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It is now over 20 years ago that I first wrote that Israel would either become a single, secular state, or it would ethnically cleanse or genocide the Palestinian. There were no other solution sets: the land is not actually large enough, nor does it have enough water to divide it into two states and in any case, it was obvious Israelis would never go for that.
Even at the time I figured genocide and ethnic cleansing was more likely, there’s a point where the depravity of a people becomes so pronounced (as it was for colonial North Americans) that no other solution is likely, given the means.
I don’t know how many of you have read bin Laden’s writings. (I don’t endorse him, but he was a smart man.) His fundamental point was that America must be defeated before various local evils, because America was propping them all up.
As retired IDF general Yitzak Brick said:
“All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the U.S. The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability. … Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.”
The only way the Palestinians don’t get genocided and ethnically cleansed out of Palestine (the ceasefire/peace will be temporary, and has been violated multiple times by Israel even as they ramp up attacks on the West Bank), is if Israel can’t. And the only way Israel can’t is its economy collapses and takes the country with it, possibly with its neighbours opportunistically jumping in.
Fortunately Trump, with his escalating trade war, is working on it.
First we have the rare-earth export controls from China. Most weapons need rare earths, the West is ten to twenty years from being able to produce enough (always bet the under on China, and over on the West), and China’s controls include any use of rare-earths for weapons. If Trump doesn’t make peace with China, on their terms, the weapon flow to Israel will slow to a trickle. (It will be even worse for Ukraine.)
But there’s far more that China could do. A cursory search shows that it controls the majority of production of the following:
- Graphite. US is 100 import dependent. China controls 90% of the processing. Used in batteries, EVs, lubricants and steelmaking.
- Gallium. China does 98% of this. and the US is 100% import reliant. A lot seems to come in from 3rd parties, but China could shut that down. Used for semiconductors, LEDs, solar panels and radar.
- Solar panels and wafers are about 80% China manufactured. 95% for polysilicon wafers.
- Lithium ion battery cells and packs. China has about 80% of the manufacturing, and these things go in everything, including almost all consumer electronics.
- Refined graphite anodes. China produces 90% and you need them for Lithium-ionC batteries.
- Consumer drones. (Important for agriculture and the parts often used for military drones.) China controls about 80% of production. More, I’d guess.
- About 80% of generic drugs are produced in China.
- Legacy semiconductors (28nm+). As Europe is finding out, since China will no longer let Nexperia import them, and auto assembly is having to shut down as a result, China controls a lot of the manufacture of these items. Taiwan, etc… have moved on, but these are used in consumer electronics and autos in vast quantities and mostly supplied by China.
- High Capacity transformers and inverters. (Can’t transmit electricity without them, and China has at least 70% of the manufacturing, probably more.)
Imagine if China put export controls on all of this?
The US economy would collapse. Nothing of significance can be manufactured in the US or Europe without Chinese components. It’s that simple. China would take a big hit, but they can tank it if they have to.
And, almost overnight, Israel would be without its suppliers. Plus, of course, they are reliant on US subsidies, and America wouldn’t be able to afford them. Europe wouldn’t be able to make up the difference, even assuming they didn’t get hit hard too.
Now I don’t necessarily expect this, it’s not a prediction, but it’s the only route I see left for any sort of relief for Palestinians. And if it does happen, I doubt Israel would survive.
It’s also worth running thru to understand just how precarious a position the West has put itself in with regard to China. More on that later.
NGG
Great writeup — A ship of fools guiding the ship. As Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers, A benevolent statesman may not always be at the helm.
mago
Chaos, mayhem and confusion are built into this samsaric world, with no intention on this person’s part to add to the mix by using an unfamiliar word, i.e., samsara. It’s not a Costa Rica beach town. Never mind.
So a cabal of fools high on their own supply and hubris make toxic policy that reverberates around the world down to the level of street dogs and rats. Nobody wins. Everyone loses.
On another note, that’s a potent observation about the Norte Americano genocidal blood lust and the savagery inflicted on the native inhabitants. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.
Call it karma, call it generational inheritance of hate and fear and loathing of the other (apologies to Hunter S. Thompson). What goes around comes around—clichéd but true.
So there’s the spectacle in front of our faces. The dance macabre, the mundane and extraordinary extermination of a people and their culture and history and whole way of being. Ugly outcomes for all.
Enough for now. Many thoughts arise about antidotes and remedies, about opening up hearts and minds, but lacking the will and skillful means, not to mention wisdom, I’ll just put it (me) to bed. Thanks.
Forecasting Intelligence
Trump is the only hope for Palestine.
Him and his team prefer to get rich with the Gulf States other the hard-right’s Israeli dreams of a Greater Israel.
