Thought experiment time:
Perhaps one day, the Jews of the world will finally become fed up. Maybe they will build an enormous spaceship and take their arguments to another planet (we know Jews are smart, so they could do this).
What would happen on that planet might be interesting, but I won’t speculate, although it’s tempting to wonder what a Jewish planet would be like. Like Israel without the foreign workers, terrorism and reserve duty?
I’m more interested in what the Earth would be like. Imagine a Middle East without Jews (the Iranian regime does this all the time). Pity the ‘Palestinians’, whose culture would suddenly lose its raison d’être. After a few days of enjoying the nice cars and buildings the Jews left behind, they would have to create a real identity for themselves.
Suddenly there would be very little interest in supporting the ‘refugees’. Who would care about them? Not the Arab countries, who treat them like garbage now. I expect there would be fighting between various factions, some Islamist and some secular. Hizballah would take control of the North, Hamas the South, and Fatah the East. The UN would feed them, at least for a while. Turkey, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc. would each supply its favored faction with weapons, and they would fight until most of the land was swallowed up by its neighbors or under control of various militias.
The former Israeli Arabs, used to a degree of civilization and lacking the pent-up viciousness of the militias, would be out of luck. Their property would soon be stolen or requisitioned by the militias. The US President would make a speech about promoting democracy in the region, and would pick a faction to support, one that could talk the talk, but real power would come from the barrels of guns. It would soon look a lot like Libya, but worse.
The disaster would be blamed on the Jews, but there would be little satisfaction from this, since there would be no way to punish them. Mearsheimer and Walt would have to get real jobs. Many academics would have to find new causes, but none would be as emotionally fulfilling. Certain industries and cities in the US would be decimated; it would be an immediate disaster for the US economy, although it would recover. Europe, where there were fewer Jews, would continue to commit cultural suicide as before.
Without Israel, the Muslim states, sects and militias would concentrate on expanding their power at each others’ expense. Ultimately a few groups would achieve dominance and viciously suppress the others.
In 50 years, the Middle East, parts of what is now Russia, and most of Europe would be divided into Turkish, Pakistani and Iranian spheres of influence, perhaps even empires. All would be Islamist.
The US, still independent, would little by little develop a different culture without the Jewish influence (and under pressure of endemic terrorism). Many Americans would find order more important than preservation of individual rights. The particularly Jewish strains of non-coercive liberalism on the one hand and libertarianism on the other would die out, being replaced on the Left by an oppressive Soviet-style communism and on the Right by Fascism.
There would still be Nobel prizes, but they would all be awarded to Muslims. Criticism of Islam would be forbidden in Europe, of course, and Shari’a would be the law of the land in many countries. The number of Christians would decline sharply everywhere. In Europe Christians would live as dhimmis. In the US, many would convert to Islam, but there would remain a strong Christian presence, including militant groups hostile to Muslims.
Scientific progress in many areas would have been interrupted by the loss of so many scientists. Medical science, in particular, would suffer a severe blow. Epidemics of new illnesses caused by drug-resistant pathogens and biological agents released in the Mideast wars would ravage the world; the Jewish doctors and scientists who would have developed answers to them would be busy somewhere else.
Literature, art and science that was seen as challenging to Islam would be suppressed in much of the world. In the US, it would be ‘controversial’. Books and works of art created by Jews would be destroyed where radical Islam was ascendent.
In the immortal words of Thomas Hobbes, life on earth would again be “nasty, brutish and short.”
Technorati Tags: Jews
This is a particularly interesting thought- experiment. I wonder at the ‘psychology’ behind it. Do we sometimes imagine the thing we most fear (For me too in the public sphere it is the destruction of Israel) in order to somehow prevent its happening?
In any case it is possible to think of the overall history of humanity in the time before there were Jews. And I dread to think of it but it may be possible to consider what humanity would be ‘ after the Jews’. But I do not trust such speculations.
Even this one here which it seems to me suggests that there would be the decline and deterioration into global Islamization is not one I consider necessarily right. If the point is to say it will be worse without us, I would simply agree.
But I believe the effort has to be, as I know it is in FresnoZionism to do everything possible to prevent the disaster.
As for the Jewish place in the distant future of mankind, on earth and perhaps elsewhere, I do not believe we as yet have a visionary thinker who can combine a knowledge of the Jewish tradition with an understanding of modern scientific and technological developments to ‘prophesy’ and guide to a better world in which the Jewish people play a significant part.
Seems that if the Jews were absent, Muslims, far from gaining power, might actually be in a more precarious position versus U.S. Christian fanatics who aren’t even pretending to like them, are very well organized, and have the world’s best access to weapons? But this Buddhist agnostic is not worried because I’ll be stowing away on the spaceship.
This is all very interesting. But do you really think Jews want to live on a planet where everyone is Jewish?
I suppose one comment made here was directed at my comment. So I’ll answer it. No one was talking about a ‘planet in which only Jews live’. There was no hint of that in my remarks.
In fact what will be in regard to planetary exploration, possible human colonization of ‘space’ is not for me the burning issue of the movement.
The burning issue is the survival of Israel. I should say that for years for me the burning issue was the survival of the Jewish people. Now I worry less about that, though I do worry about the survival of the Jewish people as significant element in human history .
It is Israel which is openly threatened with destruction. It is Israel which major countries of the world aim to destroy. It is Israel which is surrounded by missiles on its borders. It is Israel which has to deal with Hamas and Hizbollah and Syria and Fatah and Iran and yes possibly Turkey and Egypt and please let’s not think about it, Pakistan, and disgusting anti- Semitic propagandist Saudi Arabia, and growing Islamic influence globally including Europe and the United States, and the Radical Left on U.S. campuses, etc. etc.
If I am on my high horse here I would just like to add one note in regard to the article. I don’t think and I pray I am right that they are capable of destroying us. I do however wish that we had been a little wiser in moving resources, human and otherwise from the Coastal Plain to other areas of Israel.
Freedman, my comment wasn’t directed at yours. I didn’t even read your (first) comment. It was directed at the theoretical situation the article was describing.
I think you give the Muslims a bit too much credit. Theyll be too busy fighting each other to take over Europe or the US. Nor do they really have the logistical capability to take over Europe. Even demographically, Europe just needs to build a wall.