Fred Reed with a no nonsense, balanced, non-vitriolic assessment of Israel and the hatred that drives everything in the Middle East. There are no solutions. There will be no compromise. There will be death and destruction. There are no good guys – only bad guys of differing degrees. The citizens of Israel & Gaza are just trying to live their lives. It’s the power hungry zealot leadership of both countries sacrificing them on the altar of ideology and religion. Does this Fourth Turning seem to be heating up or winding down?
The Road to Ruad
July 20, 2014
I first heard the phrase in Phnom Penh during the siege: “The situation is hopeless, but not critical.” As Israel and the Moslem world claw at each other unendingly, I wonder whether the same diagnosis doesn’t apply. Perhaps I am wrong. I don’t see how.
To begin at the beginning: The Jews had long wanted a country of their own and, after Germany, understandably really wanted one. The problem was that all the countries were already taken except maybe Antarctica, so they conquered parts of Palestine by force of arms.
There was nothing Jewish about this. Most of history consists of groups conquering each other’s territory. When you do this, the conquered people hate you, and begin to resist. To control them you resort to the rifle butt, the torture chamber, the air strike, and the secret police. This makes them hate you more, world without end. Consider the occupation of Jewish Palestine by the Romans, the Jewish resistance, and Rome’s murderous responses.
The neighboring Moslem peoples, and indeed all Moslems, came to hate the modern Jews like poison, and the Jews, now become Israelis, soon returned the sentiment. Historically, this was business as usual. Christians, Jews, and Moslems have spent a phenomenal amount of time hating each other. It doesn’t seem to have gained them much.
Anyway, a vaguely possible modus vivendi was the Two-State solution, now dead, if it ever wasn’t, because Israel is absorbing the occupied territories. So many Jewish settlers now live on occupied Moslem land that no Israeli government could force them to come back, even if it wanted to, which it emphatically doesn’t. So much for modus vivendi.
In what amounts to Greater Israel, the Jews came to have custody in Israel proper of about 1.7 million Moslems, in Gaza of over a million and a half who hate Israel and, in the West Bank, pushing toward three million more, who hate Israel. Why Israel wants additional Moslems isn’t clear—I don’t want any at all, as they seem to be nothing but trouble–but it does seem to be collecting them.
This means that Israel can never be a democracy because, if the Moslems had the vote, Israel would stop being a Jewish state and just be a country with a lot of Jews. Worse, the moment Moslem voters, who breed faster than Jews, outnumbered these by one vote (if they ever did), Israel would become an Islamic republic, like Afghanistan. I do not think the Israelis have this in mind.
How a First World people can live as keepers of what appear to irremediably primitive Third Worlders is not clear, even without hatred.
There is worse. The Moslems cannot be allowed much commercial success, since it would translate into political power. And intermarriage must be prevented at all costs, since Jews, of whom there are not many to begin with, could be bred out of existence. Is this not Alabama in 1900?
So what can Israel do with its internal Moslems? Logically it can (a) shoot them all, which even Netanyahu probably wouldn’t do, or (b) exist forever with a huge and perhaps growing number of hate-filled subjects, or (c) push them across the borders at bayonet-point. Is there another choice?
Since the Moslems both internal and external hate the Jews, Israel must constantly fight them off, often militarily. Just now it is invading Gaza again, which has been firing rockets into Israel. The Moslems are always doing something, such as blowing up buses full of Israelis, so Israel is always bombing Gaza, invading Gaza, killing Turks, bombing Lebanon, invading it, bombing Iraq, killing Iranian scientists, and so on. There is the usual political posturing and kindergarten yelling about you started it, no, you started it, but underlying the noise is that the two sides bitterly hate each other.
If there is any reason to believe that it will ever stop, I am unaware of it. Does anyone seriously foresee a multi-culti, Koom Bah Yah amity, with turbans and yarmulkes back-yard barbecuing together and swapping dirty stories? Anybody who thinks this possible must be smoking Drano. The two flavors of Moslem are murdering each other in droves, and they have the same faith. They’re going to learn to love Jews?
Any day now.
