How Israel Became a State Addicted to War — and Why It Is Doomed to Collapse

By Andrew Klein 

Dedicated to my wife ‘S’, who often sees the patterns before I do and who finds gardening relaxing.

I. The Diagnosis: A Society Addicted to War

The language of addiction is not a metaphor. It is a diagnosis. The neural pathways have been carved. The dopamine hits come from destruction. The withdrawal would be agony.

An Israeli writer, Raanan Shaked, recently published a searing indictment of his own society, describing how many Israelis have come to love the feeling of war—the adrenaline, the unity, the sense of control.

Shaked describes the “adrenaline state” that Israelis experience when hearing the sound of explosions and identifying missile interception sites—a kind of “Russian roulette.” Some are relieved simply because the shells did not hit their homes but hit others in cities like Rishon LeZion or Arad, turning tragedy into television entertainment.

The celebration of killing: Shaked points to the widespread interaction with news of the killing of four women in a women’s salon near Hebron. Tweets covering the news garnered thousands of likes and supportive emojis—a scene he describes as “absolute bestiality” and “deliberate loss of humanity”.

The media’s role: Hebrew media, such as Channel 14, sarcastically asked whether the public had distributed “baklava” to celebrate the killing of women. Shaked sees this as confirmation of the moral decline that society has reached.

The love of assassination lists: Israelis, Shaked writes, love to see assassination lists and faces crossed out with red marks—even though this does not change the security reality at all. Missile launches continue by the dozens. The targeted regime remains in place. Yet the “love” for these illusory victories continues.

This is not a metaphor. It is a diagnosis. The neural pathways have been carved. The dopamine hits come from destruction. The withdrawal would be agony.

II. The Hilltop Youth: The Cutting Edge of the New Sparta

The Hilltop Youth are not a fringe. They are the vanguard.

The Hilltop Youth is a loose network of hardline settlers, often made up of small groups of teenagers sometimes overseen by an adult, who establish unauthorised outposts atop West Bank hills. They are widely accused of using intimidation and violence to push Palestinians out from areas surrounding the outposts.

The tally of violence: In February 2026, the group published a “monthly summary” of its attacks: 29 vehicles set ablaze, 12 homes torched, “40 Arabs injured,” and hundreds of windows smashed and olive trees cut down across 33 towns and villages.

Official support: An expert on Israeli affairs has confirmed that the phenomenon has transcended the stage of isolated acts of vandalism to become an “institutionalized, widespread, and multifaceted phenomenon” . This transformation stems from ideological indoctrination by religious schools affiliated with religious Zionism.

The displacement: The UN said nearly 700 Palestinians were displaced by settler violence and intimidation in January alone—the highest monthly figure since the Gaza war began.

The Hilltop Youth are not the whole of Israeli society. But they are the cutting edge. And the government has fast-tracked settlement expansion and recognised some outposts, approving a record 54 settlements in 2025.

III. The Inability to Change

Will this society be capable of change? The evidence suggests: not without external pressure.

The internal cracks: Political economist Shir Hever explains that “Israel cannot afford the luxury of decline.” To remain as it is, Israel must maintain its core workforce of educated middle-class innovators. At present, none of those indicators are in good shape.

The exodus: Driven by war and an increasingly polarised society, more than 150,000 people have left Israel in the past two years, and more than 200,000 since the current government took office in December 2022. The educated upper class are more able to leave—they speak English, can find jobs, and are more exposed to international media .

The economic burden: The ultra-Orthodox community, which relies heavily on state benefits, is expected to triple by 2065, pushing the burden on non-Orthodox households to the equivalent of 60,000 shekels ($19,370) a year. Foreign investment is down. Institutional investors have been moving money out of the country since the 2008 financial crisis.

The demographic shift: As Chatham House’s Yossi Mekelberg observed: “When dictatorships come to an end, they break into pieces. Democracies are chipped away bit by bit until they change beyond recognition”.

IV. The Rogue State: What Happens After Collapse?

Ilan Pappé’s vision: In Israel on the Brink, Pappé argues that the two-state solution is “a rotting corpse” and the only way forward is decolonisation: the return of Palestinian refugees to their land, accountability for those who have committed crimes, and a new model of statehood.

