Opinions of Peter Belmont
Speaking Truth to Power
| Musings on Israel’s and the USA’s “Right to Exist” |
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by Peter A. Belmont / 2025-04-19
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| The phrase “Israel’s right to exist” is often heard, but the phrase “America’s right to exist” has yet to enter common parlance. Both phrases deserve some attention, particularly these days as each of these countries is in a form of existential crisis.[1] I shall consider Israel’s continued existence first, then the USA’s. Americans are frequently told that “Israel has a right to exist”, a claim that is nowadays made to justify Israeli (or joint USA/Israeli) military action against Palestinians, who are fighting against what they (and most others) call “oppression”, “apartheid”, and “genocide”. Generally, those who proclaim “Israel’s right to exist” are silent about “Palestine’s right to exist”. As a way to end Israeli oppression, most Palestinians desire either a two-state “solution”, that is, a new, small, State of Palestine next door to a less belligerent, and smaller, State of Israel (but an Israel which still “exists”)—or a single, democratic, non-discriminatory and multi-confessional state of Israel-Palestine, a single state to include both peoples, but, again, a state which “exists”. In neither case would the resulting Israel be exactly the same as present-day Israel, but in both cases, the State of Israel (perhaps renamed, perhaps reduced in territory) would continue to exist. There is no credible Palestinian or other threat to totally erase the state of Israel or dispel its people. But the resulting Israel, in each case, would be somewhat different from the Israel of today. As a non-discriminatory state, Israel-Palestine would not be a theocratic state but would continue as a democratic state. As a neighbor of a new Palestine in a two-state context, Israel would continue as at present, as theocratic as it might prefer to be, but smaller in territory, and, of course, far less in conflict with its neighbors. Did Mexico “continue to exist” after the USA acquired Texas from it? Of course it did. Did South Africa continue to exists after its apartheid was terminated? Of course it did. Did Germany or Japan continue to “exist” after their defeat in WWII? Yes, they did. Now let us consider the USA. Does the USA have a “right to exist”? The Trump administration is trying to do away with the rule of law and with much of the Constitution, as well as with many of the people-oriented agencies of the federal government which have been built up over the years to serve and protect the people of the USA in a variety of ways. If Trump succeeds in any of this program, the USA will have been transformed to such an extent as to be un-recognizable as the USA of just a few years ago. Will the USA in that case “still exist”? Of course it will. Same boundaries (wink: unless Canada or Greenland or Panama are added). But will it still be the USA? Those, who like me believe that Constitutionally mandated independent judiciary, civil liberties, and the rule of law, as well as services such as Social Security, NIH, NOAA, and an independent justice-oriented DoJ and IRS are essential to the USA will doubt that a USA transformed as the Trump administration appears to seek to transform it will still “be” the USA. Many will see the USA without its Constitution and its rule of law not as a slightly transformed USA but as an erased USA. Others appear to disagree. So, as well as physical existence, the question of a state’s existence seems—to many—to depend on the continuity of that state’s primary institutions. To conclude, and keeping current events in mind, may I suggest that all questions about a country’s “right to exist” should be far more important to Americans today when asked about America than when asked about Israel. -- ----------- [1] Donald Trump provides most of the USA’s “existential crisis”. The rest is due to decades of ridiculous over-spending on the USA’s military and wars paid for entirely by debt-increasing borrowing—taxation of the rich and corporations having been rejected by the USA’s traditional ruling class, the morbidly rich class—and that enormous debt is now coming due. If it were not so serious it would be funny to note that the crisis about the USA’s enormous debt was triggered by Trump’s swaggering assertion of American economic predominance in the world, a predominance long in eclipse, by his bumbling tariff gambit. His bumbling has, moreover, persuaded the world that the USA is politically and economically unstable, and since investors like stability, they have moved away from lending to the USA (to fund the American national debt), interest rates on that debt have risen, and now the USA must borrow at higher interest rates not only to pay for current deficits (our military is still ridiculously over-sized) but also to make interest payments on already-existing debt. Israel’s “existential crisis” arises from its genocide-loving readiness to become the pariah-state of all pariah-states, from the ruination of its economy due to war-costs and due to war-induced challenges by Hezbollah, Houti, and others, from today’s large-scale and quite novel movement to refuse military service by reservists inside the most militarized country in the world, from threats of civil war within Israel, and from the emigration from Israel of many highly educated people who no longer wish to be Israelis. |
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