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