed at a tolerable level to prevent the outbreak of mass violence, but otherwise, people would be allowed freedom of association at the level of neighborhoods. If you want to live in an all white suburb, or an Indian ethnic enclave in Kenya, you have that right. Integration at gunpoint with bussing programs causes more problems than it solves.
Is Israel the source of all blessings?
Christians, and conservatives broadly, argue that global government is evil, because God destroyed the Tower of Babel and confused the languages to create different marriages. This argument was also used by Southerners to defend segregation, on the basis that intermarriage would defy the wishes of God.
I don’t buy this argument, for the same reason I don’t buy the idea that we should stone the gays.
Is there a gay atheist argument to be made in favor of Israel? To find out, I asked Douglas Murray, the world’s premier gay atheist conservative supporter of Israel.
Douglas Murray sacralizes Israel as “the foundation of western civilization.” Since western civilization owes everything to Israel, Murray argues, the west should extend infinite grace and gratitude to Israel, withhold all criticism, and grant unlimited aid. Israel is like an old father, and “western civilization” is the young son who must take care of and defend his father.
If Murray were speaking in theocratic terms, his position would be easier to defend. “God blesses those who bless Israel,” and so on. If you believe in the Bible, that’s what the text says — putting supersessionist interpretations aside. But Murray is an atheist homosexual who the Bible has condemned to death. For Murray’s position to be consistent, he must be arguing that Judaism as a philosophical or cultural system (rather than as a dogmatic set of beliefs) is the foundation of western civilization. Is that true?
If it were true that western civilization owes Israel support on the basis of philosophical genealogy, shouldn’t this logic lead us to lend unlimited support to Iraq and Egypt, since civilization developed there thousands of years before Israel existed? And if one objects that Iraqis and Egyptians today are ethnically mixed, and not the “pure descendants” of those earlier cultures, then shouldn’t the same objection apply to Jews, who are not purely of Levantine origin, but have mixed with other Mediterranean and Italian peoples over thousands of years?
Should all the users1 of Arabic numerals give the Arabs whatever they want, on the basis that we all owe our mathematical systems to the Arabs? I don’t see how philosophical genealogy can justify supporting an ethnostate on grounds of “giving one’s philosophical ancestors their due,” since no one would ever pretend to apply this principle consistently.
I don’t think Douglas Murray would afford any special privilege to Europeans on the basis that European thought, European philosophy, and European science has spread to every corner of the the globe. Do Africans, Asians, and Indians owe Europeans “payback” for their efforts? If the principle of “genealogical indebtedness” does not hold anywhere else, then it cannot constitute a valid argument to support Israel.
So far, we’ve assume that western civilization was founded by Israel. But is that even true?
we owe Greece and Italy everything!
While Judaism serves as the religious foundation of Christianity, western civilization predates Christianity by at least 1,200 years, with the defeat of Troy by the Greeks. It is the Greeks who are the founders of western civilization, not the Jews. Otherwise, we would call it “Middle Eastern Civilization.”
Besides the Greek account of the Trojan war, Greeks make their first possible appearance in the Egyptian historical record during the invasions of the Sea Peoples. Rameses II (1213 BC) battled with the Sherden pirates, and employed some of them as his personal bodyguard. His successor, Merneptah, battled the Ekwash. Both the Sherden and Ekwash, based on etymological evidence, were tribes originating either in Greece or Italy.
The Sea Peoples failed to conquer Egypt, and many of them were expelled. Some of those Sea Peoples who left Egypt may have traveled up the coast to Egypt. The time period we are describing corresponds with the Biblical chronology of the exodus of Moses from Egypt into Canaan. If this is true, then Judaism was founded by Greek or Italian pirates, and Israel should be offering its unconditional support to Europeans for helping to found Judaism.
It should also be mentioned that, according to Cassius Dio in his Rhomaike Historia, circa 1200 BC was the year when Aeneas fled Troy and arrived in Italy to found Rome. This is accords with the possibility that, following the Greek invasion of Troy, there were also migrations and landings made in Italy, either of refugees or pirates (or both combined into one mission).
