Trump may say that Iran is 'mostly incapable', but this extract from today's UK Guardian begs to differ:
Experts say it will be extremely difficult for the US to reopen the strait through military means alone as long as Iran retains the ability to hit or harass shipping with missiles, drones or small boats.
My italics.
Granted, it's hard to know exactly what the actual state of the Iranian navy might be, but I note that the US hasn't sent any 'War Ships' (yet), despite asking other countries to do so...
Trump may say that Iran is 'mostly incapable', but this extract from today's UK Guardian begs to differ:
Experts say it will be extremely difficult for the US to reopen the strait through military means alone as long as Iran retains the ability to hit or harass shipping with missiles, drones or small boats.
My italics.
Granted, it's hard to know exactly what the actual state of the Iranian navy might be, but I note that the US hasn't sent any 'War Ships' (yet), despite asking other countries to do so...
One of the things best illustrated by the Russia-Ukraine war is the way that warfare, especially relatively short-range warfare, has shifted from moderately expensive missiles to dirt-cheap armed drones. This seems to be something that the U.S. has not fully adjusted its strategic thinking to accommodate. More relevantly to the current discussion, there does not seem to be anything the U.S. is currently willing to do that would prevent Iran from replenishing its supply of Shaheds to a level that commercial maritime traffic would feel uncomfortable risking. A Shahed drone has a range of 1,000 km to 2,000 km, depending on design and payload, meaning that a Shahed launched from anywhere inside Iran's current territory will be able to reach the Straits of Hormuz.
The illogic of the Nakba is an ongoing catastrophe for Palestinians and an ongoing disaster for Jews and for Israel.
Well, it's 'worked' in the sense that it's something that every ally of Israel has largely ignored for the last 70+ years, and defacto accepted the facts on the ground that it created.
In many important respects, it hasn't worked at all.
However, in the utopia of Altneuland, there is no partition. The arguments proposed by Dr Geyer, a Jewish Nationalist, are defeated in a democratic election. From the Jewish Journal (December 2022):
The whole text is widely available, as are Herzl's private writings, I think you should engage with that rather than depend on selective quotations from people employing motivated reasoning to come to the conclusion that it represented some kind of utopia.
I'm using the word "utopia" because that's the genre of fiction to which the book belongs, and it's the word many commentators use to describe the book. For example, the wikipedia entry starts:
The Old New Land (German: Altneuland; Yiddish: אַלטנײַלאַנד, romanized: Altnayland) is a utopian novel published in German by Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, in 1902.
The illogic of the Nakba is an ongoing catastrophe for Palestinians and an ongoing disaster for Jews and for Israel.
Well, it's 'worked' in the sense that it's something that every ally of Israel has largely ignored for the last 70+ years, and defacto accepted the facts on the ground that it created.
In many important respects, it hasn't worked at all.
Let's go back to your original post:
"I would say majority-Jewish - a nation where Jews would never again be in a minority."
Ensuring that was always going to lead to any significant population of Palestinians being viewed as a demographic threat (doubly so when the original partition created a state in which 45% of the population was Palestinian).
However, in the utopia of Altneuland, there is no partition. The arguments proposed by Dr Geyer, a Jewish Nationalist, are defeated in a democratic election. From the Jewish Journal (December 2022):
The whole text is widely available, as are Herzl's private writings, I think you should engage with that rather than depend on selective quotations from people employing motivated reasoning to come to the conclusion that it represented some kind of utopia.
I'm using the word "utopia" because that's the genre of fiction to which the book belongs, and it's the word many commentators use to describe the book. For example, the wikipedia entry starts
If you want to discuss the literary merits of the work I'm sure another thread could be created. Back to your original post:
But aspects of the modern state of Israel only partially embody Theodor Herzl's original vision, as expressed in the novel
Trump may say that Iran is 'mostly incapable', but this extract from today's UK Guardian begs to differ:
Experts say it will be extremely difficult for the US to reopen the strait through military means alone as long as Iran retains the ability to hit or harass shipping with missiles, drones or small boats.
My italics.
Granted, it's hard to know exactly what the actual state of the Iranian navy might be, but I note that the US hasn't sent any 'War Ships' (yet), despite asking other countries to do so...
One of the things best illustrated by the Russia-Ukraine war is the way that warfare, especially relatively short-range warfare, has shifted from moderately expensive missiles to dirt-cheap armed drones. This seems to be something that the U.S. has not fully adjusted its strategic thinking to accommodate. More relevantly to the current discussion, there does not seem to be anything the U.S. is currently willing to do that would prevent Iran from replenishing its supply of Shaheds to a level that commercial maritime traffic would feel uncomfortable risking. A Shahed drone has a range of 1,000 km to 2,000 km, depending on design and payload, meaning that a Shahed launched from anywhere inside Iran's current territory will be able to reach the Straits of Hormuz.
Yes. I see that the UK is considering sending mine-sweeping drones to help 'free' the Strait.
The 'Law of Unintended Consequences' springs to mind in all of this.
One of Trump's aims in Venezuela and now in the Gulf appears to be to stop oil reaching China. Some 87% of China's oil comes from the Middle-East I think.
This will hurt Beijing but may open up closer ties between Xi and Putin as China looks for alternative sources.
Has Trump factored that into his plans?
His hankering after Greenland will be linked to this of course, to interfere with any attempts Russia and China make to use an alternative northern route.
I have no time for either Putin or Xi but am finding Hegseth's posturings nauseating when hundreds of innocent civilians have been killed and Trump's sense of entitlement that he can start a war and expect his NATO allies to jump to heel.
This isn't why NATO was founded.
The US helped with intelligence and some resources when the UK went to war with Argentina but didn't bomb Buenos Aires.
There doesn't appear to have been any prior consultation with any of the US's allies other than Israel and although Putin and Xi will hypocritically bleat about international law, it's pretty clear that Trump has stepped outside of that and couldn't care less.
This will hurt Beijing but may open up closer ties between Xi and Putin as China looks for alternative sources.
Has Trump factored that into his plans?
Assumes facts not in evidence, namely that Trump is acting according to some plan. What we seem to be seeing in the U.S. war against Iran is a combination operational excellence combined with strategic incompetence.
… Israel was specifically created to be Jewish-only.
I would say majority-Jewish - a nation where Jews would never again be in a minority.…
I was pointing out that my understanding is that Israel wasn't created to be Jewish-only, but majority-Jewish.
