One of the myths of the 20th century that is slowly starting to wither away is the one about Israel just striving to exist. Since the wars of the 1960’s and 1970’s, the narrative has been that Israel is this plucky democracy fighting for its existence in the midst of savage not-democracies. The line, “Israel has a right to exist” has been the company slogan for Israel Inc. for close to fifty years now. Over the last year this official narrative, like so many others, has started to collapse.

It is clear at this point that Israel is not the victim of aggression, but the primary instigator of conflict in the region. The assassination of the Gaza leader in Tehran, on its face, is an unjustified act of war. Ismail Haniyeh was not just the lead negotiator for Gaza, but the most dovish of the Palestinian leaders with regards to making a deal with the Israeli government. The only reason to kill him was to foreclose further negotiations over Gaza and to bait the Iranians into war.

The Israelis, the Zionist and their supporters in the West will claim that there can be no peace as long as Hamas exists, so they are acting in self-defense when they assassinate the people on the other side of the peacemaking table. They also argue that there can be no peace as long as Iran exists as an Iranian state, so they are acting in self-defense when they attack Iran. Currently, they are arguing for Israel to pre-emptively attack Iran before Iran retaliates.

What we are seeing is an evolution of that myth from the 20th century. The original myth was that Israel just wanted to exist and it was the Arab world that refused to acknowledge Israeli’s right to exist. All the Arabs needed to do was not make war on Israel and there would be peace in the region. Now, the narrative is that Israel must make war on the region in order to secure peace. We have gone from supporting the plucky underdog to backing the savage master.

It is similar to an observation by Christopher Caldwell regarding the programs that sprouted from the civil rights revolution. It was first argued that these programs must be supported because their beneficiaries are too weak. Now it is argued that they must be supported because they are too strong. We see this with Israel. Fifty years ago, the Washington political class supported Israel because she was weak. Now they support Israel because the Israel lobby is too strong.

The thing is though, regimes in serious trouble often go on the offensive thinking it will lead to some breakthrough or change the situation in some way. Armies that are beaten will often stage one last great offensive. Ideological regimes will crack down on dissent, like we are seeing in the West. The Israel lobby is proudly intervening in American elections, because it fears support is faltering. Israel seeks war with Iran, because is it very unstable domestically.

There is no question that the ground has shifted over the last year with regards to support for Israel in the West, particularly America. In the United States, where it matters most, unconditional support for Israel is now limited to old white conservatives, primarily located in the Bible belt. Everyone else ranges from Israel fatigue to outright hostility to Israel. The actuarial tables tell us that support for Israel among American is in a death spiral that cannot be arrested.

This coincides with the decline of the American empire, especially in the Middle East, where decades of intervention have exhausted the military and exhausted the American people’s patience with the topic. The days of the American empire dictating policy to the region are drawing to a close. This is why Israel is desperate to start a regional war with the Iranians. They think it will bring their patron back into the region, even though it is clear that this is highly unrealistic.

On the domestic side, an area that gets little attention, Israel has some profoundly serious internal divisions. This post by Alastair Crooke describes some of it. The current Israeli government is caught in a vice. One jaw is the reality of the situation with regards to Israel and the Arabs and the other jaw is that “an eschatological Right-wing cult now holds the majority in cabinet – and wields a vigilante militia ready to attack the military establishment, and the Israeli state.”

The ideological cross currents within Israel reflect the demographic collapse that has been underway for a couple of generations. The once dominant Ashkenazi Jews, these are the Jews of the diaspora, are now in steep decline largely due to their low fertility rates and the relative high fertility rates of the other groups, particularly the ultra-orthodox and the Mizrahi Jews. These are the Jews who never left the Middle East, and who hold an expansive view of greater Israel.

The result of all of this is a hyper-aggressive Israel that is seeking a big war with all of its local enemies and a hyper-aggressive Israel lobby in the United States that is aggressively interfering in elections. One result is the collapse of the old narrative where Israel is the plucky democracy in a world of antagonistic not-democracies. In its place is a new narrative where Israel is instigating the final conflagration to settle all of these outstanding issues for good.

What all of this tells us is that Israel is in deep trouble. The underlying reason for it is the country was born in war. Countries that are the creation of war tend to end in war because they must always seek war. For Israel, “normal” is the endless state of emergency, the constant fear of another attack. This dovetailed well with the diaspora fear of you know who jumping out of the history books. It has evolved to the point where Project Israel cannot exist in peace, so it must seek war.

How this ends is not clear. The geezers currently running Israel must eventually give way to a new generation, but that new generation is more war-like and vastly less sophisticated about global matters. On the other hand, the Arab world is young and increasingly sophisticated about how the world is changing. Can the Israelis figure out how to live in the new world or will they seek to take the rest of the world with them into the abyss of the dying old world?

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