There is a narrow pathway, if Palestinians kick out Hamas, to a sub-optimal two state solution funded by the Gulf states and backed by Arab muscle and US support. Won’t be perfect but it will be a lot better than what is coming.
Palestinians need to realise that the strategy of violent resistance is a dead-end and go with the only plan available – the Saudi-Trump Team plan.
Knowing the Palestinians, they will screw it up as usual (they rejected the far better Clinton plan back in 2000).
KT Chong
Let’s say China actually pulled the trigger and imposed a total export blockade on the U.S. The U.S. suffers a catastrophic collapse. Israel’s economy and military are crippled. That would likely trigger reprisals from Arabs and Muslims in the region. The world has witnessed two years of Israel’s savagery in Gaza. Israel has become a pariah state outside of the West. Many Arabs and Muslims would see revenge as proportionate and righteous. They would use the opportunity to drive Israelis out of Palestinian lands, resulting in mass cleansing and expulsions of Jews — a Second Holocaust.
A U.S. collapse would mean the U.S. could not stop the “revenge” cleansing or genocide of Jews in Israel. The EU and NATO — exhausted after losing the Ukraine War — would not have the stomach or strength to intervene.
Then what? Is China supposed to intervene, replace the U.S., and stand between Israel and vengeful Arabs and Muslims? If China causes a U.S. collapse that directly leads to a Second Holocaust, the West will pin the blame on China if it does not step in to stop it. I do not want China to be dragged or shamed into that geopolitical quagmire, from which it would never be able to walk away.
All of us have been disgusted by poll after poll, video after video, showing the genocidal cruelty displayed by Israelis and the IDF towards Palestinian women and children. But if and when the situation is reversed, we will see the same kind of genocidal cruelty — this time displayed by Arabs and Muslims towards Israeli Jews. You may want to punish Israelis now. However, after a few years of watching relentless, brutal reprisals on TV and social media as Arabs and Muslims exact revenge on Israel and try to drive Jews out of the Middle East, you will feel very differently.
For China, the moral and strategic choice is simple: stay out. Stick to diplomacy and rhetoric, support Palestinians where possible, keep Chinese hands clean, but do not get too involved and unleash a catastrophe. The Prime Directive still applies — do not interfere in a foreign or internal affair that has nothing to do with China, because one can never fully predict the consequences of direct intervention.
DMC
China won’t have to get involved, Israel is doomed through its own actions. Either it will succeed at ethnic cleanding of thr Palestinians, in which case their will be generalized jihad against it. Or, they will destroy the al-Asqa mosque(ie the Dome of the Rock) in aid of building the third temple. And Jews are not the relevant group, Zionists are. The Haredim should be safe except for stray munitions. Ditto other non-Zionist Israelis(most Sephardim, Christians, etc.). So whining about a Second Holocaust is actually laughable, considering the Zionists are and have beem perpitrating a Second Holocaust since 1948.
elkern
The ‘Two-State Solution’ is dead, but there is a third option beyond the two posited in the 1st graph of the OP (“…a single, secular state, or … genocide [of Palestinians]”).
The third option is fairly obvious, and it would be the least bloody option by far: Zionists in Israel move back to the countries they came from. The vast majority of Israeli Jews are 1st-3rd generation immigrants who still know the language of the countries they came from, and still have personal and professional contacts in their ‘home’ countries.
In contrast, very few Palestinians have connections – linguistic, personal, or professional – to other countries. Their families have lived – only – in that area for centuries.
For decades, Zionists have [loudly] claimed that the Muslim countries surrounding Israel should welcome exiled (…ethnically cleansed…) Palestinians as if they are actually misplaced Jordanians, Egyptians, Saudis (ha!?), etc. The poor countries couldn’t afford it, and the rich countries are medieval fiefdoms who don’t want to share their wealth.
Sadly, returning Zionists to their former countries is ‘unimaginable’, precisely because the option has been intentionally excluded from public debate for decades (…to the point where even Ian didn’t seem to imagine it?!).
But it’s actually quite likely – in fact, Iran’s missile attack on Israel last summer actually started it. Smart, rich (relatively secular?) Jews are already moving elsewhere, leaving behind the poorer and/or dumber ones, who will eventually learn to live under Palestinian rule (which might not be ‘secular’) if they don’t get killed trying to avoid it.
Perhaps the most terrifying aspect of this is that it is actually a common cycle in the long history of the Jews. A Jewish friend of mine once joked that all of their High Holidays boil down to the same story: “They tried to kill us all, but some of us survived, so let’s eat!”.