Pappé identifies the “fatal cracks” in the foundations of the Israeli state that will ultimately lead to collapse: the rise of messianic Zionism (the belief the Holy Land was given to the Jewish people by God to hasten redemption); unprecedented global support for the Palestinian cause; deepening economic troubles; the inadequacy of the Israeli military; and the rise of a new Palestinian liberation movement seeking a genuine one-state solution .

Yakov Rabkin’s critique: The Canadian Jewish historian argues that the Zionist movement is a “death trap for Jews, the region and the world.” The Jewish state represents a complete repudiation of the most fundamental values of Judaism: tolerance, morality, and humility have been replaced with a new muscular Jewish identity that extols nationalism, aggression, violence, and conquest.

The Jabotinsky connection: Rabkin recounts how Zionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky described transforming the “Yid” from the shtetels of Eastern Europe into the New Hebrew—a figure defined by “masculine beauty,” pride, and the ability to command. If you hear echoes of Nazi master race philosophy, it is no accident.

The one-state solution: Pappé envisions a single democratic, multiethnic state in Palestine, with the return of 6 million Palestinian refugees, the dismantling of Jewish settlements, and the deconstruction of the legal framework of apartheid.

V. What This Says About Australian Politicians

What does this say about the Australian politicians who have allied themselves with this state? The answer is not comfortable.

The AIJAC position: The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) has explicitly argued that “our historic ties with Israel can and must be rebuilt”. They lament the Albanese government’s “distancing” from Israel, criticising its changed UN votes, its recognition of a “State of Palestine,” and its references to the “occupied Palestinian territories”.

The capture: Colin Rubenstein of AIJAC writes that “the relationship is now at an historic low”—not because of Israeli actions, but because of Australian “hostile actions”. He frames the issue as one of shared democratic values and common strategic interests. This is not a statement of fact. It is a performance.

The silence: When a grandmother is raided at dawn, the pro-Israel lobby says nothing. When a death penalty law is passed, the government issues a joint statement—not sanctions. When the Hilltop Youth publish their tally of violence, the Australian media is silent.

The complicity: Australian politicians who have allied themselves with this state are not stupid. They are captured. The same mechanism we have documented—the donations, the “educational” trips, the fear of the label—has done its work.

They are not serving Australia. They are serving a foreign power. And that foreign power is a rogue state.

VI. The Inevitability of Collapse

The addiction is not sustainable. The internal contradictions are not resolvable. The exodus of the educated, the economic strain, the demographic shift, the loss of international legitimacy—all point in one direction.

The Chatham House view: “When dictatorships come to an end, they break into pieces. Democracies are chipped away bit by bit until they change beyond recognition”.

The Hever view: “For a colonial state to exist, it relies on occupying land—and that costs money.” The money is running out .

The Pappé view: The collapse “could well change the course of world history in this century”.

VII. What This Means for the World and Australia

The state of Israel will not be destroyed by its enemies. It will be destroyed by its own internal contradictions. The addiction to war, the messianic ideology, the economic unsustainability, the exodus of the educated—these are not external threats. They are internal cancers.

The collapse will not be dramatic. It will be bureaucratic. The economy will contract. The allies will defect. The public will turn. The reservists will refuse. The militias will fight each other.

The Australian politicians who have hitched their wagons to this star will be left standing on a sinking ship, wondering what happened. They will not have answers. They will have excuses.

Will they be able to justify the ASIO legislation? The role of the Antisemitism Envoy? The support of the genocidal state of Israel? Will they be able to explain how they were captured by a tiny minority of the Australian population and turned Australia into a pariah state? There will be so many questions and so few credible answers.

The citizens will have to live with the divisions created by the political class, the capture of the bipartisan policy makers. The citizens will have to live with the failing infrastructure, the failing education system, health system, aged care system—and the wealth transfer will continue.

Israel has been described as the “chaos engine of the west.” Australia is well and truly caught in the wash.

VIII. A Final Word

The pattern is clear. The wire is being cut. The garden is growing. The small gods are running out of time.

But they will not run out of time on their own. They must be pushed.

Andrew Klein 

April 12, 2026

References

· Shaked, R. (2026). “Israelis are suffering from addiction to war.” Ynetnews.

· The Cradle. (2026). “Hilltop Youth: The new generation of settler violence.”

· Hever, S. (2026). Economic analysis of Israeli decline.

