Gabriel Kolko, historian and author of World in Crisis: The End of the American Century; discusses his article “Creating a Warrior State: The Enigma of Israel;” why Zionism and democracy cannot coexist; how Israel’s demographic changes are marginalizing secular Jews; and how the will of the people in Israel is reflected – both in Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination and Bibi Netanyahu’s electoral success.
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Alright y'all, welcome back to the show, it's Anti-War Radio.
I'm Scott Horton, and our first guest on the show today is historian Gabriel Kolko, and I cannot list them all, but I want to tell you about a few of his books.
The Triumph of Conservatism, Railroads and Regulation, very important works, both of those of course, especially to us libertarians.
Century of War, World in Crisis, Anatomy of a War, Vietnam, the United States, and Modern Historical Experience, and many others like that.
You can look them up at all your favorite book-buying websites.
Welcome back to the show, Gabriel, how are you doing?
Thank you for calling.
I'm very happy to have you here, and I was very pleased to see this article at Counterpunch New, called The Enigma of Israel, and I think this reads like it must be an excerpt of one of your books.
No, actually I wrote it for Counterpunch.
My basic argument is that Zionism is incompatible with democracy, and Israel simply hasn't turned out the way the theorists of Zionism wanted.
None of the theorists were consistent thinkers themselves.
I'm quite unimpressed by them, because really the mainstream in Western civilization is the French Revolution is in one man, one vote, or one woman, one vote.
And Zionism is a Jewish state.
It's based on the assumption that it will always be Jewish, and unfortunately for them, demographically it's not possible.
And apart from the fact that the Jews have not gone to Israel, by preference they've gone to the Western Hemisphere, mainly the United States.
So now, then the original theorists of Zionism, did they just not have active enough imaginations about how it would be if they went and created a Jewish state in Palestine, and what about the West Bank, and that kind of thing?
It's a very neurotic concept.
Most of the Zionists were socialists, and Herzl himself saw Zionism, which could be any place.
I mean, he just wanted a Jewish state.
They considered Uganda for a while.
Herzl himself was frightened by the fact that most of the Jews in Eastern Europe were becoming Marxists and Bundists and socialists, etc.
And he saw a Jewish state as a place to send Eastern European Jews, not for Herzl himself or Austrian Jews.
They had a very comfortable existence, and they were very cultured into Austrian, Austro-Hungarian, Germanic ideas.
I mean, Herzl himself, as I pointed out in the article, liked Richard Wagner's music, and he admired Martin Luther.
So that Zionism itself is predicated on the assumption that you're going to have a Jewish state even where there is a majority of non-Jews, and you just can't have that without inviting lots of trouble.
Now, that's happened.
The original Zionist theory, of course, was a bit romantic.
It was influenced very strongly by a kind of anti-industrial ideology.
It was influenced by Tolstoy, for example.
A.D. Gordon was very influenced by Tolstoy, and they believed that all Zionists should go to communal colonies and work on the ground.
And, of course, they would also be warriors.
Uri Sluskin goes into all of this in the Jewish century, and Sluskin himself, of course, is Jewish.
But it's basically cooked up a very neurotic ideology, but whatever ideas the founders had were quite different than the outcome.
That is to say, Israel has been at war perpetually or preparing for war perpetually.
The military budget is the largest part of its budget now, aided by, of course, American military aid, which is about $3 billion a year.
And it's turned out very badly.
There's a sort of neuroses about Israel and a neuroses about being wiped out, but that's impossible because Israel has 200 nuclear weapons, and the Iranians, for example, are not going to commit suicide by firing at one in Israel or two or three because the Israelis will just come back and destroy them.
They have about 200 nuclear bombs.
So the whole thing, well, if it weren't real, it would just be a nightmare.
Unfortunately, it's real.
And the Middle East is a very disturbed area as a consequence.
Okay, I'm Scott Horton.
I'm talking with Gabriel Kolko, and his article at Counterpunch is called The Enigma of Israel.
