Part 1: The Illusions of the West
Following the losses of his governing coalition in the parliamentary elections in Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu’s era is facing its definitive end after three years of total failure in the Gaza War—even if his Likud party formally remained the strongest force as a result of undeserved media support. However, the supposed fresh start under his designated successor threatens to be doomed to failure as long as he operates within the same systemic dead end.
In the United States, an opinion poll conducted immediately after the massacre of October 7, 2023, still showed well over five times as many Israel sympathizers as Palestinian sympathizers. Since then, a dramatic shift in public mood has taken place: support for Israel has collapsed and is now surpassed by support for the Palestinians, particularly among young people.
The root cause of this landslide is a profound, systemic failure across the entire West. Politics and the media have become stuck on a double suicide course: particularly in the left-wing camp, an increasingly naive and inflationary appeasement is pursued toward political Islam, while the conservative camp relies on blind militarism. The Israeli leadership pushed the latter to the absolute extreme during the war in Gaza and Southern Lebanon using the little-known Dahiya doctrine. Under this highly counterproductive military strategy, harsh strikes are carried out against civilian infrastructure and residential buildings following attacks on Israel under the guise of deterrence.
The Dual Strategy of the Islamists
The collapse of global sympathy for Israel demonstrates the boomerang effect of this blind destruction. The strategy has also proven counterproductive militarily; the humanitarian intended announcements of attacks, meant to allow civilian evacuations, enable Hamas and Hezbollah fighters to dodge the strikes far earlier than less informed civilians.
Among the dramatic outcomes of this policy of maximum self-harm under Netanyahu is the worldwide surge in antisemitism. This jeopardizes the vital solidarity and united front within Western civilization precisely when it is needed most.
For decades, under the protection of uncritical media, persistent "Western" policies have effectively served the goals of an anti-freedom ideology—the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928. Its individual goals add up to the gradual conquest of Western civilization by a doctrinally hardened, reform-resistant Islam. While the military-terrorist arm of the Islamists provokes spectacular military actions in the Middle East, political cadres accompany the settlement of Muslims in the West. The strategy relies on three key levers, among others: migration, demographic growth, and the exploitation of Western tolerance, freedoms, and social benefits.
Wars and civil wars, such as those in Lebanon or Syria, have proven to be highly efficient export mechanisms for the spread of Islamism, while migration losses in the home regions are demographically offset by high birth rates. Turkish President Erdoğan confirmed the progress along this path of the Muslim Brotherhood in November 2024 at an Islamic conference: “As Western civilization collapses with a great clamor, our human-centered and divinely inspired civilization will rise again, stronger than ever.”
Strategically, Erdogan envisions the exact same means as the Muslim Brotherhood: migration, demographic expansion, and the avoidance of integration through emotional detachment from the native population. He proved this in 2017 at a campaign event in Eskişehir aimed at descendants of Turkish guest workers in Europe: “Have not just three but five children. That’s because you are the future of Europe. It will be the best answer to the vulgarism, antagonism, and injustice made against you.”
The Historical Line of Appeasement: From Herbert Samuel to UNRWA
Halting this dangerous trajectory would be easily achievable through the consistent application of constitutional principles and the rule of law. Instead, Western politics has shied away from ideological debate and criminally neglected the civilizational unity needed against the competing Muslim cultural sphere.
This anti-politics first demonstrated its full self-destructive potential in the Crimean War (1853–1856), when Great Britain and France intervened in a conflict between Russia and the Ottoman Empire on the side of the Muslims.
The policy of self-harm continued in the 20th century with the hesitant, respect-destroying British mandate policy in Palestine: a primary root of the ongoing Arab revanchism lies in the obstruction of rapid Jewish immigration into the then sparsely populated land, as provided for in the Mandate Agreement of 1922. Two disastrous personnel decisions exacerbated the situation: the first installed the spinelessly compliant Herbert Samuel as High Commissioner, and the second appointed the notorious agitator Amin al-Husseini as Grand Mufti. Predictably, the latter developed into the pioneer of Arab terrorism.
Another example of future-blind appeasement occurred between 1922 and 1946 with the release of Arab states such as Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Transjordan into independence. On these occasions, British and French governments failed to set peaceful coexistence with the Jewish homeland as a prerequisite.
The 1948 war waged by six Arab states against the newly founded State of Israel led to approximately 700,000 Palestinians leaving or losing their homes. Yet instead of leaving the reception and integration of refugees to the Arab aggressor states, the UN allowed them to shirk their self-evident responsibility. It built roughly 50 permanent refugee camps just outside Israel's borders and established UNRWA specifically for their care. The Arab League responded to Western generosity in 1952 with the brazen resolution that none of its members would integrate Palestinians as citizens.