Ensuring that was always going to lead to any significant population of Palestinians being viewed as a demographic threat (doubly so when the original partition created a state in which 45% of the population was Palestinian).
Indeed. It is self-evident that two people-groups occupying the same geographical area cannot both avoid being in a minority.
I'm using the word "utopia" because that's the genre of fiction to which the book belongs, and it's the word many commentators use to describe the book.
If you want to discuss the literary merits of the work I'm sure another thread could be created. Back to your original post:
But aspects of the modern state of Israel only partially embody Theodor Herzl's original vision, as expressed in the novel
Is a much stronger - real world - claim.
It doesn't seem controversial to recognise that fictional literature can inspire real-world courses of action, or that real-world issues are often addressed in fictional settings. The distinction you appear to be making seems rather arbitrary to me.
I think that considering the two things together illustrates that no utopian vision survives contact with reality. (Somewhat by definition, given the literal meaning of "utopia".) I also have in mind the saying that “no plan survives contact with the enemy”, which seems unfortunately apt.
This will hurt Beijing but may open up closer ties between Xi and Putin as China looks for alternative sources.
Has Trump factored that into his plans?
Assumes facts not in evidence, namely that Trump is acting according to some plan. What we seem to be seeing in the U.S. war against Iran is a combination operational excellence combined with strategic incompetence.
Yes, I should have put the word 'plans' in scare-quotes.
What I meant though was that there does seem to be an over-arching aim - if not an actual strategy as such.
Hitting Iran hurts both Russia and China, helps Israel and also gives him the opportunity to brow-beat his allies.
That's the aim.
Whether there is a clear strategy to achieve that is very much open to question.
Trump does tend to send out scatter-gun messages to make it harder for pundits and world-leaders to catch-up. It's a strategy he has pursued more fully during his second term.
Say something daft to get everyone talking and to deflect them from whatever he goes on to do next. Yes, I do think he is making it all up as he goes along but within a general framework which he believes is in his own and America's best interests. The two are coterminous in Trump's world-view.
I was pointing out that my understanding is that Israel wasn't created to be Jewish-only, but majority-Jewish.
Ensuring that was always going to lead to any significant population of Palestinians being viewed as a demographic threat (doubly so when the original partition created a state in which 45% of the population was Palestinian).
Indeed. It is self-evident that two people-groups occupying the same geographical area cannot both avoid being in a minority.
? I wasn't claiming that the impossible could be achieved. The 45% figure is important because the wording that precedes it. Indeed, Ben-Gurion is on record as saying at the time that: "In this composition there is not even absolute certainty that the government will be governed by a Jewish majority. There can be no stable Jewish state as long as there is a Jewish majority of only 60 percent."
It was the logic of ensuring a permanent majority that was the basis of the Nabka and subsequent expulsions.
It doesn't seem controversial to recognise that fictional literature can inspire real-world courses of action, or that real-world issues are often addressed in fictional settings. The distinction you appear to be making seems rather arbitrary to me.
I think that considering the two things together illustrates that no utopian vision survives contact with reality. (Somewhat by definition, given the literal meaning of "utopia".) I also have in mind the saying that “no plan survives contact with the enemy”, which seems unfortunately apt.
I am making the distinction because this conflates a literary utopia with a political one (the implicit claim of the jewish journal article). There may have been a handful of people who thought that Altneuland represented a desirable end state. The man who wrote "We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country." was not one of them. Neither were any of the actors in 1947/1948. Neither was his vision the singular one behind Zionism. Bringing up a bit of speculative fiction he wrote in this context simply serves to obscure reality.
A NPR news commentator made a good point this morning, saying that the reason Hegseth is heading for disaster is that he can only comprehend tactics: specifically, individual events that make a loud bang. The concept of strategy is unknown to him, and in any case he doesn't need it - his job is keep his boss excited and happy.
Hegseth should be impeached and referred to the International Criminal Court as an alleged war criminal. Of course, that will not happen since the US never signed the applicable accords. However, Spain has been known to take up similar cases.
It doesn't seem controversial to recognise that fictional literature can inspire real-world courses of action, or that real-world issues are often addressed in fictional settings. The distinction you appear to be making seems rather arbitrary to me.
I think that considering the two things together illustrates that no utopian vision survives contact with reality. (Somewhat by definition, given the literal meaning of "utopia".) I also have in mind the saying that “no plan survives contact with the enemy”, which seems unfortunately apt.
I am making the distinction because this conflates a literary utopia with a political one (the implicit claim of the jewish journal article). There may have been a handful of people who thought that Altneuland represented a desirable end state. The man who wrote "We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country." was not one of them. Neither were any of the actors in 1947/1948. Neither was his vision the singular one behind Zionism. Bringing up a bit of speculative fiction he wrote in this context simply serves to obscure reality.
I can't tell what aspect of reality you think is being obscured. But the significance of Altneuland appears to be rather greater than suggested by your references to "a handful of people" and "a bit of speculative fiction".
Theodor Herzl’s Altneuland (Old-New Land) is a bad novel, but an important and prescient book. It addresses three issues that are today at the core of Israel’s politics and public discourse: the question of equal citizenship, the social and economic structure of the country, and the relations between state and religion.
When the novel was published exactly one hundred and ten years ago in 1902, Herzl was already the leader of the Zionist movement. …
When Herzl published his novel he could rightly claim—as he did in his preface—that this was not a mere utopian dream, but a projection into the future of a historical enterprise that had already begun to be realized.
Within a few years, the novel was translated into English, Russian, French, Polish, Hebrew, Yiddish, and, eventually, Ladino. Though its characters were flat and its dialogue mostly wooden, it was the most popular and widely circulated articulation of the Zionist vision. …
It is this interface between literary creativity and historical agency that continues to give the novel its topicality even today. Zionism is the rare national movement that produced not only manifestos, programs, and declarations about its cause, but a document describing in detail what its ultimate goal would look like.
Both Hegseth and Vance have been critical in the past about US intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan.
All of a sudden they've become Trump sock-puppets.
It ain't going to be easy to clear the Straits of Hormuz of mines and nobody seems to be in a hurry to do so without a game-plan.
Trump will interpret that as 'disloyalty' and lash out at America's friends and allies, not just Starmer but Japan, Germany, South Korea and everyone else who isn't rushing over there without an exit-strategy or any thought-through plan.
If he'd any sense he'd have consulted his allies first instead of launching an illegal attack and expecting everyone else to join in on his say-so.