In contrast to the Bible, which obsesses over a small patch of land and promotes the fear of foreigners, the Greeks were world traveling cosmopolitans. They welcomed the wisdom of foreigners, as in the case of Anacharsis the Scythian, or Pythagoras, whose father was of Syrian or Phoenician origin. The Greeks also honored Cadmus in their religious myths, who was a Phoenician. They were not xenophobes who banned the knowledge of “foreign Gods.” If liberal tolerance, science, and curious xenophilia have their roots in any culture, it is not to be found in Israel, but in Greece.
By 753 BC, the Romans and Greeks had established distinct Indo-European cultures with writing, temples, pottery, religious systems, calendars, math, and cities. By 600 BC, the Greeks were sailing around the known world, and established colonies from Spain to Ukraine, including:
Massalia (France)
Emporion (Spain)
Pontic Olbia (Parutyne, Mykolaiv Oblast)
Panticapaeum (Kerch)
Tauric Chersonesus (Sevastopol)
Borysthenes (Berezan Island)
Theodosia (Feodosiya)
Tyras (Belgorod-Dnestrovskyi)
Already by 776 BC, the Greeks established the international Olympic games, immortalized in the poetry of Pindar (518 BC). They built great temples, offered sacrifices to their Gods, and had a common national history centered on the Iliad and the Odyssey. The wealth of Greek was great, and this prosperity encouraged the invasion of Xerxes in 480 BC, who wished to exact tribute.
Prior to Christianity, the Greeks and Romans recognized each other as worshipping the same Gods. Under Rome, the Greeks continued their sacrifices and worship at their temples. Greek tutors were invited to Rome in order to serve the nobility in the art of education. Greek philosophical schools, including Stoicism, Neoplatonism, and Cynicism spread throughout Rome.
But while the Romans considered the Gods of Greece to be the same as their own, they still considered some Gods to be foreign, especially those from the Middle East. According to Herbert Baldwin Foster, in his 1905 translation of Cassius Dio, the Romans were offended by the introduction of Middle Eastern religious practices by Emperor Elagabalus:
…the matter of [emperor] Elagabalus. The offence consisted, not in his introducing a foreign god into Rome, or in his exalting him in very strange ways, but in his placing [the foreign God] before even Jupiter and having himself voted his priest, in his circumcising his foreskin and abstaining from swine’s flesh… A further offence was his being frequently seen in public clad in the barbaric dress which the Syrian priests employ, a circumstance which had more to do than anything else with his getting the name of “The Assyrian.”
After the fall of Rome, Greece a center of learning and trade in the Mediterranean for 1,000 years. By contrast, during the same time period, here’s what Israel was up to:
Israel was held captive by the Babylonians in 597 BC,
by the Greeks in 332 BC,
by the Romans in 63 BC,
brief independence under the Persians in 625,
crushed by Arabs in 637,
taken by the Seljuk Turks around 1077;
by Turkish, Circassian, and Pontic slaves from 1240 to 1516;
by the Mongols in 1300;
by the Ottomans in 1517;
and finally the British in 1917.
Nietzsche said that Christianity is Platonism for the masses. This isn’t to deny the influence of Judaism, but to put this influence in perspective and context. The idea that the west would be “nothing” without Judaism is like saying that China would be “nothing” without Maoism, or that India would be “nothing” without British colonialism. Cultures intermix and influence one another. But to declare that the west owes “everything” to Israel is historically ignorant.
Greece and Rome practiced religious toleration; they had private property rights and rights of citizenship; they established courts, rules of rhetoric; the right to vote; and the constitutional Republic. Greece and Rome banned child and human sacrifice long before they adopted Christianity. They practiced monogamy and avoided cousin marriage, which contradicts the Bible in several places. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were polygamists, although this practice was phased out in part due to the influence of Hellenization.
