Where Does It Take Us? The Security Scenario

To complete my theory of the inability of the Jews to maintain their own state over time, I shall try to predict the end of the Jewish state.

As said in previous posts, the damage was done by the tendency that is burnt deeply into the Jewish communal culture to ignore and break rules and limits of any kind and go to the end and beyond it in defending the survival of Judaism and the victory over its enemies.

Life without law and without limits, do not allow for reasonable government systems to function. It defies the ability of management the state and brings chaos to the country's society and severely undermines the connection between the citizens and their state.

Take for example the military and security establishment. Obviously, if this system had weakened considerably, the Arab states that surround us would not hesitate to attack and occupy the country. Yet this military system has long forgotten this simple fact. It is disconnected from the rest of the governing systems. It detached itself from any external supervision. It is not subject to any monitoring of its budget and manages its own life. Accordance with the common trends in the Israeli society, the security personnel take care, first of all, of padding themselves with generous budgets and try to improve their own benefits and put it beyond the importance of any other purpose. The top security system commanders have become very political and the progress in the ranking hierarchy is not related to the professional capabilities, but to the elbowing and manipulation capabilities. Some of these generals have recently joint the political system. Once they step out of the security system, they are exposed as medium level or lower type of politicians. Ehud Barak, Mofaz, Matan Vilnai, Dichter, Dan Halutz, Diskin, Ya'alon and Gabi Ashkenazi. Yossi Sarid recently called them in his column: "dummies". In fact, they are probably not stupid people, but they seem to be people without any backbone or compass. They are desperately trying to be popular by doing excessive and ridiculous use of the common clichés, without giving any hint for existence of opinion of their own. They are very strong, however, in throwing slime at anyone who opposes them.

In this sad reality of the military leadership, it is clear that people from the middle class and above, refrain from sending their children to combat units. Why would anyone want to risk his son, given the poor decision-making system exposed in the Second Lebanon War, for example? Nobody is too enthusiastic about chasing stone-throwers in the territories, either. Instead, the boys are sent to the computing and technical units, which keep growing in size. The boys acquire a good profession there and when they are released, they gladly join the top earners in the hi-tech market. Besides the computer units, there are many more home front units, like the speaker unit and other propaganda and media bodies. The combat units are filled by the peripheral populations: first - the settlers community, then the Russian immigrants, the kibbutz's and moshav's and the developed towns. Dr. Yagil Levy studied the subject and published the book "From The People's Army to The Peripheral Army". It did not get wide headlines in the media that makes sure to publish stable recruitment percentages in the big cities. For some reason they do not talk about the percentages of recruitment to the combat units.

This trend of the military detachment from the elite populations will surely bring a significant decline in motivation of the armed forces. The loyalty of the major supplier of quality personnel to the combat units - the settlers community and national-religious community, is loyal to "Judaism" and not to the state. Also, they do not come from a culture of courage and daring.

In addition to the above, the security and military systems are immune from criticism. The military experts and commentators, some coming from these systems, are not loyal to their profession as journalists, but rather to the object of their writing. The public also will not, mostly, want to hear a bad word about the security system. This prevents exposure of flaws and inefficiencies in the system.

In the coming years we will see a growing deterioration of the army's and its commanders capabilities. Perhaps at some point Israel will switch from compulsory army into a professional army, but such a move would only formalize the process that already happens in reality.

Hence, a scenario of the army, losing its deterrence against the Arab armies is not so far away.

In the following posts, two other catastrophe scenarios will be discussed: Economic collapse and disintegration of the society.

Jews Cannot Maintain a State of Their Own

My conclusion, as formulated in the previous post is that the Jews are not able to maintain a state of their own over a long period of time. The attempt to create a Jewish state is destined to fail.

I will summarize the reasons in a schematic way:

 

The long, difficult history of the Jews in exile uprooted, in fact, the ability of the Jews to manage their own state and continue to be a Jewish community. Jewish communities went through such a deep process of adjustment to life in the Diaspora, as a minority under a foreign rule, that they lost their ability to live differently.

The Jewish community has been optimized to life, as a minority that must fight for its existence and its rights. It cannot live in any other way.

The Jewish community carries deep in its heritage the resistance to rules and law and as such it is corrosive to its own government and to the independent existence of the Jewish state. It is a very bitter irony of history.

Solution could have been found by transferring  regime in Israel to the Palestinians, with the Jewish community going back to life as a minority under foreign rule. Such a solution, of course, would not be acceptable by the Jews. Even the Palestinians, if they see the reality as it is, would not agree to such an arrangement.

