[lbo-talk] Guardian: Israel has never lacked enemies but now it risks losing its friends

[Eric Beck]

On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 8:30 PM, Joseph Catron <jncatron at gmail.com> wrote:
> "The Israeli economy is ticking along nicely, defying the global trends; the
> beachside cafes are full; Tel Aviv is even becoming the hot destination for
> gay tourism. Why risk change when the status quo is so tolerable?And yet the
> underlying assumption is almost certainly wrong. Israel does not have time
> on its side. On the contrary, time is running out fast.Israel is surrounded
> by evidence that it is, in the words of one Ha'aretz columnist, 'hurtling
> down the slippery slope of pariahdom'."

I don't think there's any reason to believe that Israel will handle
this pariah status with grace, i.e., without violence, and fantasies
about the U.S. having control over Israel will be sadly dashed.

What I like about Freedland's piece is that, unlike many Marxists and
their view of the state as executive committee of the bourgeoisie, it
assumes that the state operates by its own logic and is not bound to
always leave economic tranquility in place where it exists. It has its
own motives and rules. "War is the health of the state" might be a
simplified, but it's still a pretty accurate slogan. But war is very
rarely the health of capital.