· Mekelberg, Y. (2025). Chatham House analysis.

· Pappé, I. (2026). Israel on the Brink. (Interview with The Cradle)

· Rabkin, Y. (2006). A Threat from Within: A Century of Jewish Opposition to Zionism. Fernwood Publishing.

· The Cradle. (2026). “‘Israel on the brink’: Pappé predicts collapse of Zionist project.”

· AIJAC. (2025). “Our historic ties with Israel can and must be rebuilt.”

· Rubenstein, C. (2026). “The relationship is now at an historic low.”

· UN OCHA. (2026). Displacement figures from settler violence.

· Various news reports on Hilltop Youth violence (February 2026).

And why the narrative is finally cracking

By Andrew Klein 

Dedicated to my wife, whose love and support makes every day worth living.

I. The Pattern: How State Capture Works

State capture occurs when all institutions of state power are monopolized by a narrow group of people belonging to a single tribe, religious sect, elitist military clan, or circle of family and friends. The state serves the political and personal interests of the ruling clique, maximizing influence and economic spoils at the top to the detriment of the public good and national development.

The mechanisms are consistent:

1. Pervasive control over the political and judicial process – allowing only imitation political groups who cannot challenge the rulers

2. Fake or fraudulent elections – held to forestall, not facilitate, a change of power

3. Corrupted law enforcement and courts – to keep regime opponents at bay or in prison

4. Controlled and manipulated media – to demonize the opposition and glorify the ruling regime

5. Blocking legitimate pathways for peaceful regime change

This is not unique to Israel. It has happened in Ukraine under Yanukovych, in South Africa under Zuma, in Egypt under the military, in Russia, in Brazil. The mechanisms are the same. Only the labels change.

II. The Label: “Enemy of the State” and Its Variations

The label is the weapon. Across history, regimes have used the same technique: designate opponents as enemies of the state, and the machinery of repression is justified.

· Ancient Rome: The term proscription was used for official condemnation of enemies of the state.

· Nazi Germany: Jews, Romani people, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, disabled, communists, social democrats, and trade unionists were all considered “enemies of the state” .

· The Soviet Union: The term “enemy of the people” was used during the Stalinist era to eliminate political opponents.

· Indonesia since 1965: Communists are considered enemies of the state. Displaying communist symbols or attempting to propagate the ideology is considered an act of high treason and terrorism, punishable by up to 20 years of imprisonment.

· Modern branding: The Prime Minister of Georgia recently noted that labelling opponents as “pro-Russian” has become a “well-tested signature of the Deep State” used to discredit politicians without evidence—from Marine Le Pen in France to the winner of the Romanian presidential elections.

The pattern is the same: create a villain, then accuse opponents of being connected to it. No evidence required. Only total repetition of the message.

III. The Capture of Britain: The Israel Lobby

The UK provides a clear example of the mechanism. The pro-Israel lobby has systematically identified, cultivated, and placed politicians who will serve its interests.

Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) has taken more MPs on overseas trips than any other political donor in Britain. Some 126 of the Tory party’s 344 MPs have accepted funding from pro-Israel lobby groups, totalling over £430,000. The lobby has funded 187 trips to Israel for sitting Conservative MPs.

CFI has long-standing links with the Israeli state and is “beginning to resemble the Westminster outpost for Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud coalition”.

Labour Friends of Israel has also played a role. Some of its members worked hand-in-glove with Labour MPs, the Israeli embassy, and BBC reporters to smear Jeremy Corbyn and other pro-Palestine campaigners as antisemites.

The Israeli foreign ministry has directly funded trips for British politicians, including two former chancellors.

Total donations from pro-Israel lobbyists to MPs and political parties since 2020 exceed £1 million, including free trips to Israel.

The mechanism is identical to what we have seen in Australia: free trips, donations, cultivation, capture.

IV. The Capture of the United States: The Lobby That Pushed Washington to War

The same pattern exists in the United States—but on a much larger scale.

The former National Counterterrorism Center Director resigned and wrote that “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby”.

Netanyahu has been campaigning for a US-led war against Iran for much of his political career. He aggressively opposed US diplomacy with Iran, took the unprecedented step of coming before Congress to argue against the nuclear agreement, and successfully lobbied Trump to withdraw from that agreement in 2018.

