Yeshayahu Leibowitz's Prophecy for Israel

The Ghosts of Israel's Future, Part I

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In 1968, the Israeli Jewish philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903-1994) wrote an essay entitled "the territories" in which he described the future of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem:

The Arabs would be the working people and the Jews the administrators, inspectors, officials, and police—mainly secret police. A state ruling a hostile population of 1.5 to 2 million foreigners would necessarily become a secret-police state, with all that this implies for education, free speech and democratic institutions. The corruption characteristic of every colonial regime would also prevail in the State of Israel.

The haunting quality of that text stopped me from writing on this top…