I love this shit. "Will Israel Survive to 100?" Run for the hills! It reminds me of one of my favorite jokes:
So I says to the doctor, I says, Doc, am I gonna die?You know, I understand that establishment papers feel it to be a central part of their public responsibility to fan the flames of a permanent Israelocrisis, as if the Kingdom of Judea again faces the might of Babylon, but come on. I love these "existential crises." Neither Iran nor Hamas is going to drive Israel into the sea. Israel's guerilla problem has to do with its own security policy, and the Israelis, including both the supporters and opponents of its security policy, know this. They understand that pockets of stateless people in an un-contiguous moonscape of shelled concrete with no functionl economy will turn to insurgency and terrorism, but consider the alternatives. A unified Palestinian state? Ha! Israel's political-military establishment was not stupid; they knew what Occupation meant, and they've lived with it for forty years now. Of course, Israeli jingos are tickled that their US subsidizers and suppliers are so willing to believe that Ahmedinejad is the second coming of Nebuchadnezzar.
Doctor looks at me, and he says, Yes.
8 comments:
I don't think it's a totally crazy question. But I would ask it somewhat differently. "Will the U.S. still be a significant imperial power in 2048, and if not, will Israel be successful in finding a more effective patron?"
They're not worried about Iran getting an atom bomb because it might be dropped on Tel Aviv. That's not the function of atom bombs. The Israelis are worried about regional competition in the protection-money racket: if Iran gets a bomb, they'll very quickly attract a sugar daddy. And if they attract a sugar daddy that's bigger than Israel's sugar daddy-- well, as Saddam discovered, these things can turn on a dime.
Israel has a unique ace in the hole, of course, in the Dome of the Rock. If that somehow got accidentally destroyed, all hell would break loose. Nobody wants all hell to break loose. So you can understand why the incredibly efficient Israeli secret service doesn't move to break up a puny little group like the Temple Mount Faithful...
Obvious deduction or paranoid fantasy? You make the call!
Imadinnerjacket is , like, all biblical and shit, huh.
"aaron" - I'll take a stab at your question: "no" to the first part; "yes" to the second.
Israeli Jews are some of the most - how shall I put this delicately - survivalistic (if that even is a word) people you'll ever come across. I once had a single mother of four boys threaten to blow my balls off - in front of her sons.(I didn't stick around to find out if she had her weapon handy.)
American Jews don't count to them as much as the crazy American religious-fanatics raising funds for the Rapture (or whatever the hell it is they call the Second Coming). So it goes.
Israel will survive, with or without the Temple Mount.
'Merica, on the other hand, is in some serious deep doodoo. (I'm pretty sure that is a word.)
Mike
p.s. thanks to our gracious host for the cool, retro Kenny Rogers (or was that Glen Campbell with a beard) vid.
"This will not stand, man."
Gotta love ya some Dude!!
Mike
Kenny Rogers...psychedelic man.
I once had a single mother of four boys threaten to blow my balls off - in front of her sons.(I didn't stick around to find out if she had her weapon handy.)
Oh, you mean with a gun. Damn, 'cause I was gonna say, that sounds hot.
hayduke wins.
Yeah, that was Kenny Rogers, fronting the First Edition, I think on the Smothers Brothers. I remember seeing that absurd pseudo-psychedelic segment when it first aired. But who was the cute guitarist in the white turtleneck?
There's an irony about "so willing to believe that Ahmedinejad is the second coming of Nebuchadnezzar." The conquest of ancient Israel by the Babylonians was, according to the Hebrew prophets, the will of Yahweh, his judgment on Israel for its corruption and lack of piety and justice. Jeremiah, I believe, prophesied that Yahweh *wanted* Israel to submit to seventy years of Babylonian rule and exile. Can you imagine a modern "prophet" telling Israel to surrender to the Muslim hordes?
Then, sixty years later, Second Isaiah celebrated the conquest of Babylon, and the return of the Jewish exiles, at the hands of the Persians -- that is, to say, Iran. Persia, run by Zoroastrians, was the good guy in his scenario.
But that was then and this is now, and most Israelis today aren't particularly pious. No wonder Yahweh's pissed again.
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