Fred on Israel

Fred Reed posts a sobering column on the future of Israel:

Methinks a faint smell of doom hangs over Tel Aviv. American power appears to be on the decline, the outcome of its Islamic wars in doubt, its control over its Moslem client states uncertain. Nothing Israel is likely to do looks workable in the long run. The demographics are terrible, regional Arab hostility assured, the military balance only able to deteriorate, the whole enterprise hanging by a lobby. I remember thinking about the Soviet Union, “This can’t last.” I couldn’t see how it could stop lasting either. It did stop. Unless something changes, and I don’t have any bright ideas, I don’t see a happy ending.

He posits two possible alternatives, neither pleasant. Disenfranchisement, to produce an apartheid-like government, or ethnic cleansing. Ominously, he remarks:

Ethnic cleansing? Rounding up a large minority and expelling it would require horrendous brutality. This is the least moral but perhaps most practical solution.

Sadly, I think this is probably accurate. Vox Day recently made a similar assessment:

From the historical perspective, the primary issue is the realization that the situation will remain violent until one of three things happens: 1) The Palestinians accept their conquest and are peacefully digested into a trans-tribal Israeli identity. 2) The Israelis are forced to withdraw to the United States and Europe. 3) The Palestinians are forced to withdraw to the neighboring Arab countries. Given the decades-long failure of various parties to force option (1) through a wide variety of measures, to say nothing of the obvious futility of attempting to construct a modern representative democracy with an electorate that would include a large and understandably bitter tribal near-majority, it's not a reasonable strategy. Option (2) is even less tenable given the military balance of power, leaving option (3) is the only possible solution regardless of one's sympathies or distaste for forced population movements.

I cringe at the thought of this, but I cannot argue with the logic. What is even more scary is the realization that Israel is not unique in its possession of a very substantial minority group that is culturally completely at odds with its host country. This describes a great many places throughout the world. I fear that global depression may bring out the worst in us.