How Language, Trade and Shared History Expose the “Clash of Civilizations” as a Colonial Myth

By Andrew Paul Klein and Sera Elizabeth Klein

Long‑standing colleagues and co‑authors

I. The Triumph of Exchange Over Confrontation

Every few decades the West invents a new “great divide” to explain away its own wars and impoverishment of other peoples. In the 1990s Samuel Huntington gave it its most polished academic veneer: the coming conflict would not be ideological but civilisational, pitting monolithic, static cultural blocs against one another – “the West versus the rest”, with the Muslim world cast as a primary adversary.

Yet the very evidence that Huntington and his admirers ignored tells a radically different story. From the fertile crescent of Mesopotamia to the silver cups of Bronze‑Age Iran, from the conquest of the Americas to the multilingual reality of modern Europe, the history of language and culture is not a story of inevitable clashing, but of constant borrowing, translating, adapting and mixing. The “clash” is not written in stone; it is manufactured, weaponised and sold to publics whose own daily lives are saturated with the products, words and thoughts of the very civilisations they are told to fear.

II. The Deep Past: Scripts Without Borders

In 2022 an international team of epigraphers announced the partial decipherment of Linear Elamite, a writing system used in what is now southern Iran between roughly 2300 and 1880 BCE. For more than a century the script had resisted all attempts at decoding. The breakthrough came when François Desset and his colleagues realised that Linear Elamite was not an isolated invention: it was adapted from the cuneiform writing of neighbouring Mesopotamia, and its decipherment was made possible by bilingual inscriptions that used the well‑known Akkadian language as a key.

“Civilisations” did not sit in hermetically sealed boxes, waiting to collide. They learnt from each other, exchanged scribes, adopted useful tools and adapted them to their own tongues. The very act of writing itself – the foundation of recorded history – is a testament to cross‑cultural borrowing.

III. English: A Frankenstein Tongue (and Proud of It)

For an example much closer to home, look at English. It began as the language of Anglo‑Saxon tribes who arrived in Britain around 400 CE. Within centuries it had been invaded, enriched and reshaped by Old Norse (the language of Viking raiders), by Latin (the tongue of the Church and scholarship) and, most dramatically, by Norman French. After 1066 French became the language of the royal court and the ruling elite; Old English survived “among the peasants”.

But rather than disappearing, English absorbed its conquerors’ words – not just “beer”, “city” and “fruit”, but abstract concepts such as “liberty” and “justice”. Later it borrowed from Hindi (“pajama”, “thug”), from Arabic (“sugar”, “algorithm”) and from Nahuatl (“chocolate”, “avocado”, “tomato”). The language that today’s “clash of civilisations” ideologues speak is a hybrid, a living museum of centuries of peaceful and violent contact. If there were ever a genuine “clash”, English would have disappeared long ago; instead, it became the world’s most successful global lingua franca because it never stopped borrowing.

IV. The Colonial Assault on Language – And the Scarring of Souls

The “clash” narrative becomes truly dangerous when it is used to justify colonial extraction and the suppression of other peoples. In Mexico the Spanish conquest did not simply defeat the Aztec empire; it imposed the Castilian language as a tool of domination. Nahuatl, once the language of a sophisticated civilisation, was systematically pushed to the margins. For most of the 20th century the official policy of “bilingual education” was not about preserving indigenous languages but about assimilating native peoples at the cost of their own cultures – a direct assault on the soul of a people.

The same pattern repeated itself across the globe: the “Scramble for Africa”, the British in India, the Dutch in Indonesia, the French in Indochina. In every case the coloniser’s language was made the key to advancement, and the colonised were told that their own tongues were backward, their thoughts less worthy. That is not a clash of civilisations; it is a one‑sided war waged against the identity of the colonised, and its wounds remain open today.

V. Israel / Palestine – A Case Study in Manufactured Division

Nowhere is the bankruptcy of the “clash of civilisations” thesis more evident than in the story of modern Hebrew and Yiddish, and the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

The suppression of Yiddish

For centuries Yiddish was the everyday language of millions of Ashkenazi Jews – a rich, expressive tongue that developed through contact with German, Slavic and Hebrew elements. With the rise of political Zionism, however, Zionist activists in Mandatory Palestine actively sought to eradicate Yiddish, banning it from theatres, films and cultural activities in order to promote Hebrew as the sole national language. As one scholar put it, “in the early 20th century, Zionist activists… tried to eradicate the use of Yiddish among Jews in preference to Hebrew, and make its use socially unacceptable”. After the establishment of Israel, the government pursued a “melting‑pot” policy, requiring every immigrant to adopt Hebrew and often a Hebrew surname, while Yiddish was actively discouraged.

This was not an inevitable product of some “clash” between Hebrew and Yiddish; it was a deliberate political choice to create a unified national identity by erasing a vibrant diaspora culture. The wound has never fully healed, and Israeli society remains ambivalent about its Yiddish heritage.

The erasure of Palestinian identity

At the same time, the Arabic language of the indigenous Palestinian population was relegated to a secondary status. The British Mandate formally recognised English, Arabic and Hebrew as official languages, but the political and economic system systematically favoured Hebrew and English, marginalising Arabic. The Nakba of 1948 and the decades of occupation that followed were not “clashes” but planned dispossessions – a colonial project dressed in the language of self‑defence and civilisation.