The Immediate Culprit: The Anti-Anti-Semitism

The previous posts described how the lives of the Jewish communities, who were persecuted and humiliated and that have constantly fought against the attempts to destroy them, led them to see in the dedication to survive and to prove that the persecutors have failed to destroy them, the most important goal of their lives.

Proving that the Jews have survived in spite of everything, became the main essence of the Jewish existence. This sacred cause allowed them to do everything. There was no law, no moral and no limit to stand on the way.

This concept, naturally, trickled into the perception of Israel as the Jewish state.

It was not the case from the beginning. There was an attempt to draw a line over the Jewish life in the Diaspora and start from fresh.  Nevertheless, slowly and inevitably took over the concept of being the ultimate answer to the Jews persecutors. This is not a country unto itself, with laws and orderly government, but a means to glorify the name of Judaism and the overwhelming evidence of its victory.

There are many examples to this concept: the leaders of the country, the ruling party, the major media and most people do not consider the establishment of the state and ensuring its stability, as a goal in itself. Much more important is the "Judaism" and ensuring its existence. All governmental procedures, a proper administration, all attempts to build a fair and decent society - all were sacrificed on the altar of "Judaism". Again, as I explained before the term "Judaism" means the way in which the majority perceives the meaning of: What it means to be Jewish.

I call this obsession to show the Judaism enemies that we have survived: Anti-Anti-Semitism. It is equivalent to the obsession of the Anti-Semites to eliminate the Jews and it developed in parallel, hand-in-hand. Anti-Semitic obsession is seems less and less, in the Western world. The Jewish Anti-Anti-Semitism obsession, however, remained, at this stage, here and is threatening to destroy the development of the State of Israel and bring to its disintegration.

Who is to Blame for the Failure?

The previous post described the Jewish society in Israel, as not being able to put limits to itself and live by laws and rules of conduct. I do not find any need to explain that such a society is completely unmanageable and cannot prevail for the long term. Each group of power pulls to its own direction, not ready to give up any of the rights it has acquired even at the price of eroding the future of the state – that means: cutting the branch on which they're sitting. The state leaders have long ago gave up any real attempts to run the country and solve its problems.  All they can do is come up with spins that occupy the media and spread incitement.

The missing part in Sephi Rachlevsky's book "No Limit" is an explanation to the phenomenon. All he had to do is connect this book to his previous book "The Messiah's Donkey", in which he describes the conduct of Orthodox Judaism and methods to acquire power.

The point I want to make is, that the culprit is the "Judaism".  First, I should explain what I mean by Judaism. I refer to the concept of Judaism in the eyes of the simple Jew. This is the ninety-something percent of the Jews, who are not proficient in Rambam laws and the books of the Chazon Ish, Spinoza, Gershom Scholem, Buber and all other Jewish scholars. Apart from the religious stream, they even hardly know the Bible and the Talmud.

The perception of Judaism, i.e. what it means to be a Jew, for the common man and woman was formed over thousands of years of persecution. Common to all Jewish communities around the world was the fact that they were persecuted minority. They were, throughout most of history, a bizarre cult threatening and intimidating those around them, always prone to trouble that may fall upon their heads - anti-Semitism, persecutions, humiliation, accusations and repeating attempts to eliminate them.

Under such hard living conditions, they developed distinguished survival capabilities. The survival of the Jews is no less than an historical miracle. In order to survive, Jews had to act as a unified community. The Rabbi was the leader and deviation from the community line was intolerable. In addition, they developed a sense of superiority to the population around them - "The Gentiles". The sense of superiority led naturally to a deep contempt for the Gentiles and their laws. It was permissible and justifiable to circumvent the law and any fraud or manipulation of the Gentiles was justified by the difficult situation and the bitter living conditions of the Jews.

Another phenomenon that emerged out of the hard and miserable life of the Jews was disengagement from reality and creating virtual reality – better, imaginary life with dreams about the salvation which is behind the corner. The creation of virtual reality is also kind of stepping out of limits - the limits of reality. Prof. Yigal Eilam's book "The End of Judaism" describes in a knowledgeable way the Judaism attempts to reinvent itself, each time by moving away from the harsh reality and day to day threats. These attempts of messianic movements and false prophets always ended in a bitter disappointment.

Denial of the reality and contempt to the law go hand in hand. Both are dedicated to glorification and preservation of Judaism as the highest goal and all the rest doesn't really matter.

It is easy to see, therefore, how over the years accepted the Jewish communities as their most holly heritage the task of conservation and survival of Judaism at all costs. We Jews absorb with our mothers' milk the need to preserve Judaism, beautify it and declare its eternity. This is the first and only commandment that unites Jews everywhere and of every kind - religious and secular.

