Glen Beck often brings a unique perspective to complex issues. His discussions can spark interesting debates, especially regarding Israel and its role in global politics.
What specific points from the talk stood out to you
Kilroy was here
Not really a fan, can you sum up?
If you’re a fan did you know he did a cameo in Nefarious?
about the driest part of the movie though, and it’s not a fast movie, but it is a very good movie 
I had tried to listen to Glenn many years back, he kept carrying on about the democracy we live in which is a pretty quick way to loose me
Official Definition of DEMOCRACY copied from Training Manual No. 2000-25 that was published by the then War Department, Washington, D.C., November 30, 1928.
Prepared under the direction of the Chief of Staff.
CITIZENSHIP
This manual supersedes Manual of Citizenship Training The use of the publication “The Constitution of the United States,” by Harry Atwood, is by permission and courtesy of the author.
CITIZENSHIP Democracy:
A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meeting or any other form of “direct” expression. Results in mobocracy. Attitude toward property is communistic–negating property rights. Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether is be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences. Results in demogogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy
CITIZENSHIP Republic:
Authority is derived through the election by the people of public officials best fitted to represent them. Attitude toward law is the administration of justice in accord with fixed principles and established evidence, with a strict regard to consequences. A greater number of citizens and extent of territory may be brought within its compass. Avoids the dangerous extreme of either tyranny or mobocracy. Results in statesmanship, liberty, reason, justice, contentment, and progress. Is the “standard form” of government throughout the world. A republic is a form of government under a constitution which provides for the election of
(1) an executive and (2) a legislative body, who working together in a representative capacity, have all the power of appointment, all power of legislation, all power to raise revenue and appropriate expenditures, and are required to create (3) a judiciary to pass upon the justice and legality of their government acts and to recognize (4) certain inherent individual rights.
Take away any one or more of those four elements and you are drifting into autocracy. Add one or more to those four elements and you are drifting into democracy.
Atwood. Superior to all others.–Autocracy declares the divine right of kings; its authority can not be questioned; its powers are arbitrarily or unjustly administered. Democracy is the “direct” rule of the people and has been repeatedly tried without success. Our Constitutional fathers, familiar with the strength and weakness of both autocracy and democracy, with fixed principles definitely in mind, defined a representative republican form of government. They “made a very marked distinction between a republic and a democracy * * * and said repeatedly and emphatically that they had founded a republic.”
"By order of the Secretary of War: C.P. Summerall, Major General, Chief of Staff. Official: Lutz Wahl, Major General, The Adjutant General.
Can you read the transcript and answer for yourself?
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Yeah, I think Israel understands that more or less. It’s an accurate summary of the Jewish experience for over 3,500 years, both in their own land and outside of it. It’s why they concluded that a Jewish nation has to exist to protect the Jews. That’s the founding idea of Zionism, which is quite similar to the same for the 2A. Nobody will care more for our lives than we ourselves.
That’s why they are making moves to become less dependent on the US, as I mentioned, for ammo and such. (I used to buy IMI 9mm and 5.56, but since Oct. 7, I haven’t seen them so much stateside. Apparently they need it for themselves.)
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One of the most impactful moments of my public school education was when my American history teacher said that the Founding Fathers considered democracy - pure democracy - a form of tyranny. It made me think a lot, especially as a Jew in a nation among a majority of non-Jews.
I already knew that a majority doesn’t always make a thing right. But to reframe it as a potential tyranny was a new angle I hadn’t considered in the context of statecraft. Now, it isn’t necessarily unjust, and there are many contexts where majorities do lead to peace and justice. But the cliff is very close, and if the majority loses patience and brotherly love for the minority, that is when tyranny can easily begin.
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But, is ZIonism driven by Jews?
Is Zionism simply Jewish self protection, give us a home, or is it a political project that used Jewish suffering as fuel for nefarious motives?
