This is a path that leads with absolute certainty to extreme nationalism, by creating a kind of refusal to make do with non-imperial normalcy, to be a nation like all others. Pretensions to greatness, to the heights of “moral superiority,” drive a nation to grant itself excess privileges.
In Ben-Gurion and his little black-and-white hut in the Negev, the modern Israeli can see its current right-wing leaders. Ben-Gurion never stopped quoting from the Bible, identifying himself with the greatest of the prophets. He claimed the Jewish people was created by the Land of Israel itself (and the organic connection between the people and its land was fascism’s contribution to the 20th century), and that it has a right to the entire land, including the territories conquered in 1967. (He was in favor of ceding those territories in exchange for peace, aside from Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, so we can retroactively conclude that he would have supported the peace agreement with Egypt, but opposed peace with the Palestinians and Syria, just like the Netanyahu government.) He defined himself first and foremost as a Jew. He invented the Israeli right. [...]
Those who insist on establishing a model nation, and who consistently inculcate a feeling in their people that they are meant to be an exalted people, better than others and therefore can’t settle for an ordinary existence, will end up with the seeds of fascism and the belief that God speaks to this nation.
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