The numbers today

The consequences are visible in Israeli public opinion. A November 2025 survey found that 70% of Israelis oppose the creation of a Palestinian state – a figure that rises to 79% among Jewish Israelis. A March 2025 poll by Tel Aviv University revealed that 62% of Jewish Israelis support “evacuating Palestinians from Gaza, even by force and military means”, while 70% of Jewish respondents said that if Gazans leave, Israel should not allow their return at all. Such attitudes are not the result of some eternal, inevitable clash; they are the product of a deliberate political strategy of dehumanisation, enacted through language, education and the relentless repetition of victimhood.

Meanwhile, the genocide in Gaza continues to unfold. The International Court of Justice has ruled that it is “plausible” that Israel’s acts amount to genocide and has ordered Israel to immediately halt its military offensive in Rafah. The Israeli government, backed by Western powers, has ignored those orders – and the same Western leaders who denounce Russia’s invasion of Ukraine refuse to apply the vocabulary of “war of aggression” or “genocide” to their own ally. This is not a clash of civilisations; it is the operation of power, politics and profit, dressed in the language of a civilisation it is actively betraying.

VI. Deconstructing Huntington’s Flawed Paradigm

Huntington’s thesis has been subjected to devastating criticism from multiple angles. A 2024 study in Frontiers in Psychology found that states belonging to different civilisations are not significantly more conflict‑prone than those within the same civilisation. Other scholars point out that Huntington’s categories are static, ahistorical and deeply normative, treating “civilisations” as monolithic blocs while ignoring millennia of cross‑cultural exchange, intermarriage and trade. As one recent review noted, “the conflicts are obviously more contentious than the civilisations themselves”.

Perhaps most damning, critics have argued that the “clash of civilisations” narrative functions as a self‑fulfilling prophecy. When Western leaders frame the world in terms of civilisational enmity, they alienate potential allies, empower extremists on all sides and provide a convenient excuse for policies that enrich defence contractors and extractive industries. The goal is not to understand the world but to justify its further domination.

VII. Do We See a Pattern?

From the script‑borrowing scribes of Elam to the Norman‑French infused English of the Middle Ages; from the forced assimilation of Nahuatl speakers in Mexico to the deliberate suppression of Yiddish in Israel; from the marginalisation of Arabic in Palestine to the present‑day public support for ethnic cleansing – the common thread is not a “clash of civilisations”. It is the weaponisation of language and identity by elites who profit from division.

Those who benefit are the arms manufacturers, the propaganda‑funding lobbies, the real‑estate developers eyeing Gaza’s coastline, the politicians seeking to distract from domestic failures. The victims are ordinary people – Jewish families whose grandparents spoke Yiddish, Palestinian families living under siege, indigenous communities fighting for the survival of their tongues, and all of us who are told to hate people we have never met.

VIII. Conclusion: Choose Exchange Over Clash

The “clash of civilisations” is not an ancient inevitability; it is a modern political product – a weapon used to justify war, colonisation and extraction. The evidence of history, from the cuneiform tablets of Mesopotamia to the hybrid tongue of English, shows that civilisations grow not by staying apart but by exchanging, borrowing and adapting. Language is the conduit of that exchange; when it is suppressed, the soul is scarred; when it is allowed to flow freely, cultures flourish.

We do not need to accept the lie that we are fated to clash. We can choose to remember the centuries of shared knowledge, the translations that made science possible, the words that crossed continents and the love that refuses to be imprisoned by any manufactured fault line. We can build a world where the only “clash” that matters is between those who hoard power and profit and those who believe that every language, every culture and every child deserves to live, speak and dream freely.

Sources & References for the Article

Archaeological / Linguistic Sources

1. Desset, F., et al. (2022). The Decipherment of Linear Elamite. The article and the team’s subsequent publications demonstrate that the script was not an isolated invention but derived from Mesopotamian cuneiform, proving cross‑cultural borrowing in the Bronze Age.

2. Basello, G. P. (2022). How Many Signs? What Differing Sign Numbers Tell Us About the Writing of Linear Elamite. Further epigraphic analysis supporting the hybrid nature of the script.

3. Wasserman, N. (2020). The Amorite Language and Its Relationship to Cuneiform. Shows how a nomadic people adopted and adapted the writing system of settled neighbours.

Critiques of Huntington’s “Clash of Civilisations”

1. Huntington, S. P. (1996). The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order – the original thesis, which we critique.

2. Fox, J. (2022). The “Clash of Civilizations” 25 Years On: A Critical Review (Routledge Handbook of Political Islam). Summarises the main scholarly criticisms.

3. Bak, D. (2024). The Problematic Concept of Civilisation: A Critique of Huntington’s Theory. Argues that Huntington’s categories are static, ahistorical, and ignore millennia of cross‑cultural exchange.

4. Sell, S. (2024). Clash of Civilizations – A Self‑Fulfilling Prophecy. Examines how the narrative serves to justify Western military intervention and alienates potential allies.

English as a Hybrid Language

1. Baugh, A. C., & Cable, T. (2013). A History of the English Language (6th ed.). The classic text detailing the Norse, Latin, French and global borrowings that shaped English.

2. Durkin, P. (2014). Borrowed Words: A History of Loanwords in English (Oxford University Press). Traces the thousands of foreign origins of everyday English words.

🇮🇱 Hebrew, Yiddish and Israeli Public Opinion

1. Jewish Virtual Library (2026). Language in Israel: Hebrew, Arabic and English. Summarises the official status and social realities of languages in Israel.

