Thank you for writing this. It's in synch will what I am learning elsewhere about the zionist movement and Israel. In her well-written and well-documented book, "Perceptions of Palestine," Kathleen Christison describes, among other important aspects of zionism, the purposeful and pervasive obliteration of identity of the Palestinian people by Israeli Jews and their backers in the West for the past 200 years. Even the Balfour Declaration refers to this diverse group of people as "non-Jewish", that is, describing them in relationship to Jews and not by who they are. Unfortunately, each one of my elected officials in my state, Democrat or Republican, is an adament zionist who knows little or nothing about Palestinian history or people.
Out of curiosity, how does Jewish Supremacy square with the Ashkenazi supremacy that seems to pervade the whole project? If it was really about "race science" you'd think it would be Samaritans or Palestinian Jews who date back to the classical period that would be the most highly regarded. Instead it seems to be the Jews comprised of mostly European ancestry that are upheld as exemplary. It seems a bit contradictory.
This contradiction seems to carry into culture as well. The living language of Yiddish was discouraged along with naturally evolved diaspora folkways, yet there is so much emphasis on being a "western" country and gaining western acceptance.
This is a really good question and very good observations (my reply is rather long). Before I offer my comments/thoughts, I recommend Ilan Pappé’s, Ten Myths About Israel. A lot of your questions will be answered there.
Zionism came from Europe and its adherents were European Jews (Ashkenazi). Because Jewishness is seen as being in the ‘blood’, there was always an obsession with demographics in Israel, and with creating a Jewish majority. (Samaritans are not considered racially Jewish by Jews). When Israel first started to bring in Jews from Middle Eastern countries and North Africa in the 1950s (which it did in a brutal way, and a lot of deception) there were tensions between the communities.
The dominant Ashkenazi majority held all the power in the country in every sphere of life. People being people (Jews are just people with all the good and the bad) there was systemic discrimination against Mizrahi Jews. The dominant Ashkenazi mob had a brutal colonialist mindset. They destroyed entire communities, ways of life, families the very cultures that Arab/Mizrahi Jews brought with them. I am guessing there was some fear they would identify too much with the Palestinians so their Arab culture had to be beaten out of them.
The poverty, discrimination, and social deprivation inflicted on the Mizrahi Jews led, for example, to Mizrahi Jews being the majority in prisons by the 1970s. This is similar to what can happen to marginalised groups in any society. Eventually though, Mizrahi Jews were ‘absorbed’ into society and have adopted 100% the Zionist aim of taking all of historic Palestine for Jews only.
The Mizrahi Jews were initially discriminated against in Israel for being dark skinned, for having an accent, for speaking Arabic, for the music they liked, even their cuisine. Although they were Jews by ‘blood’ (of course the whole thing is nonsense), the Ashkenazi (European) majority saw them as ‘primitive’ Arabs, just like the ‘natives’ they were trying to displace.
I grew up in this atmosphere, and lived through the time when this began to change. I remember it well. The Ashkenazi mob saw the native ‘Arabs’, the Palestinians, as inferior in the same way that all colonialist powers viewed the indigenous people they were destroying, and displacing. Mizrahi Jews brought ‘Arab’ culture into the country and had a lot in common with the Palestinians. But as I said, in the end, Mizrahi Jews have been absorbed fully, and identify with Zionism completely.
Yiddish was discouraged, because Zionism worked to invent a new culture in Israel, a new national identity, and affiliation. Shlomo Sand writes about it really well in The Invention of the Jewish People, and also in The Invention of the State of Israel. The Zionist movement adopted Hebrew as the language of the new culture it was inventing. Zionism always viewed the traditional Jewish communities in Europe with contempt. It is not unusual for victims to despise the qualities in themselves that they believe are causing their abuse. So the Zionists tried to erase everything that they saw as symbolising victimhood. After the holocaust, the victims were blamed for ‘going like sheep to the slaughter’ and not fighting back, which is factually incorrect of course. But Zionism and later Israel have always been brutal and arrogant. In the past two, three decades there have been attempts in Israel to salvage Yiddish and Yiddish culture. It is similar to how all colonialist societies try to salvage something of the culture of indigenous people, after doing everything to destroy, or ‘assimilate them into the dominant culture.
What you see as a contradiction, is not in fact contradictory if you take into account the very important fact that Zionism did not simply import European culture into Israel, but sought to invent a whole new culture. At the heart of this new, fake culture was the idea of the ‘new Jew’ (this was taught from primary school — so not just a theoretical concept).
‘Israeliness’ is not purely one thing or another, but a mishmash of cultural elements mashed together artificially. Some elements are borrowed from cultures that Jews came from, others were created in reaction to things that Zionism saw as negative traits in Jews.
Give it enough time, people born into the culture, take it for granted and do not know where it all came from. For example, Mizrahi cuisine that was derided in my childhood by the dominant Ashkenazi majority, is now highly prized in Israel, and is seen as an integral part of ’Israeli’ culture. In my childhood having a dark skin was a bit of a problem, but now being a bit darker is seen as a characteristic of being ‘Israeli’.
Additional elements in Israeli society come from the necessity to maintain a modern, Western, ‘enlightened’ image. This was always a strategy intended to make Israel appealing to affluent Western countries who would go on to give Israel enormous financial, military and political support. Those elements are not central in Jewish Israeli society, they are for Western consumption only, and for image building. One example is the pretence of openness to gay people and transgender. As soon as Israel does not need the West anymore, all of this will go. There is a great deal of deeply oppressive religious intolerance that is largely hidden from the Western world. People think they know Israel, but they have no idea what that society is like on the inside.