This largest UN intervention in history has enabled Arab countries (with the exception of Jordan) to refuse the integration of refugees into their societies, costing an inflation-adjusted total of around 50 billion dollars to date and causing extensive collateral damage. This includes the permanent destabilization of Lebanon (Civil War 1975–1990), Hezbollah establishing a foothold there, and the transformation of a prosperous, predominantly Christian country into a destabilized, Islamically dominated one.
In response to the resulting conflicts with Israel, the UN intervened once more, deploying the UNIFIL peacekeeping force—now boasting 10,500 soldiers and annual expenses exceeding 700 million dollars. Relieving Arab aggressor states of their collective responsibility for refugees has affected the entire West since the Lebanese Civil War, particularly by triggering refugee flows.
Life in UNRWA camps also provided a "perfect" environment for rapid demographic expansion—specifically an eightfold increase in cared-for Palestinian refugees to around 5.9 million today, even while millions more emigrated across the globe.
In terms of education policy, UNRWA’s involvement has likewise led away from a resolution of the Middle East conflict. For decades, systematic incitement against Jews and Israel took place in UNRWA camp schools. Sparse protests from Western politicians were too uncoordinated to force an end to these outrageous practices. Even the 2024 Colonna Report commissioned by the UN Secretary-General resulted, in typical soft-soaping appeasement fashion, merely in new guidelines for teachers rather than the replacement of unacceptable textbooks.
The Failure of Enlightenment, Tikkun Olam, and the Dahiya Trap
The errors lie with Western governments and media. An appropriate response to the October 7 attack should have included an immediate investigation of internal security deficits: How could one of the most heavily secured borders in the world be breached freely for hours? Netanyahu blocked an independent investigation until the very end, despite unidentified vulnerabilities in one's own system being far more dangerous than an open enemy.
Instead of working toward a precise distinction between opposing fighters and civilians, consistently drying up international financial sources of terror, and enforcing the thorough purging of UNRWA curricula and textbooks, Netanyahu pursued the Dahiya doctrine. Predictably, this strategy of mass destruction of civilian infrastructure to achieve supposed deterrence turned into an ethical and strategic boomerang in the Gaza Strip.
The tragic irony of the Dahiya doctrine lies in its psychological blindness: it assumes deterrence through destruction. In reality, the widespread landscape of ruins provides the strategists of political Islam with the exact fuel they need—images for the victimhood discourse in the West and waves of displacement for demographic shifts. The hard hand thus proves to be the enemy's most effective recruitment tool. It serves Islamist leaders rather than Israeli objectives, as they cynically plan for the suffering of their own population as an operational PR resource. It ruins Israel's moral standing and Western backing, isolates the Jewish state internationally, and generates the migration pressure that further destabilizes Western host countries and threatens their freedom.
Part 2: Supposedly Patriotic Confrontation or Patriotic Compromise—Why a Change of Leadership Will Not Fix the System and How the Learning Process Must Begin
Netanyahu's Likud party lost a small but decisive number of parliamentary seats in the elections of October 27. Even if he could win back the two strictly religious parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism, for his supposedly patriotic coalition, it would no longer suffice for a governing majority as before. Four parties have explicitly ruled out joining his coalition.
The most promising candidate to succeed Netanyahu as Prime Minister is former general Gadi Eizenkot, though the election results leave him with no easy path to a governing majority either. For Netanyahu, the outcome represents a virtually impossible balancing act between retaining power and maintaining credibility: to remain in office, he would have to attempt an approach toward the Arab parties. Yet this would be an opportunistic zigzag course purely serving self-preservation—in direct contradiction to the rhetoric and policies of his entire political career.
The prospective replacement of Netanyahu by the former general can easily obscure what truly matters. While an increase in personal reliability and sincerity can be expected—qualities Netanyahu often lacked—the urgently needed fundamental shift in political course faces major hurdles. All too easily, a change of personnel distracts from the failure of the entire security system. Beyond the self-damaging Dahiya doctrine, this involves an ineffective military apparatus that has drifted far from the prudent, strategically brilliant conduct seen in the wars of 1967 (successfully concluded in 6 days) and 1973 (concluded in 19 days). In an absurd imitation of the disastrously failed American model from Vietnam to Afghanistan, the Israeli military is also on track to become a resource-draining, counterproductive state within a state serving the interests of war profiteers.
The Illusion of the Alternative: Eizenkot and the Dead End of Hardness
General Eizenkot presents himself as a prudent technocrat, yet operationally he stands for the Dahiya doctrine, which has militarily laid waste to the Gaza Strip to no avail. While he avoids the explicit expulsion rhetoric of the Netanyahu government, his parliamentary dilemma reveals the critical fork in the road: if he seeks an alliance with hardliners from Netanyahu's previous coalition, signs remain pointed toward confrontation and international isolation. If, on the other hand, he attempts to integrate Arab parties, he will be forced into a radical course correction.
