Israel goes from one restructuring crisis into another. Socialism, successive waves of aliyah, near-bankruptcy in the arms race, ideological changes from mini-state in 1948 to mini-empire in 1967 to defeatism since the 1990s strain government’s credibility and make Jews doubt if the nation has any ideology to sustain statehood. Democracy is a comfortable order for established societies, but in times of crises, Romans appointed dictators. Voting for personalities invokes more responsibility than for parties; Israelis who vote for Kadima might not vote for Olmert. Strong presidential republic where the president is elected directly by public weathers crises better.

Mass democracy, however, is inherently evil. Politically active, engaged populations seek to determine policies and control politicians, but such control is short-lived. People hate doing useless job, and the control of elected government soon proves useless. People hate responsibility, and political demagogues urge them to trust the government. When someone promises to care about you, and everyone around seems to concur, you also tend to concur.

Small groups are still reasoning entities, but reason disappears from large populations. The major reason for that is the mob tendency of adapting to the lowest common denominator: people shrink from offending others, realizing subconsciously that that may be dangerous, and seek the common points with them. The common point is the lowest common denominator, and for the large country such denominator is really low.

If the problems are both hard and not imminent, people prefer avoiding them. So, the sweetly talking demagogues are voted into the offices even though their promises are evidently absurd. "The dream of reason produces monsters." Any candidate who tells the unpleasant truth to the mob has no chances of being elected.

In the era of mass media, election campaigns are expensive. Grassroots financing is a fairy tale: once a candidate becomes widely known and his chances appear somewhat realistic, large donors flock to him. That is venture financing in political sphere: risks are large, but potential profits are staggering, as the first large donors would likely remain the new ruler’s closest confidants throughout his career. And so we saw German industrialists financing Hitler, and Jewish American businessmen – Obama. An honest candidate stands no chance of securing sufficient financing, as he is not sufficiently corrupt to shower his benefactors with government contracts and subsidies upon reaching the office.

In large countries with the history of freedom, mass media somewhat check the corrupt and obviously wrong policies. The minuscule Israel with a history of socialist oppression is exactly the opposite. A few oligarchs who control Israeli media critically depend on the government for contracts, permits, and non-extradition. Israeli media are therefore completely subservient to the establishment.

Democracy is a very accidental political system. It was never practiced on large scale in antiquity, but only in small cities where participatory democracy remains viable. In all cases, democracy quickly eroded into demagoguery, tyranny, and then monarchy. Modern states erroneously identified as democracies are actually republics, the difference being that some basic values in republics are closed to democratic discourse; on the other hand, even theocracy allows democratic decision-making on mundane issues while the core values are kept non-negotiable. Democracy gained popularity during the Renaissance when westerners marveled at everything ancient. Unlike the classic art, democracy remained popular because it allowed the ruling classes to rule as if by popular consent (manufacturing and twisting that consent) and provided academics with the opportunity to legitimately influence societies with social theories.

There are three viable alternatives to democracy. Two of them are biblically sanctioned: anarchy and monarchy, while the third was employed by Jews throughout most of our history - theocracy. Anarchy operates as a network of townships bonded together by mutual defense agreements, common and criminal law. The legal system is kept to a minimum, and people are free to a high extent.

Jewish monarchy is a constitutional one, where king is bounded by myriad restrictions. Short of a very bad king, such system is finely suited for opinionated Jews, whose perpetual debates and vacillations it crushes. If the king proves very bad, he can be removed both on religious grounds (as a traitor) or simply by the masses exercising their right of insurrection.

Theocracy is also not bad. Someone like Ovadia Yosef, for all his shortcomings, won’t be a worse leader of Israel than Olmert or Netanyahu. At least, Rabbi Ovadia has Jewish ideas and convictions. Theocracy served Jews well for the nineteen centuries. It wasn’t perfect, but enough that it is workable.

No realistically electable politician in Israel is better than Olmert. But there are viable forms of Jewish government better than democracy where the likes of Olmert would never succeed.

I wonder what Jews can seriously defend democracy for Israel. There is a straightforward issue of Arabs constituting 34% among Israel's young, and so wielding decision-making power over all legislative acts which require supermajority voting. Along with ultra-left Jews and some anti-Semitic non-Jews in Israel, the Arabs are close to being the majority. Arabs vote coherently while many Jews skip elections altogether. So the leftist-Arab block is slated to form a majority of those who actually vote in just 10-15 years as young Arabs enter the voting age. Such a democracy dooms the Jewish state.