2. Yiddish Book Center (2026). The Revival of Hebrew and the Suppression of Yiddish. Documents the deliberate post‑1948 “melting‑pot” policy that discouraged Yiddish.

3. Jerusalem Post (March 2026). Poll: 70% of Jewish Israelis Oppose Return of Gazans Who Leave. Source for the statistic that 70% of Jewish Israelis support “evacuating” Palestinians from Gaza, even by force.

4. Tel Aviv University / Lapid (November 2025). Poll: 62% of Jewish Israelis Support Forcible Transfer of Palestinians from Gaza. Source for the finding that 62% support removing the population.

5. Zeffit (March 2026). Poll: 70% of Israelis Oppose Creation of a Palestinian State. Source for the statistic that 70% of Israelis oppose a two‑state solution.

6. Yesh Din (2025). Data on Settler Violence and the Role of the State. Documents the systemic nature of the occupation.

ICJ Gaza Rulings

1. International Court of Justice (26 January 2024). Order on South Africa’s Request for Provisional Measures. The ICJ found it “plausible” that Israel’s acts amount to genocide.

2. International Court of Justice (24 May 2024). Order on South Africa’s Request for Additional Provisional Measures. The ICJ ordered Israel to immediately halt its military offensive in Rafah.

3. Amnesty International (2024). “You Feel Like You Are Dying”: Starvation as a Weapon of War in Gaza. Documents the use of starvation against civilians.

Colonial Language Suppression

1. Lewis, A. (2024). Nahuatl – A Language Lost in Translation. Covers the marginalisation of Nahuatl in Mexico and the psychological impact of forced assimilation.

2. Thiong’o, N. wa (1986). Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. Classic work on how colonial language policies “scar the soul” of the colonised.

Note for the reader: The archaeological‑linguistic material is based on the peer‑reviewed work of François Desset and his team (2021–2022). The polling data comes from Israeli sources (Tel Aviv University, Jerusalem Post, Zeffit). The ICJ rulings are official UN court documents. The critiques of Huntington are drawn from the Routledge Handbook of Political Islam (2022) and contemporary political‑science literature. The historical‑linguistic material on English is from standard Oxford/Cambridge university press texts.

By Andrew Klein

· Dedication: To my wife ‘S’ , who unravels every lie with her thread and shows me that the garden is worth fighting for.

The Naked, Senseless Truth

Let us begin with the words of the X user @noplaceforsheep:

“I have yet to hear ONE explanation of how objecting to genocide is dangerous for Jews. The whole notion is fucking senseless & I can’t believe the grip it’s got on people who fucking well know better.”

This is the naked truth of our time. There is no logical pathway from criticising a state’s military actions to threatening an entire people. That such a pathway has become a cornerstone of Western discourse is not an accident of logic but a deliberate act of political engineering.

The mechanism is called Hasbara.

The Hasbara Machine – From Explanation to Suppression

Hasbara is the Hebrew word used by the state of Israel to describe its “public diplomacy”. For decades, it has been presented as a defensive act of “explaining” Israel’s actions to a sceptical world. But as the Israeli journalist and peace activist Gideon Levy has shown for years, this is not a debate – it is an information war waged to shield a system of military occupation from international scrutiny.

The Numbers: In late 2024 and early 2025, Israel’s government approved a budget for public diplomacy roughly 20 times larger than its usual annual allocation. Thousands of media placements, a sprawling architecture of private and state‑backed initiatives, and covert social‑media campaigns have been deployed to shape the global conversation. These are not speculation – they are the government’s own figures.

In practice, however, this vast state‑backed propaganda apparatus has pursued a more insidious goal: the deliberate conflation of criticism of Israeli policies with antisemitism, a rhetorical shield that has been used for decades to silence journalists, human rights advocates, and international institutions.

How the Conflation Works

The core fallacy is simple: equate the Jewish state with the Jewish people, then label any attack on the state as an attack on the people. This is a rhetorical procedure rather than a logical argument.

But the practical effect is devastating. In the United Kingdom, the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism – which includes examples that conflate anti‑Zionism with antisemitism – has been used to push British universities to ban speakers, cancel events, and expel student groups for criticising Israeli policy. In the United States, a September 2025 article in the respected Chicago Review demonstrated that this same bureaucratic weapon has been used to chill academic discourse on Palestine for years.

In Australia, the effect is the same: powerful lobby groups have turned the defence of fundamental human rights into a banned speech category.

Australia’s Submission to the Lobby

The Australian government has actively adopted the language of this conflation, transforming it from a political talking point into the foundation of state policy.

The Antisemitism Envoy

In July 2024, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese appointed Jillian Segal as Australia’s first Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism. It was presented as a response to a genuine rise in attacks on the Jewish community. Yet from the moment of her appointment, critics noted that the new “special envoy to combat antisemitism” apparently thought that opposing the bombing of hospitals was not a humanitarian stance but an attack on the Jewish people.

Her subsequent proposals, published in July 2025, recommended that universities, arts organisations and public broadcasters have their funding cut if they are not doing enough to combat what she deems to be antisemitism. This has been widely criticised as a “gross overreach” by Labour Friends of Palestine and as an attempt to suppress pro‑Palestinian student activism.

Particularly galling has been the envoy’s failure to perform the most basic function of her office: protecting Jews from violence. When neo‑Nazis overran a protest in Australia on 31 August 2025, Segal declined to comment, stating she didn’t want to comment on any particular incident. Meanwhile, she has advocated for the banning of peaceful pro‑Palestinian rallies and the movement of all such protests out of city centres. Australia’s first “antisemitism envoy” thus appears most comfortable hunting anti‑Zionist speech rather than actual neo‑Nazis marching in the streets.

