One
of my apte dictums says that every society has its own fifth column.
This entry looks at the situation in Israel today, and identifies its own fifth
column.
Israel.
…This fifth column actually consists of two
somewhat overlapping groups. One covers a large part of those immigrant Jews from the former Soviet Union of
the 1970’s and of later on, who had come to Israel as their poor man’s America, seeking not the
Zionist dream of the earlier settlers, but the illusory comfort provided by the
West, which they had naïvely and predictably idealized. Disappointed in their
illusions, these Soviet Jews en masse constitute a major part of modern
Israel’s fifth column, that will eventually lead to an effective demise
of the State of Israel.(…I hope that my reader does not get the wrong immediate impression from what I have just said that in my opinion all Soviet Jews, and no other Jews coming to Israel, thus constitute Israel’s fifth column. A second, “other” group will be identified later, on in Part II of this entry, while the first group of Soviet Jews certainly does not include those for whom their emigration to Israel was an Aliya, the happy realization of a lifelong Zionist dream. It goes without saying that such Jews had never even thought of emigrating to America or to Western Europe, in which case, having resigned to becoming Israelis as a second or third best, they would have become Israel’s fifth column right away…)
Sparta.
Had
the city-state of Sparta in its prime allowed free immigration, its celebrated
historical culture of citizen-soldiers would have been so diluted that even
their legends would have been lost to us. (A shocking riddle!)…But, on the other hand, Sparta did fall, in the long run. After the period of the so-called Spartan hegemony, extending from the end of the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC to the Battle of Leuctra (in which Thebes, led by Epaminondas, won a historically significant battle against Sparta, using innovative military tactics) in 371 BC, came the period of decline, or rather gradual degeneration. Neither Philip II of Macedonia nor his son Alexander ever thought of conquering Sparta in their Empire-building, perhaps, out of respect for her former glory, but her strength was undermined anyway from within by several damaging factors including a decline of her population (Spartans did not allow immigration, their citizenship conferred exclusively by blood, and not even by place of birth) and a dramatic increase of the helot population, accompanied by the frequent revolts encouraged by Sparta’s enemies.
Israel and Sparta.
One
cannot compare ancient Sparta to modern Israel in every possible respect, but,
as with any meaningful comparison of non-identical items, there are certain
substantial aspects of them that yield themselves to such comparisons, allowing
us to reach very important conclusions. Our starting hypothesis is to posit Israel
as a modern-day Sparta.The first groups of modern Zionist immigrants who came to the land of Israel, then under the Ottoman rule, starting in the 1870’s, with the idea of turning the land into a national home for the Jews, are known as the first Aliya. They numbered some 25,000 Jews, primarily from Eastern Europe. Many of them found themselves unable to endure the intense hardships and returned to where they had come from. But all those who stayed--- they were the toughest of the lot, the most motivated, and the most determined.
They were the Israeli Spartans, tempered like steel through that peculiar natural selection and survival of the fittest. It looked like the future belonged to them, just as it probably appeared to the proud citizens of Sparta when the realization of their virtual invulnerability had first dawned upon them.
(This
is the end of Part I. Part II will be posted tomorrow.)
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