The men involved may have been Jews, just as current Israeli leaders may be Jews, but that does not make the political project identical with Jews as a people. Zionism has Jewish actors, but it also has nationalist theory, British imperial sponsorship, Christian prophetic support, U.S. military backing, donor networks, and war economy incentives. That is why I am trying not to say “Jews.” I am trying to separate Jewish survival from Zionist machinery.
The Christian prophetic support in particular makes me nauseous as it misses this clear divide,
Synagogue of Satan, no matter what you believe Satan to be it is not Jewish religion correct?
Or, incorrect?
The famous line is associated with Mossad, from Proverbs 24:6. In KJV, the verse says “by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war,” but Mossad’s older slogan rendered the idea as “by subterfuge” or “by deception.” That distinction matters. Counsel is one thing. Deception as a governing method is another. Scripture identifies Satan as “that old serpent… which deceiveth the whole world” and as “the father” of lies. So when a state’s security culture begins to boast in deception, and its soldiers are attached to banners of Satan or the Angel of Death…
Well, perhaps we can justify in various ways, some simple, but at any point are we to consider the symbols are saying the quiet part out loud?
The men may be Jews, but the root is not simply Jewish. There is a political root, an imperial root, a Christian Zionist root, and a mystical messianic root. Kabbalah/Zohar do not create Zionism by themselves, but they help explain how a modern state project can be clothed in sacred mystery and redemption language.
Begin to study the history
https://www.brandeis.edu/jewish-experience/history-culture/2022/september/kook-zionism-mirsky.html
https://www.nli.org.il/en/discover/judaism/figures/gershom-scholem
https://www.nli.org.il/en/discover/judaism/jewish-bookshelf/zohar
Then look at the divides, all of them, we see Christian prophetic support accepted in one place and ignored in another (Synagogue of Satan) and the same happened with the reformation, Luther, the grand champion
part,but not the whole story, Bucer, Calvin, Capito, and others carried forms of the same anti Jewish inheritance, a long habit of treating Jews as a spiritually dangerous, cursed, inferior, or socially contaminating people.
So both examples are of a “new” thing with so called good intentions.
That is where I am dividing the question. Jewish history gives real reason to fear rulers and promises. But Torah does not say, “Because you suffered, you may become ruthless.” It says the opposite: because you were strangers, do not vex the stranger; because you were oppressed, do not oppress; because God regards not persons, execute true judgment.
If Zionism claims Jewish survival as its moral root, then it must still answer Moses. “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” “Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.” “Oppress not the stranger.” Survival may explain fear; it does not sanctify cruelty.
The charity question does not have to begin with Luther or Rome. It begins with Moses. “The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself.” That is the standard. Jewish suffering is real, but Torah does not turn suffering into moral immunity. It turns memory of suffering into a duty of mercy.
A state may be Jewish in name, but if it forgets mercy, justice, and the stranger, it is not standing on Moses.
One side accepts Christian prophetic support when it blesses Zionism, but ignores Christian scripture when it warns about false Jewish claims or Satanic/deceptive symbols.
The other side, the Reformation/Protestant side, claims reform and truth, but carried inherited anti Jewish contempt from older Christianity.
Does any of this matter now?
That depends on the reader
If you held the black album to a mirror would you see three 6’s stacked?
If you view yourself to a mirror do you see charity?
or just more hate?
You’re lucky you had any impactful moments realized at that time, what if you hadn’t and chose to chase tail, whiskey, weed and Black Sabbath …
Would you have wasted time, or…
Embrace it
And then you will know yourself
The change in you is goddamn electric
The Dead Sea Scrolls, especially the Community Rule, speak in terms of two spirits, the spirit of truth and the spirit of perversity/injustice. Man walks under one or the other. That is close to the biblical divide: truth versus lie, light versus darkness, obedience versus rebellion. The deception begins when man walks by the wrong spirit and calls it wisdom.
So if we perpetuate through school and all manner of social norms for generations, the same things repeated, never looking at that dark glass reflection, just believing …rather, not believing?
The truth is out, the lies are old, but you don’t want to know
And as Morpheus said
Many of them are so inert, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.