Even more terrifying is the possibility that this has become a strategy for ‘perfecting’ the genetic stock of the Jewish People: sacrificing the dumb ones to make the gene pool smarter. This would be consistent with something I’ve observed by reading [what goys like me call] the Old Testament: the original insights of Judaism can be seen as applying the lessons of Animal Husbandry to human society…
Planter of Trees
I expect China will apply no more pressure than needed to achieve their own security. They’d prefer to preserve the U.S.A. in some form rather than crush it. Crushing it would be a costly endeavour and presents a great opportunity cost in crippling what has been a lucrative trade partner. Perhaps they overrate the notional value of future trade withe the U.S., but they do rate it.
For similar reasons they’d also rather flip the Israeli state than dismantle it. Blame for atrocities could be pinned entirely on the U.S. government, which is of course legitimately culpable in any case.
If you want to find justice, international relations isn’t the place to look.
KT Chong
If and when the U.S. collapses on its own, Israel will faces retributions from Arabs and Muslim in the region, and China becomes the dominant power in the world by default — then China still should NOT intervene militarily to protect and save Israel.
Here’s why, step by step:
• China gains nothing by protecting Israel.
Israel would have already lost its strategic utility — it was valuable mainly as a U.S. outpost in the Middle East. Once the U.S. is gone, China doesn’t need an ideological or military foothold in that region. The cost of saving Israel would outweigh any benefit.
• It would be a geopolitical quagmire.
If China intervenes, it immediately inherits the same problem that destroyed America’s moral credibility — being seen as the foreign patron of a reviled regime. It would unite the Arab and Muslim world against China, drain its resources, and wreck its global legitimacy.
• Moral optics would turn toxic.
Even if China steps in for “humanitarian reasons,” the world will interpret it as “China protecting Jews after they committed genocide against Palestinians.” That would destroy the moral high ground China has carefully cultivated through non-intervention and multipolar diplomacy.
• China’s power lies in restraint, not entanglement.
China’s strategic doctrine (at least post-Deng) has always been to avoid overextension and focus on domestic stability and economic dominance. Intervening in an ethnic or religious war in the Middle East would contradict everything that’s made China rise peacefully.
• Israel’s collapse is inevitable in that context.
Once the U.S. is weakened, Israel’s fate will be sealed by regional demographics and geopolitics. Trying to save it would be like trying to stop the fall of a house already burning down. China should let history take its course — not get buried under the rubble.
So, the rational and moral policy would be for China to maintain neutrality, offer humanitarian aid to civilians on all sides, call for peace talks, and stay diplomatically engaged — but never militarily involved.
In short:
China should neither accelerate Israel’s collapse nor try to prevent it. Let the regional balance of power reconfigure itself naturally. China’s job is to remain stable and stay out of the way, not savior.
Thermobarbaric
KT Chong @ “However, after a few years of watching relentless, brutal reprisals on TV and social media as Arabs and Muslims exact revenge on Israel and try to drive Jews out of the Middle East, you will feel very differently.”
No, I won’t. The West will produce howls of indignation and protest but the ROW will shake their heads, mutter phrases like “regrettable but necessary” and move on.
mago
Guessing that Forecasting Intelligence (forecasting what?!) is a troll or maybe a goblin—whatever it is that lives under a bridge waiting to ambush the unwary. Misinformed misdirection dude, assuming you’re a male and not a troglodyte.
KT Chong makes perspective observations. Victims almost always become oppressors given the opportunity. That’s how genocidal impulse keeps recycling. Gotta break it somewhere somehow and that’s why I promote the ideas of compassion and altruistic states of mind, not that many are interested, but the numbers are increasing, and in that I take hope.
Forecasting Intelligence
Mago, nope, just looking at the geopolitical facts.
I’m a Greerist so long-term, agree with John Greer that the Israeli state is probably doomed unless it makes peace with the Arabs.
Truth is, Trump is probably the last hope for BOTH the Israel’s and Palestinians.
As for my FI, well thats because that’s the name of my blog – see https://forecastingintelligence.org/ – I’ve been blogging since 2016 when I predicted both Brexit and Trump’s win in January 2016.
Whilst I come from a quite different political place to Ian, I’m a centre-right type of conservative – I do respect his views and find him rare among the leftwing to have quite clued up perspective on how the world works.
His take on Ukraine has been WAY better than nearly all the commentators I have followed since 2022.
Steve
The US has shown China and Russia that it cannot be trusted in anything except constant bad faith and the double cross. Trump is the exemplar this, but Washington has behaved this way since the end of the Cold War.
Washington is sowing chaos and mischief for China in the Middle East, Caucasus, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and Latin America. Xi and Putin are naive to think they can do business with Washington or manage Washington. If China has the leverage to cut Washington off at the knees, they should just go ahead and do it.