The settler-colonial imperative of creating an exclusively Jewish state on all of historic Palestine supposedly to save all Jews from annihilation, is the dominant aim. It meant that some kind of social cohesion had to be forced, and had to happen fast. Whatever prejudices people had towards one another in Israel, had to be eliminated as fast as possible. You cannot differentiate so well between ashkenazi or Mizrahi Jews in Israel anymore. Even family names are no longer a reliable identifier, as so many generations have been abandoning their original family names and ‘Israelising’ them. My own father did this. Any past distinctions have largely disappeared. Israel is single minded about making itself purely Jewish, and that’s all that matters. The cohesion Jewish Israel society forced upon itself is tenuous. Natural differences between communities and cultures have been quickly swept under a new ‘Israeli’ identity. But it was done too fast and artificially. It means that the cohesion is tenuous and based mainly on having a common ‘enemy’, and on hating the ‘Arabs’ (Palestinians). Such cohesion is fragile. Israeli society has never really succeeded in creating the society it craved. But desperation, or perceived desperation can cause people to overlook differences and huddle together for survival. Jewish Israel will not go quietly or willingly to its end. It will hold on to in its well armed bunker and will do a great deal of harm before it is finally finished. A lot will depend on how many Jewish Israelis leave, and who stays behind, and on what the rest of the world does. Rumour has it that over half a million Jews left the country since last October never to return. But I cannot get confirmation. Data are deliberately hidden.
Sorry about the long response. If I have time, I might make it into an essay based on your questions and observations.
I hope this explains a bit the elements that seem contradictory. The books I mentioned do a much better job than me at explaining all of this.
Thank you for an excellent question and for reading.
Thank you for the thorough response. I have heard much of this before, but you pieced it together beautifully.
As an American, I recently started to observe a parallel between the young Americans who decide to immigrate to Israel, particularly to settlements, and the "hotep" or Afrocentrist communities. You see people named like "Jennifer Miller" changing their name to like "Shofara Aliyah" or some such. It strikes me a sort compensatory, revisionist fantasy.
None of this landed on my radar until 2014, when I first saw what white phosphorus does to a toddlers little body. I was on an Israeli news site getting updates about the situation when I saw an article in the footer of the site about a "battery" found at some archaeological site. As a reasonable person who had taken a couple of archaeology classes I thought "Oh they found a novelty Baghdad battery in a new place, that's cool". But as I was reading the article, it became clear they were trying to date the thing to a time it couldn't have existed, and portray it as an ACTUAL battery.
And that's when it just clicked instantly. It was the very much like the Nazis looking for Atlantis under the Baltic sea, or attributing a Greek ruin to the "Aryan" people because a symbol resembling one of their runes was found on it. It's the same mechanism. Like a "false self" but on a collective level.
Are you familiar with Israel Shahak’s book called “Jewish History, Jewish Religion”? This is what he had to say about the Israeli Jewish population, "There are only two choices which face Israeli-Jewish society. It can become a fully closed & warlike ghetto, a Jewish Sparta, supported by the labour of Arab helots, kept in existence by its influence on the US political establishment and by threats to use its nuclear power, or it can try to become and open society."
It’s almost as if he was predicting the future. This was written in 1994!
Thank you. Yes, of course Shahak was correct. He had the guts to break the cult’s taboo against telling the truth to the outside world, that everyone in Israel have always known. There was no other way this was ever going to go. Israel will not change from within. It is going full blown Spartan-style, insular Jewish ghetto, which necessitates completing the genocide/ethnic cleansing. If the world does not stop it, this is it. Israel just wants to be racially pure because it is ‘safe’… 🙄. It is terrible that the world indulges Israel. There is no excuse for throwing Israel’s victims under the bus.
Dear Avigail... Thank you for this essential piece. I also have been saying that only a superior army's military invasion will stop Israel. Not negotiations, not talks, not UN's or ICJ's resolutions. It is a monster that started to devour the West as well, with the same brutality and impunity. It is worse than Nazism because Germans were not a sacred nation, but Jews are, in the eyes of the whole world, perhaps. Not all Germans were Nazis, of course, and not all Jews are Zionists or Israelists, but Nazis were German and Israelis are Jews. That means they are untouchable. I do not know if any strong army that would touch (Zionist, Israeli) Jews who are now inflicting such horror on people. Israel will not stop with Palestinians in Palestine. It will go for the whole Palestinian Diaspora (6 million people) and for everyone else whom they would call "terrorist" and "antisemite". Mostly in the West, as we can see the draconian persecution unfolding now. But they have been doing the same in Russia (and before that, in the USSR), silencing any opposition and any voices of reason. I am reading the stunning book by the historian Thomas Suarez "Palestine Hijacked" - how so many people prior to Balfour Declaration saw what was coming, and could do nothing, against colossal blackmail and pressure from Weizmann and Rothschild and their jackals. It is an unimaginable tragedy of humanity that lasts for 120 years and there is no end in sight.
Great piece Avigail! Your cult analogy is remarkably insightful in articulating the nature of Israeli indoctrination. I think it explains, at least partly, the shocking pattern we've been seeing in survey data - where 80-90 percent of Israeli respondents believe that the IOF is using enough force or should use more force in Gaza even after all the carnage we've witnessed for more than seven months.