A surprise attack is one thing but if you're going to do that at least ensure that you have the follow-up in place.
It's a bit like Suez in the sense that Britain and France weren't expecting any kick-back from the US when it seized the Canal Zone.
This time the US has gone in all guns blazing and expects everyone else to get on board.
Harold Wilson stood up to LBJ over Vietnam.
This time I don't think we can avoid being drawn in. I have no doubt Trump is misrepresenting what Starmer is actually saying.
Which is par for the course.
He started this war and now wants everyone else to share the responsibility.
Clearing the strait of mines only makes sense if the Iranian navy is incapable of replacing them. Otherwise you're putting minesweeping ships in the line of fire of drones and missiles (and, hence at risk of being sunk) or the fast attack boats Iran is known to have, only to have mines back again the next day.
If the Iranian claim that ships from nations not at war with them can safely pass the Strait of Hormuz is accurate, then that would suggest the straits are not mined anyway. AFAIK all the ships that have been hit so far have been hit by drones, missiles or naval ships, not mines. I suspect that the Iranian government want to keep as many nations on their side, or at least against Israel/USA, as possible and having options to allow friendly ships through the Straits of Hormuz helps that - mines, which don't know what flag ships are flying, remove that option.
It doesn't seem controversial to recognise that fictional literature can inspire real-world courses of action, or that real-world issues are often addressed in fictional settings. The distinction you appear to be making seems rather arbitrary to me.
I think that considering the two things together illustrates that no utopian vision survives contact with reality. (Somewhat by definition, given the literal meaning of "utopia".) I also have in mind the saying that “no plan survives contact with the enemy”, which seems unfortunately apt.
I am making the distinction because this conflates a literary utopia with a political one (the implicit claim of the jewish journal article). There may have been a handful of people who thought that Altneuland represented a desirable end state. The man who wrote "We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country." was not one of them. Neither were any of the actors in 1947/1948. Neither was his vision the singular one behind Zionism. Bringing up a bit of speculative fiction he wrote in this context simply serves to obscure reality.
I can't tell what aspect of reality you think is being obscured.
The reality of actually existing Israeli and the occupation is being obscured by playing up the suggestion that a sanitised version of Altneuland (again, the entire text is available) was the aim of a significant number of those involved in the events of 47/48.
But the significance of Altneuland appears to be rather greater than suggested by your references to "a handful of people" and "a bit of speculative fiction".
You'd be hard pressed to find its influence in the thought and writings of any other foundational figure or even the rest of the writings of Herzl himself. It serves the purposes of those who want to whitewash the reputation of Herzl and by extension the events surrounding the foundation of the state to concentrate on one of his works to the exclusion of all else. The piece you quote is no exception, to pick one immediately glaring example:
"The fact remains, however, that upon declaring independence Israel granted citizenship and voting rights to those Palestinians who remained within its borders, maintained Arabic as its second official language, and allowed Arab citizens to send their children to state schools where the instruction was in Arabic and within a framework of a curriculum respecting—albeit perhaps insufficiently—Arab culture and history. "
Which is highly economical - Palestinian Arabs within Israel were under military law between 1948 and 1966.
There were early Zionists like Martin Buber who were fervent believers in binationalism and a federal solution, but they were marginalised and came to their beliefs independently of Herzl.
Israel is, I think, widely thought to have a nuclear weapon.
So if Iran were to have a nuclear weapon also then wouldn't Mutual Assured Destruction ("MAD") ensure they never use them against each other? Like India and Pakistan.
I wonder if Trump knew anything about the strategic importance of the Straits of Hormuz at the beginning of this “enterprise”.
Can’t find a source but I’m pretty sure that the Iranian ability to block the supply of some 20% of the global oil supply has been, for decades, a real reason for not launching a full military attack on the regime.
And Iran is well prepared to continue the blockade for a long time.
I can't tell what aspect of reality you think is being obscured.
The reality of actually existing Israeli and the occupation is being obscured by playing up the suggestion that a sanitised version of Altneuland (again, the entire text is available) was the aim of a significant number of those involved in the events of 47/48.
Thanks.
But the significance of Altneuland appears to be rather greater than suggested by your references to "a handful of people" and "a bit of speculative fiction".
You'd be hard pressed to find its influence in the thought and writings of any other foundational figure or even the rest of the writings of Herzl himself.
Why would you expect to see its influence in other writings? Herzl had written the more political text Der Judenstaat 6 years earlier, setting out his ideas for a Jewish state. What he was looking to do with Altneuland was to popularise the Zionist project, to promote the vision of a Jewish state to ordinary Jews and other Europeans, to encourage their support, and to inspire Jewish emigration to Palestine. In this regard, the book appears to have been somewhat successful.
I note that Ghassan Kanafani considered Altneuland to be a significant work of Zionist literature, bearing in mind that he was looking at it from a Palestinian perspective.
It serves the purposes of those who want to whitewash the reputation of Herzl and by extension the events surrounding the foundation of the state to concentrate on one of his works to the exclusion of all else. The piece you quote is no exception, to pick one immediately glaring example:
"The fact remains, however, that upon declaring independence Israel granted citizenship and voting rights to those Palestinians who remained within its borders, maintained Arabic as its second official language, and allowed Arab citizens to send their children to state schools where the instruction was in Arabic and within a framework of a curriculum respecting—albeit perhaps insufficiently—Arab culture and history. "
Which is highly economical - Palestinian Arabs within Israel were under military law between 1948 and 1966.
I'm intrigued you see the article in terms of whitewashing Herzl's reputation. It looks to me like the views of a political Zionist, looking for political solutions to the continuing conflict by returning to the roots of political Zionism.
Shlomo Avineri was a political scientist (he died in 2023 at the age of 90). He served in the first Rabin government, being appointed as director-general of the Foreign Ministry in 1975, which was criticized by Likud because of Avineri's support for negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
There were early Zionists like Martin Buber who were fervent believers in binationalism and a federal solution, but they were marginalised and came to their beliefs independently of Herzl.
In 1901, Herzl asked Buber to become the editor of his Zionist newspaper Die Welt, which Buber did in 1902 (the year that Altneuland was published). That the two of them comprehensively disagreed about the project illustrates the extent to which the aims of political Zionism (Herzl) and cultural Zionism (Buber) differ.
This is a useful article from the Foreign Policy Research Institute on America's naval deficit in mine countermeasures and why, no they haven't stopped the Iranians being able to deploy them, and those deployed already are enough to cause massive problems.
