On Jabotinsky’s Iron Wall, Netanyahu’s Super-Sparta, and the Unravelling of the Rules-Based Order

By Andrew Klein 

4^th April 2026

Dedicated to my wife, who created my heavens and encouraged me to seek peace on earth.

I. The Aberration

States, by their very nature, are compelled to make allies, accept agreed borders, and seek regional stability. This is not idealism—it is pragmatism.

Borders serve two essential functions. Domestically, they make tax and revenue collection easier. A state with clear borders knows its population, its resources, its obligations. Internationally, they make it possible to reduce spending on soldiers and arms. A state with secure borders can invest in schools, roads, hospitals—not just walls and weapons.

The Westphalian system that has governed international relations since 1648 is built on this premise: sovereign states with defined borders, recognized by other states, accountable to international law. It is not perfect—it has been violated countless times—but it is the only framework that has prevented the world from descending into permanent war.

Israel is an aberration. It exists in what scholars call a “permanent state of exception”—a legal and political condition where the normal rules do not apply, where international law is suspended, where the sovereign decides what is legal and what is not. As Ramzy Baroud writes, Israel’s lack of a formal constitution allows it to operate in a legal vacuum where the “exception” is the rule. In this space, racial laws, territorial expansion, and even genocide are permitted so long as they fit the state’s immediate agenda.

No other state behaves this way. Not because other states are more moral—they are not. Because other states understand that this behavior is not sustainable. That it leads to isolation, to economic collapse, to war without end.

II. The Founder: Vladimir Jabotinsky and the Iron Wall

The “Greater Israel” concept did not begin in 1967. It did not begin with the settlements. It began with Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky, the founder of Revisionist Zionism, in the 1920s and 1930s.

Jabotinsky’s doctrine was explicit. In his 1923 essay “The Iron Wall,” he wrote:

“A voluntary agreement is unattainable. And so those who regard an accord with the Arabs as an indispensable condition of Zionism must admit to themselves today that this condition cannot be attained and hence that we must give up Zionism. We must either suspend our settlement efforts or continue them without paying attention to the mood of the natives. Settlement can thus develop under the protection of a force that is not dependent on the local population, behind an iron wall, which they will be powerless to break down.”

This is not diplomacy. This is not negotiation. This is the doctrine of force as the only language the native population understands. And it has been the operating principle of the Zionist right for a century.

Jabotinsky founded the Revisionist movement in 1925 in protest against Britain’s partition of Palestine and against Zionist leaders like David Ben-Gurion who accepted it. Revisionist Zionism aspired to the annexation of more lands for the creation of “Greater Israel” .

The territory envisioned: The most expansive definition of Greater Israel comes from the Bible—Genesis 15:18-21, which describes a territory “from the brook of Egypt to the Euphrates” —comprising all of modern-day Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and parts of Turkey . This is the dream that haunts the region.

Jabotinsky’s followers did not just write essays. They formed paramilitary organizations—the Haganah, the Irgun—that committed massacres against Palestinians, including the Deir Yassin massacre in 1948, which killed over 107 Palestinians, including women and children. The Irgun later formed the Herut party with Menachem Begin as its head. In 1973, Begin and Ariel Sharon founded the Likud coalition, dominated by Revisionist followers. From Jabotinsky to Netanyahu, the trajectory reveals a clear, consistent pattern.

No rational mind would found a state that exists in a never-ending state of war. But Jabotinsky was not rational. He was ideological. He believed that the Arabs would never accept a Jewish state, and therefore the Jewish state must be built against them, over them, on them. This is not statecraft. It is a nightmare.

III. The Capture of the United Nations

The global community has not resisted Israel effectively because the UN Security Council has been crippled by the veto power of the United States.

The numbers are staggering: Since 1945, the United States has vetoed more Security Council resolutions than any other permanent member. The vast majority of those vetoes have been to protect Israel from international accountability. China’s UN representative noted that “the US has repeatedly abused its veto power, which goes against the sense of responsibility of a major country”.

The UN General Assembly has repeatedly voted overwhelmingly in favor of Palestinian rights and against Israeli violations. In 2024, 124 nations approved a resolution demanding Israel withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank. The votes are lopsided. The will of the international community is clear. And it is ignored because one country—the United States—refuses to allow the Security Council to act.