No military solution is possible. Israel’s First World, heavily armed, high-tech forces can defeat, usually easily, any forces arrayed against it by its Third-World enemies. It just can’t keep them defeated. Nor can the Moslems decisively defeat Israel. The only remotely plausible approach would be to force Israel to mobilize and stay mobilized until its economy collapsed, which for a lot of reasons isn’t going to happen, and anyway the US would intervene.
The beat goes on.
Meanwhile, Israel depends utterly on America for its survival. Yes, it is an advanced, highly educated, commercially astute nation, and if it lived in peace would be a small roaring success. But it doesn’t live in peace. And it is too small to buy or build the forces it needs to repel its neighbors and keep its supply lines open. It cannot field a large army other than briefly because it just doesn’t have the population. A garrison state, it very much needs US support.
Said support is not just military and economic. If votes in the UN are an indication, Israel is detested by most of the planet, which would endeavor to do all manner of anti-Israeli things if the US didn’t veto all of them. Israel has a PR problem. In Gaza we see the now-common spectacle of a national military fighting a non-state enemy of barely armed militants. The result is dead children, recorded on cell-phone cameras. Image-wise, not good.
In America politics regarding Israel are often bitter and even more confusing. For example, I know feminists hostile to Israel, which doesn’t mistreat women at all, yet well disposed to Moslems, for whom mere misogyny would be a great step upward. Many Jews of my acquaintance are ambivalent or confused, wanting Israel to survive yet loathing its government.
How firm is American support for Israel? Very—for now, anyway. This is due in part to the immensely powerful Israel lobby in Washington, in part to a certain lack of enthusiasm for Moslems after 9/11, and in part to the lack of strong anti-Jewish sentiment in America. The United States isn’t Poland. In fact there is a lot of pro-Jewish feeling, seldom mentioned because it doesn’t fit the journalistic template of the eternally endangered Jew on the raw edge of extermination, sieg heil. Of course, pro-Jewish and pro-Israel are different categories.
If there is ever a threat to American support, it will be not from anti-Semitism but from indifference. There is a potential softness in the support. When Netanyahu gets 29 (was it?) standing ovations in Congress (which he did) it is not because all Congressmen are wildly enthusiastic about Israel. God himself would not receive such unanimous enthusiasm. Electoral politics screens out principle, and politicians will vote for whatever they think in their interest. If congressmen spoke honestly (yes, I know) I think you would find a small neo-Nazi group virulently against Israel, a substantial Christian group strongly for—and a majority who just wanted the question to go away.
There are powerful forces—Big Oil, companies that want to do business in Iran—that would happily abandon a small, petro-dry nation with no resources. Thus the crucial importance of the lobby.
All in all, it seems to me that Israel has gotten itself into a horrible situation, hated within, hated without, and hanging by a lobby. What can the Israelis do? Emigrate to New York? Undertake an absolutely horrific ethnic cleansing? Exercise the Antarctica Option? Spend all eternity ducking rockets and bombing neighbors? Live as herdsmen of unwanted Moslems that they have to avoid assimilating?
I don’t see a happy ending. Or any ending.
“I don’t see a happy ending. Or any ending.” ————- Fred
Here is the ending. If Amerika ceases to exist in it’s present configuration …. i.e., breaks into three or more countries …. then, it is likely that Israel will cease to exist. (MAYBE Israel’s nukes will keep the mooslims at bay …. but mooslims can’t wait for those virgins, so I wouldn’t count on it).
The funeral was somewhat of a disaster. More on that tomorrow.
Good night.
Fred hits it pretty much right on the head. Except I think that the US actually serves to restrain Israel many times.
Without the US, there would be nothing to restrain the Israelis. And in that event, anything could happen.
The Muslims will eventually win the war of attrition. It may take decades or centuries, but they are many, they are patient, and they are quite prepared to sacrifice the lives of their people endlessly in order to retake Jerusalem and evict the Israelis.
Contrary to UN theatrical posturing, Muslims don’t have a friend in the world. Israel is not alone, the Muslims are. When the Vatican/CIA fascist bankster mafia is done sucking the oil dry, Western Jihadistani sponsorship will fade, the petrodollar will be no more, and the Muslims will very quickly feel the predation of Russia, China, India, Israel, etc.