In Israel, where religious Jews are a minority, but secular section is unable to separate itself from the religious side of Judaism, most of the seculars respect the Rabbis, no matter how dummy and blunt they are. They agree to support the Yeshiva studies and run to fulfill every whim of the religious leaders. These are all part of the heavy commitment that knows no boundaries to Judaism.

Israel's existence is perceived, then, by most Jews as proof of the survival of Judaism.

   

Our existence here is a finger in the face of those who tried to destroy Judaism!

No Limits - Everything is Wide Open

The two previous posts briefly described the difficult situation into which, both, the government systems in Israel and the society itself have deteriorated. In fact, there is a close relationship between the government and the society and the disintegration processes are intertwined.

The destructive processes going on below the surface disappeared from the eyes of the editors of The Times, that extolled "King Bibi" and the from White House officials that awarded the Medal of Freedom to president Shimon Peres. These two people contributed their part in whitewashing the truth and presenting Israel as a villa in the jungle of the Middle East. Little more disturbing is the stubborn believe of wide parts of the Jewish public in Israel in this image, which has nothing to do with reality.

I don't mean to argue in this blog with those who think that the situation is tolerable, or is not as bad. The blog's intention is to offer an in-depth explanation to the question: What triggered the erosion process and what failed the State of Israel from becoming a well managed and viable country.

 

As I mentioned in last post the Israeli society is conducted as if it was under threat of organized crime groups. Very powerful forces control the everyday life and in order to keep away from trouble, one should better align with the consensus, accept the ideas dictated by commentators on Channel 2, submissively pay the exorbitant management fees that are imposed by the banks and other monopolies and especially hate and excommunicate anyone who dares to question the method.

In the Haaretz newspaper, which I read, the writers try occasionally to offer an explanation for what caused the government and the society to lose their course, but most explanations seem rather superficial. No serious discussion has started on the subject.

Searching in the literature, I found in the book of Sephi Rachlevsky "No Limit" (Zmora-Bitan) the most comprehensive and thorough explanation for the deep malaise of the society.

The phenomenon of lack of respect to the law, lack of willingness to accept any limits and to live according to clear rules - is the best explanation to the problems and malfunctioning of the Jewish society in general and the Jewish society in Israel in particular.

 

This phenomenon was discussed previously as Prof. Ehud Sprinzak identified and described the central problem of Israel in his book "Each One to Himself",  illegalism it is called in the book. The roots of this phenomenon, however, were not deeply researched. 

Legal expert Moshe Negbi's book "Sodom Have We Become" also describes the problem, but refers primarily to law enforcement systems, which are not themselves taking the law seriously.

Sephi Rachlevsky goes few steps further, by describing the atmosphere in Israel, that not only the people refuse to accept limits and rules of conduct, but also admire leaders who broke the law and made fun of it, like: Moshe Dayan and Ariel Sharon.

"Sasson Report" prepared by the jurist Talia Sasson on the phenomenon of the illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories indicates that the administration personnel, including the Ministry of Justice officials, are acting openly against the law and bypassing the formal rules, under the auspices of the Ministers responsible and the prime minister himself. A small example is the attitude of Netanyahu to the court ruling to return the land of Givat Ulpana to its rightful owners. Netanyahu ordered to saw the houses and transfer them to a cost of tens of millions of dollars. Netanyahu and the ruling party punish the state (they are in charge of) for forcing them to respect the law.

Burglary and confiscation of land in the occupied territories are prominent examples, but the phenomenon is much more broad and comprehensive. Many illegal building extensions, or that were approved by mayors for bribery and never destroyed. Massive resisting of Shas voters to the accusations of Aryeh Deri and other Shas activists captured offenses. Resisting of Moshe Katsav close circle of people to his arrest, even though several women complained, raped or harassed by him. The Airport security checks that openly discriminate people according to their ethnicity and almost no one thinks that there's something wrong in it.

It must be admitted that there is something liberating in life without rules. Tourists coming, here for a short time, enjoy this free atmosphere. Moreover, the well-known Jewish creativity, which leads to great achievements in research, has strong sources in the unwillingness to accept the limits of knowledge.

Nevertheless, the phenomenon of "no limits" is the best and most comprehensive explanation to the decay of the Jewish Israeli society and its government system. No state and no civilized society can exist without respect for the law.

Without wide agreement upon rules and regulations, you cannot manage, prepare or execute long-term plans and in short, it is impossible to have a civilized state, and certainly not a democratic one.

On the social level, the phenomenon is no less devastating, the societybecomes aggressive, racist, intolerant and divided. This is a fertile ground for aggressive and forcefull people that take over the public resources and the rest of the population become conformist, confused and scared - just as is already happening in the Jewish society in Israel.