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"In that vein, he also talked about Zionists having looked back at thousands of years of Jewish history and accurately recognized that “there has to be a state.” By contrast, “the people who are now running my country,” he said, are engaged in “the self-destruction of American state capacity.”
Israel depends upon a functioning US. Trump and Musk are destroying it
A deeply disturbing interview with the Yale historian, famed for offering 20th century lessons for protecting today’s democracies.
I had been trying for several weeks to arrange an interview with American historian Timothy Snyder. I wanted to speak to him in particular about a bestselling book he wrote, “On Tyranny,” that offers “Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century” that might help prevent the collapse of democracies.
The short volume includes advice about not making it easy for leaderships who are bent on authoritarianism by preemptively consenting to their goals, defending targeted institutions, remembering professional ethics, and not confusing dangerous nationalism with commendable patriotism. One of the many memorable epithets from the text that stuck in my mind was: “A nationalist encourages us to be our worst, and then tells us that we are the best… A patriot, by contrast, wants the nation to live up to its ideals.”
Not everything in the book has obvious relevance for an Israel whose democratic institutions are under attack by the coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But much of it has — certainly with regard to the growing concentration of power in the hands of a single leader and the ongoing attempts by his coalition to radically constrain the judiciary.
As it turned out, the date we set for the (Zoom) interview, February 20, coincided with the return by Hamas of what it said were the bodies of four slain hostages — Oded Lifshitz, Shiri Bibas, Ariel Bibas and Kfir Bibas — and we were speaking as Israel’s national forensic institute was in the process of establishing whether Hamas had indeed sent home the four bodies it had promised. It had not.
The sheer volume of breaking news since that day meant I only found the time to write up the Snyder interview now, a week later. And the news keeps moving, of course: As I was reading over this piece before publication, US President Donald Trump was publicly berating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office — a staggering confrontation that, as you read on, you will gather would have dismayed but probably not surprised Snyder.
A professor at Yale specializing in Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and the Holocaust, who sits on the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Committee of Conscience, Snyder has been to Israel and has lots of friends here, but took pains in our interview to stress that he is not an expert on Israel and its current affairs. “It doesn’t make sense to ask me about detailed Israeli things,” he said, but “what I can do is apply different kinds of knowledge to the predicaments that you describe.”
Our conversation wound up not focusing very much on the Israeli coalition’s judicial overhaul and, indeed, took several unpredictable turns — to the point where, at the end, Snyder noted that “It may not have been what you were looking for, but I hope it was of interest.”
Indeed it was.
I found his warnings that Israel stands to be deeply harmed by the Trump administration’s embrace of dictatorships and by what he believes to be the Musk-Trump assault on the fundamental functioning of the United States to be important and worrying.
And I was intrigued by his suggestion that Netanyahu might be among the world leaders most capable — if not the best-placed of all — when it comes to trying to talk Trump out of policies that are not in the American interest and, by extension, not in Israel’s interest either. If Netanyahu is trying to humor the president and scared of crossing him, “I would find that worrisome,” he said. Israel’s leaders, he elaborated dryly, might want to “counsel the United States that it’s not a good idea to disassemble your national security apparatus… or to fire your best generals.”
“In terms of the long structural relationship, Israel depends upon a functioning United States,” Snyder stressed. “More important than the particular goodies that Trump might give you right now,” he said, “is whether, in 2030, the United States is actually going to be capable of doing basic things.”
In that vein, he also talked about Zionists having looked back at thousands of years of Jewish history and accurately recognized that “there has to be a state.” By contrast, “the people who are now running my country,” he said, are engaged in “the self-destruction of American state capacity.”
The Times of Israel: It’s an awful day in Israel because they returned four bodies of hostages, including the Bibas family. I assume you’ve followed a bit. They’re just waiting to confirm the identities of them.
I know you’re incredibly busy and I appreciate that you found some time. I want to set up the context in which I wanted to speak to you. Forgive me if I’m telling you stuff that’s really obvious to you.
This is a country that’s been in a war for 16 months after an invasion by Hamas terrorists, and 1,200 people killed, and hostages abducted, and there are lots of people around Israel trying to murder us and, in many cases, to wipe out Israel. And they have lots of support internationally. We’re facing an incredibly oppressive region, as has always been the case.