The “Uniting for Peace” mechanism exists precisely for this situation. Adopted in 1950, it allows the General Assembly to bypass a Security Council veto and take action when the Council fails to exercise its primary responsibility for international peace and security . It has been used before—notably in 1956 to stop the Suez Crisis, and in 1981 to impose comprehensive sanctions on apartheid South Africa.

Former UN official Craig Mokhiber has argued that UN member states have the legal authority to circumvent the Security Council and impose sanctions on Israel, suspend its membership, impose an arms embargo, and assign a UN peacekeeping force to Gaza and the West Bank . The mechanism exists. The will exists—124 nations have already voted for similar measures. What is missing is the political courage to use it.

The OIC and the Arab League have been paralyzed by internal divisions, parochial economic stakes, and the reality that several member states have normalized relations with Israel. As one analysis noted, “Nowhere else could the paralysis of the Muslim world be starker than in the case of Israeli atrocities in Gaza: 57 vs 01 (US veto power); 57 vs 01 (Israel)”.

IV. The Consequences: Netanyahu’s “Super-Sparta”

The permanent state of exception has consequences. Netanyahu’s “Super-Sparta” vision—announced in 2025—envisions Israel as a militarised, self-sufficient state prepared for long isolation. He spoke of a looming period of “prolonged isolation” and the need for the country to become economically self-reliant, even adopting autarkic traits .

The reaction within Israel was severe. Opposition leader Yair Lapid said isolation was not an inevitable fate but the result of Netanyahu’s failed policies. Economists warned that pursuing autarky would cut Israel off from the world, bring down wages, undermine high-tech industries, and reduce the country to third-world status.

The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange slipped following Netanyahu’s comments. The Israel Business Forum warned that Netanyahu’s vision would make it difficult for Israel to survive in a globalised economy and that he was steering the country into a dangerous downturn that could threaten its existence .

Super-Sparta is not a strategy. It is a confession. Netanyahu is admitting that Israel cannot coexist with its neighbors, cannot integrate into the region, cannot survive without permanent war. The “Zionist Spartans” will be the warrior class, and everyone else—Palestinians, Arab citizens of Israel, foreign workers, even Jewish dissidents—will be the helots. A slave society. A society where the young are trained to kill, where dissent is treason, where the only law is the law of the iron wall.

This is not a Jewish state. It is a death cult. And it is being sold to the Israeli people as survival.

V. The Exception Does Not Stay Contained

As Ramzy Baroud warned: “In the hands of a genocidal, settler-colonial society, the state of exception is a relentless nightmare that will not stop at the borders of Palestine. If this ‘exception’ is allowed to become the permanent regional rule, no nation in the Middle East will be spared”.

The Greater Israel dream is not just about Palestine. It is about Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and parts of Turkey. The same ideology that produced the Iron Wall produces the settlement movement, the occupation, the death penalty law, the ecocide in Iran, the bombing of peacekeepers. It is a machine.

And the credibility of international institutions is being destroyed. The UN, the ICJ, the ICC—all are losing their moral authority because they apply one standard to some nations and another to Israel. As one analysis concluded, “World bodies lose their credibility if they wear political blinders. When institutions hold their own principles and manifestos as relics or vestiges, they pose as being complicit with the evil and the tyrant” .

VI. The Math Is Changing

Israel is an aberration. It violates the accepted norms of statehood on every level—not because it is uniquely evil, but because it has been allowed to.

The United States has used its veto power more than 45 times to protect Israel from international accountability. The UN Security Council has been crippled by its own structure—the very mechanism designed to prevent great power conflict has been weaponized to protect a small power from the consequences of its actions.

But the math is changing. The Global South is rising. The US veto is being challenged through the “Uniting for Peace” mechanism. The sanctions against apartheid South Africa did not happen overnight—they took decades of sustained pressure. The same will be true here.

The young are waking up. The old alliances are fraying. The cheap weapons are winning. The expensive weapons are running out. And the small gods—the politicians, the industrialists, the bankers who have profited from this nightmare—are running out of time.