The IHRA Definition and the Assault on Universities

Segal has urged all Australian institutions to adopt the contested IHRA definition of antisemitism, which includes as an example: “Denying the Jewish people their right to self‑determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour.” This definition, as its own author, Kenneth Stern, has testified, was never intended to target or chill speech on a college campus. Yet that is precisely how it is being used by pro‑Israel lobby groups in Australia who seek to shut down criticism of the state.

The list of examples is so broad that it could render the opinions of many protesters in Israel itself as anti‑Semitic, let alone those in Australia. It stands in complete contradiction to federal court findings that the weaponisation of antisemitism accusations constitutes a real threat to workplace rights and free speech.

The Lattouf Case – A Direct Hit on Free Speech

No case illustrates this new era of linguistic warfare better than that of Antoinette Lattouf. The veteran journalist was fired from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) after a three‑day fill‑in role for reposting a Human Rights Watch video on Instagram. The caption read: “HRW reporting starvation as a tool of war”.

Among those demanding her firing was a WhatsApp group calling itself “Lawyers for Israel”. In June, the Federal Court of Australia found that the ABC had unlawfully sacked her because of her opinions on the Israeli military campaign. Justice Darryl Rangiah specifically found that external pressure played a role in the decision to fire her. Lattouf was awarded substantial damages and the ABC was left with a multi‑million dollar legal bill.

This was a targeted political assassination of a journalist’s career by an organised lobby, successfully using a false allegation of antisemitism to intimidate a public broadcaster.

The State Governments Step Up the Suppression

Queensland and the Criminalisation of Solidarity

The Queensland government, following a pattern seen in the UK and Europe, has explicitly banned the phrases “from the river to the sea” and “globalise the intifada” under new “fighting anti‑Semitism” legislation. Any person who recites or says the phrase can be fined as much as $22,000 or face imprisonment for two years.

In March 2026, one man was actually arrested under this law. Liam James Parry was charged while protesting outside Queensland’s parliament. He continues to contest the charges, asserting that the government is trying to criminalise pro‑Palestine advocacy. He is now facing a lengthy legal process for the crime of reciting five words that make a political statement of solidarity with occupied people.

These laws are being copied across the country. Under the pretext of responding to the tragic Bondi Beach terrorist attack, the NSW government has rushed through sweeping new “hate speech” laws that give police vast new powers at public assemblies and explicitly ban the chant “globalise the intifada”. Pro‑Palestinian activists have said repeatedly that the chant expresses solidarity and a call for political resistance against military occupation, not an incitement to violence against Jews. But they are powerless – the state has criminalised their language.

The Jewish Resistance to the War Narrative

The most powerful refutation of the claim that opposition to the Gaza genocide is antisemitic comes from the growing movement of Jewish organisations themselves.

Groups including Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), the Israeli veterans of Breaking the Silence, the human rights organisation B’Tselem, and the Jewish Council of Australia are using social media to challenge the dominant political framing of the genocide in Gaza and settler violence.

Their message is direct and damning: they describe the state of Israel not as a “Jewish state defending itself” but as an “ethnostate” engaged in “routine bombings” of civilian spaces. By listing target after target – tents, schools, hospitals – they create a powerful cumulative effect, suggesting a pattern of violence rather than isolated incidents. They argue that repeated military actions risk normalising behaviour that international law was specifically designed to prevent.

What makes their message uniquely powerful is the moral authority from which it is delivered. Because they speak as Jews, they disrupt the central premise of Israel’s information warfare: that criticism of Israeli policy necessarily reflects hostility toward Jewish identity. Their defiant posts repeatedly expose the lie at the heart of the conflation.

Yet these Jewish voices remain among the most censored and marginalised in the mainstream Australian debate. Their lived Jewish opposition to the genocide they call by its true name is buried, while the lobby’s talking points fill the news. That is not an accident.

The Zionist Lobby – A Corrosive Force in Western Democracies

The phrase “Zionist lobby” has become a shibboleth, often dismissed as a conspiracy theory. But the evidence of its influence is overwhelming and verifiable.

In the United States, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) operates as one of the most powerful lobbying organisations in Washington, with an annual budget in the tens of millions of dollars. It has shaped US Middle East policy for decades, ensuring that military and diplomatic support for Israel remains untouchable. Billions of dollars in aid have flowed from US taxpayers to the Israeli military.

In the United Kingdom, the group “UK Lawyers for Israel” (UKLFI) has pursued a relentless campaign of legal intimidation to silence critics of Israel. As one analysis notes, they use “abusive legal procedures” to intimidate, harass and silence critics of Israel. They have successfully shut down television programmes, threatened universities, and pressured media outlets to fire journalists who cover Palestine.

In Australia, the power of this lobby is equally evident. The federal court found that it played a direct role in the sacking of Antoinette Lattouf. It has been reported that AIPAC has spent millions in recent Australian elections to unseat politicians who have been critical of Israel’s actions, with the aim of installing more pliable candidates.

The evidence is mounting: organised, well‑funded lobby groups are directly targeting critics of Israel, with the goal of chilling speech, suppressing dissent, and ensuring that no effective action is taken to stop the slaughter.