I was also quite struck by the tragic irony in your concluding remarks regarding how people are leaving Israel in large numbers. If I'm not mistaken, a sizeable would be of Ashkenazi European origin, most of whom have dual nationality? Is that correct? And if I'm not mistaken, half if not more of Israeli Jews are Mizrahi (Middle Eastern) or Sephardic (North African) who had to be coerced to emigrate to Israel through covert operations such as the Lavon Affair for 'demographic' reasons because most European Ashkenazi Jews did not move to Israel? And I suspect they'd make up of the bulk of those who don't have dual nationality? The end result being a separation of Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews from their ancient homelands coupled with a 'manufactured' animosity with their Arab neighbours when in fact there's a long history of relatively cordial relations between the different religious groups in West Asia and North Africa. Curious to hear your thoughts on this?
Also, just wondering, how much traction is there within Israel for interpreting "river to the sea" in accordance with the book of Exodus - i.e. the Red Sea to the Euphrates?
No one knows the demographics of those who leave. It is deliberately hidden from the website of the Israeli Bureau of Statistics. I looked everywhere. I suspect it would not just be Ashkenazi Jews who are leaving. A lot of Mizrahi Jews have been able to claim citizenship in Spain and Portugal for example. In the past few years those two countries have offered citizenship to anyone who can prove their ancestors are from there and were affected by the 1492 mass expulsion of Jews by the Catholic Inquisition. My paternal grandfather’s surname suggests that his family were from Portugal, so technically I can claim citizenship there under this scheme, if I presented the required documents. There are many law firms in Israel who are getting great business facilitating this for people. So, I suspect that there are now a lot of people from MIddle Eastern and Mizrahi backgrounds who also have dual citizenship. About two years ago a wealthy Israeli with US citizenship, started an organisation in Israel called ‘leaving together’ to help people leave the country and start a kibbutz on his farm in the US. You can read something about it here: https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-724628
Wow! That's very telling. It's almost like a sign that there's a limit to how much BS you can shove down people's throat - even indoctrination has a limit. Says a lot when businesses and organisations are making money helping others leave - even though it's supposedly so 'bad' and 'dangerous' out there!
Have you seen Macklemore's newly released rap song Hind's Hall that is making waves? I personally regret that he chose to include the line "F___ the police" as it alienates a lot of people and also plays into the false narrative that pro-Palestine protestors are against law and order (when we are actually standing up for international law). But overall it is excellent. See: https://youtu.be/fgDQyFeBBIo?si=EAxIb73CHj4x-VZ_
I'm very grateful for this article -- thank you so much for sharing your insights.
I've been looking into the nature of cults and high-intensity groups for about five years now, and I am interested in drawing more definitive relationships between those systems and various forms of Zionism (I'm suspecting Revisionist Zionism would be the most relevant candidate, but I am still learning the differences between and among the various types). Might you have pointers to some resources that might aid in this? I'm extraordinarily keen to delve into this issue.
Thanks again for this revealing and substantive article.
This is a really worthwhile topic, because cult psychology is actually a universal human experience that begins in the family. You might find Moray Bowen’s writings in family therapy useful, although he does not necessarily use the term ‘cult’.
It is not easy to find scholarly material on cults out there. It is not a popular topic of research, because it risks questioning society, and our politics too much. No one would be arrested for publishing in this area, but scholars are likely discouraged by their universities from going near the topic. To the best of my knowledge I am one of very few people who have begun to look at Zionism and Israel as a cult. Anything that critiques Israel is something of a taboo. I am not officially a scholar, and do not have the time and resources to invest in just doing research. I earn my living as a psychotherapy practitioner, something I am passionate about. However, if I were independently wealthy, I would have much more time to dedicate to research and scholarly work. I wish you all the very best in your project/s and thank you so much for reading my work. 🙏🏼
Excellent dissection of the moral and ethical vacuum at the heart of Israel. You are right not make distinctions between its ruling class and it’s ‘citizens’. They are one and the same and far too many Jewish people around the world are either silent or silently complicit. Sadly, the only way to fight settler colonialism is at the end of a gun and the point of a knife. Thanks for lifting the lid on these criminals Avigail 👍💚
Thank you Avigail. Another fantastic article. It would be good to get you some more subscribers though. Would it be an idea to ask them to give your Substack a shout out if you go back on Turkish TV - or ask them to ask you "Where can people find you?"?
With my proofreading hat on I notice a few small errors:
In the final sentence of paragraph starting "For years I have been trying..."
"Few people are aware the all media outlets in Israel have to clear the military censor, before they can publish anything that is not just superficial gossip, or fluffy trash."
Should be "Few people are aware that..."
In the final sentence of paragraph starting "The world has largely moved on..."
"If it is ever mentioned it is the context of discrediting it and explaining why it had to go. It is therefore understandable if most people assume race science no longer exists, and no one follows it."
Should be "If it is ever mentioned it is in..." (missing "in")
In paragraph starting "Jewish Israeli indoctrination..."
"Only when a fish is pulled out of the water they can realise they were in it."
Should be "Only when a fish is pulled out of the water can they..."
In the same paragraph:
"Cults make you believe that you will die without the group, in the same way that the fish would die if it is not returned to the water."
Should be "Cults make you believe that you will die without the group, in the same way that the fish would die if it was not returned to the water." (was not is)
First time reader...thanks for sharing that, a very interesting perspective. I had wondered, in my online interactions, why I could never get Israelis (or rather the diehard hasbara trolls) to express any sincere sympathies for the innocents killed and maimed by IDF response, much less an acknowledgement of any scenario where they would agree Israel would have gone too far. If you are right, and military intervention is the only solution to stop the madness, I don't see it happening either. Israel has the world superpower on their side, and appear to have figured out how to keep their Arab neighbors (at least the political leadership) quiet (bought off?). It so such a depressing reality to face. What would your estimate be of the % of Israelis (who are not planning to leave) who resist this psychological dynamic? I expect the State is marshalling resources to clamp down on any expression of resistance. Such a damn shame...in my experience here in the US, with Jews I have known, such warm fantastic people...let alone Jewish contributions to civilization...it just sucks that Israel's actions are probably contributing to a real resurgence of an antisemitism that had been pushed mostly underground (e.g., Neo Nazis, white supremacists, conspiracy theorists, etc.). Again, thank you for writing this.