By my assessment, time is not on the side of the Muslims — with very ugly karma accumulated heading their way.
Fred’s down there living in Mexico and all the Damn mexicans are moving up here. I think he’s on to something.
I see an ending.
The Ending is 99% of the population of Jews in Israel and 99% of the population of Muslims in the Gaza Strip will all die of thirst and/or starvation. That would be after they finish bombing each other with rockets and then going at it with Trebuchets and Atl-Atls.
Anybody left standing there will be eating Lizards at best.
Are Lizards Kosher?
RE
Actually, the statement “to begin at the beginning” is misleading. The beginning of Israel was over six
thousand years ago. Have you heard of Soloman?? Or maybe, King David??
That land has belonged to Israel six thousand years before the Muslim faith existed!!
You all need a history lesson, but ignorance is forgivable. Stupidity not so much!
Land doesn’t belong to anyone. You only lease it for a period of time.
If you have enough POWER, you can take control over a patch of land, but soon as somebody rolls around with MORE Power, your lease on the land is UP!
In this case, besides Las Vegas, I can’t think of a patch of land LESS worth fighting over than Israel. Oil? No. Water? No. About the only value it has is as a Beachhead for NATO military to try to control the rest of the region that still has some Oil, except they are SURROUNDED by Enemies!
This is like dropping a Fort down in the middle of Sioux Territory, unless you can constantly resupply the fort, eventually it gets overrun.
Everybody fighting there is completely stupid. They should be looking at how to GTFO of Dodge. Go someplace where there still is some WATER, fuck the OIL!
RE
It’s simple.
The USA is economically fucked = Israel is also.
If U think Israel tells the USA what to do, reverse it. Doesn’t matter.
Amazed at the post that is was only a land given to jew to live, a land close to temple mount that is if you’re not forgetting. I real jews are in dispora so they avoid israel. Israel was before the jews, abraham settles there too & solomon only built the temple (jews, cristian (not paulist) & muslim are of the abraham faith). Arabs destruction is inevitable with on one hand Israel wanting greater israel & on the other hand Iran wanting its iran at time of cyrus. The american congress is controlled by Zionist, IS created by American & British as revealed by Edwin but let me add a third partner, Saudi. World war is near.
I wish we could just ignore that region of the world.
A day without reports about so-and-so fighting so-and-so over there would be nice.
“The beginning of Israel was over six thousand years ago. Have you heard of Soloman?? Or maybe, King David??” ———- Darmos
6,000 years? You need a history lesson.
King David ruled somewhere around 900 BC, soooo, that would be about 2,900 years ago.
God told Abraham to leave Ur and settle in Canaan. That was about 1,800 BC …. That’s 4,000 years ago, at best. OTHER people were already living there. But, the settlement was mostly peaceful. Then there was a famine. So, Abe & Family, a very small group, went to Egypt. Stayed 400 years.
Then they left … hundreds of thousands of them, or perhaps even millions. They went back to Canaan. Other people lived there. They didn’t want to leave. That’s when Shit Hit The Fan. Peoples were annihilated. But Israel never killed ALL the inhabitants. Some survived and their descendants live on and fight to this very day.
THAT is the history of Israel …. usurping other people who lived there FIRST .
You must have missed this video. It’s G-R-R-R-R-EAT!
lLOL… +1000 for the vid , Stuck…rates right up there on the comedy scale with Billy’s abridged history of Joosre’al.
The political situation in Israel is indeed FUBAR, which should be a lesson to US.
There is good reason that the Jews don’t allow the Muslims a vote , but here is the Feral government of the United Statists of Stupid not only inviting a third world invasion of a foreign FSA with the future power of the vote , but are actually aiding and abetting that very invasion.
What could possible go wrong?
If congressmen spoke honestly (yes, I know) I think you would find a small neo-Nazi group virulently against Israel, a substantial Christian group strongly for—and a majority who just wanted the question to go away.
~~~~
Fred needs to address WHY and HOW “a substantial Christian group IS strongly for” …..
“Fred needs to address WHY and HOW “a substantial Christian group IS strongly for” —- Olga
No, he doesn’t.
Why don’t YOU inform us? Get those bible verses out ….
