Two of a Kind

Israel and the US.

This article is written by Israel’s former internal security service chief Yuval Diskin. It is as much a picture of the US as it is of Israel.

Religious Zionism still isn’t the majority in Israel, but as a very significant elite it has succeeded in making an ugly contribution toward the de facto establishment of the State of Judea, and it’s on its way to try and take over (democratically) the State of Israel.

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It gave birth to extreme religious nationalism, which in turn gave birth to its own right-wing competitor of extreme Jewish messianism, which itself gave birth to the Hilltop Youth, who are anti-authoritarian, violent, and extreme and who support the “revolutionary” values of Jewish supremacy (yes, Jewish supremacy) as well as a halakhic state, terrorism, hatred toward the other, and racism.

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As far as I’m concerned, the main problem is that religious Zionism has given birth to the value of the sanctity of the land and has placed it practically before the sanctity and unity of the people, and without unity we cannot exist.

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[N]othing could be more dangerous for the survival of the people of Israel than extremism, sectarianism, and hate.

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This is a slow but persistent process, taking place every day. It’s very hard to notice this process until it builds up a critical mass, but when it does it irreversibly changes reality.

  Tablet

We can hope that his vision of what can be done does not have to be the reality, but I'm a pessimist, and I've been saying for the last few election cycles that things here have to get even worse before they can get better, and hope it's not too late when we wake up.  I had hoped that would be the result of Bush 2's re-election, but apparently, that didn't make things bad enough.

What can we do? My conclusion is to wait for it to get worse so that it might get better. Because in order to change the course of things we must recruit the people, and the people, sadly, only start to see things clearly when things are very bad indeed. Therefore, we can only wait for things to get worse, and only then maybe we’ll start realizing that we must save this mighty Zionist enterprise called the State of Israel and that is growing further and further from the vision of our Founding Fathers. And I’m almost certain this will succeed, and that it will really get much worse.

Would it get better thereafter? It’s up to us. Only if we realize that “where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint,” and that we got here because of a lack of leadership and a lack of vision, and that those leading us have a fundamentally wrong set of priorities, maybe only then will things begin to change for the better.

Also...

The appointment four months ago of Dani Dayan, a former head of the Jewish settlement movement, did not go down well with Brazil’s left-leaning government, which has supported Palestinian statehood in recent years.

Most world powers deem the Jewish settlements illegal.

  Guardian

And as we all know, most don't count.

“The State of Israel will leave the level of diplomatic relations with Brazil at the secondary level if the appointment of Dani Dayan is not confirmed,” Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely told Israel’s Channel 10 TV, saying Dayan would remain the sole nominee.

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Tensions rose last year when an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman called Brazil a “diplomatic dwarf” after Brasilia recalled its ambassador from Israel to protest a military offensive in Gaza.

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Brazilian government officials declined to comment on whether Rousseff will accept the nomination of the Argentine-born Dayan. But one senior Foreign Ministry official told Reuters: “I do not see that happening.”

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.