And one of the things that I thought of while I was reading this was a piece that I read one time by M.J. Rosenberg, where he was arguing that the peaceniks were right.
And he cites, I don't know, a dozen or more examples over the last 30 or 40 years, maybe going back to the 50s or something, where he just says people who were Zionists, who were very hardcore pro-Israel people, but who counseled against the stupid violent thing that the government of Israel ended up doing, were right in every circumstance.
It backfired every time.
It worked against them in every situation.
And so I wonder whether you think it really just has to be this bad of a disaster, or can blame not be placed on politicians making really bad calls about not just the wars that they start, but even just their entire attitude that rather than being a friendly neighbor, okay, we're new, and we did take this land back in 1948, but we can all get along with 67 borders, something like that, and try to be friends from here on.
They could have that attitude, but they don't.
They have the attitude of, I'm the toughest bully around here, and so nobody ever better mess with me.
And it seems like that is what's really the problem for the long-term survival of Israel, is just really dumb policy, if you understand what I mean.
Well, it's dumb policy, but it's also demography.
That is to say, secular Jews are just getting out, and the people who are reproducing are the Arab populations, or Jews from the Arab nations, or even more so, nutty Jews, haredim, who are reproducing like crazy, who have draft exemptions, and they still do, and a high unemployment rate, and lots and lots of babies, and they spend all day studying the Talmud.
Israel is caught internally in terrible contradictions.
Of course, looking at its 10-15 year perspective, I frankly think the problem is really solved by it simply being empty.
That is to say, the secular Jews are not like the founders of Zionism wanted to be.
They don't live in kibbutzs, communal settlements.
They're not farmers.
They're forced to go to the army.
Basically, Israel is a very international society.
There are supermarkets, and shopping malls, and people wear clothes made in China, etc.
You can have that anywhere.
You can live that kind of life abroad.
I'm sorry to interrupt you, Gabriel.
We have to go out to this break.
It's Gabriel Kolko.
His new piece at counterpunch.org is called The Enigma of Israel, and we'll be right back after this.
All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's Antiwar Radio.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm talking with Gabriel Kolko.
He is, according to Alex Coburn's note here, the leading historian of modern warfare, author of Century of War, Another Century of War, and Anatomy of a War of Vietnam, the U.S. and Modern Historical Experience.
He's got a piece at counterpunch.org called The Enigma of Israel.
And when we were interrupted by the commercials there, Gabriel, you were talking about how Israeli society, such as it is right now, has no real tie to the geographical area.
They might as well be in Florida, basically, is what you were saying, I think.
Well, the secular Jews are like people everywhere.
They want cars.
The only difference they have from people elsewhere is they have to go to the army and serve a certain amount of time, and they have to go in the reserves and march.
They don't like that very much.
There are a lot of people who are getting out now because they simply live in a militarized society, and they don't want that anymore.
And so there's a tremendous excess out.
Jews are supposed to come to Israel, but they're not supposed to leave it.
And the subject of their getting out is, well, it's very controversial.
Okay, if Rabin had not been shot, and he had succeeded in making a deal and creating an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, and instead of adopting the clean break policy of just threatening everybody with annihilation all the time, had tried to have a little bit more of a good neighbor policy, would it have to be this way, really?
Because I remember Gabriel reading a thing, oh, I don't know, 10 years ago now or something, that said that it was a poll of Israelis saying that they thought that if the Americans were really going to force the government to make a deal and make peace with the Palestinians, then they would be completely on board for that.
But as long as they thought that their government wasn't being forced to do that, they preferred Ariel Sharon, because they thought at least he'll protect me.
As long as the government is going to have me in a fight, I want to fight with a shield instead of just getting blown up all the time.
So in other words, did it have to be this way, really?
Or is it just the greater Israel faction winning out in politics is what has made it this way?
Well, the Israeli Jewish population is extremely complex.
I mean, they're actually voting for Netanyahu, and they're electing him prime minister in a fairly democratic fashion.
Well, you know, the Jews think they're, because the Bible says that you are a superior race, and it's working out this way.
