In 1997, December 15, the Institute held a Conference in Washington. Its title was “Israel: The Advanced Case of Western Afflictions.” The message was Israel cannot survive a Palestinian State because its Elites and Political Classes are wedded to the World State (also known as democracy or the Open Society). Nobody paid any attention. Seven years before that the Institute published a document, the “black book.” It was called “Can Israel Survive a Palestinian State?” The book wasn’t our best effort. In fact most of the contributors –men now making a name for themselves as critics of Islam, a good thing to do –said things about the then coming peace process, for example, that it was the “train in the station” so we had to ride it. In other words, these are the men who are the Advanced Case of Western Afflictions. So when Sharon’s Gaza withdrawal came upon the scene, these same men opposed it if they were “hawks” and opposed it if they were “doves.” This reaction was the “politics as usual” of the Elites and Political Classes demonstrated that the “advanced” case had advanced much. I say this because the Sharon Plan came on the scene when the Advanced Case had long since advanced beyond the point that the Western Elites, and the American ones, had demonstrated our point in their response to 9/11; to Iraq. I supported Sharon. Pro-U.S. aid, a “typical” Israeli pol, he had nevertheless clearly seen Israel was now far passed the line of what people call “critical mass”.

His actions, building the fence (now breached), realizing the “hawks” led by Netanyahu, Landau, Eitam are not leaders; most of all Sharon pushed the Peace Process off the table, using Mr. Bush’s Road Map to do it, showed, at least he showed me, he was Israel’s last man. (Sharon, to be sure, still regards aid as the cornerstone of Israeli strategy. Big as he is, he was not big enough for this; no one in Israel is, and certainly Netanyahu is not even though he raised Congressmen out of their seats, led by Kemp, Kyl and Gingrich, all three of whom resemble him, when he announced he’d be cutting it as soon as he returned to Israel. Now, realizing how dreadful Israel’s position has become, Sharon saw the necessity of drastic action. Say, “re-grouping” of the ordinary people. Now, today, the Muslims are taking the pulse and checking if the time is here for the final knockout, it is plain there is Nobody in Israel. Mr. Olmert is bombing Lebanon. Hello?

The Western Afflictions are democracy, the Open Society; and the Elites and Political Classes who embrace this as the solution to their problem, which is to rule (i.e., this is what Political Classes and Elites are supposed to do if there is a political order), are embracing what the Israeli Elites and Political Classes have embraced from the start. Outwardly this is the World State. That is to say, these Elites and Political Classes embrace their solution to rule; the solution to the fact of political order is to end it –or, more to the point, to decline to point out, for example, to ordinary people, that there is no political order in Western societies, and has not been such a thing for a very long time. (There is a direct cause for this, but I cannot discuss it here. In any case, it is nothing that can be fixed or treated by policies.). Here we encroach the point of it all.

The Political Classes and the Elites know there is no political order. That the name and action of this order is the Open Society or democracy. The Elites and the Political Classes have knowledge. This knowledge is what makes them Elites and Political Classes. Until the advent of democracy, the bases for which were raised in the 17th century bearing first fruits in the French Revolution, and in lesser and other revolutions until the World State became clear in the 20th century in the Russian and German revolutions, the ordinary people knew nothing about politics, wars etc. The Democratic Era changed all of this as you know. As you are told daily and in countless ways, especially if you are educated. In the Democratic Era ordinary people, a group including more people, relatively and absolutely, than ordinary people in earlier political orders, are quite like ordinary people of past times –but with two important differences. Today’s ordinary people –loosely speaking this refers to those who are not the Elites and Political Classes –are the educated. This includes education by the State, up to the four years in college and university, and beyond. The educated includes the educators. What are the two differences?

The ordinary people, who certainly know nothing more about politics and public affairs, wars and the like, than ordinary people ever did, know less. The explanation used to be simple. The Elites and Political Classes didn’t tell them. The rulers, good and bad, had nothing to gain by telling the ordinary people anything. This introduces the second difference. The democracy, Open Society Elites and the Political Classes –what a famous but little known writer called the order of “totalitarianism in the resting phase” (liberalism but also conservatism in the main as well) –have found in democracy and the Open Society a system of rule that is easier and very much more effective than rule in the old days. They have found a system to rule that will exempt them from ruling at all. Their method is to teach the ordinary people about politics and political and social order along the lines we know they teach these things. The ordinary people, not armies, will get us to the World State. So today we have the war against Israel by Iran, leading Syria, Hezbollah and new Hamas terror state. Consider the points I just made. Apply them to Israel. Israel’s policy today, well understood by the World’s Elites and Political Classes, and not understood at all by anyone else, including the Jews of Israel and the U.S., is this: blast away at Lebanon, a terrorized quasi-state of Christians and Muslims. When this goes on long enough to get the Western orders to stop Israel, the war will stop. Money will be rewarded. Conferences will be convened. Until the next phases. (A “phase” in this context is the measure of Israel’s size and security; its reliance upon aid to sustain domestic socialism, this being the political order of sacrifices for peace, for example, bombing Lebanon.) How do the Elites and Political Classes know this?

Because the ordinary people don’t know that Israel knows the enemy is Iran, and first target is Syria. Israel is doing everything it can to insure it will not have to target that first target. Betrayal? Let us not be ordinary people on this one. “Betrayal” does not come close to the depths of betrayal and irresponsibility, in Israel surely; but in all the Western societies, the U. S. is only the most serious and effectual of these societies. It is not betrayal in the first instance. The betrayal in the first instance is democracy. The Open Society. The ordinary Israeli, the ordinary man anywhere in a Western society has still one small basis for hope and effective action. This is the Vote. With this he can proclaim his hope, demonstrating he will no longer participate in his own destruction. He can choose, still in freedom, not to vote. Not to affirm his destruction and his betrayal. This order of government is the choice of the Elites and Political Classes. Will men still continue to choose it?

RJL

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