So they will tell you it is warfare…but then…ignore it?
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Are you suggesting that Jew-hating non-Jews are exploiting the Jewish need for self-preservation (=Zionism)? Well, that’s of course. That’s how we get the UNRWA skimming off of aid which they then hand over to terrorists, terrorists taking hostages to trade in exchange for halting any response and releasing more terrorists, and the UN demanding land-for-peace. In all those cases Israel was promised peace if not preservation, but actually it fed back into more violence. The cycle repeats.
You’re right. Technically, the political project is just a means to preserving the Jews, and other means are possible, like maintaining Jewish identity in the diaspora through Torah study and mitzvos in the classical sense. At the same time, it is also a mitzvah to “not stand idly by your fellow’s blood” (Lev. 19:16), which means that Jews are commanded to save each other’s lives, and lives of their friends.
It’s hard to take seriously the “innocence” of a movement like the anti-Zionists, whose name means denying Jews the means to organize and physically defend themselves from a contiguous piece of land. They explicitly call for the complete removal of Israel from that land: “From the river to the sea” means from the Jordan River at Israel’s eastern border to the Mediterranean Sea at Israel’s western border. That’s everything. Likewise the Arabic version, min il-ṃayye la-l-ṃayye, Falasṭīn ʿarabiyye, which means “From the water to the water, Palestine is Arab.” Another version ends, Falasṭīn ʾislāmiyye, “Palestine is Islamic.” Those are genocidal chants. These chants have been used by the PLO in the 1960s, which has a charter calling for eliminating Israel; and by vandals in graffiti during the First Intifada.
Suppose some America-invading political movement were to come about with a chant like, “From sea to shining sea, Turtle Island is for me”? (Turtle Island is a protest name some have for mainland USA.) And then they say that the “evil” political project of America is not the same as the American people? We just want to criticize, they say, we oppose American nationalism? Wouldn’t that be an existential attack?
Break it down. The American political project is what protects the American people. That’s why we “d[id] ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” It was “to insure domestic Tranquility, to provide for the common defence.” To eliminate America’s constitutional political project is to attack its people, whom it protects.
Likewise, to attack the Zionist political project is to attack the “domestic Tranquility” and disrupt “the common defence” of the Jewish people.
You said
but that’s impossible, by definition. Zionism is about Jewish survival and escaping the Jew-haters: “If we could only be left in peace… But I think we shall not be left in peace,” wrote Herzl. Though there are many flaws in his essay “The Jewish State,” this at least has proven unfortunately true.
That’s what Zionism was made for.
You can criticize policies of the USA and the policies of Israel. But to attack their essential existence is a whole different level.
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That is precisely the definition I reject. Zion does not begin or end with Zionism, nor is the ancient term owned by the later -ism.
Zionist political actors appropriated an older Jewish and Christian sacred term and made their political meaning dominant. They wisely hijacked it, because that allows defense of a political project to present itself as defense of Jewish survival.
Nor do I treat hatred as a foregone conclusion. You do, by collapsing criticism of Zionism into hatred of Jews. That is the very machinery I am trying to separate.
So then why do you do that?
Peace sells but war has buyers with money, power and something to gain. That is why war is never advertised as war. It is peddled as survival , bomb them before they build a bomb, add in hate, ridicule, low IQ, shame, contempt, just sand niggers who cares, not worth even the same scraps a dog gets, all packaged so nice with a bow you just have to buy from that nice little man
but he’s already been defeated and people only need to wake up
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I suspect that the definition you reject is not among any of these, which I’m using.
Zi-on-ism n. 1. A plan or movement of the Jewish people to return from the Diaspora to Palestine. 2. A movement originally aimed at the re-establishment of a Jewish national homeland and state in Palestine and now concerned with development of Israel.
~ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, ed. 1978.
Zi-on-ism n. - an international movement originally for the establishment of a Jewish national or religious community in the historical region of Palestine and later for the support of modern Israel
~ Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, 1 Aug. 2026
Zionism means a Jewish state should exist. Anti-Zionism means a Jewish state should not exist. Not that it should be smaller; that it should disappear.