It's hard to say if Rabin's vision had been put in practice that that would be sufficient.
It would not be sufficient for the Likud.
The Likud was part of the traditional revisionist tradition, wanted to expand the borders and expand the population.
And unfortunately, Netanyahu is popular.
We have to confront the fact that Netanyahu is settling the West Bank and depriving Arabs of more and more of their land.
With the sanction of the Israeli population, Rabin was assassinated.
That's what happened to him.
And to some extent, this assassination reflected a mood in society there.
The Jews were becoming more and more reactionary.
Anyway, the Arabs were treated very badly, and they've been treated very badly since.
And it may be too late for an amicable settlement.
I mean, 50, 60 years of being deprived of their rights and their lands has taken a toll of the Arab consciousness.
And we don't know how big that toll is.
The problem that the Arabs have, of course, is that they're badly led.
I mean, you know, they've been led by crooks like Yarafat, who stole a tremendous amount of money, and typical politically ambitious people, only they were Arabs rather than Jews.
So it's hard to happen, but it didn't happen.
So it's rather abstract that Rabin had not been assassinated.
Sure, yeah.
Counterfactual history and whatever, it's not a definite thing.
I like to focus on the role individuals play in history.
But it would have been a good idea.
Obama came to office determined to solve the Israel-Jewish-Palestinian question.
And he was told that this is the main question in the Middle East, that if you have peace in Palestine and Israel, you won't have so much animosity towards the United States and you wouldn't have so many radicalized Arabs.
And, of course, the Iran war scare shelved that issue, and Obama is very unhappy.
Of course, Obama doesn't like Netanyahu, and vice versa.
And ideologically, Netanyahu is the extremely right wing.
But he has successfully bullied the Americans, too.
And that I find fantastic, because Israel is completely dependent on American aid, but the Democratic Party is dependent on Jewish money.
And the Republicans are certainly dependent on the Christian right.
Well, yes, and Gingrich is getting his money from a man who is very close to Netanyahu, Adelson.
And that really is something unprecedented in history, isn't it?
A tiny little satellite nation having that much influence over the empire that it's the patron of?
Yes, it is unprecedented, but it's working.
So wait a minute, it's not working that well, because as you're saying, what they're up against really is just a demographic question.
And if it does come down to what they call now, I guess from now on, the apartheid situation, where it's not just a dictatorship, but it's of the minority this way, over the ethnic majority, then it's not like the Netanyahus of Israel are going to give up without a fight.
Then comes Andrew Jackson time, and they just force march them all into Jordan or something worse, right?
Because they are not going to just be, quote-unquote, pushed into the sea.
No, I think that for the Israelis it's quite simple what to do with the Arabs, and they wouldn't hesitate to force them over the Jordan.
In fact, the danger is that they'll just force them out entirely.
The problem that Israel really has is that the majority of Jews there are going to become religious fanatics.
They're not yet religious fanatics.
But, you know, all religions, in my opinion, are somewhat naughty, but these people believe that a Jewish state can only be created when the Messiah comes and declares it.
So what that really means is they won't defend the state.
They won't participate in it.
Well, they don't have to.
They have draft exemptions, and they sit around.
They have very poor educations.
They study the Talmud, and they have babies.
And the majority of Jews are going to become these kinds of fanatics.
And when that happens, I don't know what's going to occur there, but neither does Netanyahu and the Zionists such as exist today.
But the original founders had something else in mind.
They knew that there were Arabs there.
They were quite certain.
They wanted to be subservient to Jews, and Jabotinsky wanted the Jews to be masters of the situation, but they didn't think it through.
You know, you can't be a democracy and have a religious state.
You simply can't do it.
You can't do it in Iran either, and he's having a hard time imposing that.
All right.
Well, thank you very much for your time on the show today, Gabriel.
I really appreciate it.
Everybody check out his great new piece, The Enigma of Israel at counterpunch.org.
Thanks again.
Bye-bye.
Thank you.