But the significance of Altneuland appears to be rather greater than suggested by your references to "a handful of people" and "a bit of speculative fiction".
You'd be hard pressed to find its influence in the thought and writings of any other foundational figure or even the rest of the writings of Herzl himself.
Why would you expect to see its influence in other writings?
If the assumption is that it was a vision that the modern state of Israel was supposed to 'embody' in some sense (your post here), then you would expect to see its influence in the thoughts and writings of other foundational figures as they contemplated the means by which the state was to come about, if only in the adversarial sense. But there is little to no traces of it even in Herzl's other writings.
What he was looking to do with Altneuland was to popularise the Zionist project, to promote the vision of a Jewish state to ordinary Jews and other Europeans, to encourage their support, and to inspire Jewish emigration to Palestine. In this regard, the book appears to have been somewhat successful.
Yes, it's importance lay in being a public relations piece - Kanafani describing it as a work of "pure propaganda" in his survey of early Zionist literature.
I'm intrigued you see the article in terms of whitewashing Herzl's reputation. It looks to me like the views of a political Zionist, looking for political solutions to the continuing conflict by returning to the roots of political Zionism.
But again, in very little sense did it represent the 'roots of political Zionism', referring back to it afterwards is a bit like saying that your burger doesn't resemble the advert and that it would be better if it did. It's simply not a serious argument (and among other lacuna ignores the rather large elephant in the room of the revisionist school).
I wonder if Trump knew anything about the strategic importance of the Straits of Hormuz at the beginning of this “enterprise”.
Can’t find a source but I’m pretty sure that the Iranian ability to block the supply of some 20% of the global oil supply has been, for decades, a real reason for not launching a full military attack on the regime.
And Iran is well prepared to continue the blockade for a long time.
I suspect he did - or at least his military advisors did - but such is his arrogance he ignored it thinking that a quick bombing campaign would do the job.
He's all for quick-fix solutions.
He may also have assumed that NATO and other allies would jump as soon as he clicked his fingers.
Again hubris. Again arrogance.
I don't know what's worse in Trump's case, ignorance or arrogance.
But the significance of Altneuland appears to be rather greater than suggested by your references to "a handful of people" and "a bit of speculative fiction".
You'd be hard pressed to find its influence in the thought and writings of any other foundational figure or even the rest of the writings of Herzl himself.
Why would you expect to see its influence in other writings?
If the assumption is that it was a vision that the modern state of Israel was supposed to 'embody' in some sense (your post here), then you would expect to see its influence in the thoughts and writings of other foundational figures as they contemplated the means by which the state was to come about, if only in the adversarial sense. But there is little to no traces of it even in Herzl's other writings.
I'm rather intrigued that you see no connection between Der Judenstaat and Altneuland.
What he was looking to do with Altneuland was to popularise the Zionist project, to promote the vision of a Jewish state to ordinary Jews and other Europeans, to encourage their support, and to inspire Jewish emigration to Palestine. In this regard, the book appears to have been somewhat successful.
Yes, it's importance lay in being a public relations piece - Kanafani describing it as a work of "pure propaganda" in his survey of early Zionist literature.
If it's important as public relations or propaganda, then I presume it's important in relation to what its readers thought, said, did and believed in.
I'm intrigued you see the article in terms of whitewashing Herzl's reputation. It looks to me like the views of a political Zionist, looking for political solutions to the continuing conflict by returning to the roots of political Zionism.
But again, in very little sense did it represent the 'roots of political Zionism', referring back to it afterwards is a bit like saying that your burger doesn't resemble the advert and that it would be better if it did. It's simply not a serious argument (and among other lacuna ignores the rather large elephant in the room of the revisionist school).
That the nakba features prominently in Palestinian Nationalist thinking, while forming a void around which political Zionist thought makes a wide detour, seems fairly important in understanding the nature of the conflict.
But the significance of Altneuland appears to be rather greater than suggested by your references to "a handful of people" and "a bit of speculative fiction".
You'd be hard pressed to find its influence in the thought and writings of any other foundational figure or even the rest of the writings of Herzl himself.
Why would you expect to see its influence in other writings?
If the assumption is that it was a vision that the modern state of Israel was supposed to 'embody' in some sense (your post here), then you would expect to see its influence in the thoughts and writings of other foundational figures as they contemplated the means by which the state was to come about, if only in the adversarial sense. But there is little to no traces of it even in Herzl's other writings.
I'm rather intrigued that you see no connection between Der Judenstaat and Altneuland.
Well the main connection is that they are both about colonialism, but Altneuland is colonialism with all the edges sanded off. For instance Herzl raises the issue of land ownership in Der Judenstaat (and indeed in 1947 under 6% of cultivated land was in Jewish ownership), but the 'solution' Altneuland offers is that the Palestinians just sell the land willingly -- to the point where at one point one of the side characters is pathetically grateful that he even has land to sell.
What parallels are you thinking of, and what specific parallels do you see between Altneuland and the events of 1948 bar the name of Tel Aviv?
What he was looking to do with Altneuland was to popularise the Zionist project, to promote the vision of a Jewish state to ordinary Jews and other Europeans, to encourage their support, and to inspire Jewish emigration to Palestine. In this regard, the book appears to have been somewhat successful.
Yes, it's importance lay in being a public relations piece - Kanafani describing it as a work of "pure propaganda" in his survey of early Zionist literature.
If it's important as public relations or propaganda, then I presume it's important in relation to what its readers thought, said, did and believed in.
When it comes to deeds, then what is important is what the main political actors thought, and you just won't find Altneuland as an animating factor behind what people like Ben Gurion, Begin or Dayan did. Pick a telling of 1948 from any of the New Historians from either 'side' of the divide, and again you won't find it.
I'm intrigued you see the article in terms of whitewashing Herzl's reputation. It looks to me like the views of a political Zionist, looking for political solutions to the continuing conflict by returning to the roots of political Zionism.
But again, in very little sense did it represent the 'roots of political Zionism', referring back to it afterwards is a bit like saying that your burger doesn't resemble the advert and that it would be better if it did. It's simply not a serious argument (and among other lacuna ignores the rather large elephant in the room of the revisionist school).
That the nakba features prominently in Palestinian Nationalist thinking, while forming a void around which political Zionist thought makes a wide detour, seems fairly important in understanding the nature of the conflict.