If you are a conservative, you might look back at the Greeks and Romans and find them to be degenerate, cosmopolitan, homosexual pagans, and prefer idol-smashing intolerance and iconoclasm. You see a beautiful statue of a nude man, and you wish to break its nose and set it on fire. That’s your preference, but don’t call it “the foundation of western civilization.” Especially if you’re a gay atheist, like Douglas Murray.
Does Hamas have a point?
If the west doesn’t owe Israel infinite gratitude for doing every good thing ever, then what about Hamas? Are they a shining example of moral virtue that we should cheer on against the forces of white supremacist colonialism?
Hamas is a violent, nationalistic, theocratic terrorist organization. The existence of Hamas is incompatible with liberalism and toleration of minority rights. There are millions of Arab Muslims who live within the internationally recognized boundaries of Israel. They live peacefully, have jobs, and are not subject to genocidal conditions. If all Palestinians put down their weapons tomorrow and gave up their right to self-determination, they could live peacefully as Israeli citizens, or be free to migrate elsewhere.
Hamas refuses to accept this deal, because they view their right to self-determination as holy. Hamas cites the Nakba, the forcible expulsion of Arabs which occurred in 1947, as the origin of all injustice. In order to make things right, the Nakba must be reversed, by force if necessary.
My problem with the Nakba argument is that it is hypocritical. 50.4 million people were force to leave their homes between 1945 and 1980 due to violence on the basis of ethnicity or religion, or the denial of the right to self-determination. If you support Palestinian nationalism, you must also support tens of millions of other “rights of return.” But when we look at the numbers, the impracticality of this nationalist principle will become apparent. The right of return is an empty, meaningless concept which is only selectively applied.
Putting the Nakba in Context
First of all, how many Arabs were expelled? The minimum is 750,000, while the total number of Palestinians alive today is 13.7 million. Let’s assume that every single one of these 13.7 million Palestinians is either yearning to return home to the land of their grandparents, or that they wish for self determination and sovereignty in Gaza and the West Bank. Is the Palestinian cause therefore the most deserving and important cause in the world?
Absolutely not. During the India-Pakistan transfer agreement of 1947, 17 million Muslims and Hindus were displaced from their homes. Many of them moved to Africa in search of a better life. In Uganda, they owned 90% of all businesses, but were then expelled due to jealous and resentment.
In 1945, the German people were expelled from Prussia, Memelland, Silesia, and Pomerania, Romania, Serbia, and the Sudetenland. The Volgadeutsch were expelled to Kazakhstan. The total is between 12 and 16.5 million.
Before 1945, there was the genocide of the Armenians, the Circassians, and Ukrainians in the Holodomor. For the Holodomor, I use the lower-bound number of 3.5 million.
If you are a true and principled ethnonationalist, you will demand the return of:
Volgograd to Ukraine;
Germans to Poland;
Hindus to Pakistan, and Muslims to India;
An independent German state within Russia;
A sovereign Kashmiri and Sikh ethnostate;
Dozens of Roma (Gypsy) ethnostates within eastern Europe;
Yiddish ethnostates in Poland and Ukraine;
A Tibetan ethnostate in China;
The return of millions of white Americans to segregated neighborhoods (neighborhood-sized ethnostates) in Boston, Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Atlanta, Memphis, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and dozens of other cities, where they were denied ethnic autonomy and the right to collective ownership of land.2
Many of these persecuted minorities would like to return to the land of their ancestors, or gain autonomy in areas where they are currently subject to conditions of cultural erosion. There may be intergenerational trauma caused by displacement, culture shock, bitterness, and demoralization caused by defeat and persecution. It is depressing and tragic to think about.
However, to begin erecting these ethnostates, we would need supreme, undisputed, global military force to overwhelm and force countries to accept the return of millions of refugees.
Polish protests would be met with armed troops.
The entire Pakistani theocracy would need to be arrested to prevent the launch of nuclear weapons.