That video is FREAKIN’ AWESOME! Key to the internets for you, Sir!
Sorry – don’t do the bible …
A few years ago the kids and I were driving around the NC mountains and we passed a small church in the middle of no-where and they asked me why that little, tiny, Christian church was flying the flag of Israel – so I told them my version of reality.
That a country created under a cloud, in a region they had been run out of centuries before, in a precarious position and desperate to survive, had over the many years financially seeded and supported various Christian denominations who proffered the belief that their own “salvation” was determined by a particular people, rebuilding a particular building, in a particular city – and the power of money and fear combined had made it incumbent on many Christians to offer perpetual political and financial support to the State of Israel so they themselves could see their own religious prophecies, based on their own religious texts, carried out.
I.e., a political group of people were using the religion of a religious group of people to garner support and laughing all the way to the bank.
Others may think differently …..
I see Stucky and others have covered the obvious… that Israel is a goner once the US loses power and a will to gift them enormous wealth. And that day is looking very soon, like this year or next. Good luck, and thanks for all the fish.
Israel has been an increasingly terrorist state since the killing of Yitzhak Rabin – not that it was a bunch of nice guys before that, but there was at least a counterbalance. Since then, 19 years later, fuck that state.
As with most of these things, the evil of the state is not reflective of its entire population. Israel, Iran and the US – all have become evil states, but all have millions of good people among their citizens.
A few things came to mind while reading Mr. Reed’s article and the comments hers have left:
1.) Nixon reportedly told Kissenger, when the latter asked him what he thought of Israel’s chances, that they weren’t goodnight not make 2020.
2.) The average lifespan of a Crusader state was about 70 years…1948- 2020 = 72.
3.) Israel depends each successive gelation of young men and women being willing to put on uniforms and go to war. What Jean Rapsail foresaw in ‘Camp of the Saints’ was a day when westerners wouldn’t have the stomach to kill in self-preservation. Suppose that Hamas told their female fighters to drop the burkas and wear bikinis instead. How long would it be before Israeli soldiers lost the will to fight?
4.) Spain recently offered citizenship to descendants of Spanish Jews expelled from there 500 years ago. This is one option to escape a no-win situation. Would Israelis give up Jerusalem for a chance to confront Muslims at the other end of the Med? Would Russia, facing a population collapse, offer them asylum? Where else could they go, if they chose to leave?
Regardless of how badly I think the Palestinians are treated, I would much rather live in Israel, with all its warts, than in any Muslim country. Muslims are in conflict with Hindus, Christians, animists, Communists, Buddhists and secualrists around the world. Fred Reed has company; I don’t see a happy ending here, either.
“o they conquered parts of Palestine by force of arms.”
That is wrong. The UN gave them land that was not part of any country and that they historicall occupied. The soon to be Israelis then offered any Palestinian whl wanted to stay, that right and citizenship in Israel. Compare and contrast that with Sharia law and the taxes and threats on non Muslims.
CDK, not sure what you mean by “cristian (not paulist)”, unless you mean catholicism, that seed bed of malfeasance in Rome. The church founded by Peter was in Jerusalem. You’re as confused as the Muslims, i.e. Mecca, about your holy see, which is in Jerusalem, not Rome.
Should the US or the dollar collapse, the shadow federal government will ensure none of the world powers are able to loose the foothold of the US in the ME, for the same reason we’re there now, to not allow anyone else to control it. Russia has the natural resources and China has the temperate clime and population to become the industrial capital of the world. The US has nothing if it wasn’t for it’s military and control over a part of the world’s energy resources. That won’t change in a post dollar world, and the last thing the US is going to give up is a foothold in the ME.
The Saudis don’t want muslim extremists to exert too much control, and IS is the best way to keep them distracted. The house of saud, IS, and the US are aligned against the rest of the arab world. This won’t change in a post petro-dollar world. The sauds need US military power and IS to keep the extremists off balance. The last thing anyone wants is a State of Islam to gain a foothold, so they created their own to continue the cycle of violence.
The Jews don`t manipulate USA into supporting Israel. God does. When USA is gone Israel will still be standing because God who is in charge wants it that way. Torturing logic and twisting words by anti Semitics may sound good but it won`t change the way God made it.