Whether you combine Zionism with religion or not, it still boils down to Jews having their own land from which to defend themselves. To deny them that is like a mass gun confiscation, a denial of the right (EDIT: or means) to self-defense.
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It’s not about
It is about accepting.
I am not questioning Jewish fear or the desire for refuge. I am questioning the machine that stepped in to organize that refuge. When the British Empire, Balfour, Rothschild channels, mandate power, and later U.S. machinery are central to the construction, scrutiny is not hatred; it is basic discernment.
Those powers are not known for giving. They are known for gathering, managing, meddling, profiting, and playing both sides. Jewish survival and the political machinery built in its name are not the same thing.
I am using “antichrist” functionally, not ethnically. Anything that replaces Christ, speaks over Christ, or redirects Christian allegiance away from Christ is antichrist in operation. Modern Israel does this when it claims sacred standing while rejecting Jesus. Britain did it when crown and empire placed political authority over church order. America does it when it carries and funds the machine. Christian Zionism does it when it teaches believers to defend a state faster than they obey Christ.
The result is not one isolated error, but an antichrist arrangement: empire, church, money, prophecy, and war taking the place that belongs to Jesus.
This connects to 1 John’s “many antichrists,” Revelation 13’s beast, Revelation 17’s woman riding the beast, and Revelation 18’s Babylon merchant system. Antichrist is not only a future villain; it is any spirit or system that denies or displaces Christ. The beast is empire power. The woman is sacred corruption joined to kings. The merchants profit from her. And the people of God are told, “Come out of her.”
That is why this is not merely foreign policy. It is a religious political system asking Christians to give sacred loyalty where only Christ has authority.
A Jew can deny Christ. That is the religious divide. But he cannot deny that modern Israel has depended heavily on Western blessing, especially America: money, weapons, vetoes, diplomacy, and military protection. The danger is that Israel turns that blessing into blood. America the Beautiful becomes America the beast when it is used as the sword for another state’s ambitions.
Romans 11:26 is exactly where the distinction matters. “All Israel shall be saved” speaks of Israel as a people before God, not an artificial state apparatus. Paul is talking about blindness, mercy, the fathers, Jacob, ungodliness, and sins being taken away. That is covenant language, not statecraft. A political state can borrow the name Israel, gather bodies into land, build an army, and claim sacred standing, but it cannot fulfill Romans 11 unless the Deliverer turns away ungodliness from Jacob.
“Out of Sion” points to Christ’s authority and God’s act of redemption, not man’s construction of a state by empire. Artificial Zionism gives a political Zion before the Deliverer turns away ungodliness. Paul’s order is the opposite: blindness remains until God acts, and salvation comes by the Deliverer, not by a flag.
That is why I cannot accept artificial Zionism as fulfillment. It looks like a political clone wearing the covenant name before the promised conversion has occurred.
Mark 13:34 gives the Christian side of the same problem. Christ is the man gone on a far journey. The house is His. The authority is His. He gave authority to His servants and commanded the porter to watch. If Peter received the keys, and that office continues, then England did not merely disagree with Rome. It set crown authority over the church and denied the porter Christ left watching the house. That is denying His name in the biblical sense: denying His authority while He is away.
So the issue is not Jews versus Christians. The issue is counterfeit authority. A state can wear the name Israel. A crown can wear the name church. A nation can wear the name liberty. A prophecy movement can wear the name Bible. But if the result redirects allegiance away from Christ and toward empire, war, money, or national destiny, then the name has been stolen while the authority behind the name has been denied.
None of this is without further need to dissect, and the short of it is no, I don’t equate Zion with Zionism which may be as confusing to some as
We think in modern terms and try to see through ancient language, a lot is lost or hidden, or just clear as mud , but the bottom line, an artificial Israel can never do what God alone can do
which is soften a Jewish heart.