Well yes, but it makes no sense to fill that hole by wish casting selective quotations from Altneuland.
Connected to war in Iran in general, I had a long conversation last night with an Iranian colleague at work. He went home at Christmas and had some difficulty coming back - and is now in some despair about what is happening.
He's an intelligent and widely-read guy with a great sense of self-deprecatory humour. He's good at his job and I very much like him. We have discussed his previous professional life in engineering in a corrupt totalitarian state at some length in the past - some of his experiences remind me of another friend's stories of teenage years in 80s Poland. He told me yesterday that he had thought that sanctions, economic decay and widespread civil unrest put the regime in a similar position to the USSR in the 80s (though the level of repression is perhaps more similar to earlier versions of 'carnivorous socialism'), and that it appeared likely that 'our Gorbachev' would emerge at some point - but that external attacks harden the position of the regime and probably put back lasting internally-generated change by at least 10 years.
Meanwhile there is total tragedy. We know that Trump and Hegseth are keen on 'total war' (in their terms, a removal of 'woke' restraint) on a one-way range where they can shell who they like, and we have seen the resulting disaster at the girls' school. My friend made the point that when we read that 'regime figure xxxx yyyyy was killed last night', the USA and Israel are taking out blocks of flats with these people in, in the night, along with all their neighbours. In one recent case 70 neighbours' bodies are still inside the rubble.
Netanyahu seems to want to keep out of jail by continuing to bash up just about everyone in sight, but Trump is possibly getting bored.
No doubt he thinks taking over Cuba might be an easier option than his war in the Middle East, where no-one else (except Israel) wants to play with him.
Top US Counterterrorism official resigns over Iran war. According to former Director, Joe Kent, Iran posed "no imminent threat."
Yeah, bit of a stopped clock situation; Kent's a full-on everything's-Israel's-fault conspiracy theorist. The worry is that he was ever in a position of power.
We have other Admin members on record saying that one of the reasons we joined Israel's attack on Iran is because we knew Iran would retaliate against US installations/personnel as a response to Israel attacking alone. Therefore, we (the US) had to strike preemptively, because the American People would not tolerate its government absorbing retaliatory attacks.
I don't think anyone believes that Israel's attack was itself preemptive, though.
Top US Counterterrorism official resigns over Iran war. According to former Director, Joe Kent, Iran posed "no imminent threat."
Yeah, bit of a stopped clock situation; Kent's a full-on everything's-Israel's-fault conspiracy theorist. The worry is that he was ever in a position of power.
Well, he was appointed by Trump and at that point he was a big fan, so here we are.
Some interesting comments by journos at the moment. One, the war isn't going as well as Trump expected. Two, it may even be stiffening support for the regime. Three, Trump doesn't know how to end it. This is pretty speculative stuff, I suppose. Oh, and four, it's like the Boer war, overwhelming odds for the imperial power. I thought of Vietnam also, Pyhrric victories, I guess.
I read an interesting circular comment (too many - can't remember where) that every American bomb dropped on an Iranian oil installation is a bomb dropped on America. It's their oil.
I can't help but wonder if the US had done nothing, allowing Isreal to take out the Iranian leadership, and Iran retaliated against American installations in the middle east, would NATO then have gotten involved since the rule would have been if any NATO country is attacked we all get involved.
Perhaps POTUS has now realised the abiding truth about the limitations of air power? I don’t him expect to acknowledge this publicly. But I don’t see how he can get out the hole he has now dug for himself, the USA, and the global economy.
It seems very unlikely that Iran’s new Supreme Leader will reverse the blockade of the Straits of Hormuz in the near future, given both his own personal bereavements and Iran’s strategic advantage. Trump will never eat humble pie but even if he did the next step by Iran would be a demand for compensation. I’m not sure that would change even if there were regime changes in Israel and the USA.
At any rate, the full cost of this disastrous strategic blunder is likely to be a good deal more than the temporary hike in global oil prices. To say nothing of the growing human cost.
This is the tragic consequence of decision making by a demagogue who thinks he knows better. His poor mental health is a factor of course, but probably less important than the collapse, for the time being. of separation of powers. Let’s hope that lesson is being learned, at least in some minds. Kowtowing to Trump has cost the USA and the world dear.
I’ve no doubt the GOP will try to retain the levers of power and I’m concerned about the threat to the mid term elections. I guess we’ll see just how serious that threat is and will become.
I can't help but wonder if the US had done nothing, allowing Isreal to take out the Iranian leadership, and Iran retaliated against American installations in the middle east, would NATO then have gotten involved since the rule would have been if any NATO country is attacked we all get involved.
The treaty doesn't include bases or territory outside of Europe, North America, Turkey and North Atlantic islands so strikes would have to include Turkish territory to trigger Article 5. In any case, Article 5 doesn't bind NATO members to specific actions, only that they consider a military response. There would be a great deal of wariness about letting the US use it to leverage us into more stupid wars.
After spending roughly $11B in the first week of the non-war war, Trump's Pentagon leadership now wants him to send a more than $200B request to Congress. That's going to be a very, very hard sell.
Central to Herzl's vision as set out in both Der Judenstaat and Altneuland was bringing about a solution to antisemitism through the establishment of a Jewish state. They are part of the same project, the former text concerned with the political establishment of the state, the latter a fictional utopian account of what life in the state would be like, 20 or so years after its establishment (which is, somewhat ironically, prefigured in the preface to Der Judenstaat). The private purchase of land by individuals is mentioned in Der Judenstaat, but is not its focus.
Herzl's political Zionism addressed the issue of how the largely Arab population of Palestine would react to the influx of Jewish settlers. In Der Judenstaat, he states that immigration, by itself, is futile unless Jews have a sovereign right to move there (which during his lifetime, would have been granted by the Ottoman Empire, which ruled Palestine until 1917). In Altneuland, he sees staying on good terms being achieved through the uncoerced private sale of land and granting equal rights to non-Jewish citizens (the importance of which forms a significant part of the plot).
In both respects, his vision looks like the attitude of a modern (for that time) European, believing in the power of free market capitalism and liberal-democratic solutions to improve people's lives. And events soon intervened, not least his own death in 1904 (aged 44). There's a lot not to like. Nonetheless, Herzl's public position was that the Jewish state needed established and sustained through peaceful means. (How personally committed he was to this is another question.)