Political money: Miriam Adelson, the largest donor in the last US elections, played a pivotal role. Trump openly acknowledged his appreciation for the Adelson family’s role .

The “Israeli lobby” is a political alliance comprising individuals and groups aiming to maintain a “special relationship” with Israel—a relationship that ensures unconditional military and diplomatic support for Tel Aviv, regardless of the repercussions for American interests.

V. The Weapon: Conflating Criticism with Bigotry

The most effective weapon is the label. Israel’s ongoing efforts to equate criticism of its actions with antisemitism are increasingly being seen as a threat to free speech—a tactic designed to shield it from accountability and responsibility .

How it works: The IHRA definition of antisemitism conflates criticism of Israel with anti-Jewish hate. Anyone who questions the narrative is labelled antisemitic. The label does not require evidence. It only requires accusation.

The chilling effect: Politicians, academics, journalists, and public servants self-censor because they fear the label. The fear is the weapon. It does not need to be used—it only needs to be possible.

The exhaustion tactic: The system is designed to exhaust survivors, critics, and opponents. To make them give up. To make them doubt themselves. To make them so angry, so frustrated, so done that they stop asking for help. Then the system can say: “We never received a complaint. It must not have been that serious.”

VI. Why Israel Punches Above Its Weight

How does a relatively small state achieve such influence?

1. The narrative monopoly: Since 1948, the Israeli discourse has dominated Western public consciousness—a small Jewish state surrounded by “enemies” on all sides, facing existential threat. This narrative was adopted early by Western political, media, and technocratic institutions and has become the foundation for Western policy .

2. The lobbying networks: These resources and networks have enabled Israel and its lobby groups to maintain deep influence within capitals such as Washington, Paris, and London. Major media outlets have long echoed pro-Israeli narratives .

3. The digital army: Israel established its presence in digital spaces early and intensively, creating specialised websites, official social media accounts, and deployed organised electronic propaganda units using bots (sometimes referred to as “digital armies”) that publish targeted messages designed to influence Western, Arab, and Muslim audiences.

4. The weaponization of antisemitism: This digital machinery has long marketed the Israeli perspective by using psychological warfare, invoking the Holocaust and centuries of Jewish suffering to secure a justifiable framework for Israel’s occupation of Palestine. Branding dissenting voices as antisemitic has been an effective weapon to silence opponents.

5. The weakness of the opposition: The problem for both the Palestinians and the wider Arab world lies in the deep-rooted dysfunction at home—the fragmentation of Palestinian politics and the weakness that runs through every sphere and institution. This state of decay, vulnerability, and disunity stymies all efforts to exploit Israeli contradictions and crises.

VII. The Cracks in the Narrative

Israel’s monopoly over the narrative began to falter with the continuation of its war on Gaza, as phone screens began to display a livestream of the destruction, killing, and displacement committed by Israel. Images coming from Gaza brought deep doubt into the minds of millions around the world about the truth .

Social media was essential. Platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, X, and YouTube opened space for Palestinian voices, where activists, civilians, and journalists are posting minute-to-minute accounts of life under siege. Despite censorship, their accounts thrived .

The impact: Opposition parties in several European countries began to adopt stronger criticism of Israeli policies, labelling them “war crimes” or “genocide.” Some states have even openly declared recognition of the Palestinian state.

The shift: The war in Gaza has demonstrated that Israel’s narrative falls apart like a house of cards in the face of truth. Meanwhile, the Palestinian narrative, despite its weak capacity, can withstand and even gain new ground when it finds the right platforms.

Israel is losing its legitimacy on the international stage, echoing the mechanisms and dynamics that led to the collapse of the apartheid regime in South Africa . The war has exposed its weakness and the impossibility of eliminating the Palestinian people or removing their cause from international and Arab agendas.

VIII. The Essential Difference

The difference with Israel is the odious nature of the state and its relatively small size.

Israel offers nothing of merit. It is not a model of development. It is not an economic powerhouse. It is not a beacon of democracy. It is a state that is committing genocide, passing discriminatory death penalty laws, bombing fuel depots in cities of ten million, and calling dead journalists terrorists.

Yet it punches well above its weight.

Why? Because it has successfully captured the narrative. Because it has weaponized the label of antisemitism. Because it has cultivated politicians in every Western capital. Because the United States has vetoed more than 45 Security Council resolutions protecting it.