At the same time, we have a very problematic, divisive government that, it seems to me, is battering away at the pillars of our democracy. As you probably know, we don’t have a constitution in Israel. We don’t have a strong, independent legislature because the majority coalition controls parliament. We only, therefore, have the executive, really, and the judiciary. The judiciary is pretty feisty and independent, but the current coalition is trying to undo that. It’s trying to oversee almost the entire process for choosing judges, and to limit the capacity of the Supreme Court to intervene on anything. Basically, the only thing protecting any individual rights from the political majority is the judiciary, and they’re under assault.
So that’s the context. And I wanted your insights, echoes, and lessons we might learn from other eras and other parts of the world.
How worried are you as a scholar in America about what Trump is doing in America? And what we should make of Trump, therefore, who is being very supportive of Israel at the moment.
There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. There are relationships where one person gives the other person everything they want, and that’s not necessarily a healthy relationship because maybe we shouldn’t get all the things that we want. I think Gaza here is a good example, where Israelis might think, okay, well, Trump is showing his general sympathy by saying that he wants to ethnically cleanse everybody from Gaza and build a bunch of hotels.
You could read that as general sympathy, or you could just read it as someone who has crossed over from pro-right-wing Israeli political instincts into absolute madness. And that if something like that were actually attempted, it could not possibly be understood as pro-Israeli. Not that it is going to happen, by the way, because these are all just fancies. But if something like that actually happened, that would break precisely the Israeli Arab reconciliations that have happened over the course of the last 15 years or so. That’s the one thing.
The other thing is that the Israeli-American relationship has always depended upon the American state capacity to do various things. But the crucial story of the Trump administration so far is the self-destruction of American state capacity.
So if Israelis in the future are expecting things like arms deliveries in crucial times, or they’re expecting the ability to broker peace talks or whatever, the Trump administration has essentially fired everybody who has the confidence to do that kind of thing, and the prospects are for more of that.
Trump is making the United States dysfunctional. And at that point, it becomes a little bit academic whether he’s pro-Israel or anti-Israel or whatever, because there isn’t going to be the capability anymore
This sort of … libertarian-style America is going to be dysfunctional and not capable of the things that Israel has been used to, whether we’re talking about 1967 or 1973 or whether we’re talking about 2023. I don’t think this America is going to be capable of those kinds of things. I would suspect that’s the thing about Trump which maybe hasn’t reached Israel yet: that he’s making the United States dysfunctional. And at that point, it becomes a little bit academic whether he’s pro-Israel or anti-Israel or whatever, because there isn’t going to be the capability anymore.
But if you’re asking me, as an American, what I think: I think it’s bad for Israel that the United States is now taking the side of dictatorships around the world. That’s not going to create an environment which is going to be helpful for Israeli democracy. And I take democracy to be in the interest of Israel.
Elon Musk is the most powerful person in the United States now, not Donald Trump
You’re describing a Trump, who I’m sure you were troubled by in 2020, as, nonetheless, a very different and more dangerous president now?
There are two basic differences to start with. Number one, Elon Musk is the most powerful person in the United States now, not Donald Trump. And we didn’t have that factor in 2016. We didn’t have somebody who was determined to neuter American public administration or the American civil service. And we have that now. We have somebody whose life’s mission essentially is to make American government dysfunctional. That’s something which is new.
And the second thing that we didn’t have the last time around is that we didn’t have a Trump who was completely surrounded by people who would actually do the things that he says he wants them to do.
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3 comments:
UOJ, I asked you the other day about Steen... You have good friends in Maryland... Is there a way to put an end to Neuberger-Shuchatowitz-NerIsrael pedophile conspiracy in view of the fact they never reported a serial molester, can they be held liable?
I was not successful in my efforts!
May you please elaborate, UOJ? If rabbis knew for a decade that someone was a pedophile and did absolutely nothing to stop him, aren't they liable for that and must go to prison? Or their Mafia is too powerful?
BTW, can you explain to me how Trump with his Jewish son-in-law managed to befriend Musk, whose maternal grandfather was a notorious Nazi (recall Musk's Nazi salute) and an open anti-Semite?
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