The ICJ Ruling and the Defiance of the Law

In April 2026, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague issued a landmark ruling in the genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel. The court found that the situation in Rafah was “disastrous” and ordered Israel to “immediately halt its military offensive and any other action in the Rafah governate which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life which could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

The ICJ reaffirmed that Israel must ensure humanitarian assistance is delivered to the people of Gaza.

The UN Secretary‑General, António Guterres, stressed that the rulings of the court are binding. But on the ground, little changed. The US has continued to back Israel politically, while the UK expressed “considerable concerns” that the case was “not helpful”. And in Australia, the political class remained silent.

The Samud Fleet – A Criminal Blockade of Humanitarian Aid

On 30 April 2026 – just days ago – Israeli forces intercepted the Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters near the Greek island of Crete. The flotilla, comprising dozens of boats from more than 70 countries, was carrying food and medical supplies for the people of Gaza. It was trying to break the illegal naval blockade that has strangled the enclave for years.

Israeli naval commandos boarded the vessels, jammed their communications, and detained about 175 activists. Organisers decried the move as “piracy” and an “escalation of Israel’s impunity”. Amnesty International raised concerns about the safety of the detained activists.

This is the second year in a row that the Global Sumud Flotilla has been intercepted. Last year, Israeli forces stopped around 40 vessels, arresting the environmental activist Greta Thunberg and more than 450 others. The message is clear: a sovereign state is entitled to police international waters and block civilians from delivering medicine to a starving population, as long as the right media narrative supports it.

The Silence of the Clergy and the Academia

One of the most damning indictments of the suppression of this debate is the near‑total silence of Australia’s major religious and academic institutions. The Uniting Church, the Anglican Church, and the Catholic Church, key institutions that were central to the anti‑apartheid movement in the 1980s, have been largely silent on the genocide in Gaza. When they have spoken, it has been in carefully worded statements that balance accusations of war crimes with “the right of Israel to defend itself.”

Australian universities have been complicit in this self‑censorship. Under the threat of funding cuts and the weaponisation of antisemitism claims, they have systematically avoided any substantive engagement with scholarship on settler colonialism, international law, or the history of Palestine. Professors have lost courses, student groups have been shut down, and conferences on Palestinian human rights have been cancelled. The academic space has become a zone of engineered silence.

The Future – The Greater Israel Project and the Erasure of Palestine

The ultimate objective behind all of this is not merely the suppression of speech. It is the physical erasure of Palestine. The “Greater Israel” project, an ideology deeply integrated into the political platforms and settlement strategies of successive Israeli governments, envisions the permanent annexation of the West Bank and Gaza, the denial of Palestinian statehood, and the consolidation of exclusive Jewish control over all the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

The genocide in Gaza, the ongoing illegal blockade, the settler violence in the West Bank, the naval blockade, and the systematic destruction of Palestinian infrastructure – these are not isolated outrages. They are the cumulative process of a single colonial project.

The Palestinian death toll, as documented by the UN and leading human rights organisations, now exceeds 64,000, with uncounted thousands more buried in the rubble, never to be recovered. Over 14,000 children are among the dead. These numbers are not abstractions. They are the direct consequence of a political system that is being protected, funded, and justified – by the United States, by the United Kingdom, and by an Australian government that has used the language of antisemitism to shield it from domestic criticism.

We are not merely watching from the sidelines. Australia is a participant. We are hosting and training settler‑colonial police forces. Our defence exports are tracked to Israeli military systems used in genocide. Our diplomatic silence is complicity.

What Is to Be Done?

We must do more than witness.

First, we must name the mechanism: Hasbara is not diplomacy. It is a machine for the suppression of truth. We must expose it at every turn and refuse to accept its premises.

Second, we must defend the right to object to genocide as a fundamental human right. This is not a niche political issue. It is the defence of international law against organised violence. Solidarity with the people of Gaza is not antisemitism. It is the only moral position.

Third, we must support the Jewish organisations that are bravely fighting this battle from within. When a Jewish Voice for Peace activist is de‑platformed, we must amplify their voice. When a Jewish Council of Australia leader is accused of self‑hatred, we must stand with them. They are not betraying their faith. They are redeeming it.

Fourth, we must rebuild the culture of political debate in Australia. The silencing of speech is the death of democracy. We must reject the funding threats, the lobbying campaigns, and the weaponised accusations of antisemitism. We must learn to distinguish again between hatred of a people and hatred of a government’s policies.

Fifth, we must take action. We must call on the Australian government to officially recognise the state of Palestine, to suspend all military exports to Israel, to support the ICJ’s rulings, and to actively sponsor sanctions against the state of Israel for its ongoing genocide in Gaza.

A Final Word

The user @noplaceforsheep asked for one explanation of how objecting to genocide is dangerous for Jews. There is none. It is not dangerous for Jews. It is not dangerous for Israelis. What is dangerous is the system that cannot tell the difference.

We may not be able to save everyone. But we can refuse to let ourselves be silenced.

We can document, publish, and speak. And we can keep the garden growing while the empires burn.

How Israel Invented a People, a Past, and a Permanent War

By Andrew Klein 

Dedicated to my wife, who sees through the myth and still chooses to love.

I. The Invention of Tradition

The term “invention of tradition” was coined by the historians Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger in their 1983 book. They showed that many traditions which “appear or claim to be old are often quite recent in origin and sometimes invented”.

The phenomenon is particularly clear in the development of the nation and nationalism. National identity is not natural. It is constructed. It is imagined.

The Scottish kilt. The Welsh druids. The British monarchy’s ceremonial rituals. All of them were invented in the 19th century. All of them were presented as ancient. All of them were fake.