India, a country of over 1 billion with its own nuclear weapons, would be forced to accept mass Muslim migration against its will.
China would be forced to recognize the sovereignty of Tibet.
Russia would be forced to allow Germans to resettle Kaliningrad, and Ukrainians in Volgograd.
If we are to take together all expulsions and genocides between 1864 and 2023, the total comes out to 70.32 million.
Assuming that all 13.7 million Palestinians, globally, can all be considered displaced peoples, including those living presently in Gaza and the West Bank, then Arabs made of 19% of all genocide victims between 1864 and 2023.
However, if instead of using the inflated 13.7 million figure, if we use the lower bound for the Nabka of 750,000, then the total number of Palestinian victims shrinks to 1.3%.
The reason why Palestinians are the subject of intense sympathy, while the other 98.7% of expelled peoples since 1945 are afforded very little sympathy at all, is for several reasons:
The Palestinians are religious nationalists who believe they have a Divine Right, as Muslims, to the Holy Land.
America and the Soviet Union promoted the idea throughout the Cold War that white colonialism is evil in order to crush all their European competition. The Israelis are perceived as white colonialists.
Right-wing antisemites, like Tucker Carlson’s friend Colonel McGregor, believe that Jews have a historical prejudice against white people. They believe that Zionism and anti-white racism are two sides of the same coin. They perceive the struggle against Zionism to be part of a wider struggle against globalism and Jewish supremacy.
I deny these three contentions:
Muslims have no right to sovereignty over the Levant on a religious basis (as neither do the Jews).
White colonialism is no more evil than mass non-white immigration. No one has a right to a homeland, only to their private property and bodily autonomy.
Globalism is good, so if Zionists and Jews are teaming up to help the globalists, I’m all for it!
Ideal Solution
If I had unlimited power, I would stop Zionism from ever becoming popular in the 19th century. I would prevent the Balfour Declaration from taking place; I would prevent the Ottoman Empire from collapsing; I would prevent the rise of Naziism and the Transfer Agreement which brought millions of Jews into Israel. Unlike FDR, who restricted Jewish immigration, I would open America’s borders to Jews and allow them to become productive citizens, with an opportunity to assimilate into American society.
But the past is the past. What would I do today?
My attempt would be to establish American sovereignty over Israel-Palestine. My first act as the governor of Israel-Palestine would be to encourage as many people to leave as possible with cash payments to both Muslims and Jews. My purpose would be to depopulation the Holy Land as much as possible. I would:
Ban Jewish and Muslim immigration into Israel-Palestine, Aliyah,3 and Muslim pilgrimage to the Dome of the Rock.
Grant immigration visas to East Asians who swore an oath to uphold the principles of atheism or Buddhism.
Abolish religious influence in civil law, and permit interfaith marriages.
Establish a natural wildlife preserve for lions and wild goats.
Back to Real Life
America isn’t going to take over Israel, and there will be no depopulation. What are the facts on the ground?
Israel is not a secular state. Interfaith marriage is impeded, and religious activities are promoted and funded by the state. Nativ is a program in the IDF which converts secular Jews to Judaism.
1% of the budget of the Israeli government is dedicated to paying Orthodox Jews, Haredi, to study religious texts, and it grows every year. 50% of these Haredi are unemployed. They live off government welfare.
But I’m not a DOGE libertarian; I’m not interested in balancing Israel’s budget. My main concern is what these economic burdens represent, beyond inconvenience. The fact that the Haredi are able to extract this tribute, against the interests of the secular majority, demonstrates that they are a powerful political bloc.
The potential of conflict between Haredi and secular Hiloni risks internal conflict and instability. As any Iranian can tell you, when a government claims to be simultaneously democratic and theocratic, the democracy suffers and the theocracy prevails. Iran is governed by Mullahs. Will Israel someday be governed by Rabbis?
Which Rabbis? How many? Will there be a Chief Rabbi? Will he be Ashkenazi or Sephardi? What if there is a sectarian split among the Haredi? Will the military intervene?
