Why Israel (Secretly) Loves the Islamic State

Boundaries of the Islamic State (ISIL or ISIS or the Caliphate) shift from day to day. Currently most of the Islamic State territory is a good day's drive from northern Israel, about 350 miles. But pockets of Islamic State control are already within a few miles of Israel, or at least the Golan Heights (illegally and apparently permanently occupied by Israel), according to the Carter Center map that tracks the Syrian conflict:



The bottom left of the map touches Israel. Lebanon is to the east, Turkey to the north, and Jordan below the long slant at the bottom.

While many people in the world are upset at the to-date triumphs of the Islamic State, Israel is not. Here, by Israel, I mean the typically ultra-orthodox, nationalist Jews who have controlled the government for some time now. There are still many Jews in Israel that believe in human rights for all peoples, they just have been marginalized over time.

The Islamic State fits perfectly into the National Zionist Zeitgeist Ideology (NZZI) narrative. Zionists like to pretend that Palestine was empty, more or less, before they arrived. The existence of large numbers of Palestinian survivors of the Holocaust of 1948 has always been an embarrassment. Extremist Zionists have always advocated a Greater Israel with various boundaries, but typically including everything south of Turkey and north of Mecca, to be taken in bites, of course.

The Islamic State appears to Americans and Europeans to have no redeeming qualities. ISIS are ultra-orthodox Islamists hell bent on taking over the world and willing to kill anyone who disagrees with them, even other Sunni Islamic sects. Unlike the Palestinians, who traditionally were either moderates or secular, and the PLO, which was Marxist and therefore atheist, the Islamic State has no appeal to anyone outside its own camp.

The Islamic State is the Israeli caricature of Palestinians, Arabs and Islam made into reality.

So if the Islamic State takes over Syria, the Israelis can dust off the old war plans for the capture of Damascus. No one would stop their fighting ISIS, and the people of Damascus might actually welcome them. At first.

If the Islamic State takes Syria it will also take Lebanon and Jordan. Then Greater Israel is just a matter of eating, digesting, and eating again. Enough area can be left to the Islamic State to make it a permanent global threat that justified anything Israel does, including to the Palestinians within its borders.

For the Israelis and Islamic State, it is a win-win situation. Of course, as Hitler learned when he tried to create Greater Germany, things don't always go according to plan.

Modern, Orthodox and Ultra-orthodox Groups divide the world

Everyone has heard the terms "modern," "orthodox," and "ultra-orthodox," but I am now using them as important categories for analysis. To emphasize that I will use initial capitals: Modern, Orthodox, and Ultra-orthodox.

Dividing the earth's current 7 billion or so people into these categories necessarily involves quite a few gray areas. First I'll give my general impressions of the central characteristics of each of these groups of people.

Ultra-orthodox refers to people who are part of a group, often religious but sometimes not, that is both highly resistant to change, unfriendly to those who do not share the group's beliefs or practices, and based on some relatively ancient belief system. In the United States perhaps the most obvious example is Ultra-orthodox Jews. The now nearly global phenomena of Ultra-orthodox Islam would be another point of reference. In fact most religions have some practitioners who are Ultra-orthodox. Ethnic groups, however, could also be Ultra-orthodox. New cults often have many of the characteristics of the Ultra-orthodox.

Orthodox refers to people who maintain traditional cultures, but are not necessarily unfriendly to outsiders. Orthodox people are typically selective about adopting new technology or ideas. The terms Orthodox and conservative may approximate each other. An orthodox person can describe their views rather simply by referring to their type of orthodoxy: "I am Roman Catholic" or "I am evangelical Christian" or "I am Sunni." Occupying the center of this scheme of categories, on one end Orthodox people may approach being Ultra-orthodox, and at the other end may approach being Modern.

Modern people have been strongly influenced by the intellectual and social trends of the 20th century. Whether non-religious or aligning with some religious group, they generally tolerate other religious groups. They accept the idea of science, if not necessarily all of its particulars. They generally accept the basic equality of males and females, individual freedom, and the idea of equal justice under the law. Modern people are otherwise quite diverse, choosing from the smorgasbord of modern and traditional cultures.

In general the trend over time has been towards more people shifting to the Modern group, but this is not always the case in any particular location, or over shorter time spans. The "southern" (former slave states) region of the U.S. is an example of an area where Orthodox people have become prominent after a period of modernization in the 1960s and 70s. In more conservative areas of the world the balance lately has been more between Orthodox and Ultra-orthodox than between Orthodox and Modern.

Does it matter? Certainly when the Ultra-orthodox turn to violence in order to try to impose their world view on those who are not orthodox. Equally so when Moderns try to modernize the Orthodox or Ultra-orthodox by force, as was attempted in some Communist nations and capitalist-imperialist nations in a variety of contexts.