Thank you for reading and welcome! Although in Israel it is still not illegal to express dissenting views there have been different degrees of harassment of activists and activist groups. Mostly in Israel there is informal societal enforcement of the ‘party line'. It may be informal, but it is extremely effective. The government would not need to become more oppressive, because most of Israel’s society back a genocide of the Palestinian people. Israel would very much like antisemitism to surge around the world. It is the belief in antisemitism that gives Israel its raison d’être. Israel does not care who gets hurt in its mindless ‘struggle’ to ‘survive’, and this includes those that Israel considers Jews. In fact, the more Jews get hurt by real antisemitism, the happier Israel is going to be because it can then say to all of us, ‘you see? We told you so. We are the only place in the world where you will be safe’. Having said this. I think the time for traditional antisemitism has now passed. There are pockets of it, but it is now much lower priority for racists who prefer to hate brown people and women for that matter.
Either way, thank you again and also for your comment.
I enjoyed reading your article. I found it extremely informative. I'm unable to purchase a coffee at the moment, unfortunately. Although I will share it with my friends.
Thank you for reading and no problem at all. Feel free to read everything if it’s worth your time. Don’t worry about the coffee donation. It’s just in case people and can and feel moved to do it. Thank you for sharing my writings with others. 🙏🏼
Thank you. I can only hope that more and more people everywhere will wake up, remove the mental fog, and see the truth. As I tell people, don’t worry about what people say, look at what they do. That’s where you will find the truth.
I won’t, and thank you for reading and commenting.
Israel is a hellish place to live in psychologically, and it would come across as quite bizarre, except for people with a cult-mindset. One of the most unique characteristics of people in cults is that they have no idea they are in a cult. Their complete belief in the cult mindset and philosophy of life, and the requirement of absolute loyalty prevent them from poking their nose out to find out if reality and the world are really the way the cult says they are. I have had an exchange with an Israeli (or Israeli expatriate) named Paul Aharon in the comments section at the bottom of the Elena Stein interview post. Have a look at it and see what you think. Despite everything, this person denies reality. When you try to present them with evidence they automatically discredit the source, which allows them to then ignore it, and excuse ignoring it. The only reason I have engaged with him was because he was not outright abusive, and I was curious to see what would happen. Call it research. (I do not engage with abusive people. I just block them). I know it is anecdotal evidence, but it is evidence nonetheless of the Israeli mindset I write about. His rebuke of me, and his apposition to me is only on the grounds that I am disloyal to the group. He does not care what I think, and shows no curiosity about why I have chosen the path I am on. His only concern is that I am disloyal and that I am ‘airing the dirty laundry’ on Israel to the rest of the world… If this is not evidence of a cult mindset, I don’t know what is… Crikey, indeed! Not every society is capable of committing a genocide… You have to have the right mindset for it.
“You and your fellow Israelis have no shred of humanity left in you.”
I think you might have broken something in him, maybe, hopefully.
De Mello says shattering your illusions and delusions is painful. Most people want to do anything but.
Breaking out of the Israeli Cult is major trauma.
You need to turn his comment and your responses into another essay.
Your anger, passion, logic, humaneness is refreshing and powerful.
I would not edit it, include the misspelled comment Paul complained about, and luv your miss spelling response.
Then maybe finish with how to get out of the Israel cult strategy? How to guide part 1?
Further reading is essential.
I have started reading the 100 year war on Palestine, astonishing to see just how far back the genocide has been planned. So far I have missed your Zoom book club calls.
Thank you. I have thought about doing precisely what you suggest. I have a packed week ahead with clients and a big talk to prepare for. (It is on the 20th of November and I might share the notice about it on Substack). So not as much time to write for Substack, as I would like just now. But see how I go. He might listen. Maybe he will get curious enough to wonder why everyone is so horrified by what Israel is doing. It all depends on what he has between his ears… I will fix typos though if I missed anything. Your impression from Khalidi’s book is what we have all realised on the BCOP. Nothing is new. Everything we see now was there from the start and the patterns are repeating from one decade or era to the next. What Israel is doing now is just an escalation of what it has always done. It is determined to complete the project. For Israel, the number of 6 million Palestinians is too tempting to just ignore. It is chilling but the world should expect the worst.
Thank you for writing this. It's in synch will what I am learning elsewhere about the zionist movement and Israel. In her well-written and well-documented book, "Perceptions of Palestine," Kathleen Christison describes, among other important aspects of zionism, the purposeful and pervasive obliteration of identity of the Palestinian people by Israeli Jews and their backers in the West for the past 200 years. Even the Balfour Declaration refers to this diverse group of people as "non-Jewish", that is, describing them in relationship to Jews and not by who they are. Unfortunately, each one of my elected officials in my state, Democrat or Republican, is an adament zionist who knows little or nothing about Palestinian history or people.
Thank you so much for reading and for the validation! Please do share widely, if you think it is appropriate.
Out of curiosity, how does Jewish Supremacy square with the Ashkenazi supremacy that seems to pervade the whole project? If it was really about "race science" you'd think it would be Samaritans or Palestinian Jews who date back to the classical period that would be the most highly regarded. Instead it seems to be the Jews comprised of mostly European ancestry that are upheld as exemplary. It seems a bit contradictory.