Herein lies an opportunity—however difficult to implement—to break through the supposedly patriotic stagnation in this perpetual conflict and achieve an authentically patriotic compromise that serves Israel's true existential and security interests. Instead of triggering mass emigration and saddling the already destabilized West with an unresolved problem—as hardliners accept—Eizenkot could work out a consistent concept alongside Arab partners. Under this framework, Arab states should be called upon to fulfill their historical responsibility by hosting the temporarily sheltered residents of Gaza, at least until genuine reconstruction occurs. Regional cooperation among moderate forces offers the chance for an ordered coexistence and the preparation of a democratic two-state solution, guaranteeing long-term peace and sovereignty for both Israelis and Palestinians.
A cause-oriented conflict resolution begins with Palestinian self-responsibility, from which UNRWA and Hamas have alienated them. Self-responsible action is a prerequisite for sovereign self-determination in the independent state Palestinians seek. Conversely, the premature diplomatic recognition of the autocratic Palestinian Authority in Ramallah declared by several countries represents the sad continuation of a counterproductive appeasement policy that encourages continued refusal to cooperate.
Instead, the goal must be to exit the spiral of dependency, poverty, and radicalization recklessly caused by the UN. The motto could be to transform Gaza from a stronghold of Jew-hatred, terrorism, and Arab revanchism into a second Singapore—a hub of progress and social harmony.
Such a program is long overdue. In Singapore, the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act was enacted back in 1990, prohibiting religious leaders from influencing politics. The law goes hand in hand with efforts to safeguard the demographic balance among population groups. Unlike many (well-meaning) Western citizens, people in Singapore react critically to ongoing globalist efforts to alter demographic balances through foreign labor recruitment.
Political Emancipation and an Educational Offensive
Citizens of Israel, and of the West in general, face a monumental historical challenge.
Developments in Europe and North America have long merged self-destructive appeasement with equally self-destructive, blind militarism—within the Democrats in the US, and across a broad front in Europe. Added to the destabilizing policy of open borders, notably since Angela Merkel, was a policy during the Ukraine conflict characterized by polarization, partisanship, escalation, and the expansion of war onto Russian territory. We are witnessing a replay of the Crimean War of 1853–1856, this time under the false label of European solidarity, while Europe's future is in truth being buried.
After decades of disorientation under the influence of polarizing politics and media coverage, an emancipation of citizens is due—a democratic self-liberation through a shared societal learning process. This encompasses the entire West:
- Distinguish the Carousel of Personnel from Systemic Changes: Do not let the replacement of individual figures—such as Eizenkot likely taking office over Netanyahu—trick us into believing structural system flaws have been resolved.
- End the Double Suicide Course: Put a stop to combining naive appeasement toward political Islam on one side with counterproductive, indiscriminate militarism on the other!
- Return to Tikkun Olam (Loosely Translated: Soft Power): Spiritual (!) Israel must re-define itself as a center of innovation, democratic-constitutional excellence, and clarity of principle—serving as a role model in reviving the democratic idea across our civilization.
- Restore a Fundamental Societal Consensus: The future viability of the West requires overcoming its social divisions—between Left and Right, secular and religious, Jews and non-Jews.
- Security Through Unity: Preserving Israel as a modern, defensible state and maintaining long-term Western freedom are inseparable goals. A civilizational united front is the necessary antidote to the threat of Islamism and its Western enablers.
- The Triumph of Truth: The roots of today's security crisis lie in a fundamental conflict between good and evil. Truth must prevail over distortion (especially in the media), vested rights over revanchist claims, free development over oppression (hidden behind taboos and excuses), and sincerity over (political) cover-ups. Notably, victory also belongs to fair compromise—equally over the physical violence of pseudo-patriots and the appeasement of the spineless.
- Identify True Enemies and True Allies: The Iranian nation is among the ideologically compatible allies. The majority of its citizens demand individual freedom and protection against the incitement, terror, patronization, and oppression of the Islamist regime. A war against "Iran" without targeted efforts to overthrow autocratic structures would betray these people. Netanyahu has already stamped the initiated war on Iran with the profile of the Dahiya doctrine, which failed completely in the Gaza War. Destroying civilian infrastructure (including university buildings, the strongholds of anti-regime resistance) produces the exact same effect as in the Iraq War (2003–2011)—embittered people are driven straight into the arms of the Islamists.
A change of leadership at the top does not yet yield a change of system. However, within the necessary process of reaching consensus with Arab partners lies the chance to break the destructive yet self-destructive dynamic. As long as the West, along with Israel, settles for swapping leaders while postponing real realignment, the shift in power remains a play performed on a sinking Titanic. We will only re-enter the path to stability when we stop confusing destruction with security, avoidance with responsibility, and appeasement with peace.