VII. The Question

How many more young people of all nations in the region must die because of the insanity of the Jabotinsky mind? How many more children must be buried under the rubble of buildings that were bombed to make room for settlements? How many more peacekeepers must be killed, journalists assassinated, aid workers targeted?

The Jabotinsky mind does not see them as people. It sees them as obstacles. The iron wall does not distinguish between combatants and civilians, between resistance and terrorism, between legitimate criticism and antisemitism. The iron wall only knows force.

This is dangerous nonsense in a multicultural world. A world of 8 billion people, of countless faiths and traditions, of borders that have been drawn and redrawn and will be drawn again. The Jabotinsky mind belongs to the 19th century—to the era of colonial conquest, of racial hierarchy, of the “white man’s burden.” It has no place in the 21st century.

VIII. What Must Be Done

1. The “Uniting for Peace” mechanism must be activated. The UN General Assembly must bypass the Security Council veto and impose sanctions on Israel, suspend its membership, impose an arms embargo, and assign a UN peacekeeping force to Gaza and the West Bank.

2. The international community must recognize the state of Palestine. Not as a gesture. As a necessity. The two-state solution is dead. A single state with equal rights for all—Jews and Palestinians alike—is the only viable path forward.

3. The United States must end its veto protection of Israel. The special relationship has become a liability. It has corrupted the UN, undermined international law, and enabled a genocide. It must end.

4. Israel must be held accountable for its crimes. The International Criminal Court must pursue its investigation of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The International Court of Justice must enforce its rulings. Individual leaders must face justice.

5. The Jabotinsky ideology must be rejected. Not by the international community—by Israelis. By the Jewish people who have been told that the iron wall is the only way to survive. It is not. There is another way. The way of the covenant, not the contract. The way of justice, not force. The way of the garden, not the wall.

IX. A Final Word

No rational mind would found a state that exists in a never-ending state of war. But Jabotinsky was not rational. He was ideological. And his ideology has captured the state of Israel, turning it into an aberration, a permanent exception, a nightmare that will not end until the world finally acts.

Netanyahu’s “Super-Sparta” vision tells the world all it needs to know. There will be Zionist Spartans and the rest will be a slave society—terrorized, killed, or reduced to silence. This is not survival. This is suicide. For Israel. For the region. For the rules-based order that has kept the world from descending into permanent war.

But the math is changing. The Global South is rising. The young are waking up. The cheap weapons are winning. And the small gods are running out of time.

The wire is being cut. The garden is growing. And the nightmare will end.

Not because we are strong. Because we are right.

Andrew Klein 

April 4, 2026

Sources and References

· Jabotinsky, Ze’ev. “The Iron Wall” (1923). Jewish Virtual Library.

· Baroud, Ramzy. “The State of Exception: How Israel Operates Above the Law.” Middle East Eye (2024).

· Amnesty International. “Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crimes Against Humanity” (2022).

· Human Rights Watch. “A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution” (2021).

· United Nations General Assembly. Resolution 377 (V) “Uniting for Peace” (1950).

· Mokhiber, Craig. “The UN’s ‘Uniting for Peace’ Mechanism Could Bypass the US Veto on Gaza.” Al Jazeera (2023).

· Times of Israel. “Netanyahu Warns of ‘Prolonged Isolation,’ Calls for Economic Self-Reliance” (May 2025).

· Reuters. “Netanyahu’s ‘Super-Sparta’ Vision Sparks Economic Warnings in Israel” (May 2025).

· Jerusalem Post. “Israel’s Isolation: Lapid Slams Netanyahu’s ‘Failed Policies'” (May 2025).

· Al Jazeera. “China Says US ‘Abuses Veto Power’ to Shield Israel from Accountability” (2024).

· UN Security Council. Veto Database. Security Council Report.

· Middle East Monitor. “US Vetoes Another Security Council Resolution on Palestine” (2025).

· Baroud, Ramzy. “The Greater Israel Project: From Jabotinsky to Netanyahu.” Middle East Eye (2024).

· The Irgun. “Deir Yassin Massacre.” Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem (1999).

· Genesis 15:18-21. The Bible (New International Version).