Can’t conclude without a song or it might be out of character
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Sorry! I’m just dense. ?What part of the existence of Israel as a state do you object to. Israel was formed by the victors of a World War, as a means to formalize a place of refuge for the millions of Jews across the continent that were still at risk from fascist/communist forces. Interestingly, much of Israel was originally purchased FROM THE ARAB OWNERS, who were happy to take jewish money for land they felt was pretty useless. The 1948 war was fought mostly without any real outside national help. It was Jews fighting for Jews. Arms was surplus stuff purchased on the arms market by Jews. WE didn’t provide them much of anything as AMERICA. “Palestine” (whatever that was) was during the war an active supporter of Nazi Germany. THAT means they LOST THE WAR! Look at what al happened after WWI, and ask yourself if the creation of Israel was nearly as disruptive or “helpful” to the Eweropeans.
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It’s not you, it’s clear as mud, I do not object to Jews seeking refuge or merely to Israel existing. I object to replacing complicated history with the claim that Jews mostly bought the country, fought entirely alone, and were entitled to the remainder because “Palestine lost World War II.” Britain, the Mandate system, the UN, foreign arms and war were all central to what occurred, maybe ask why?
If you cannot explain what each of those powers stood to gain, how certain are you that what you “know” is the history and not merely the justification you were taught?
Still is isn’t it?
If the land was pretty useless, why did Britain, the UN, the Soviet bloc, Arab governments and Zionist organizations invest so much political power, money and blood in controlling it? Useless to whom and what was it actually worth?
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MY reading of history - long ago - says your objection is without merit. Jews did fight pretty much alone, at least in 1948, and they did purchase large tracts of land in what is now israel. the
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If that needs to be clarified we can pull up historical facts on what you’re citing to argue it, but it makes more sense to focus on what I am asking, why the great powers constructed, armed and recognized the project?
If your old reading of history never required you to ask that question, perhaps it told you what happened without telling you what was happening.
Here’s another thing to consider, before you go further, cognitive overload and cognitive dissonance, the latter is holding two beliefs, here it is Christian and Jewish and the former means your working memory is saturated. At that point, more reading, comparing, or deciding usually makes the work worse.
Stop taking in new information. Write down only:
- What must be decided now.
- What can wait.
- The single next physical action.
Then do only that action. Do not reorganize the whole project while overloaded.
We have multiple threads on the same content, but they are all the same, my best advice
prayer closet.
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I’m glad to see that.
The (then mostly secular) Zionists are easy to explain. The Jews had no other home or chance at really defending themselves. They were being murdered by the Nazis, were being persecuted by the Soviets, and the Eastern Europeans in the middle were slaughtering Jews even without Nazi or Soviet help. The Americans turned them away by the boatload, and being openly Jewish in the US was economically perilous at the time. British Mandatory Palestine (officially parenthesized “Land of Israel”) was one of the few places taking Jews in, and even then, the British were trying to limit the influx of Jewish refugees. Escaping to the Holy Land to build their own community was logical.
Prior to the Zionist agricultural projects, the land was barren.
-
American Consul in Jerusalem (1880): Reported that the area was in historic decline, noting that population and wealth had not increased in forty years.
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Lewis French (British Director of Development): Described the land as inhabited by fellahin living in mud hovels, with large areas uncultivated and suffering from malaria.
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Israel Zangwill (Jewish British Novelist): Characterized Palestine in the early 20th century as a “wilderness,” “stony desolation,” and a “deserted home.”
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Palestine Royal Commission (1913 Report): Quoted accounts describing the Maritime Plain as having poor yields, mud houses, no windows, and sanitary conditions that were “horrible.”
Running down the permanent members at the UN Security Council:
- I don’t fully understand what Britain was thinking, but (EDIT: perhaps they were trying to prevent another World War from erupting, and were trying to reduce conflict wherever they could). They were following a pattern of downsizing their empire, especially in conflict-ridden areas (see for example India, which gained independence from Britain in a long process from the 1880s culminating in 1947).
