    Israel as Future of the Globe?

    Satya Sagar

    For all those who think that Israel is run by the most despicable,
    racist and repressive regime in the world here is some very bad news
    indeed.

    Not only are the Israeli state and its ruthless methods here to stay
    they could also be, very frighteningly, a prototype of our collective
    global future.

    Watching the unbelievable destruction wrought by the Israelis in Gaza
    and Lebanon a simple question very high on many minds must be ‘ How in
    hell does this artificially concocted child of European guilt and
    American ambition get away with all this again and again and again?’

    The answer is that instead of being a strange historical aberration
    Israel may well be a model state that global elites want to establish to
    control the world in the days to come.

    A world where the ruling classes live off the stolen resources and
    labour of those they contemptuously deem ‘lesser human beings’ in a
    system of institutionalized apartheid.

    A world where the forces of the militarized State can routinely shoot
    anybody, even entire populations and call them ‘terrorists’ with
    complete impunity.

    A world where the process of nation building automatically involves
    smashing the sovereignty of every other nation reducing their people to
    a faceless, nameless, helpless mass.

    The question of why Israel’s brazen crimes against humanity have been
    tolerated by the so called ‘international community’ is not new at all,
    being one asked from the very day this nation was violently forged six
    decades ago. The legacy of Zionist terrorism, the numerous pogroms
    against the Palestinians, the systematic usurpation of their land, the
    routine bombing of civilians, the murder of peace activists--- any other
    fledgling nation even contemplating crimes on this scale would have been
    ostracized out of existence by now.

    Many have attempted to answer this conundrum in many different ways.
    Israel is the bulldog of the US in the Middle-East – there to keep an
    eye on the region’s oil wealth, promote the sales of Western arms and
    intimidate Arab regimes into meek submission. And in all its actions
    Israel merely imitates its mentors in the United States, whose own list
    of crimes against humanity make that of its protégé pale into nothing.

    For some others it is Israel, run by Jewish supremacists, that is
    manipulating the West for its own devious purposes. They are abetted in
    all this by Christian fundamentalists in the US who believe in some
    complicated bull about the role of Zionists in bringing about rapture,
    the return of Jesus Christ and Armageddon. (An end of the world hastened
    and brought about by these strange bed fellows themselves)

    In yet another version the formation of Israel, aided and encouraged by
    Western powers, was a historical fobbing off of Europe’s abused Jewish
    masses onto the heads of the hapless Palestinian people- fulfilling the
    Nazi dream of getting Europe rid of the Jews. A cynical pitting of the
    victims of European racism against the victims of their colonialism.

    There is no doubt of course that the history of Europe and post-Second
    World War geopolitics of the United States have a lot to do with the
    creation of Israel.

    In many ways the State of Israel carries over into our era all the
    baggage of Europe from the turn of the 19th century with its simplistic
    understanding of race and biology, the crude equation of national
    interest with conquest of territory, the brutal trappings of the
    colonial state and worst of all the tryst with fascism that deeply
    shaped the worldview of Zionism. In the past six decades Israel’s
    behaviour, within its own region, has also mirrored the relentless
    American need for control over the world’s natural resources.

    But all this focus on historical trends obscures the fact that in
    contemporary Israel today has become the template of a terrible global
    future. Here is where the accumulated burdens of the past, stoked to the
    right temperatures in the crucible of the present, are shaping the
    contours of a world yet to come.

    Already, the aggressive Israeli ‘whatever the cost’ pursuit of
    self-interest - unfettered by any principles of civilized behaviour and
    contemptuous of all international law- has become the role model for
    governments in many other parts of the world. Every indicator points to
    this sad trend. The way the leaders of the world have openly acquiesced
    in the Israeli assault on the Palestinians and Lebanese in recent days
    is testimony to the fact that elites everywhere find this violence a
    useful exercise, not just in the context of the Middle-East itself but
    on their own home turf too.

    Just take your eyes off for a minute from Israel and look around the
    globe and you can see what I mean. Look at the mini-Israels that
    governments everywhere are operating within their own national
    boundaries against the poor, the ethnic minorities, the historically
    marginalized or any population that can be enslaved at low cost. For the
    votaries of the hard state and the preservers of privilege everywhere
    Israel is the pioneering trendsetter in newer and more brazen ways of
    exercising illegitimate power.

    That is why even as many governments condemn Israel in public, they are
    also slyly figuring out how best to incorporate elements of similar
    repression within the apparatus of their own states.

    At one level is the exhortation to emulate Israel internationally. In
    India, after the mysterious Mumbai bomb blasts in early July that killed
    over 200 people there has been a clamour from the right wing to ‘do it
    like the Israelis’ and bomb whoever is responsible for the blasts
    wherever. That’s a call for bombing nothing less than four countries,
    given the officially aired suspicion that the mastermind behind the
    blasts is somewhere in Kenya, was trained in Pakistan, hatched the plot
    in Nepal and infiltrated into the country through Bangladesh.

    Going by this logic, now that the Israeli bombing of Lebanon has already
    killed two Indians and injured several more that makes a strong case for
    India bombing Tel Aviv too. (That would be truly ironic as India is
    today the largest customer for Israeli weapons!) Imitating Israel, in
    anything it does, is a recipe for perpetual World War- something that
    suits the designs of some countries and their rulers perhaps but not of
    a majority of this planet’s residents.

    At another level governments around the globe are using the excuse of
    the Israeli example to terrorise their own populations. While Israel
    certainly did not invent the concept of kidnapping, torture and
    assassination of its opponents it has done more than any other regime in
    the world to legitimize such behaviour internationally. (This has been
    possible of course because of its special hold over Western governments-
    particularly the US – who define what is ‘legitimate’ and what is not.)

    Given the discontent produced by the forces of globalization throughout
    the world and the need of the elites for controlling the ‘rebellious
    masses’ Israel’s approach to law and order are a ‘valuable’ contribution
    towards maintenance of the unjust status quo everywhere. All you need to
    do is to close your eyes, shut your conscience out, pretend to be the
    Israeli government and imagine all your opponents – workers, farmers,
    students anyone- as Palestinians.

    In that sense it is not just nation states but also corporations- which
    are the main shareholders of the Empire - that seek guidance from Israel
    for ideas on how to put down dissent and continue ruling the world.
    After all at the core of global capitalism lies a fierce authoritarian
    urge that seeks to monopolise everything that exists but is unable to do
    so because the little people of the world have fought and established,
    over the centuries, some basic norms and laws of human and social
    behaviour. If Israel keeps demolishing these ‘barriers’ and advances the
    forces of barbarism - it makes complete world domination by the moneyed
    that much easier.

    What emerges then is that, given the importance of Israel to global
    elites, a solution to the Palestinian question can never really be
    achieved through a struggle that focuses exclusively on the politics of
    the Middle-East itself. Contrary to what Condoleezza Rice believes a
    lasting resolution of the issue will not come from eliminating the
    Hezbollah. Instead a just peace is possible only by promoting more
    organizations that are willing to take on the various global interests
    that are bent on making our entire world look like one large State of
    Israel.

    Satya Sagar is a journalist, writer, video maker based in New Delhi. He
    can be reached at sagarnama@yahoo.com