Jews have not had a functioning theocracy for over 2,000 years. Will they demolish the Dome of the Rock, and rebuild the Third Temple? Will they resume sacrifices of goats, doves, bullocks, and sheep? How will Christians and Muslims be treated under this theocracy? Will they be tolerated, or discriminated against?
Unlike every other country on Earth, Israel is becoming more religious. The governments of Saudi Arabia and Iran are backwards and primitive, socially speaking. They oppress women, homosexuals, and religious minorities. However, both countries are secularizing.
Iran is secularizing from the bottom up (from its middle class), while Saudi Arabia is secularizing from the top down (with Beyonce concerts being performed for the crown prince). In the long term, the trends of secularization in countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran gives hope that these countries will eventually be compatible with a liberal government. In Israel, the reverse is true: as time goes on, contradictions within Israel will alienate it from the global liberal order.
The conflict in Israel isn’t between white and brown, or Zionism or anti-Zionism. The real problem is between religious fundamentalists and secularists within Israel. This internal conflict cannot not be solved, even if all the Arabs were teleported to Mars.
Once the Haredi take power, they have three options:
Amish pedantry: Retreat into the most backwards form of religious primitivism possible, squabbling amongst themselves about who is more frum. Imagine if the Amish were 51% of the population, and took power in Washington DC. They would be pacifists in foreign policy; burn computers as sigils of the devil; and revert America to the 18th century. This won’t last for long before someone or something violently fills the vacuum.
Messianic genocide: Start killing millions of Arabs.
Libertarian: give up the state to the Arabs in exchange for being left alone.4
These three options sound mutually exclusive, but history tells us that all three can happen in quick succession.
Smotrich or Ben Gvir are too moderate for this vision of the future. We need to look toward Yizhak Pindrus.
Israel’s Pindrus Future
Pindrus sounds like a radical figure, given his dismissal of IDF soldiers as shiksas, but he is actually a moderate within the Haredi camp. According to the Jerusalem Post, he was born in America,5 and “refused to bend to rabbinic decrees and rules.” When the Haredi were rioting against the IDF, Pindrus refused to endorse the rioters. That makes him a moderate.
If the Haredim double in population over the next 20 years, figures like Pindrus will represent the “mainstream” right-wing in Israel. Leftists will miss the days of good-ol’ Bibi.
A Pindrus government, in coalition with “centrists” like Ben Gvir and Smotrich, could ban Jews from using unfiltered smartphones and demand a national dress code.
What sort of people return after 2,620 years of continuous and unending dispossession? Are the Irish going to return to France, on the grounds that their Celtic ancestors once inhabited that place? If this is the standard, all Slavs should be entirely expelled from the Balkans — both Serb and Croat. And needless to say, all Europeans (and Africans) will need to leave America.
But this narrative is not favorable for the Arab nationalists, either. The Arabs only ruled Jerusalem from 637 to 1077, after which point it was always in the hands of Turkic peoples. Based on history, Arabs are clearly no more capable or deserving of self-rule than Jews. The recent Turkish incursion into Syria is part of a 947 year old story.
Return to tradition: Take away Jerusalem from the Jews; take away Jerusalem from the Arabs; give both lands back to the Turks.
In religious terms, Arab nationalism is less valid than Jewish nationalism, since the Islamic claim to Jerusalem is itself plagiarized from the Tanakh. The Muslims couldn’t even come up with their own Holy Land. Very derivative.
Even if the Arabs continue to lose, Israel is still a ticking time bomb. It will, inevitably, either lose its democracy and be ruled over by a Herod-like dictator (I’m voting for Avner), or theocratic-democracy wins and the Amish take power.
Zionism is doomed; but it is real.
Dissident-right types flood my comments with the mantra that “the collapse of America is inevitable.” My response is, yes, and I will die. You will die. We will die. Pointing out the mortality of states is no more observant or relevant to present-day action than the mortality of individuals is to individual decisions. Life goes on, until it doesn’t. It strikes me as cowardly and pathetic to give up before the game is over.