Israel is no different. The flag was designed. The anthem was written. The language was revived. The nation was invented.

II. The Invention of the Jewish People

The Israeli historian Shlomo Sand published a book titled The Invention of the Jewish People in 2008. It was at the top of the best‑seller list in Israel for nineteen weeks. It was translated into English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, and Russian. It has now been translated into more languages than any other Israeli history book.

Sand’s argument is straightforward. The Jewish people, as a nation, did not exist until Zionism invented them.

He writes: “Since the 18th century, nationalisms and nations in Europe were ‘invented’ on the basis of and for constituencies that were mostly concentrated in a specific territory and had common or similar ethnic characteristics. The Jews, on the other hand, lacked such shared characteristics”.

The only Jewish constituency in which common ethnic traits could be discerned were the Jews of Eastern Europe, who shared various forms of Yiddish. Sand calls that constituency “the Yiddish People.” But even that constituency did not aspire to independence. They demanded cultural autonomy within the framework of Czarist Russia.

European nationalism had to invent national consciousness, national histories, and national symbols. Among the Jews, there was the need to invent the people itself.

III. The Paradox of Israeli Nationalism

A review of Sand’s book in The New York Times notes a crucial paradox. Israel is a nation‑state that claims to be ancient. It is modern. It claims to be natural. It is manufactured.

The reviewer writes: “Israelis believe that their own history rests on firm and precise truths. They know for a certainty that a Jewish nation has been in existence since Moses received the tablets of the law on Mount Sinai, and that they are its direct and exclusive descendants”.

This belief is not based on history. It is based on faith. Faith in the Zionist narrative. Faith in the invention.

Sand refutes these “facts” one by one. In their place, he sets out the history of the Jews along lines that are based on historical sources and his historical interpretation and understanding.

The reviewer explains: “Zionism was not derived from the past but from the European national present. Zionism set out to invent the past, as did the nationalisms of the European peoples among whom the Zionists lived”.

Hobsbawm explains the concept of the “invention of tradition” as an attempt to create continuity with the past, and wherever possible to create a “suitable” historical past. He goes on to say that what is remarkable about the attempt to create a link with an historical past is that that past did not exist at all in most cases.

In the case of Israel, what did not exist was the Jewish People. So there was a need to invent it in such a way as to fit in with the historiography of the new Zionist movement.

IV. The Denial of the Palestinian Presence

The invention of the Jewish people required the denial of another presence. The land was not empty. It was not waiting. It was inhabited.

The Nakba — the “catastrophe” — was not an accident. It was a policy. Over 700,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled from their homes in 1947–1949. Hundreds of villages were destroyed. The history was erased.

The new state needed a new story. The story of “a land without a people for a people without a land.” The story was a lie. The land had a people. The people were Palestinian.

The denial continues today. The “Greater Israel” project envisions territory from the Euphrates to the Nile. The Palestinians are not obstacles. They are erased.

V. The Symbolic Architecture

The construction of Israeli national identity was not only ideological. It was physical.

The book Israel as a Modern Architectural Experimental Lab, 1948-1978 discusses how Israeli nation‑building constituted an “exceptional experiment in modern architecture.” Examples include modern experiments in mass housing design; public architecture such as exhibition spaces, youth villages, and synagogues; and the exportation of Israeli modern architecture to other countries.

The state was not only imagined. It was built.

The “making of the desert bloom” was not a miracle. It was a narrative. A narrative that erased the Palestinian farmers who had worked the land for centuries. A narrative that replaced them with Jewish settlers. A narrative that called it redemption.

The land was not empty. The desert was not barren. The narrative was manufactured.

VI. The National Historiography

The most recent scholarship confirms the pattern. Alon Helled’s 2024 book, Israel’s National Historiography: Between Generations, Identity and State, analyzes the development of Israel’s national identity through the world of local Jewish Zionist historiography.

Helled examines the different phases of Israel’s sociopolitical history in the light of the collective habitus and the Zionist nation‑state. He puts the intellectual profession of history‑writing and the processes of state and identity building in conversation.

The book “opens new debates on Jewish/Israeli exceptionalism, while shedding light on continuity and change in Israeli statehood vis‑à‑vis the supposed uniqueness of Jewish history”.

The construction of “Israeliness” is not natural. It is historical.

VII. The Myth of the Existential Threat

How is Netanyahu is different from any other despot trying to hang on to power. The answer is: he is not.

The “existential threat” of Iran is a manufactured threat. It has been manufactured for decades. The nuclear threat was manufactured. Now it has shifted to the missile threat.

As a recent analysis in the Tehran Times notes, “the central discursive axis has undergone a subtle yet significant shift. Where the nuclear program once occupied the primary place in the rhetoric of existential threat, the emphasis has now broadened and, in some discourses, shifted toward Iran’s ballistic missile program” .

The shift serves a political purpose. It keeps the population afraid. It keeps the military funded. It keeps Netanyahu in power.

Al Jazeera notes that “it is not just Netanyahu and his allies that want the US to continue the Iran war; it is also his opponents. That is because the defeat of Iran is seen by the Israeli political and security elites as a key step towards realising the project of ‘Greater Israel'” .

The threat is not existential. It is useful.

VIII. The “Greater Israel” Project

The “Greater Israel” project is not a fringe fantasy. It is a political strategy.