In the U.S., the Democratic Party can serve as an example of how complex these general classifications can be. Many if not most people registered with the Democratic Party would best be classified as Modern. Yet they are Orthodox in the sense that they have stabilized in a party that is almost 200 years old and has many non-modern aspects. In contrast the Republican Party is clearly Orthodox in its willingness to deny scientific facts like Evolution and Global Warming, while it is Modern in that most of its members don't want to fight with their neighbors over religion or ethnic affiliation, despite their general intolerance of Islam.

Saddam Hussein, the former President of Iraq, was Modern and tried to modernize his country. That did not save his regime from the wrath of either the Democratic or Republican Parties of the United States. His regime was replaced by one that is Orthodox leaning to Ultra-orthodox. American foreign policy strategists have not yet fully adopted to the new world order where the orthodoxy spectrum is often more important that the capitalist to communist spectrum, or even the pro-America to anti-America spectrum.

This is an introductory essay. I'll be writing more specifically about how these categories affect the world.

This essay appeared originally at www.iiipublishing.com

Barack Obama's Idiotic Foreign Policy

"For Every Sad Fly, There is a Happy Spider "

—Joseph P. Kennedy

You might think from the title of this essay that I am a right-wing hater of President Barack Obama. I don't hate the President. If you have read enough of my opinion pieces you might categorize me as "leftist" if you had too, but you know "left," "right," and "center" have all become pretty meaningless terms. "Modern," "Orthodox," and "Ultra-orthodox" are the three big categories of people in the 21st century.

I am "Modern." And as a Modern, I think Barack Obama's foreign policy is idiotic. It is a product of a man, and an establishment, that are trapped in the Orthodox political webs they have spun. The flies they were supposed to catch have mutated into zombies that multiply faster than they can be killed. Except they are really human beings, endowed by nature with all the rights of human beings.

I am beginning to think that Barack Obama was too busy studying law, trying to get ahead, to crack open a history book before he became President. Well, actually, to learn enough history to be an effective President, which might require careful study of 50 to 100 history books.

Let's start with the American Revolution. In 1770 most American colonials wanted to remain part of the British Empire, even if they had some complaints. The more Americans complained, the more the idiots in London tried to use the force of law, and then military force, to remain in control. How did that work out for the Brits? Not too well.

True, revolutions have been successfully put down by force more often than not. And nations have been conquered by force. But mostly force has not worked out as an option since the colonial era blew up into World War I and World War II. Force can be used to install a puppet when manipulation and bribery fails, but if the puppet is to obviously a foreign stooge, sooner or later nationalists seize power. Example: how well did America's puppets in the "nation" of South Vietnam work out? Not too well.

More recently, how did the overthrow by military force of the old regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq work out? It looks like Afghanistan will become another kingdom of warlords by the end of 2015. In Iraq the nation is now mainly divided between anti-U.S. ( and anti-Modern) ISIS/Sunnis and pro-Iranian Shia tribes.

Elections? Obama and the U.S. establishment don't need no stinking elections when they elevate Orthodox or Ultra-orthodox Islamic parties to power, as happened in Algeria, Palestine, and Egypt. And how well did the deposing of the old Libyan government work out? And if we are against Ultra-orthodox Islamic dictators, why don't we help the internal opposition to the Saud dictatorship?

To some extent President Obama and some of the establishment know this. They know using force just pisses people off. The force option only works if you exterminate people or ethnically cleanse areas. Obama may execute people without trial, but he is no Hitler, or at least would want to hear back from the pollsters before building ovens for tribes aligned with Islamic radicals.

So, using force to kill Islam is not going to work. Justice, kindness, education, and some economic relief would probably work in the long run to lure people towards the Modern end of the social-political spectrum, but that would take time. What about the short run?

In the short run, the first thing the President could do (if he could get the establishment to go along with him) is to end the various punitive economic measures that have been imposed on various states, notably Iran and Cuba. I'm not saying sell fighter jets or plutonium to either country, I'm saying just resume ordinary trade with everyone. Even North Korea.

Second, stop the obvious interference in the internal affairs of sovereign nations. We don't want foreign nations stirring up trouble in the U.S.; we should reciprocate.

Third, recognize the State of Palestine. Just do it. Let the Palestinians govern themselves. If Israel objects, stop using U.S. taxpayer money to supply them with fighter jets and plutonium.

Fourth, let's get our own house in order. Let's make sure there really is liberty and justice, including economic justice, for all Americans. Let's prosecute our own war criminals, rather than running around the world accusing others of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Oh, the list is long, I won't repeat the details here, you know the details (unless you are in the oblivious 1%). Instead of pretending to be a shining light, let us actually do the work needed to shine brightly.