How Israel and the United States were fused together by members of the ruling class

An ugly truth hidden away in a fairy tale

At this moment when it is so satisfying to get mad at Netanyahu for his disgusting actions, to denounce the unrelenting racist violence of the IDF against innocent Palestinians, and to condemn the silence of the public intellectuals (and billionaires) who want to blame Palestinians and to denounce those opposing Israel as terrorists, it is critical to understand how we got here. How the fusion between Israel, Wall Street, and technology giants is best described in the book “Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle” (2009) by Dan Senor and Saul Singer. This best seller praised by the Wall Street Journal was published by the Council on Foreign Relations and discussed widely among policy wonks at the time.

The book heaps praises on Israel for being so effective at launching successful technology start-ups that get big funding and then go on to make their owners rich. Or you could say that the book describes the growth of deep corruption between Wall Street, multinational banks, the Israeli military, and IT firms who combined forces to purposely make us dependent on technologies that we do not need, and make us stupider and more passive as part of a devious long-term plan that now is entering its final stage in the hands of Palantir and Oracle.

The book focuses on the culture of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) which supposedly offers to all those trained (through mandatory service) a broad range of skills and valuable personal connections that are perfect for a nation of entrepreneurs.

Specifically, the IDF is described as not being hierarchical; run in a manner that demands of soldiers that they be creative, improvisional, and do so in a manner that drives innovation through cooperation between equals.

This imagined military without a hierarchy allows junior officers to call their superiors by their first names, and even to express their own opinions.

The book says that in the IDF “taxi drivers can command millionaires and 23-year-olds can train their uncles.”

The fairy tale is rather doubtful. I have witnessed myself how Israelis develop elaborate absolute hierarchies that are invisible to the naked eye, but are brutally enforced in their own way.

What is certain is that the manner in which the IDF wormed its way into the technology field and then used that as a means to extend its reach in Washington DC through giants like Google, Amazon, Oracle, and Microsoft, is real.

The problem for us is that until we look concretely at exactly how Israel and the United States were fused together, we will be caught up in reductionist Jewish conspiracy theories that obscure the critical details of who did what and who owns what, or in emotional responses to the horrific actions in Gaza that allow the rich, in the United States and Israel, to deflect the attention away from themselves.

In any case, rereading this book provided me with insights as to how the United States and the Israel have been transformed beyond recognition by a militarized culture of technology that ties them together so closely that the Trump and Netanyahu regimes are one. There are disputes over which companies will develop oil fields in Syria and Iran that can lead to little turf fights between Washington and Jerusalem, but basically the differences of opinion between the administrations is pure showbiz.