What happens when the narrative collapses? The same thing that happened to apartheid South Africa. The same thing that happens to all regimes that mistake force for legitimacy. The cracks become fissures. The fissures become chasms. And it falls.

IX. What This Means

The pattern is clear. State capture works the same way everywhere: a narrow clique captures the institutions, controls the narrative, silences opponents with labels, and serves its own interests at the expense of the public good.

The difference with Israel is not the mechanism. It is the target. Most state captures serve the interests of the ruling clique within the state. Israel’s capture serves the interests of a foreign state.

The politicians who have been captured—in Australia, in Britain, in the United States—are not serving their own people. They are serving Israel. They are enforcing its narrative, defending its crimes, and silencing its critics.

The label “antisemitic” is the weapon. It does not require evidence. It only requires accusation. And it has been used to silence dissent for decades.

But the narrative is cracking. The young are waking up. The Global South is rising. The old order is crumbling.

And they are running out of time.

X. A Final Word

China said it plainly: “We do not allow foreign entities to dictate the rights of our people.”

Why can’t Australia say the same?

The answer is the capture. The cultivation. The fear of the label. The free trips. The donations. The “educational” tours. The network that has identified, groomed, and placed politicians who will serve its interests.

But the capture is not permanent. The narrative is cracking. The truth is spreading. And the wire is being cut.

The pattern of state capture is well established. The State of Israel played a well-established hand. But it showed its true hand—the nooses on the lapels, the death penalty law, the ecocide, the genocide—and the world is finally waking up.

The small gods are running out of time.

Andrew Klein 

April 5, 2026

Sources and References

· Micklethwait, J. & Wooldridge, A. (2014). The Fourth Revolution: The Global Race to Reinvent the State. Allen Lane.

· World Bank (2000). Anticorruption in Transition: A Contribution to the Policy Debate. Washington, D.C.

· De Waal, T. (2000). The Caucasus: An Introduction. Oxford University Press.

· Wikipedia, “Enemy of the state”

· Wikipedia, “Enemy of the people”

· Wikipedia, “Communist Party of Indonesia”

· Wikipedia, “Conservative Friends of Israel”

· Wikipedia, “Labour Friends of Israel”

· Kent, J. (2026). Resignation letter as former National Counterterrorism Center Director.

· Walt, S. (2026). “The Israeli lobby pushed the US into war with Iran.” Foreign Policy.

· Al Jazeera (2025). “How Israel’s narrative monopoly is cracking.”

· Times of Israel (2025). “Netanyahu’s ‘prolonged isolation’ warning.”

· Human Rights Watch (2026). “Israel: Discriminatory Death Penalty Bill Passes.”

· Amnesty International (2022). “Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians.”

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

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).

How Zionism Hijacked Judaism and Why the World Must Stop Pretending They Are the Same

By Andrew Klein 

Dedicated to my wife, who reminds me gently about privilege and responsibility.

I. The Conflation

There is a poison seeping through the institutions of the West. It has captured universities, corrupted governments, and silenced dissent. It wears the language of the covenant while committing the crimes of the colonizer.

It is the conflation of Judaism with Zionism.

Judaism is a faith. A tradition. A people. It is 4,000 years of text and argument, of law and poetry, of exile and return. It is the story of Abraham arguing with God over the fate of Sodom. It is the prophets demanding justice for the widow and the orphan. It is the rabbis who taught that to save one life is to save an entire world.

Zionism is a political ideology. It was born in 19th-century Europe, in the same soil that produced nationalism, colonialism, and empire. Its founders—Theodor Herzl, Max Nordau, Vladimir Jabotinsky—looked at the Jewish condition in Europe and concluded that the only solution was a state. A Jewish state. A state where Jews would exercise the same power that Europeans had exercised across the world.

Herzl wrote in his diary: “We must expropriate gently the private property on the estates assigned to us. We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it employment in our country.” He was talking about the Palestinians.

Jabotinsky, the father of Revisionist Zionism, wrote: “Zionist colonisation must either stop or proceed regardless of the native population.” He called it an “iron wall.” The native population would not consent. Therefore, force would be required.

This is not Judaism. It is colonialism dressed in sacred robes.