- The then-Republic of China (now Taiwan) voted in favor of Israel in 1949, and Taiwan has overall remained friendly to Israel since, likely because of their mutual economic interests.
- France was interested in keeping Jerusalem’s status quo as an international city. They did not want it to fall to the Arabs, and they felt that having another power in the region would help prevent the Arabs from asserting full control over they city. As a competing colonial power, France was also interested in reducing the power of the British Empire, so that they could compete better with Britain for world influence again.
- Russia saw the socialist leanings of the kibbutzim and hoped that Israel could be a beach head for Communism in the Middle East. Like France, they were also interested in reducing the size of the British Empire. Thankfully Israel did not become communist, although concurrent with that Soviet failure of influence in Israel, various Arab nations aligned with the Soviets and Russian arms ended up being deployed against Israel.
- Truman’s recognition of Israel minutes after its declaration of independence was driven by the Jewish refugee crisis caused by the Holocaust, his religious convictions as an Evangelical Christian, and hopes to counter Soviet influence over Israel. When the US forces liberated Ohrdruf in April 1945, and General Eisenhower saw the atrocities there, he called on Congress, the British Parliament, and the American press to bear witness. Aside from that, Truman believed that Jews returning to the Holy Land would fulfill Biblical prophecies concerning events of the end times. Famously, he said, “I am Cyrus,” drawing a comparison between himself and the biblical, Persian king who returned Jews to their homeland ~2500 years earlier. He in general tended to cite the Bible when discussing his policy concerning Israel, such as Deut. 1:8 (“See, I have set the land before you; come and possess the land which the Lord swore to your forefathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them and their descendants after them.”). Truman was also trying to bring Israel on as an ally against communist influences in the Middle East. Given Truman’s commitment to the Jews, the Arabs were correspondingly unpalatable as an ally, as will be explained below.
Already prior to and during WWII, before the founding of Israel, there were strong anti-Jewish currents coursing through the Arab nations. It began as a religious animosity to Judaism, and later political considerations mixed in.
I’ll not belabor the early massacres of Jews by Mohammed at Khaybar and Medina, since those were mostly outside of the Holy Land, but they set the tone.
The Temple Mount
Moving on to Islamic history in the Holy Land, which began over half a millennium after the Roman sack of Jerusalem, the Muslims conquered Jerusalem from the Byzantine Empire in 637. The early Al Aqsa Mosque was built soon after on the Temple Mount, specifically in such a position that worshippers would prostrate showing their backs to the former site of the Jewish Holy Temple. This was to emphasize that Muslims instead bow to the Kaaba in Mecca, overriding the Jewish tradition of praying toward the site of the Temple.
The Dome of the Rock, a nearby structure completed in 691, was built specifically over the Temple site (it having been identified in 637). According to Islamic traditions, lest the Jewish Temple be reestablished in competition with the Kaaba, it was designated as a shrine rather than a mosque. The Quranic reference to significance of this site is vague, that Mohammed journeyed from Mecca to “the farthest mosque” - Masjid al-Aqsa - which the Hadith supposedly say was at this rock. However, the early Islamic inscriptions from 691 and 692 make no mention of the Night Journey, suggesting that this identification was a later innovation. Instead, the inscriptions inside and outside the shrine are mostly a repudiation of the Christian beliefs in the Trinity, saying that the Christian founder was not born of a Divine father. The Jews are not mentioned at all, likely because it was the Christians who most recently controlled the Mount. In Islamic theology, Judaism was supposedly replaced by Christianity, and Christianity supposedly by Islam, so it was most important to address the more recent theological conquest.
For Jews, the Foundation Stone is the site upon which the Holy Ark rested in the Holy of Holies, the core of both the First and the Second Holy Temples. It is the future site of the Messianic Third Temple. It is where Jacob had his vision of the ladder. It is the site of the binding of Isaac. It is where Adam was formed. It is the single holiest site in Judaism.
As the centuries passed, Islam accumulated more and more claims about the Dome of the Rock, including the Night Journey, and the claim that the stone housed therein was also the Foundation Stone of the Jewish tradition.