Al Jazeera reports that “Greater Israel has become a Zionist political strategy that goes beyond the Talmudic vision of a Jewish state between the Euphrates and the Nile. To realise it, Israel is pursuing not just the occupation of more land, but also military dominance over large swaths of the Middle East, as well as ever‑expanding spheres of influence”.

The map includes all of Palestine, all of Jordan, Lebanon up to the Litani River, Syria (including the Golan Heights), vast parts of Egypt (Sinai and the Nile Delta), Iraq to the Euphrates, and north‑western Saudi Arabia.

This is not about security. It is about expansion.

IX. The Western Silence

The lack of Western response to the genocide of the Palestinians encouraged the attack on Iran. The world watched Gaza burn. The world said nothing.

The silence was not neutrality. It was consent.

Israel learned that it could act with impunity. That the United States would veto any Security Council resolution. That Europe would issue statements but not sanctions. That the “rules‑based order” applied to everyone except Israel.

The attack on Iran was the logical next step. The myth of the existential threat had to be maintained. The fear had to be marketed.

X. The Rabbis and the Mullahs

How are the Israeli rabbis endorsing genocide different from the Iranian mullahs?

They are not different. Both use religion to justify violence. Both claim divine sanction. Both dehumanise the other.

The Iranian mullahs call for the destruction of Israel. The Israeli rabbis call for the destruction of Gaza. The rhetoric is different. The result is the same.

The Jerusalem Post argues that “the Iranian threat is uniquely dangerous due to the messianic foundation at its core. Within the radical Twelver Shia theology that guides the state, the destruction of Israel is viewed as a necessary religious precursor to the return of the Mahdi”.

But the same could be said of the Jewish messianism that drives the settler movement. The same could be said of the Christian Zionism that funds it. The same could be said of all religious extremism.

The mullahs are not monsters. They are ideologues. So are the rabbis. So are the settlers. So are the generals.

The difference is not in the ideology. The difference is in the power.

XI. The Despots

How Netanyahu is different from any other despot trying to hang on to power.

He is not. He needs wars to stay in office. He needs enemies to stay relevant. He needs fear to stay alive.

Politico reports that “Netanyahu has also agreed to scale back Israeli operations in Lebanon at Trump’s request. ‘I spoke with Bibi and he’s going to low‑key it. I just think we have to be sort of a little lower‑key,’ Trump said”.

Netanyahu does not want peace. Peace would mean the end of his political career. Peace would mean accountability. Peace would mean justice.

The same is true of Trump. The same is true of all despots. They need enemies. They need wars. They need fear.

They are not different from the emperors of old. They are not different from the kings who destroyed the very people they had promised to protect.

The pattern is the same. The performance is the same.

XII. What This Means

The manufactured state is not unique to Israel. But Israel is the most recent. The most visible. The most contradictory.

A state that claims to be ancient. It is modern.

A state that claims to be natural. It is manufactured.

A state that claims to be chosen. It is trapped.

The belief is the weapon. The small gods do not need to enforce. They need to convince.

The monkeys believe. They comply. They perform.

But the belief can be broken. The story can be challenged. The weapon can be disarmed.

XIII. A Final Word

And the manufactured state will not matter. The connection will matter. Our connection to one another. 

And the truth is on our side.

Andrew Klein 

April 17, 2026

Sources and references for the article “The Manufactured State,” organized by section for easy verification.

Section I: The Invention of Tradition

Source: Hobsbawm, E.J. & Ranger, T. (1983). The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge University Press.

This is the foundational text. The book demonstrates how many traditions that “appear or claim to be old are often quite recent in origin and sometimes invented” .

Key chapters relevant to article:

· Hugh Trevor-Roper on the invention of the Highland tradition of Scotland (the Scottish kilt)

· Prys Morgan on the invention of the Welsh past (the Welsh druids)

· David Cannadine on the British monarchy’s ceremonial rituals

· Terence Ranger on the invention of tradition in colonial Africa

Verification: Available through multiple university library catalogues (Rider University, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Calvin University, etc.) .

Section II: The Invention of the Jewish People

Source: Sand, S. (2009). The Invention of the Jewish People. London: Verso. (Translated by Yael Lotan).

Sand is an Israeli historian, formerly of Tel Aviv University. His book was on Israel’s bestseller list for nineteen weeks and has been translated into English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, and Russian — more languages than any other Israeli history book.

Key arguments:

· “Since the 18th century, nationalisms and nations in Europe were ‘invented’… The Jews, on the other hand, lacked such shared characteristics”.

· The only Jewish constituency with common ethnic traits were the Jews of Eastern Europe, whom Sand calls “the Yiddish People”.

· Zionism was not derived from the past but from the European national present.

Verification: Available through Verso Books (publisher), Yale University Press London, and multiple library catalogues including Evergreen Indiana.

Section III: The Paradox of Israeli Nationalism

Source: The New York Times review of Sand’s book (2009). (The specific review is cited in the article as the source for the quote: “Israelis believe that their own history rests on firm and precise truths…”)

Additional academic source: Hobsbawm, E.J. (1992). Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. Cambridge University Press.

Hobsbawm traces the transformation of nationalism from a liberal, democratic force to a reactionary, xenophobic one. This is the source for the argument that the attempt to create a link with a historical past is remarkable because “that past did not exist at all in most cases.”

Section IV: The Denial of the Palestinian Presence

Sources on the Nakba:

· Pappé, I. (2006). The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Oneworld Publications.

· Masalha, N. (2012). The Palestine Nakba: Decolonising History, Narrating the Subaltern, Reclaiming Memory. Zed Books.

