Our media is myopically focused on the Gaza war. Will there be a ground operation or not? What will the purpose of the ground operation be? When will we attack? How will we return the hostages? What will America say? What will Hezbollah do? And so on.
Nobody is asking about what comes after the war.
How we got here
In a big city, tall buildings hide the face of Heaven-the Rebbe of Kotzk
In the village, they forgive nothing and forget nothing-Russian saying
The state of Israel was created on the back of Jewish villages: hundreds of kibbutzim, moshavim and moshavot were established prior to independence in 1948. The ethnic background and politics of the Jews who lived there varied, but they had two things in common: they understood and valued the Land, because they worked the Land, and they understood the Arabs, because they lived next to the Arabs. Sometimes they employed the Arabs, sometimes they fought the Arabs and sometimes they traded with the Arabs. Sometimes all three at once.
The generations which led and fought in Israel’s successful wars from 1948 to 1973 were largely the product of small rural settlements. They understood that violence and deceit are the language of the Middle East, and that a man who holds no land owns nothing of value, even if he is wealthy in money. Even though they were led by godless atheists, these men understood the value of the Land of Israel and were willing to bleed for it and kill for it. They had tenacity and losses did not scare them. Hard work from childhood built physical and mental toughness, a lack of sentiment, into their characters. A man’s reputation followed him through life. Your neighbors would never forget anything you’d done.
As Israel developed from the 60s onward, the bucolic ideal of the Israeli soldier-farmer working the Land and being revitalized by it slowly faded. Urban planning assured that most new arrivals were shunted off into Mediterranean eyesore development towns. The development of the economy, and of Israeli culture (such as it is) pulled more and more of the children of the kibbutzniks and moshavniks into the cities.
Cities naturally encourage the pursuit of wealth, comfort, prestige. Cities promote the clever man, the manipulator, the one who knows how to work the system. In the worse neighborhoods, tough guys, criminals who know how to get by at the expense of others are idolized. In the better neighborhoods, their place is taken by the wealthy, the politicians, the aristocrats. The middle is despised as boring. Self sacrifice, endurance, lack of sentimentality, willingness to do brutal things to an enemy without becoming a brute-these values do not endure in cities. You can always move away, leaving your reputation behind and taking your money with you.
Naturally, urbanized Israelis did not have much contact with Arabs unless they lived in mixed cities, and had neither use nor appreciation for the Land. Eventually, many of them found themselves working in offices, tech or various bureaucratic sinecures (not coincidentally, Israel has the highest amount of lawyers per capita in the world.)
The Land they’d left behind did not lie fallow. Agriculture consolidated into large concerns. The remaining kibbutzniks and moshavniks became agrobusiness managers, with the fields being worked by Arab and Thai laborers, the latter on short term contracts. The cheap labor, combined with economies of scale and governmental protectionist policies, ensure a very comfortable lifestyle for the farm owners. The hollowed out kibbutzim and moshavim gradually turned into a mix of luxury resorts, senior citizens’ villages, suburban commuter housing and (rarely) dope infested holes to rival America’s Rust Belt.
The leaders of the new generations of Israelis reflected their values. Beginning with Begin, an Ashkenazi lawyer who loved giving inspirational speeches, signing deals and shaking foreign dignitaries’ hands, and ending with Bibi, an Ashkenazi consultant who loves giving inspirational speeches, signing deals and shaking foreign dignitaries’ hands, Israel’s right wing turned into a racket based on vaguely nationalistic rhetoric, ethnic grievances, patronage schemes and sweeping all problems under the rug, to fester and grow, led by stuffed suit Ashkenazi frontmen.
Israel’s left wing became a combination pride parade and Arab rights lobby (but I repeat myself). Our center split the difference. Our apolitical bureaucracies focused on increasing their power and budgets.
Our military is now led by a good old boys’ club whose members have never won a war or even been asked to do so; their focus is exclusively on getting ready for their retirement, where they will enjoy political positions, Israeli sinecures and lucrative American consulting projects helping US politicians and bureaucrats screw over Israel.
In short the inevitable result of urbanization and cosmopolitization is an alienated, weakened, demoralized people led by a chattering class of charlatans specializing in wallpapering over rot, mediated by a parasitic administrative class. Needless to say, none of the parties understand the value of the Land, except as real estate; nor do they understand the language of the Arabs. Were they capable of understanding it, they would not be able to speak it, for speaking it requires absorbing and inflicting suffering, coldly, as a farmer does and as an office worker never can. Therefore, we have turned into a country of hagglers, negotiating with our murderous enemies endlessly about how much land and money we will give them to refrain from killing us.
We didn’t invent any of this
There is a parallel here to all empires, most clearly, Rome. The Roman Republic was built and conquered by smallholders, men who had small farms from which they would sustain their families. They knew exactly what they were fighting for, and could judge the men leading them accurately. They were willing to suffer for Rome, kill for Rome and die for Rome.
As the empire grew and captured more resources, the smallholder class was bought and squeezed out, and pushed off their land into cities. The farmland was consolidated into latifundia, large farms powered by slave labor, owned by the wealthy. In the cities, the former Roman smallholders either rose into the degenerate and amoral aristocracy or sank into the degenerate and amoral plebs, living on state-provided bread and circuses. Needless to say, they were not eager to serve their empire in the Legions, to suffer, die and kill in strange lands thousands of miles away.
The military became professionalized. Barbarians were enticed to defend the empire for benefits, but as they acquired those benefits, they joined the native Romans. The interests of the military’s leadership diverged from those of the people, and the military became primarily a source of political power and enrichment, with predictable results for morale and security. We all know how the story ended-collapse, subjugation, flight, death.
Because Rome grew to a great size before these processes took their inevitable toll, it took them centuries to affect it, and more centuries to destroy it. At any given point, reform of the most fundamental kind was impossible, since there was too much inertia; the most one could hope for was Diocletian’s reforms, which rebuilt the state machinery to function on a war footing, but did not attempt to change the socioeconomic fabric to rebuild the human capital which had made Rome great and which the greatness of Rome had then consumed.
We are a small country, which has a slew of disadvantages. There is one great advantage, however-processes move faster, their results can be more easily seen, understood and addressed.
In part 2, we’ll discuss where we’re going next
Anecodtally, every single moshavnik or kibbutznik squadmate/friend from my military service has since moved to south-central Tel Aviv to live in poverty and work in shithole bars and cafes. I don't know if they will even have someone left to whip the Thais and Arabs in the next generations.
Very compelling analysis--thank you.