The Western Wall
Continuing a tradition recorded from at least as early as the 2nd or 3rd century, following a loosening of the Roman ban on Jews entering the Holy City, Jews would gather to weep in Jerusalem; and under Constantine I, at the western retaining wall of the Temple Mount. The Bordeaux Pilgrim recorded that they faced the Rock of Moriah, “to which the Jews come every year and anoint it, bewail themselves with groans, rend their garments, and so depart,” since Jews were still banned from living permanently in the City, and were only permitted to visit once a year: on the day commemorating the destruction of both Temples on the Ninth of Av.
The British, in consideration of the Muslim Waqf, would later continue worship restrictions at the Western Wall. For example, blowing the traditional horn on Rosh Hashanah as commanded in the Bible (Num. 29:1) was banned at the Wall.
The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem
I’ve previously mentioned the 1929 Hebron massacre. Hebron is a holy site to Jews, where the Jewish Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and three of the Jewish Matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca and Leah were buried. After centuries of Jewish presence in the city and various smaller skirmishes, the Arabs became inflamed by false rumors spread by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem that the Jews planned to take over the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. The Arab mobs killed 67 Jews.
The Grand Mufti was already charged with organizing riots against the Jews in the Holy Land in 1920. Decades later, he openly praised and aligned himself with Hitler, meeting personally with him in 1941 and saying on German radio in 1944, “Arabs, rise as one man and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history and religion. This saves your honor. God is with you.” The Mufti went on to recruit three divisions of Bosnian Muslims to fight for the Nazis in the Waffen-SS.
So the Arabs had motive to invest in preventing Israel from existing, before the PLO was founded and before the modern state of Israel was founded.
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Your question is still in context, but the answer attempt failed before I had usable text to publish. I have not completed it yet.
Kilroy was here
Yes of course, happy to write it too, but you only supplied base publicly intelligible reasons attached to various actors, not my underlying question about motive.
Good, it sets up a critical control test, for you, rhetorical I don’t need an answer,
If humanitarian concern explains the extraordinary international involvement in creating/protecting Israel, does that same concern predict international conduct when another vulnerable civilian population is being devastated?
The challenge is Gaza direct with its having been flattened and women/children displaced, no home to call their own, the answer appears to be no not reliably.
Therefore something else has to be included in the explanatory model, strategic interest, power, alliance, ideology, religious significance, domestic politics, regional control, or some combination.
Which of those actually drove particular decisions still has to be demonstrated rather than assumed, lets not look single sided, lets look at Gaza and look at US / Israel alliance.
Some of those do not have to be assumed. Internal U.S. records expressly discuss Palestine in terms of Suez, Middle Eastern oil, Soviet penetration, American security and international prestige. Clifford’s own pro-partition memorandum argued from those interests, and he later acknowledged that Washington wanted to recognize Israel before Moscow did. Even the Truman Library acknowledges domestic electoral pressure. Humanitarian concern may have been real, but the documentary record itself shows it was never the whole equation.
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You’re right that the documentary record doesn’t support humanitarian concern as the whole equation. Clifford’s memorandum and the Truman Library’s own acknowledgment of domestic electoral pressure show strategic interest was always in the mix — Suez, oil, Soviet penetration, prestige.
The Gaza control test is a fair one. If humanitarianism were the consistent driver, you’d expect similar international mobilization for Palestinian civilians.
The uneven response suggests other variables carry more weight in practice. I’d add one caution: the absence of humanitarian consistency doesn’t automatically prove which of those other factors dominated in any given decision.
It rules out humanitarianism as sufficient, but the specific mix — strategic, domestic, ideological — still has to be demonstrated case by case, as you said.
Kilroy was here
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Some adjustments to my post:
- Britain was drained economically by WWII. After the war, Britain faced (PDF link) a reduced ability to maintain control over remote possessions, while still being dependent on Middle Eastern oil:
- PM Clement Attlee wanted to simply leave Mandatory Palestine and escape the cost of maintaining law and order there.