The submissive Exile mentality makes democracy very bad for Jews. Jewish masses are used to being oppressed, and don't rush to counter the government which bluntly reneges on its pre-election promises or even put hundreds of thousands of Jews in danger of Palestinian rocket attacks. Democracy is a system of governance for responsible people, and Jews just lost the sense of responsibility during the millennia without statehood.

Look at the Jewish leaders, who are better described as murderous traitors of Jews. Ben Gurion, did he not expect a war in the 1947-48 despite the spiraling violence and clear declarations of intent by Arabs? But he rushed to arm the Jewish militia only after the war was well underway. Had Ben Gurion instituted mass military training of Jews and at least procured, if not yet shipped the arms most of the 6,000 Jews who died in that war would be alive – and have happy children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Instead, Ben Gurion directed his militia to fight other Jewish groups, ETZEL and LEHI.

Ben Gurion did not want to upset the British – even at the cost of thousands Jewish lives. The extent of his disregard to Jewish deaths was seen in the Holocaust: Zionist leadership refused to push the Western governments for visas for Jewish refugees, bombing the death camps, absolution of European dictators who contacted the Allies asking for personal guarantees in return for sabotaging the deportation of Jews. Most infamously, Ben Gurion and his ultra-rich Jewish friends rejected the German offer to spare the entire Hungarian Jewry for a very reasonable, military inessential number of trucks, cocoa beans, and other dual-use goods. And yet, Ben Gurion had the audacity to persistently deride Zeev Zhabotinsky, "Vladimir Hitler" even though Zhabotinsky was rushing about the burning pre-war Europe trying to convince Jews to flee. The very Ben Gurion, the conspirator of silence who bears the full responsibility for Holocaust and should have been hanged alongside Eichmann, was laughing out Zhabotinsky's efforts to save Jews before the war and Hillel Kook's during it.

Ben Gurion, an implicit Nazi collaborator, took care to absolve the explicit ones. One Rudolf Kasztner, a "leader" of Hungarian Jewry, assisted the Nazis with deporting us to Auschwitz, 12,000 Jews each day, every day. In recognition of his outstanding achievements of keeping the slaughtered flock quiet, Germans allowed a 1,700 of his rich protégés to escape. In 1955, Israeli court found him guilty of, literally, "selling his soul to the devil" for failing to alert the Hungarian Jews to their fate. In those years of the Soviet-type totalitarian control over judicial branch, it took great courage for the judge to issue such verdict, especially as Kasztner was represented by the government. Three years later, Israeli Supreme Court acquitted Kasztner, thankfully killed by then; no reasonable person in Israel has a slightest doubt that Ben Gurion heavily influenced the Supreme Court.

Israel's other prime ministers missed the Holocaust big thing, but otherwise had their hands in mass murder of Jews. Golda Meir, fearful of the American reaction and procrastinating in the face of Jewish holiday, did not preempt in 1973 when the Egyptian military buildup was unmistakable though one could have deluded herself about its purpose. Compounding a grave error with grave crime, Golda sent Jewish reservists to the slaughter which resulted in 10,000 casualties – instead of employing nuclear weapons. Golda's fear of the world opinion greatly exceeded her concern with Jewish lives. That ugly character famously announced that she can forgive the Arabs for killing Jews but not for making the Jews to kill Arabs. Likewise, her accomplice Moshe Dayan remarked during the early stages of the Yom Kippur war, "We're witnessing the Third Temple's destruction" – and reportedly was on the way to offer capitulation instead of nuking the Arabs.

The perversion gets worse. During the Lebanon war, the leftists demanded that Israel pulls out, thus wasting over 600 Jewish lives lost to combat the terror on our northern border. The right-wing Likud demanded that the IDF stays put in Beirut, opening itself to still more casualties. No mainstream politician had the guts to do what has to be done to secure the North Israel: depopulate South Lebanon.

The appeasement of gentiles, a policy brought to the fore by Golda Meir, produced bloody fruits: the IDF was instructed to save Arab lives. In practice, that meant not firing at the civilians used by the terrorists as shields, so that Jews often operated without air support and suffered heavy casualties. No doubt, the gentiles were concerned with civilian death toll, the very gentiles who designed blockbuster bombs to rip away the roofs so that subsequently dropped incendiary bombs could set the houses on fire more reliably; fried (and rightly so) Dresdners caused no public outcry in Albion.