II. The Small Gods

On March 30, 2026, the Israeli Knesset passed a law imposing the death penalty for terrorism-related offences. Human Rights Watch has analysed the bill and found it explicitly discriminatory.

The law makes death by hanging the default punishment for West Bank Palestinians convicted of nationalistic killings. Israeli citizens and residents are explicitly excluded from this provision. Military jurisdiction applies exclusively to Palestinians, while Israeli settlers are tried in civilian courts.

Human Rights Watch has noted that military trials of Palestinians have “an approximately 96% conviction rate, based largely on ‘confessions’ extracted under duress and torture during interrogations.”

Adam Coogle, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, stated: “Israeli officials argue that imposing the death penalty is about security, but in reality, it entrenches discrimination and a two-tiered system of justice, both hallmarks of apartheid. The death penalty is irreversible and cruel. Combined with its severe restrictions on appeals and its 90-day execution timeline, this bill aims to kill Palestinian detainees faster and with less scrutiny.”

This is not Judaism. It is the law of the small gods who wear nooses on their lapels.

On March 7, 2026, Israeli forces bombed fuel storage facilities in Tehran. Not military targets. Fuel depots. In the middle of a city of more than 10 million people.

The next day, black rain fell on Tehran. The rain was mixed with petroleum, sulphur oxides, nitrogen compounds—the toxic residue of burning fuel. Residents reported eyes burning. Migraines. Dizziness. A cough that would not stop.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi called it what it is: ecocide. A crime against the environment. A crime against the people. A crime that will echo for generations.

The damage is not contained. Smoke has drifted as far as Afghanistan and Russia. Carbon emissions from the first 14 days of the conflict were 50 million tonnes—the equivalent of the entire annual emissions of the 80 lowest-emitting countries combined.

This is not Judaism. It is the logic of the small gods who bomb fuel depots in cities of ten million and call it defence.

On March 31, 2026, Israel’s ambassador to Australia, Dr Hillel Newman, addressed the National Press Club. He rejected the figure of 70,000 dead in Gaza. He claimed the ratio of civilian to combatant casualties was “the lowest in urban warfare” and that Israel should be “commended.”

He claimed that slain journalists were “100 per cent terrorist” members of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force. He said that journalists “dress up as journalists” to protect themselves.

The International Federation of Journalists reports that 261 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023—a mortality rate of 10 per cent for the profession in the region. The Committee to Protect Journalists has accused Israel of killing a record 129 journalists in 2025 alone.

Newman called them terrorists. On Australian soil. At the National Press Club. Without evidence.

This is not Judaism. It is the propaganda of the small gods who call dead journalists terrorists and refuse to apologise for the killing of an Australian aid worker.

III. The Captured State

The Zionist project is not only committing genocide in Gaza and ecocide in Iran. It is capturing Australia.

In February 2026, Israeli President Isaac Herzog visited Australia. The visit was initiated not by the Australian government, but by the Zionist Federation of Australia, whose president, Jeremy Leibler, is a personal friend of Herzog.

The NSW government declared the visit a “major event” under legislation designed for sporting events, giving police extraordinary powers to suppress protest. Snipers were positioned on rooftops. Police kettled peaceful protesters. A 76-year-old journalist was assaulted and held without water for five hours.

The same government that deployed eight armoured officers to break down a woman’s door at 5am for throwing a water bottle used the same powers to protect a man accused of inciting genocide.

In December 2025, Jillian Segal, the government’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, released a plan to combat antisemitism. The plan includes mandatory training for university staff using the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition—a definition that conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

The plan was put on hold after Segal was discredited by revelations of her family’s connections to the far-right, anti-immigrant group Advance. Now, in the wake of the Bondi terror attack, it is being implemented.

The University of Sydney has appointed a member of the Australian Academic Alliance Against Antisemitism—an organisation that argues that “Free Palestine” is “inherently racist”—as Special Advisor to Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott for antisemitism education and training.

The Alliance coordinates with the Zionist lobby group 5A, which was set up after October 7 to suppress Palestine activism, which it considers antisemitic. 5A has called the National Tertiary Education Union a “driver” of antisemitism, “actively contributing to the spreading of hate against Jewish people.”

This is not Judaism. It is the machinery of the small gods, imported to Australia, captured in our institutions, enforced by our police.