In the search for a single guiding perspective, the New Historians are an interesting choice. When it comes to Zionism, they are a side in their own right, and appealing to the New Historians is picking a side - one that, for example, describes Zionism as colonialism. Maybe it's always the case, that when it comes to adopting a perspective on a long-running conflict, it's hard to avoid picking a side. Unsurprisingly, this one doesn't have much traction amongst Jewish Israelis.
There aren't many narratives concerning Jewish-Palestinian relations that involve peace, and even fewer that address antisemitism.
In both respects, his vision looks like the attitude of a modern (for that time) European, believing in the power of free market capitalism and liberal-democratic solutions to improve people's lives. And events soon intervened, not least his own death in 1904 (aged 44). There's a lot not to like. Nonetheless, Herzl's public position was that the Jewish state needed established and sustained through peaceful means. (How personally committed he was to this is another question.)
Yeah, but your central claim was:
"But aspects of the modern state of Israel only partially embody Theodor Herzl's (the founder of political Zionism) original vision"
Which gives the impression that in the main the modern state of Israel embodies Herzl's vision, but diverges in some aspects. Presumably then as we move closer to the date of its founding we should be able to pick up aspects of this vision in policy, which I why I ask for the parallels between Altneuland and the events of 1948.
In the search for a single guiding perspective, the New Historians are an interesting choice. When it comes to Zionism, they are a side in their own right, and appealing to the New Historians is picking a side - one that, for example, describes Zionism as colonialism.
The central theme uniting the "New Historians" was a re-evaluation of the early years of Israel's founding from then newly released archival material. There is general agreement on the events of this time even if there is a difference in their evaluation and whether they constituted ethnic cleansing and colonialism (Avi Shlaim, Ilan Pappe) or just a by product of state formation (Benny Morris, Tom Segev).
Top US Counterterrorism official resigns over Iran war. According to former Director, Joe Kent, Iran posed "no imminent threat."
Yeah, bit of a stopped clock situation; Kent's a full-on everything's-Israel's-fault conspiracy theorist. The worry is that he was ever in a position of power.
I worry about some MAGA version of the Dolchstoßlegende arising from this. You can see the outlines already forming, where good, pure-hearted Donald Trump was deceived into a bad war by those tricksy, deceitful Israelis. Given the way that both the American right and the Israeli government are working their hardest to erase distinctions between Israel's Likud government and all Jews everywhere this could get very ugly indeed.
Top US Counterterrorism official resigns over Iran war. According to former Director, Joe Kent, Iran posed "no imminent threat."
Yeah, bit of a stopped clock situation; Kent's a full-on everything's-Israel's-fault conspiracy theorist. The worry is that he was ever in a position of power.
I worry about some MAGA version of the Dolchstoßlegende arising from this. You can see the outlines already forming, where good, pure-hearted Donald Trump was deceived into a bad war by those tricksy, deceitful Israelis.
I feel they were running with this already - see Rubio's various constructions from last week and so on:
Comments
“as long at Iran retains the ability”
‘nuff said.’
For the moment, they seem to be retaining some abilities, at least, but, of course, that may change.
One of the things best illustrated by the Russia-Ukraine war is the way that warfare, especially relatively short-range warfare, has shifted from moderately expensive missiles to dirt-cheap armed drones. This seems to be something that the U.S. has not fully adjusted its strategic thinking to accommodate. More relevantly to the current discussion, there does not seem to be anything the U.S. is currently willing to do that would prevent Iran from replenishing its supply of Shaheds to a level that commercial maritime traffic would feel uncomfortable risking. A Shahed drone has a range of 1,000 km to 2,000 km, depending on design and payload, meaning that a Shahed launched from anywhere inside Iran's current territory will be able to reach the Straits of Hormuz.
Let's go back to your original post:
Ensuring that was always going to lead to any significant population of Palestinians being viewed as a demographic threat (doubly so when the original partition created a state in which 45% of the population was Palestinian).
If you want to discuss the literary merits of the work I'm sure another thread could be created. Back to your original post:
Is a much stronger - real world - claim.
Yes. I see that the UK is considering sending mine-sweeping drones to help 'free' the Strait.
One of Trump's aims in Venezuela and now in the Gulf appears to be to stop oil reaching China. Some 87% of China's oil comes from the Middle-East I think.
This will hurt Beijing but may open up closer ties between Xi and Putin as China looks for alternative sources.
Has Trump factored that into his plans?
His hankering after Greenland will be linked to this of course, to interfere with any attempts Russia and China make to use an alternative northern route.
I have no time for either Putin or Xi but am finding Hegseth's posturings nauseating when hundreds of innocent civilians have been killed and Trump's sense of entitlement that he can start a war and expect his NATO allies to jump to heel.
This isn't why NATO was founded.
The US helped with intelligence and some resources when the UK went to war with Argentina but didn't bomb Buenos Aires.
There doesn't appear to have been any prior consultation with any of the US's allies other than Israel and although Putin and Xi will hypocritically bleat about international law, it's pretty clear that Trump has stepped outside of that and couldn't care less.
Assumes facts not in evidence, namely that Trump is acting according to some plan. What we seem to be seeing in the U.S. war against Iran is a combination operational excellence combined with strategic incompetence.
It doesn't seem controversial to recognise that fictional literature can inspire real-world courses of action, or that real-world issues are often addressed in fictional settings. The distinction you appear to be making seems rather arbitrary to me.
I think that considering the two things together illustrates that no utopian vision survives contact with reality. (Somewhat by definition, given the literal meaning of "utopia".) I also have in mind the saying that “no plan survives contact with the enemy”, which seems unfortunately apt.
Yes, I should have put the word 'plans' in scare-quotes.
What I meant though was that there does seem to be an over-arching aim - if not an actual strategy as such.
Hitting Iran hurts both Russia and China, helps Israel and also gives him the opportunity to brow-beat his allies.
That's the aim.
Whether there is a clear strategy to achieve that is very much open to question.
Trump does tend to send out scatter-gun messages to make it harder for pundits and world-leaders to catch-up. It's a strategy he has pursued more fully during his second term.
Say something daft to get everyone talking and to deflect them from whatever he goes on to do next. Yes, I do think he is making it all up as he goes along but within a general framework which he believes is in his own and America's best interests. The two are coterminous in Trump's world-view.
Putin has his equivalent.
? I wasn't claiming that the impossible could be achieved. The 45% figure is important because the wording that precedes it. Indeed, Ben-Gurion is on record as saying at the time that: "In this composition there is not even absolute certainty that the government will be governed by a Jewish majority. There can be no stable Jewish state as long as there is a Jewish majority of only 60 percent."