This contradiction seems to carry into culture as well. The living language of Yiddish was discouraged along with naturally evolved diaspora folkways, yet there is so much emphasis on being a "western" country and gaining western acceptance.
This is a really good question and very good observations (my reply is rather long). Before I offer my comments/thoughts, I recommend Ilan Pappé’s, Ten Myths About Israel. A lot of your questions will be answered there.
Zionism came from Europe and its adherents were European Jews (Ashkenazi). Because Jewishness is seen as being in the ‘blood’, there was always an obsession with demographics in Israel, and with creating a Jewish majority. (Samaritans are not considered racially Jewish by Jews). When Israel first started to bring in Jews from Middle Eastern countries and North Africa in the 1950s (which it did in a brutal way, and a lot of deception) there were tensions between the communities.
The dominant Ashkenazi majority held all the power in the country in every sphere of life. People being people (Jews are just people with all the good and the bad) there was systemic discrimination against Mizrahi Jews. The dominant Ashkenazi mob had a brutal colonialist mindset. They destroyed entire communities, ways of life, families the very cultures that Arab/Mizrahi Jews brought with them. I am guessing there was some fear they would identify too much with the Palestinians so their Arab culture had to be beaten out of them.
The poverty, discrimination, and social deprivation inflicted on the Mizrahi Jews led, for example, to Mizrahi Jews being the majority in prisons by the 1970s. This is similar to what can happen to marginalised groups in any society. Eventually though, Mizrahi Jews were ‘absorbed’ into society and have adopted 100% the Zionist aim of taking all of historic Palestine for Jews only.
The Mizrahi Jews were initially discriminated against in Israel for being dark skinned, for having an accent, for speaking Arabic, for the music they liked, even their cuisine. Although they were Jews by ‘blood’ (of course the whole thing is nonsense), the Ashkenazi (European) majority saw them as ‘primitive’ Arabs, just like the ‘natives’ they were trying to displace.
I grew up in this atmosphere, and lived through the time when this began to change. I remember it well. The Ashkenazi mob saw the native ‘Arabs’, the Palestinians, as inferior in the same way that all colonialist powers viewed the indigenous people they were destroying, and displacing. Mizrahi Jews brought ‘Arab’ culture into the country and had a lot in common with the Palestinians. But as I said, in the end, Mizrahi Jews have been absorbed fully, and identify with Zionism completely.
Yiddish was discouraged, because Zionism worked to invent a new culture in Israel, a new national identity, and affiliation. Shlomo Sand writes about it really well in The Invention of the Jewish People, and also in The Invention of the State of Israel. The Zionist movement adopted Hebrew as the language of the new culture it was inventing. Zionism always viewed the traditional Jewish communities in Europe with contempt. It is not unusual for victims to despise the qualities in themselves that they believe are causing their abuse. So the Zionists tried to erase everything that they saw as symbolising victimhood. After the holocaust, the victims were blamed for ‘going like sheep to the slaughter’ and not fighting back, which is factually incorrect of course. But Zionism and later Israel have always been brutal and arrogant. In the past two, three decades there have been attempts in Israel to salvage Yiddish and Yiddish culture. It is similar to how all colonialist societies try to salvage something of the culture of indigenous people, after doing everything to destroy, or ‘assimilate them into the dominant culture.
What you see as a contradiction, is not in fact contradictory if you take into account the very important fact that Zionism did not simply import European culture into Israel, but sought to invent a whole new culture. At the heart of this new, fake culture was the idea of the ‘new Jew’ (this was taught from primary school — so not just a theoretical concept).
‘Israeliness’ is not purely one thing or another, but a mishmash of cultural elements mashed together artificially. Some elements are borrowed from cultures that Jews came from, others were created in reaction to things that Zionism saw as negative traits in Jews.
Give it enough time, people born into the culture, take it for granted and do not know where it all came from. For example, Mizrahi cuisine that was derided in my childhood by the dominant Ashkenazi majority, is now highly prized in Israel, and is seen as an integral part of ’Israeli’ culture. In my childhood having a dark skin was a bit of a problem, but now being a bit darker is seen as a characteristic of being ‘Israeli’.
Additional elements in Israeli society come from the necessity to maintain a modern, Western, ‘enlightened’ image. This was always a strategy intended to make Israel appealing to affluent Western countries who would go on to give Israel enormous financial, military and political support. Those elements are not central in Jewish Israeli society, they are for Western consumption only, and for image building. One example is the pretence of openness to gay people and transgender. As soon as Israel does not need the West anymore, all of this will go. There is a great deal of deeply oppressive religious intolerance that is largely hidden from the Western world. People think they know Israel, but they have no idea what that society is like on the inside.
The settler-colonial imperative of creating an exclusively Jewish state on all of historic Palestine supposedly to save all Jews from annihilation, is the dominant aim. It meant that some kind of social cohesion had to be forced, and had to happen fast. Whatever prejudices people had towards one another in Israel, had to be eliminated as fast as possible. You cannot differentiate so well between ashkenazi or Mizrahi Jews in Israel anymore. Even family names are no longer a reliable identifier, as so many generations have been abandoning their original family names and ‘Israelising’ them. My own father did this. Any past distinctions have largely disappeared. Israel is single minded about making itself purely Jewish, and that’s all that matters. The cohesion Jewish Israel society forced upon itself is tenuous. Natural differences between communities and cultures have been quickly swept under a new ‘Israeli’ identity. But it was done too fast and artificially. It means that the cohesion is tenuous and based mainly on having a common ‘enemy’, and on hating the ‘Arabs’ (Palestinians). Such cohesion is fragile. Israeli society has never really succeeded in creating the society it craved. But desperation, or perceived desperation can cause people to overlook differences and huddle together for survival. Jewish Israel will not go quietly or willingly to its end. It will hold on to in its well armed bunker and will do a great deal of harm before it is finally finished. A lot will depend on how many Jewish Israelis leave, and who stays behind, and on what the rest of the world does. Rumour has it that over half a million Jews left the country since last October never to return. But I cannot get confirmation. Data are deliberately hidden.