I know Israel won’t last. It can’t — maybe because of some divine command. It is a mistake. But I can’t help but support it…
I’ve been reading Rationalist Judaism. He presents this list of options, which I will condense:
Religious Far Right Wing: Jews have a God-given right to the entire Biblical Land, and should force all potentially hostile non-Jews out of it by any means necessary.
Historical Right Wing: Arabs should be allowed to continue living in Israel, with whatever rights do not harm Israeli security or development.
Pessimistic Right Wing: The Palestinians… should also have a degree of political rights here… Palestinians should be given the maximum rights that do not harm Israeli security.
Pragmatic Centrist: The Palestinians… ideally would have their own sovereign state alongside Israel… Such a state could exist when Palestinian rejectionism of Israel clearly changes.
Ideological Left Wing: The Palestinians… also have a right to sovereignty here.
Israel-Guilty Left Wing: While the Jews perhaps had some right to statehood, the Palestinians not only also have a right to sovereignty here, but also had a right to violently reject Jewish sovereignty here in any part of the land… They are entitled to a fully sovereign state with no limitations on its military, and the return of a large (perhaps unlimited) number of refugees and their descendants to live in Israel.
Progressive Left Wing: The Jews had no right to move to Israel in large numbers and try to create a homeland. There should only be one bi-national state… every Arab has a right to live in any part of it.
How do I decide whose right is right?
All rights come from religion.
Real international rights are divine, theological, mystical, and fanatical in nature. For example, Manifest Destiny in America, or the Maoist view on Taiwan, or the globalist position on Ukraine. International rights based on anything other than faithful certainty are castles built on sand. They aren’t real.
Before there were concepts of “human rights,” there were the rights of “the ancient freedoms and customs of our forefathers, based on sacred oaths and covenants.”
[The Romans] dreaded far more to violate their oath than to transgress the laws…
Titus Livius commends their behaviour when he says: “That neglect of the gods which now prevails, had not then made its way nor was it then the practice for every man to interpret his oath, or the laws, to suit his private ends.”
After offering solemn sacrifice they caused all the captains of their armies, standing between the slain victims and the smoking altars, to swear never to abandon the war.
A right is nothing more or less than a duty, oath, obligation, promise, commitment, ideal, entitlement, or guarantee, based on some sacred sense of honor, fairness, or justice. These moral concepts only gain any meaning whatsoever in a religious context. People must believe there are supernatural (or super-egoic) punishments and rewards for those who follow or disobey these rights. This goes far beyond the practicalities of a two-state solution.
The Greeks, in fighting for their oaths and sense of honor, believed they could achieve the Elysian fields. Both the Norse and Greeks believed that to die dishonorably was to risk damnation as a wraith, or ghoul, haunting the underworld, in a pained, confused, and severely weakened state. In the Odyssey, these wraiths are depicted as blood-sucking vampires, eternally hungry and thirsty.
Those who defied the Gods were punished with hellish torment and torture:
Prometheus was eternally pecked at by a bird;
Tityos was also tortured by two vultures who fed on his liver;
Icarus was struck from the sky to fall to his death;
the Titans were caged in Tartarus;
Sisyphus also ends up in Tartarus, along with King Salmoneus, and Arke
King Tantalus (from which we get “tantalizing”) was teased in Tartarus with fruits he could never eat;
Ixion was punished with a winged flaming wheel that was always spinning;
the Danaïdes were forced to carry water in leaky jugs;
Ocnus was forced to weave straw as it was eaten by a donkey (so that he will never complete the rope);
King Phlegyas was starved in front of an eternal feast.
I list all these to prove that Jews and Christians did not invent the concept of divine punishment, but this was already fully developed by the Greeks. In many cases, though, the Greeks thought of the punishments of the Gods as occurring within the realm of life, not after death. But the effect was the same. Customs, laws, and “rights” were maintained as a result of the fear of punishment, and the hope of reward.
