When in Jerusalem, do as the Romans do

Fortune favours those with a knife against their throat

My father’s old 1930s encyclopaedia contains the following illustration and attendant description.

There’s a common misconception that the caesarean operation for giving birth is named after Caesar, but this is incorrect. In fact, it is because the man himself was born thus that he was named Caesar, which means “cut”. The Book of Knowledge’s description could also give rise to misconceptions: Caesar’s Gaul was not the France of today, but Cisalpine Gaul (Gaul means the others), and the River Rubicon is still there, just north-west of the bathing resort of Rimini (Ariminum on the map, below, taken from http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/history_shepherd_1911.html—public domain).

Gaul. Means that lot, over there. Them.

If Caesar had failed in his endeavour, we’d never have coined the phrase to cross the Rubicon and there’d have been no czars, shahs or kaisers. It’s only a tiny little river for a man to cross, but it was a giant torrent for mankind.

---

I think Mr Netanyahu will be serious. About wiping out the Palestinians. Once he’s flattened Rafah, he’ll turn on the West Bank and kill everyone there (who he doesn’t want there).

He’s not listening to anyone, not in Brussels, not in Washington, not at the Red Cross, not at the United Nations, not at the World Health Organization. What would he do if he stopped now? Declare a holiday and put his feet up? Call back his troops and dish out some medals and tell the remaining Palestinians they can have their ramshackle strip back? Yitzhak Rabin was shot dead for wanting rapprochement. Benjamin Netanyahu would likely be in greater danger if he stopped his barrage than if he saw it through to the apocalyptic end. When there’s a knife against your throat, it can affect your assessment of what an apocalypse is.

When he fails to heed even the strongest admonitions that Mr Biden is able to muster, it’s not because he doesn’t want to. It’s because he doesn’t need to and he needs not to. They say that the AIPAC has a great deal of influence over American politicians. I wonder whether there are similar bodies that exercise the same influence and persuasion over democratically elected decision-makers in other countries.

Anyhow, Mr Netanyahu is not counting on any form of democracy to keep him in the position where he can do what he wants to do. He wants to procure living room for Jewish Israelis and, if that means wiping out the entire body of Muslim Israelis, then—I’m fairly sure—so be it. A British parliamentary candidate was chastised by his party for suggesting that the lapse of Israeli security on 7 October was engineered. I don’t know if it was engineered or not, but the callousness and disregard for human life that the victim of that attack has since then manifested would certainly allow of the conclusion that it at least is worth investigating, that it stands to reason, even if it’s a conspiracy theory (which can be taken as meaning that, if it does in fact exist, the evidence is still well hidden). But it doesn’t matter in the end whether it is or it isn’t true. Because whether the Palestinians have suffered and died in an act of justifiable retribution, an act of defence, or out of out-and-out badness, suffered and died is what they have done. The reason for the acts doesn’t change their result. It simply changes the putative state of the perpetrators’ consciences. How bitter the irony: Lebensraum achieved through annihilation and mass expulsion. Through bullets, disease, and starvation. And not a German in sight.

Democracy was a nice-to-have as long as Netanyahu needed to keep the people of Israel sweet. But he doesn’t need to do that now, and he certainly doesn’t need to toe the line as laid down by any supranational body like the United Nations—that much Israel has known since its modern foundation. He knows that it is a fundamental tenet binding every democracy: that it does not use force to achieve regime change in another democracy (except, that is, within the realm of the Monroe Doctrine). Israel is democratic, and its regime will never be changed involuntarily from outside; and, now, nor will it voluntarily change from inside. The reason why so many foreign politicians have been hesitant to call for a ceasefire is not that they don’t want a ceasefire, but because they know their calls will be ignored, and that makes them look powerless, which is worse than looking as if you support an uncompromising son of a gun. The hangers-on of bullies achieve surrogate bully status just for standing there with their thumbs hanging from their holsters.

It’s quite a sight when the public acts of a democratic regime make one realise how undemocratic it was the whole time. But, undemocratic democracy is the new dictatorship. Just like throwing a football match, the new generations have lost sight of the honour and calls for freedom that inspired the statesmen and generals of old. Yes, there was lucre and gain to be had, but the worst excesses still knew the bounds of that old, hackneyed expression it just isn’t done. Now, the game is played differently: it’s played smart. A smart footballer is one who misses the kick in return for a bundle of used fivers. If it works in football, it works anywhere. The word statesman is now redundant.

Mr Netanyahu is not counting one iota on having to win an election to stay in power. That much, if nothing else, he has in common with Herr Hitler.

to be committed to a course or undertaking from which there can be no withdrawal ... fortunately for him, he was successful

Galling.