It was the logic of ensuring a permanent majority that was the basis of the Nabka and subsequent expulsions.
I am making the distinction because this conflates a literary utopia with a political one (the implicit claim of the jewish journal article). There may have been a handful of people who thought that Altneuland represented a desirable end state. The man who wrote "We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country." was not one of them. Neither were any of the actors in 1947/1948. Neither was his vision the singular one behind Zionism. Bringing up a bit of speculative fiction he wrote in this context simply serves to obscure reality.
As Shlomo Avineri put it in the Jewish Review of Books in 2012:
All of a sudden they've become Trump sock-puppets.
It ain't going to be easy to clear the Straits of Hormuz of mines and nobody seems to be in a hurry to do so without a game-plan.
Trump will interpret that as 'disloyalty' and lash out at America's friends and allies, not just Starmer but Japan, Germany, South Korea and everyone else who isn't rushing over there without an exit-strategy or any thought-through plan.
If he'd any sense he'd have consulted his allies first instead of launching an illegal attack and expecting everyone else to join in on his say-so.
A surprise attack is one thing but if you're going to do that at least ensure that you have the follow-up in place.
It's a bit like Suez in the sense that Britain and France weren't expecting any kick-back from the US when it seized the Canal Zone.
This time the US has gone in all guns blazing and expects everyone else to get on board.
Harold Wilson stood up to LBJ over Vietnam.
This time I don't think we can avoid being drawn in. I have no doubt Trump is misrepresenting what Starmer is actually saying.
Which is par for the course.
He started this war and now wants everyone else to share the responsibility.
If the Iranian claim that ships from nations not at war with them can safely pass the Strait of Hormuz is accurate, then that would suggest the straits are not mined anyway. AFAIK all the ships that have been hit so far have been hit by drones, missiles or naval ships, not mines. I suspect that the Iranian government want to keep as many nations on their side, or at least against Israel/USA, as possible and having options to allow friendly ships through the Straits of Hormuz helps that - mines, which don't know what flag ships are flying, remove that option.
The reality of actually existing Israeli and the occupation is being obscured by playing up the suggestion that a sanitised version of Altneuland (again, the entire text is available) was the aim of a significant number of those involved in the events of 47/48.
You'd be hard pressed to find its influence in the thought and writings of any other foundational figure or even the rest of the writings of Herzl himself. It serves the purposes of those who want to whitewash the reputation of Herzl and by extension the events surrounding the foundation of the state to concentrate on one of his works to the exclusion of all else. The piece you quote is no exception, to pick one immediately glaring example:
"The fact remains, however, that upon declaring independence Israel granted citizenship and voting rights to those Palestinians who remained within its borders, maintained Arabic as its second official language, and allowed Arab citizens to send their children to state schools where the instruction was in Arabic and within a framework of a curriculum respecting—albeit perhaps insufficiently—Arab culture and history. "
Which is highly economical - Palestinian Arabs within Israel were under military law between 1948 and 1966.
There were early Zionists like Martin Buber who were fervent believers in binationalism and a federal solution, but they were marginalised and came to their beliefs independently of Herzl.
Pope Leo: Do not involve God in the choices of death. God cannot be enlisted for darkness.
Score 1 for Leo. Hegseth: 0
So if Iran were to have a nuclear weapon also then wouldn't Mutual Assured Destruction ("MAD") ensure they never use them against each other? Like India and Pakistan.
Don't worry, though, because the President of the US believes Israel would never use them against Iran.
Can’t find a source but I’m pretty sure that the Iranian ability to block the supply of some 20% of the global oil supply has been, for decades, a real reason for not launching a full military attack on the regime.
And Iran is well prepared to continue the blockade for a long time.
Why would you expect to see its influence in other writings? Herzl had written the more political text Der Judenstaat 6 years earlier, setting out his ideas for a Jewish state. What he was looking to do with Altneuland was to popularise the Zionist project, to promote the vision of a Jewish state to ordinary Jews and other Europeans, to encourage their support, and to inspire Jewish emigration to Palestine. In this regard, the book appears to have been somewhat successful.
I note that Ghassan Kanafani considered Altneuland to be a significant work of Zionist literature, bearing in mind that he was looking at it from a Palestinian perspective.
I'm intrigued you see the article in terms of whitewashing Herzl's reputation. It looks to me like the views of a political Zionist, looking for political solutions to the continuing conflict by returning to the roots of political Zionism.
Shlomo Avineri was a political scientist (he died in 2023 at the age of 90). He served in the first Rabin government, being appointed as director-general of the Foreign Ministry in 1975, which was criticized by Likud because of Avineri's support for negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
In 1901, Herzl asked Buber to become the editor of his Zionist newspaper Die Welt, which Buber did in 1902 (the year that Altneuland was published). That the two of them comprehensively disagreed about the project illustrates the extent to which the aims of political Zionism (Herzl) and cultural Zionism (Buber) differ.
https://www.fpri.org/article/2026/03/the-mine-gap-america-forgot-how-to-sweep-the-sea/
If the assumption is that it was a vision that the modern state of Israel was supposed to 'embody' in some sense (your post here), then you would expect to see its influence in the thoughts and writings of other foundational figures as they contemplated the means by which the state was to come about, if only in the adversarial sense. But there is little to no traces of it even in Herzl's other writings.
Yes, it's importance lay in being a public relations piece - Kanafani describing it as a work of "pure propaganda" in his survey of early Zionist literature.
But again, in very little sense did it represent the 'roots of political Zionism', referring back to it afterwards is a bit like saying that your burger doesn't resemble the advert and that it would be better if it did. It's simply not a serious argument (and among other lacuna ignores the rather large elephant in the room of the revisionist school).
Everyone But Trump Understands What He's Done
I suspect he did - or at least his military advisors did - but such is his arrogance he ignored it thinking that a quick bombing campaign would do the job.
He's all for quick-fix solutions.
He may also have assumed that NATO and other allies would jump as soon as he clicked his fingers.
Again hubris. Again arrogance.
I don't know what's worse in Trump's case, ignorance or arrogance.
If it's important as public relations or propaganda, then I presume it's important in relation to what its readers thought, said, did and believed in.
That the nakba features prominently in Palestinian Nationalist thinking, while forming a void around which political Zionist thought makes a wide detour, seems fairly important in understanding the nature of the conflict.