When religion weakens, rights die.
The genius of Christianity is to inspire a deep sense of guilt in the individual by making self-torture or martyrdom into a moral virtue. Christ on the cross is the supreme object of desire, because he sacrifices himself. Christians are called to scrutinize, criticize, and beat themselves up, to “die to the flesh” so they can be born again.
Judaism also contains this kind of masochistic performance, with the Israelites donning sackcloth and ash in order to gain favor with God and forgiveness for sins.
Christianity calls the internalized nagging mother the “Holy Spirit,” the voice of the conscience.
Matthew 12:31–32
“Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven”
Mark 3:28-30
“Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”
This voice has become so powerful that we can now proclaim ourselves atheists, dispensing with the father and the son, but still worship the Holy Spirit. When atheists insist that you act like “decent fucking human being,” they are declaring their worship of the Holy Spirit, the voice of internal guilt and self-critique.
This is why I defend wokeness, because it’s the last thing preserving law. If wokeness collapses, instead of being reformed into something more practical, all hell will break loose. That’s how you get the Taiping Rebellion, or the 30 Year’s War. This is dangerous for our democracy.
In the battle between wokeness and Zionism, Zionism will eventually lose. But those seem to be the only two religions left in the west. If wokeness is in need of reform, perhaps Zionism can provide the pressure necessary to force that reform, even if it is doomed to ultimately fail.
Zionists are the most intelligent, energetic, organized, and competent members of the Trump coalition. If you remove Zionism, all you are left with is vaccine skepticism, isolationism, tariffs, and a cult of personality. If Zionism is defeated and removed from America, the Republican Party will become nastier, lower-class, and more populist.
If you want to know what right-wing conservative populist anti-Zionism looks like, go strike up a conversation on the streets of Egypt or Saudi Arabia.
Islam and Ba’athism are failing.
Maybe the Haredi in Israel will disappear; maybe they will integrate and assimilate; maybe people who don’t use smartphones can be trusted with nuclear launch codes. I hope I am wrong, and Israel achieves peace and normalization. If I am right, then Israel has a few decades left before it goes totally bonkers.
In the meantime, however, Zionism has credibility, strength, and purpose. There is no alternative. A two-state solution is not possible, no matter the hysterical whining.
The rate of change of Islam is declining, not growing. Yes, the Muslim population is growing, but the growth rate is consistently decreasing over time. Muslims, like Christians, are increasingly religious “in-name-only.” People still call themselves Muslim as a cultural or ethnic artifact, in binary yes/no identification, but they consistently become less pious over time. Here’s the data.
The Abraham Accords subverted the expectation that pan-Arab nationalism, or even Muslim unity, is sustainable. There is no unified Arab opposition to Israel, and none will arise unless there is some existential threat introduced. The future of Islam is Beyonce concerts and Deliveroo drivers, not suicide bombers and Saladin.
Hamas failed. Sinwar is dead. Hezbollah failed. Nasrallah is dead. Assad fell. The route between Iran and Lebanon is closed. Maybe if Qasem Soleimani wasn’t killed by Trump in 2020, Iran would have put up more of a fight. But I can’t see Iran, Hezbollah, or Hamas making a comeback in the next 10 years, without massive aid from Russia and China. Turkey and Israel have a mutual interest in removing Iranian influence from Syria. Zionism will roll on, for now.
Conclusion.
If Vance succeeds Trump in 2028, and serves two terms until 2036, there will be no shift in American foreign policy on this matter. Even if a Democrat gets in, and cuts off aid to Israel, this will be anticipated long in advance, and the Israelis will be entrenched in defensive positions. An American withdrawal from the Middle East would force greater cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Israel, in order to counter the growing threat of Iran.