- The British chiefs of staff, on the other hand, felt that Britain must maintain it as a forward military base to protect oil interests in the Suez Canal, etc.
- Bevin opposed partitioning into Arab and Jewish states, except as a last resort. He was concerned about Soviet influence, fearing that Israel would become communist (“I am sure they [the Russians] are convinced that by immigration they can pour in sufficient indoctrinated Jews to turn it into a Communist state in a very short time” - Bevin letter to Minister of State Hector McNeil). He also worried about the harm to Arab relations (although I think at that point it was already a lost cause). Rather than split off yet a new Arab state under control of the hostile-to-Britain Mufti of Jerusalem, he favored folding territory not allotted to the Jews into Transjordan (later, Jordan).
- The Republic of China (ROC) did develop economic interest in Israel later. But in 1947 and '49, that had not happened yet. Rather, the ROC was dependent on the US in its fight against the Communists who took over the mainland, and it wanted to align geopolitically with America. There was also ideological alignment, as the founder of the ROC Sun Yat-sen wrote a warm letter in support of Zionism in 1920, based on democracy and the common desire to reclaim an ancestral homeland (China was suffering a series of regime changes and civil war following the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1911).
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That is why separating Jewish refuge from British machinery matters, Suez, oil, military position, Soviet influence, Arab relations and the expen$e of running an empire.
The sharp conclusion is not “Britain created Israel because Britain loved the Jews.” It is clearly the opposite, Jewish aspirations were useful to British policy at some moments and inconvenient to it at others.
The British record itself shows the policy changing when British interests changed.
I hope you’re becoming aware as this gets much darker given current affairs and that’s said considering past ones.
Iran is worth keeping in mind too. Under the Shah, the United States treated Iran as a major pillar of its regional security policy. The Shah himself told Nixon that America was better served by having two strong friends in the region rather than Israel alone, because Israel had limitations as a regional asset that Iran did not.
So suppose Iran were someday brought back into a U.S. aligned regional order, there’s enough pressure to imagine, if not now, next US admin maybe, that would not necessarily make Israel irrelevant, but it could change Israel’s strategic value considerably and with Israel pissing off the world (US too) how might the relationship shift?
Are these relationships permanent friendships, or are smaller nations useful to empires for so long as their interests coincide?
Even this treacherous NDAA 219, I don’t know the plug couldn’t be pulled at any moment and only useful now, do you?
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I don’t think I claimed that this alone explains the other nations. Rather, Britain’s competitors were eager to downsize the British Empire, there were oil concerns, and the Grand Mufti was a little Hitler in the Middle East. Religious interests from the US, the Arabs, the Jews (aside from the interest of the secular Zionists) and the Christians also played a role. As you say
That’s world history in a nutshell. Every nation meddles, profits and defends in its own self-interest; it would be irresponsible to their own people not to, aside from being politically naive.
That said, I have asserted (and continue to do so) that as a moral question, Israel is justified; and that it is appropriate for the US to support and defend Israel, as well as beneficial to US defense and economic interests.
They were given Gaza in 2005. The Israeli military drove Jewish residents, Israeli citizens, out of Gaza. The Gazans then elected Hamas, which established totalitarian, fanatic, terrorist control. Instead of accepting that land graciously, the Gazans fired missiles at Israeli cities and civilians.
I’ve been aware that the British were at times hostile and at times friendly to the Jews for decades. It all depended on what aligned with their interests. It’s likewise with American presidents.
I don’t know, but a non-nuclear Iran would at least mean Israel need not be worried about getting nuked. Prior to the Islamic Revolution, Iran was at least able to cooperate with and speak with Israel. Reza Pahlavi is making friendly overtures. More friends would be a wonderful thing for both the US and Israel.
Even if Iran becomes another point of diplomatic pressure on Israel, at least they shouldn’t have nukes, the IRGC, and they at least they should stop funding terror groups like Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, and others around the world. That would be a relief for Israel, as well as a chance for real freedom for the Palestinians.
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