Well the main connection is that they are both about colonialism, but Altneuland is colonialism with all the edges sanded off. For instance Herzl raises the issue of land ownership in Der Judenstaat (and indeed in 1947 under 6% of cultivated land was in Jewish ownership), but the 'solution' Altneuland offers is that the Palestinians just sell the land willingly -- to the point where at one point one of the side characters is pathetically grateful that he even has land to sell.
What parallels are you thinking of, and what specific parallels do you see between Altneuland and the events of 1948 bar the name of Tel Aviv?
When it comes to deeds, then what is important is what the main political actors thought, and you just won't find Altneuland as an animating factor behind what people like Ben Gurion, Begin or Dayan did. Pick a telling of 1948 from any of the New Historians from either 'side' of the divide, and again you won't find it.
Well yes, but it makes no sense to fill that hole by wish casting selective quotations from Altneuland.
He's an intelligent and widely-read guy with a great sense of self-deprecatory humour. He's good at his job and I very much like him. We have discussed his previous professional life in engineering in a corrupt totalitarian state at some length in the past - some of his experiences remind me of another friend's stories of teenage years in 80s Poland. He told me yesterday that he had thought that sanctions, economic decay and widespread civil unrest put the regime in a similar position to the USSR in the 80s (though the level of repression is perhaps more similar to earlier versions of 'carnivorous socialism'), and that it appeared likely that 'our Gorbachev' would emerge at some point - but that external attacks harden the position of the regime and probably put back lasting internally-generated change by at least 10 years.
Meanwhile there is total tragedy. We know that Trump and Hegseth are keen on 'total war' (in their terms, a removal of 'woke' restraint) on a one-way range where they can shell who they like, and we have seen the resulting disaster at the girls' school. My friend made the point that when we read that 'regime figure xxxx yyyyy was killed last night', the USA and Israel are taking out blocks of flats with these people in, in the night, along with all their neighbours. In one recent case 70 neighbours' bodies are still inside the rubble.
Which he invariably isn't of course.
The Israelis are insisting that both they and the Americans are on the same page. I somehow doubt it.
Will that shorten the current hostilities? I somehow doubt that too.
No doubt he thinks taking over Cuba might be an easier option than his war in the Middle East, where no-one else (except Israel) wants to play with him.
Yeah, bit of a stopped clock situation; Kent's a full-on everything's-Israel's-fault conspiracy theorist. The worry is that he was ever in a position of power.
I don't think anyone believes that Israel's attack was itself preemptive, though.
Well, he was appointed by Trump and at that point he was a big fan, so here we are.
It seems very unlikely that Iran’s new Supreme Leader will reverse the blockade of the Straits of Hormuz in the near future, given both his own personal bereavements and Iran’s strategic advantage. Trump will never eat humble pie but even if he did the next step by Iran would be a demand for compensation. I’m not sure that would change even if there were regime changes in Israel and the USA.
At any rate, the full cost of this disastrous strategic blunder is likely to be a good deal more than the temporary hike in global oil prices. To say nothing of the growing human cost.
This is the tragic consequence of decision making by a demagogue who thinks he knows better. His poor mental health is a factor of course, but probably less important than the collapse, for the time being. of separation of powers. Let’s hope that lesson is being learned, at least in some minds. Kowtowing to Trump has cost the USA and the world dear.
I’ve no doubt the GOP will try to retain the levers of power and I’m concerned about the threat to the mid term elections. I guess we’ll see just how serious that threat is and will become.
It’s a bad time.
The treaty doesn't include bases or territory outside of Europe, North America, Turkey and North Atlantic islands so strikes would have to include Turkish territory to trigger Article 5. In any case, Article 5 doesn't bind NATO members to specific actions, only that they consider a military response. There would be a great deal of wariness about letting the US use it to leverage us into more stupid wars.
Herzl's political Zionism addressed the issue of how the largely Arab population of Palestine would react to the influx of Jewish settlers. In Der Judenstaat, he states that immigration, by itself, is futile unless Jews have a sovereign right to move there (which during his lifetime, would have been granted by the Ottoman Empire, which ruled Palestine until 1917). In Altneuland, he sees staying on good terms being achieved through the uncoerced private sale of land and granting equal rights to non-Jewish citizens (the importance of which forms a significant part of the plot).
In both respects, his vision looks like the attitude of a modern (for that time) European, believing in the power of free market capitalism and liberal-democratic solutions to improve people's lives. And events soon intervened, not least his own death in 1904 (aged 44). There's a lot not to like. Nonetheless, Herzl's public position was that the Jewish state needed established and sustained through peaceful means. (How personally committed he was to this is another question.)
In the search for a single guiding perspective, the New Historians are an interesting choice. When it comes to Zionism, they are a side in their own right, and appealing to the New Historians is picking a side - one that, for example, describes Zionism as colonialism. Maybe it's always the case, that when it comes to adopting a perspective on a long-running conflict, it's hard to avoid picking a side. Unsurprisingly, this one doesn't have much traction amongst Jewish Israelis.
There aren't many narratives concerning Jewish-Palestinian relations that involve peace, and even fewer that address antisemitism.
Yeah, but your central claim was:
"But aspects of the modern state of Israel only partially embody Theodor Herzl's (the founder of political Zionism) original vision"
Which gives the impression that in the main the modern state of Israel embodies Herzl's vision, but diverges in some aspects. Presumably then as we move closer to the date of its founding we should be able to pick up aspects of this vision in policy, which I why I ask for the parallels between Altneuland and the events of 1948.
The central theme uniting the "New Historians" was a re-evaluation of the early years of Israel's founding from then newly released archival material. There is general agreement on the events of this time even if there is a difference in their evaluation and whether they constituted ethnic cleansing and colonialism (Avi Shlaim, Ilan Pappe) or just a by product of state formation (Benny Morris, Tom Segev).
I worry about some MAGA version of the Dolchstoßlegende arising from this. You can see the outlines already forming, where good, pure-hearted Donald Trump was deceived into a bad war by those tricksy, deceitful Israelis. Given the way that both the American right and the Israeli government are working their hardest to erase distinctions between Israel's Likud government and all Jews everywhere this could get very ugly indeed.
I feel they were running with this already - see Rubio's various constructions from last week and so on:
https://www.ft.com/content/91cae073-71db-46ea-a950-62b17faf1882?syn-25a6b1a6=1