Even then, China could fill the security gap left by America. It will be funny if, after America withdraws, the Israelis and Chinese make a deal, and anti-Zionists must scramble to find evidence of Chinese-Israeli lobbying, or some other conspiracy. Maybe this is the reason why Zuckerberg married Priscilla Chan. China is controlled by the Jews! Right.
Israel will easily survive all external threats. The threat is purely internal.
I can be a doomer about this, and I will say I told you so! when things go south in 20 years. But there’s nothing productive to come out of opposing Zionism at this moment. Anti-Zionism wins the company of the worst of the left and right.
I still like the term non-Zionism, and it would describe me well if I lived in the context of Israeli society:
I’m here, but I’m disenchanted with this project, and I hope we can all make it out of here before the internal contradictions of this democratic-theocratic tension collapse the state and get us all killed.
But from an American context, the term “non-Zionism” is meaningless, because directionally, there are only two positions: support Israel, or abandon Israel.
I have written about how Netanyahu and his allies have been relatively hostile toward Ukraine. This is regrettable, and if I were given the binary choice, I would shift American attention away from the disastrous and wasteful Middle East and toward more productive adventures in Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, I do not have this power.
I am assuming, at this point, that the war in Ukraine is a done deal. If a Democrat can get in for 2028, Ukraine should be immediately rearmed and accepted into NATO. But for Americans, for the next four years, there is no choice but to accept whatever Trump decides.
In the same way, support for Israel is a done deal. There is no alternative, and the loudest voices protesting this fait accompli are unproductive, deranged, or toxic. It is still possible to be a Zionist and critique the direction of Israel society, and to advise caution over Iran.
Abandoning Israel could make things worse by strengthening the Haredim. Israel would be cut off from the influence of more moderate American Jews like Sheldon Adelson and Jared Kushner.6 An Israel cut off from America will become a Chinese Israel, which is worse for America. Hence, self-hating Zionism. I don’t want to, but what are you gunna do?
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America will never abandon Israel so long as AIPAC is stronger than the anti-Israel lobby (Thomas Massie and the Squad);
Israel remains a counter-balance to Iran.
Should we accelerate the death of AIPAC? Should we hand over the Middle East to Iran? What is a globalist to do?
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In the area known as Israel-Palestine, Jews would be free to buy private property and form private communities, or Kibbutzim. Orthodox Jews who want to shut themselves off from the rest of the world would have that right.
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A self-hating Jew is Jewish, but wishes they weren’t. A self-hating Zionist is a Zionist, but wishes they weren’t.
This would include every single country in the world.
White flight is difficult to quantify given a lack of official documentation on “border crossings,” but in cases where the white population declined between 1950 and 1980, I counted this decline as a flight of refugees fleeing forced integration.
This statement will come back to bite me if all the antisemites on Substack take over the government and begin a pogrom, although I believe there’s always a third option. (China wouldn’t be my first choice, but beggars can’t be choosers)
Rioting, kidnapping government officials, and targeted assassinations can quickly end in mass suicide and surrender. Court Jews could be appointed to act as a liaison between the conquerors and the defeated Jewish population, who are then granted limited autonomy in ghettos, Judengasse, and shtetls.
Wikipedia claims he was born in Israel.
Kushner is Orthodox, but clearly a much better deal maker than Pindrus.
Based article because you link to me. Your 13.7 million figure for the Nakba is meaningless though. It's not an upperbound, it's total number of descendants after 7 decades of high population growth. If you think this way, you would also have to say the true figure for the Holodomor was 20 million because of all the children they would have had. But where would you even draw the line on this? You'd have to count all future descendants forever. Given compound interest, any atrocity no matter how small would be infinitely bad if it was against a group with >2 TFR. The actual upper bound for the Nakba is 900,000 I think.
I like the idea of vacating the holy land and turning it into an American-administered international zone. The Jews and the Palestinians can be given their own states in America. We already have Utah for the Mormons; this wouldn't be much different. America is the true Holy Land and Americans are truly God's Chosen People, and it is proof of God's omnibenevolence that anyone can become American.