Indeed what could be wrong with an encomium to the State of Israel on its 60th anniversary by William Kristol on the Op-Ed page of the Times?It's weird, that's what. The essay is not about the real State of Israel in the real world in actual history. It's another one of those imaginary symbolic statements about the mythic past and the feared future. Kristol just completely leaves out the present.
It is all essence and no existence and it culminates in this blast of national destiny:
Still, even though the security of Israel is very much at risk, the good news is that, unlike in the 1930s, the Jews are able to defend themselves, and the United States is willing to fight for freedom. Americans grasp that Israel’s very existence to some degree embodies the defeat and repudiation of the genocidal totalitarianism of the 20th century. They understand that its defense today is the front line of resistance to the jihadist terror, and the suicidal nihilism, that threaten to deform the 21st.
What Eric Hoffer wrote in 1968 seems even truer today: “I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel, so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us.”
No, that is not about Israel. I hear martial music playing in a rising crescendo. I feel like standing and saluting the flag. Some flag, not really the Israeli flag. The mist is clearing now and I see it. It is the banner of a triumphant Conservatism in America. Hallelujah.
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