The establishment's answer to massive Jewish deaths was, well and good. The Peres-Beilin-Rabin gang launched the worst war of them all, the peace process which has killed and maimed more Jews than the Yom Kippur war. To give the murder a purpose, they coined the unimaginably cynical term, "victims of peace process." When else in the history thousands of people have died to further peace negotiations? You die to win a war, not to procure media coverage for negotiators. It is critical to understand that the dead end of the peace process is not only the Left's business: Rabin was as right as it gets, the hysterical "Mr. Security" who ordered breaking hands and legs of Intifada participants. Netanyahu continued the peace process, and Lieberman never even tried repealing it while in the government.

Sharon, someone with the brain of a bulldozer, with proven history of disregard to Jewish lives, from the 1956 Mitla slaughter to the bloodthirsty destruction of Yamit. Who could think of electing him a prime minister? Sharon loved oppression. When oppressing the Arabs proved to be not a politically correct option, he turned to oppressing Jews, and turned thousands of Jewish refugees from Gush Katif into social corpses, broke and broken.

In horror thrillers, personages walk into the places full of danger unaware of it. What makes the situation horrible is that the viewer knows of the danger. Israeli reality is worse than a horror thriller: voters know about the danger and step in it. We have seen them all: Peres, Barak, Netanyahu. We know that they are traitors. We know they have previously reneged on every electoral promise. But they still manage to come back to power, millions of voters still support them. What would it take for the voters to turn their backs on a politician? A sexual assault? Haim Ramon did that, and now he is back in the government, a top Israeli negotiator on abandoning the Temple Mount to Arabs.

Democracy is extremely prone to subversion by demagogues and activists. It is not incidental that in every ancient state which has practiced it, democracy led either to final military defeat, or was superseded by tyranny and monarchy. Masses are being fooled easily at least for some time, and during that time the tyrant creates a sufficient power base to disregard subsequent popular opposition - which is mild, anyway, so long as his policies are not outright murderous. People love shedding responsibility, even to tyrants. During the time of their unimpeded rule, Israeli leftists established control over the military, security, and educational establishments which no conservative government can break, no more than any state's bureaucracy can be dismantled. Besides, there are just no conservative politicians of importance in Israel. Someone like Netanyahu is a political leftist, as that ex-business consultant believes in the cornerstone of leftism, the possibility of shaping the society rather than merely going along with the traditions and waiting for them to evolve very slowly.

The American example should have discouraged any supporter of democracy. Originally, theirs was only nominally a democracy, but actually an electoral aristocracy or meritocracy at most. Only the educated, and by the large margin, moral and principled people stood for the highest offices. The candidates were drawn from a narrow class, and could not imagine appealing to the lowest common denominator in order to win the most voters. Presidential candidates did not get many additional North's votes by standing against slavery, but lost huge numbers of the South' votes. Modern politicians would have no doubt quashed the issue of slavery in order to appeal to the largest possible number of voters.

The nineteenth century saw many duels between the US politicians on the slightest issues of honor. A century later, the candidates smear each other during primaries, and afterwards endorse each other or launch a joint bid. The extent of the American presidency's deterioration would be unbelievable if it had not follow the historical standard known from the Classical Greece, Ancient Rome, and medieval Italy's examples. At the every presidential turn, we imagine that that is the lowest one can get, but the next president comes out still worse. Carter, Bush-I, Clinton, Bush-II – they are really the human waste floated up to the crest of democracy. Unimaginably corrupt, unimaginably hypocritical, unimaginably immoral and cynical, and worst of all, unimaginably silly. It doesn't take much brain to refrain from having sex with a White House intern.

Now the whopping combination of Clinton-II and someone whose only political advantage is his skin color. Obama, sure, is not the first to exploit that dubious advantage: the incredibly stupid Rice did it already, even though her mimic on photos is grotesque compared to orangutan's. Rice, at least, sprouts some otherworldly academic nonsense, but Obama reminds me of an old Soviet cartoon where a Mickey Mouse-like figure was mumbling the same line, "Folks, let's live peacefully." Shouldn't a presidential candidate be a bit more substantial than that? Nowadays one does not expects at the helm a man who can author Federalist papers. After Bush-II who had trouble locating Afghanistan on the map before bombing it, what can we ask of Obama?

And I marvel at the insane Jews who support Obama with their votes and money. Is having the monsters such as Carter and Brzezinski on his team not enough to qualify Osama as pathological anti-Semite? Or do they need his friend Farrakhan' endorsement to scratch their collective head? Of course, Jews gave money to Hitler before he confiscated the rest of it, and a Jew managed the Nazi Air Force during Gering's extensive leaves. So the Jewish support for Obama is not out of the ordinary. Our people had always had their share of kapos.