Sorry about the long response. If I have time, I might make it into an essay based on your questions and observations.
I hope this explains a bit the elements that seem contradictory. The books I mentioned do a much better job than me at explaining all of this.
Thank you for an excellent question and for reading.
Thank you for the thorough response. I have heard much of this before, but you pieced it together beautifully.
As an American, I recently started to observe a parallel between the young Americans who decide to immigrate to Israel, particularly to settlements, and the "hotep" or Afrocentrist communities. You see people named like "Jennifer Miller" changing their name to like "Shofara Aliyah" or some such. It strikes me a sort compensatory, revisionist fantasy.
None of this landed on my radar until 2014, when I first saw what white phosphorus does to a toddlers little body. I was on an Israeli news site getting updates about the situation when I saw an article in the footer of the site about a "battery" found at some archaeological site. As a reasonable person who had taken a couple of archaeology classes I thought "Oh they found a novelty Baghdad battery in a new place, that's cool". But as I was reading the article, it became clear they were trying to date the thing to a time it couldn't have existed, and portray it as an ACTUAL battery.
And that's when it just clicked instantly. It was the very much like the Nazis looking for Atlantis under the Baltic sea, or attributing a Greek ruin to the "Aryan" people because a symbol resembling one of their runes was found on it. It's the same mechanism. Like a "false self" but on a collective level.
Are you familiar with Israel Shahak’s book called “Jewish History, Jewish Religion”? This is what he had to say about the Israeli Jewish population, "There are only two choices which face Israeli-Jewish society. It can become a fully closed & warlike ghetto, a Jewish Sparta, supported by the labour of Arab helots, kept in existence by its influence on the US political establishment and by threats to use its nuclear power, or it can try to become and open society."
It’s almost as if he was predicting the future. This was written in 1994!
Thank you. Yes, of course Shahak was correct. He had the guts to break the cult’s taboo against telling the truth to the outside world, that everyone in Israel have always known. There was no other way this was ever going to go. Israel will not change from within. It is going full blown Spartan-style, insular Jewish ghetto, which necessitates completing the genocide/ethnic cleansing. If the world does not stop it, this is it. Israel just wants to be racially pure because it is ‘safe’… 🙄. It is terrible that the world indulges Israel. There is no excuse for throwing Israel’s victims under the bus.
Dear Avigail... Thank you for this essential piece. I also have been saying that only a superior army's military invasion will stop Israel. Not negotiations, not talks, not UN's or ICJ's resolutions. It is a monster that started to devour the West as well, with the same brutality and impunity. It is worse than Nazism because Germans were not a sacred nation, but Jews are, in the eyes of the whole world, perhaps. Not all Germans were Nazis, of course, and not all Jews are Zionists or Israelists, but Nazis were German and Israelis are Jews. That means they are untouchable. I do not know if any strong army that would touch (Zionist, Israeli) Jews who are now inflicting such horror on people. Israel will not stop with Palestinians in Palestine. It will go for the whole Palestinian Diaspora (6 million people) and for everyone else whom they would call "terrorist" and "antisemite". Mostly in the West, as we can see the draconian persecution unfolding now. But they have been doing the same in Russia (and before that, in the USSR), silencing any opposition and any voices of reason. I am reading the stunning book by the historian Thomas Suarez "Palestine Hijacked" - how so many people prior to Balfour Declaration saw what was coming, and could do nothing, against colossal blackmail and pressure from Weizmann and Rothschild and their jackals. It is an unimaginable tragedy of humanity that lasts for 120 years and there is no end in sight.
Thank you Lena. You are right if course. It is a monstrosity that the world has been enabling all this time.
Great piece Avigail! Your cult analogy is remarkably insightful in articulating the nature of Israeli indoctrination. I think it explains, at least partly, the shocking pattern we've been seeing in survey data - where 80-90 percent of Israeli respondents believe that the IOF is using enough force or should use more force in Gaza even after all the carnage we've witnessed for more than seven months.
I was also quite struck by the tragic irony in your concluding remarks regarding how people are leaving Israel in large numbers. If I'm not mistaken, a sizeable would be of Ashkenazi European origin, most of whom have dual nationality? Is that correct? And if I'm not mistaken, half if not more of Israeli Jews are Mizrahi (Middle Eastern) or Sephardic (North African) who had to be coerced to emigrate to Israel through covert operations such as the Lavon Affair for 'demographic' reasons because most European Ashkenazi Jews did not move to Israel? And I suspect they'd make up of the bulk of those who don't have dual nationality? The end result being a separation of Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews from their ancient homelands coupled with a 'manufactured' animosity with their Arab neighbours when in fact there's a long history of relatively cordial relations between the different religious groups in West Asia and North Africa. Curious to hear your thoughts on this?
Also, just wondering, how much traction is there within Israel for interpreting "river to the sea" in accordance with the book of Exodus - i.e. the Red Sea to the Euphrates?