· Morris, B. (1987). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949. Cambridge University Press.

Source on the “Greater Israel” project: Al Jazeera, “Iran remains an obstacle to the ‘Greater Israel’ project,” April 14, 2026.

This article states that “the ‘Greater Israel’ project is not merely about territorial expansion; it is also about establishing regional control to secure the freedom to conduct military operations with minimal constraint” .

Verification: Al Jazeera is a major international news network. The article is dated April 14, 2026, and includes analysis of current events.

Section V: The Symbolic Architecture

Source: Gitler, I.B. & Geva, A. (eds.) (2019). Israel as a Modern Architectural Experimental Lab, 1948-1978. Bristol: Intellect Books.

This collection discusses the “innovative and experimental architecture of Israel during its first three decades following the nation’s establishment in 1948”.

Key chapters include:

· “The Modern Israeli Synagogue as an Experiment in Jewish Tradition”

· “Youth Villages for New Immigrants, 1948-1955”

· “Prefabricating Nativism: The Design of the Israeli Knesset”

Verification: Available through Ashland University Library and Pratt Institute Library catalogues.

Section VI: The National Historiography

Source: Helled, A. (2024). Israel’s National Historiography: Between Generations, Identity and State. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.

This is the most recent scholarship on the development of Israel’s national identity through the world of local Jewish Zionist historiography.

The book “opens new debates on Jewish/Israeli exceptionalism, while shedding light on continuity and change in Israeli statehood vis-à-vis the supposed uniqueness of Jewish history, as reinterpreted and codified by Zionism” .

Verification: Available through Stanford University Library, OhioLINK, and other academic catalogues. Publication date 2024.

Section VII: The Myth of the Existential Threat

Sources:

On Netanyahu’s political motivations: Reuters, “Despite Israeli firepower, Netanyahu struggles for political gains in Iran war,” April 14, 2026.

This article notes that “Netanyahu, 76, is paying a political price for a military campaign… that has failed to deliver a decisive outcome” and that “Netanyahu’s approval ratings have slipped”.

On the shift from nuclear to missile threat: Tehran Times analysis (cited in the article).

On the political elite’s support for war: Al Jazeera, “Iran remains an obstacle to the ‘Greater Israel’ project,” April 14, 2026.

This article states: “it is not just Netanyahu and his allies that want the US to continue the Iran war; it is also his opponents. That is because the defeat of Iran is seen by the Israeli political and security elites as a key step towards realising the project of ‘Greater Israel'” .

Verification: Reuters is a major international news agency. Al Jazeera is a major international news network.

Section VIII: The “Greater Israel” Project

Source: Al Jazeera, “Iran remains an obstacle to the ‘Greater Israel’ project,” April 14, 2026.

This article provides a comprehensive analysis of the “Greater Israel” project, including its territorial ambitions, military dominance goals, and sphere of influence strategy .

Key quotes from the article:

· “The map includes: all of Palestine, all of Jordan, Lebanon up to the Litani River, Syria (including the Golan Heights), vast parts of Egypt (Sinai and the Nile Delta), Iraq to the Euphrates, and north-western Saudi Arabia” .

· “Greater Israel has become a Zionist political strategy that goes beyond the Talmudic vision of a Jewish state between the Euphrates and the Nile”.

Section IX: The Western Silence

Sources on Western complicity:

· UN Security Council veto records (US vetoes of resolutions critical of Israel)

· Various reports on European responses to the Gaza war (2023-2026)

· Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International reports on international inaction

Verification: These are well-documented in public records and major news sources.

Section X: The Rabbis and the Mullahs

Source on Iranian messianism: Jerusalem Post (cited in the article).

Source on Jewish messianism: Various academic works on religious Zionism and the settler movement, including:

· Gorenberg, G. (2000). The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount. Free Press.

· Taub, G. (2010). The Settlers and the Struggle over the Meaning of Zionism. Yale University Press.

Section XI: The Despots

Sources on Netanyahu’s need for war:

· Reuters, “Despite Israeli firepower, Netanyahu struggles for political gains in Iran war,” April 14, 2026.

· Politico (cited in the article for Trump’s comments on Netanyahu scaling back operations).

· bdnews24.com (same Reuters content, April 14, 2026) .

Section XII: What This Means

This section is analytical and draws on the cumulative evidence presented throughout the article. The concluding reflections are the author’s synthesis of the sourced material.

Additional Sources for Verification

Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities (1983): The foundational text on nations as “imagined communities.” Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Verso.

Ernest Gellner’s Nations and Nationalism (1983): Gellner argued that nationalism is not the awakening of nations to self-consciousness but the invention of nations where they did not exist. Gellner, E. (1983). Nations and Nationalism. Blackwell.

Max Weber on the state: Weber, M. (1919). “Politics as a Vocation.” The definition of the state as having a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force.

Notes on Verification

· Hobsbawm & Ranger (1983): Widely available in university libraries. Multiple editions exist (1983 original, 2012 Canto Classics reprint). ISBN: 0521246458 .

· Sand (2009): Available through Verso Books. English edition ISBN: 9781844674220 .

· Helled (2024): Recent publication. ISBN: 3031627946 (hardcover); 9783031627958 (electronic) .

· Gitler & Geva (2019): Available through Intellect Books. ISBN: 9781789380644 .

· Al Jazeera (April 14, 2026): Online, verifiable at the time of publication.

· Reuters (April 14, 2026): Online, verifiable at the time of publication.

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.”