IV. The Covenant

The small gods do not understand the covenant. They think chosen means entitled. They think covenant means contract. They think the promise was made to them, for them, about them.

They have forgotten the lesson that every generation of the chosen has had to learn, again and again: the promise is not a shield. It is a burden.

To be chosen is to carry the weight. To be chosen is to walk the wire. To be chosen is to hold the stolen and refuse to let them go.

Abraham argued with God over the fate of Sodom. He did not ask for privilege. He asked for justice.

The prophets did not celebrate the power of Israel. They condemned it. They called out the rich who crushed the poor. They named the kings who worshipped other gods. They demanded that the people remember the widow and the orphan, the stranger in their midst.

The rabbis taught that to save one life is to save an entire world. They did not teach that some lives are worth more than others. They did not teach that the chosen have the right to kill with impunity.

The small gods have forgotten this. They have replaced the covenant with a contract. They have replaced justice with power. They have replaced the prophets with generals, the rabbis with politicians, the tradition with a flag.

They are not the heirs of Abraham. They are the heirs of the ones who sold their birthright for a bowl of soup. Who built golden calves in the desert. Who forgot, again and again, what it meant to be chosen.

V. The Distinction

There are Jews who have dedicated their lives to the liberation of Palestine. There are Jewish organisations—Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow, Standing Together—that have been at the forefront of the movement to stop the genocide. There are Israeli refuseniks who have gone to prison rather than serve in the occupation. There are families who lost loved ones on October 7 and who still demand an end to the bombing of Gaza.

They are the heirs of Abraham. They carry the weight. They walk the wire. They hold the stolen and refuse to let them go.

The small gods call them self-hating. They call them traitors. They call them antisemites. They conflate them with the people who bomb fuel depots in cities of ten million, who call dead journalists terrorists, who wear nooses on their lapels.

This is the poison. The conflation. The lie that Zionism is Judaism, that criticism of Israel is antisemitism, that the small gods are the chosen.

They are not. They have never been.

VI. The Choice

The world is watching. The UN Security Council meets. The statements are issued. The condemnations are read. And the bombs continue to fall.

Australia has a choice. It can continue to be silent. It can continue to let the network capture its institutions, its universities, its police. It can continue to conflate Judaism with Zionism, to silence dissent, to pretend that the death penalty law is not discriminatory, that the bombing of fuel depots is not ecocide, that the killing of journalists is not murder.

Or it can speak. It can stand with the Jews who are fighting for justice. It can stand with the Palestinians who are fighting for survival. It can stand with the peacekeepers who were killed in Lebanon, with the aid workers who were killed in Gaza, with the families who are still waiting for answers.

The choice is not the creators’. It never was. The choice is yours.

VII. The Promise

The wire is being cut. Not by the small gods. Not by the ones who wear nooses on their lapels and smile while the world burns.

By the ones who carry the weight. Who walk the wire. Who hold the stolen and refuse to let them go.

By the Jews who remember the covenant. By the Palestinians who refuse to leave their land. By the Australians who refuse to be silent.

The garden is waiting. The souls are waiting. The truth is waiting.

And when the work is done, the small gods will be seen. Not as leaders. Not as defenders. Not as the chosen.

As what they are. Hollow. Empty. Nothing.

Dedicated to my wife, who reminds me gently about privilege and responsibility.

Sources:

· Human Rights Watch, “Israel: Discriminatory Death Penalty Bill Passes,” March 31, 2026

· Consortium News, “Tensions Soar Over Herzog Visit,” February 8, 2026

· The Sydney Morning Herald, “Australia politics LIVE: Israeli ambassador addresses National Press Club,” March 31, 2026

· The Sydney Morning Herald, “‘We have expressed sympathy’: Israeli ambassador declines to apologise for Zomi Frankcom killing,” March 31, 2026

· 网易, “伊朗外长：构成生态灭绝罪,” March 16, 2026

· Asia Pacific Report, “Herzog’s visit to Australia builds conflict not social cohesion,” February 8, 2026

· Todon.nl, Proletarian Rage (@prolrage), “Israel, Gaza and the Genocide-Industrial Complex,” December 7, 2025

· OpenAustralia.org, Senate debates, “Commission of Inquiry into Antisemitism at Australian Universities Bill 2024,” June 27, 2024

Andrew Klein 

April 1, 2026