No one knows the demographics of those who leave. It is deliberately hidden from the website of the Israeli Bureau of Statistics. I looked everywhere. I suspect it would not just be Ashkenazi Jews who are leaving. A lot of Mizrahi Jews have been able to claim citizenship in Spain and Portugal for example. In the past few years those two countries have offered citizenship to anyone who can prove their ancestors are from there and were affected by the 1492 mass expulsion of Jews by the Catholic Inquisition. My paternal grandfather’s surname suggests that his family were from Portugal, so technically I can claim citizenship there under this scheme, if I presented the required documents. There are many law firms in Israel who are getting great business facilitating this for people. So, I suspect that there are now a lot of people from MIddle Eastern and Mizrahi backgrounds who also have dual citizenship. About two years ago a wealthy Israeli with US citizenship, started an organisation in Israel called ‘leaving together’ to help people leave the country and start a kibbutz on his farm in the US. You can read something about it here: https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-724628
Thanks again!!
Wow! That's very telling. It's almost like a sign that there's a limit to how much BS you can shove down people's throat - even indoctrination has a limit. Says a lot when businesses and organisations are making money helping others leave - even though it's supposedly so 'bad' and 'dangerous' out there!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and insights.
Have you seen Macklemore's newly released rap song Hind's Hall that is making waves? I personally regret that he chose to include the line "F___ the police" as it alienates a lot of people and also plays into the false narrative that pro-Palestine protestors are against law and order (when we are actually standing up for international law). But overall it is excellent. See: https://youtu.be/fgDQyFeBBIo?si=EAxIb73CHj4x-VZ_
I’ve seen some of the lyrics and read something about it somewhere. Will follow your link. 🙏
He's starting to perform it live now. Someone has filmed it on their smartphone: https://youtu.be/Y7osYinX_DU?si=vs_Aqd6D3Bya3yut
Saw it. Brilliant. Shared on FB and X. Thanks!!
I'm very grateful for this article -- thank you so much for sharing your insights.
I've been looking into the nature of cults and high-intensity groups for about five years now, and I am interested in drawing more definitive relationships between those systems and various forms of Zionism (I'm suspecting Revisionist Zionism would be the most relevant candidate, but I am still learning the differences between and among the various types). Might you have pointers to some resources that might aid in this? I'm extraordinarily keen to delve into this issue.
Thanks again for this revealing and substantive article.
This is a really worthwhile topic, because cult psychology is actually a universal human experience that begins in the family. You might find Moray Bowen’s writings in family therapy useful, although he does not necessarily use the term ‘cult’.
Another resource you might want to consider is Leon Festinger‘s classic book, _When Prophecy Fails_ (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1835405.When_Prophecy_Fails). Festinger is the originator of the idea of ‘Cognitive Dissonance’, which is one of the mechanisms that enables cults, and cult-like groups to operate, and prevents adherents from leaving (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1835409.A_Theory_of_Cognitive_Dissonance).
When Prophecy Fails was an anthropological study of a cult, analysed with a social-psychology lens.
Other perhaps helpful resources, if you haven’t yet come across it yet:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002764290033005005
It is not easy to find scholarly material on cults out there. It is not a popular topic of research, because it risks questioning society, and our politics too much. No one would be arrested for publishing in this area, but scholars are likely discouraged by their universities from going near the topic. To the best of my knowledge I am one of very few people who have begun to look at Zionism and Israel as a cult. Anything that critiques Israel is something of a taboo. I am not officially a scholar, and do not have the time and resources to invest in just doing research. I earn my living as a psychotherapy practitioner, something I am passionate about. However, if I were independently wealthy, I would have much more time to dedicate to research and scholarly work. I wish you all the very best in your project/s and thank you so much for reading my work. 🙏🏼
Excellent dissection of the moral and ethical vacuum at the heart of Israel. You are right not make distinctions between its ruling class and it’s ‘citizens’. They are one and the same and far too many Jewish people around the world are either silent or silently complicit. Sadly, the only way to fight settler colonialism is at the end of a gun and the point of a knife. Thanks for lifting the lid on these criminals Avigail 👍💚
Thank you Avigail. Another fantastic article. It would be good to get you some more subscribers though. Would it be an idea to ask them to give your Substack a shout out if you go back on Turkish TV - or ask them to ask you "Where can people find you?"?
With my proofreading hat on I notice a few small errors:
In the final sentence of paragraph starting "For years I have been trying..."
"Few people are aware the all media outlets in Israel have to clear the military censor, before they can publish anything that is not just superficial gossip, or fluffy trash."
Should be "Few people are aware that..."
In the final sentence of paragraph starting "The world has largely moved on..."
"If it is ever mentioned it is the context of discrediting it and explaining why it had to go. It is therefore understandable if most people assume race science no longer exists, and no one follows it."
Should be "If it is ever mentioned it is in..." (missing "in")
In paragraph starting "Jewish Israeli indoctrination..."
"Only when a fish is pulled out of the water they can realise they were in it."
Should be "Only when a fish is pulled out of the water can they..."
In the same paragraph:
"Cults make you believe that you will die without the group, in the same way that the fish would die if it is not returned to the water."
Should be "Cults make you believe that you will die without the group, in the same way that the fish would die if it was not returned to the water." (was not is)
Thanks! Made plenty of corrections already, but I have missed the ones you saw. Will correct them asap.
Made all your corrections. You have a really good eye! Thank you so much.
It's my pleasure and honour to be able to support you in this small way.
First time reader...thanks for sharing that, a very interesting perspective. I had wondered, in my online interactions, why I could never get Israelis (or rather the diehard hasbara trolls) to express any sincere sympathies for the innocents killed and maimed by IDF response, much less an acknowledgement of any scenario where they would agree Israel would have gone too far. If you are right, and military intervention is the only solution to stop the madness, I don't see it happening either. Israel has the world superpower on their side, and appear to have figured out how to keep their Arab neighbors (at least the political leadership) quiet (bought off?). It so such a depressing reality to face. What would your estimate be of the % of Israelis (who are not planning to leave) who resist this psychological dynamic? I expect the State is marshalling resources to clamp down on any expression of resistance. Such a damn shame...in my experience here in the US, with Jews I have known, such warm fantastic people...let alone Jewish contributions to civilization...it just sucks that Israel's actions are probably contributing to a real resurgence of an antisemitism that had been pushed mostly underground (e.g., Neo Nazis, white supremacists, conspiracy theorists, etc.). Again, thank you for writing this.
Thank you for reading and welcome! Although in Israel it is still not illegal to express dissenting views there have been different degrees of harassment of activists and activist groups. Mostly in Israel there is informal societal enforcement of the ‘party line'. It may be informal, but it is extremely effective. The government would not need to become more oppressive, because most of Israel’s society back a genocide of the Palestinian people. Israel would very much like antisemitism to surge around the world. It is the belief in antisemitism that gives Israel its raison d’être. Israel does not care who gets hurt in its mindless ‘struggle’ to ‘survive’, and this includes those that Israel considers Jews. In fact, the more Jews get hurt by real antisemitism, the happier Israel is going to be because it can then say to all of us, ‘you see? We told you so. We are the only place in the world where you will be safe’. Having said this. I think the time for traditional antisemitism has now passed. There are pockets of it, but it is now much lower priority for racists who prefer to hate brown people and women for that matter.
Either way, thank you again and also for your comment.
I enjoyed reading your article. I found it extremely informative. I'm unable to purchase a coffee at the moment, unfortunately. Although I will share it with my friends.
Thank you for reading and no problem at all. Feel free to read everything if it’s worth your time. Don’t worry about the coffee donation. It’s just in case people and can and feel moved to do it. Thank you for sharing my writings with others. 🙏🏼
I'll be happy to. BTW I don't see that you have tweeted your many substack posts. I would like to Like and Forward them.
I have a Twitter account, but an too busy to spend so much time on SM. I’ll try to tweet this one though. 🙏
I've read that the indoctrination is really something, and a lot of people are trying to undo and get over it now.
Thanks for posting, Avigail.
Thank you. I can only hope that more and more people everywhere will wake up, remove the mental fog, and see the truth. As I tell people, don’t worry about what people say, look at what they do. That’s where you will find the truth.
Excellent article, straight from lived experience. Thank you.
Thank you for reading Gina and for the very kind comment. 🙏🏼
Avigail please don’t stop airing ALL the dirty laundry.
We have so much to learn from seeing from the inside out and then from the outside in to the Israeli psyche.
It sounds like a mad place to be and live and damages all its young people to endlessly be conditioned into the cult to keep it alive.
Crikey. Thanks
I won’t, and thank you for reading and commenting.
Israel is a hellish place to live in psychologically, and it would come across as quite bizarre, except for people with a cult-mindset. One of the most unique characteristics of people in cults is that they have no idea they are in a cult. Their complete belief in the cult mindset and philosophy of life, and the requirement of absolute loyalty prevent them from poking their nose out to find out if reality and the world are really the way the cult says they are. I have had an exchange with an Israeli (or Israeli expatriate) named Paul Aharon in the comments section at the bottom of the Elena Stein interview post. Have a look at it and see what you think. Despite everything, this person denies reality. When you try to present them with evidence they automatically discredit the source, which allows them to then ignore it, and excuse ignoring it. The only reason I have engaged with him was because he was not outright abusive, and I was curious to see what would happen. Call it research. (I do not engage with abusive people. I just block them). I know it is anecdotal evidence, but it is evidence nonetheless of the Israeli mindset I write about. His rebuke of me, and his apposition to me is only on the grounds that I am disloyal to the group. He does not care what I think, and shows no curiosity about why I have chosen the path I am on. His only concern is that I am disloyal and that I am ‘airing the dirty laundry’ on Israel to the rest of the world… If this is not evidence of a cult mindset, I don’t know what is… Crikey, indeed! Not every society is capable of committing a genocide… You have to have the right mindset for it.
Wow, you really let Paul have it!
“You and your fellow Israelis have no shred of humanity left in you.”
I think you might have broken something in him, maybe, hopefully.
De Mello says shattering your illusions and delusions is painful. Most people want to do anything but.
Breaking out of the Israeli Cult is major trauma.
You need to turn his comment and your responses into another essay.
Your anger, passion, logic, humaneness is refreshing and powerful.
I would not edit it, include the misspelled comment Paul complained about, and luv your miss spelling response.
Then maybe finish with how to get out of the Israel cult strategy? How to guide part 1?
Further reading is essential.
I have started reading the 100 year war on Palestine, astonishing to see just how far back the genocide has been planned. So far I have missed your Zoom book club calls.
Awesome. Thanks.
Thank you. I have thought about doing precisely what you suggest. I have a packed week ahead with clients and a big talk to prepare for. (It is on the 20th of November and I might share the notice about it on Substack). So not as much time to write for Substack, as I would like just now. But see how I go. He might listen. Maybe he will get curious enough to wonder why everyone is so horrified by what Israel is doing. It all depends on what he has between his ears… I will fix typos though if I missed anything. Your impression from Khalidi’s book is what we have all realised on the BCOP. Nothing is new. Everything we see now was there from the start and the patterns are repeating from one decade or era to the next. What Israel is doing now is just an escalation of what it has always done. It is determined to complete the project. For Israel, the number of 6 million Palestinians is too tempting to just ignore. It is chilling but the world should expect the worst.
The most insightful article. Thank you, I have a lot to think about now.