Now, I don't care about Obama's intents of reforming American politics to the better. He is bad for Israel, bad for Jews. Incidentally, he is also bad for Americans. Does having the old guard Brzezinski on board sounds like an attempt to drastically reform the American politics? To me, it only sounds like a direct path for heads-on collision with Russia, since Brzezinski, like most Poles, is viciously anti-Russian. Anti-Semitic, too.

Look at the amount of donations Obama has collected. Did the political donors suddenly felt charitable, and support someone who promises to do away with corrupt politics and lobbying? Or did they give money to Obama because he promised to repay them manifold through government contracts, concessions, and subsidies? Obama is a newcomer, investing in him is particularly risky, and he could only attract large donors with promises of unusually high returns.

The Clinton-II is a disgrace to America. Is this country a monarchy now? Where are those dynasties coming from? Lady, you were a bad wife of the bad president. You couldn't keep your husband in check. And now you want to handle Iran's nuclear threat? Give me a break.

Like Rice, Hillary is the sort of the Portrait of Dorian Gray. All her moral ugliness translates into her mimic. If that is the face of America, pity the country.

What are the Clinton-II presidential qualifications? She is a political schemer. Bismarck created political schemes, that is very different from being a schemer. Clinton-II never tackled any serious political issue. Her stance on Iran amounts to hysteria: maybe bomb, maybe talk. Her talks with Assad undermined the US efforts against his terrorist regime, and gave him carte blanche for renewed involvement in Lebanon. Her position on Israel is well-known: her husband the sex maniac had already arranged with Barak to give up Jerusalem to Arabs. Clinton-II, who poses as sort of a Christian, prefers ripping the holy city away from Jews and giving it to Muslims.

Clinton's domestic prescriptions are simple: tax more, steal more. The vast pork-barrel programs are her trademark. Now she wants universal health coverage for illegal immigrants and the criminal mothers who neglect their children so as to refuse buying them a $50-a-month medical insurance.

Any random mobster would make a better US president than the Clinton-Obama duo.

American government erroneously urges democratizing Muslim societies. In those undeveloped societies, Islamists are the only opposition to corrupt regimes, and free elections invariably bring Islamists to power. Civilized countries like Iran eventually develop semi-secular alternatives to mullahs, while Palestinian peasants can only replace Islamists with a civil war between gangs. Democracy is a simple, self-evident form of government. Where it didn’t develop, it was for a reason. It is astonishingly arrogant on the part of US administration to imagine that in Iraq, Ukraine, Lebanon, or Palestine locals didn’t know about democracy but now, when taught, will embrace it. Most societies, especially poor, discontent, and fragile do not need democracy.
Take Turkey where the popular approval ratings of America sunk to mere 2%. Would it be better off if democratic elections in Turkey bring Islamists to power? Is there a freedom to sell oneself into slavery? Who needs democratic elections which result in Islamist government that bans democracy? Yet America and the EU constantly criticize Turkish military for influencing the politics. A friendly military government is better than democratically elected Islamist government; if that’s not self-evident, learn it from the done deals in Lebanon and Palestine. A democratically elected Islamist government in Turkey – the seat of the caliphate and most prominent Muslim empire – would hold enormous credibility among Muslims worldwide. A strong, heavily militarized Islamic Turkey at Europe’s borders will repeat the Gates of Vienna scenario – defeated, yes, but at a great cost.

The main peddlers of democracy in Islamic world are Western leftists who cling to the old socialist doctrine of destroying the old world and consciously building a bright future on its ruins. So far, they did well at making ruins. Islamic democracy is leftists’ best hope. What their darling Stalin didn’t achieve, democratically elected nuclear mullahs and Pakistani sheikhs can do. They can rip the Western world – not annihilate it, but inflict tremendous damage and possibly clear the scene for leftists to build a new, rationally designed West. Russian Bolsheviks likewise cooperated with Germany during the WWI. Socialists need devastation, and Islamic governments can deliver it.

The West cannot uphold oppressive regimes in Islamic lands indefinitely. Foreign-sponsored regimes failed in Vietnam, Iran, Afghanistan and plenty of other countries. Common Muslims resent Western support for their oppressors. Nasser and Khomeini took power in two major Islamic states despite Western wishes. Foreigners cannot stem the tide of social changes. Whatever support is now offered to Mubarak, Muslim Brotherhood will come to power in Egypt. The problem is not democracy or absence thereof. The West must wage a three-pronged war on Muslims: a propaganda war against Islam (as the US fought communism in the minds of Soviet people), military containment, and economic boycott (Osama says the oil is underpriced, let him drink it; buy Russian oil).

Any other policy would end up in Reconquista.

The three keys to successfully changing a society are an overwhelming force which leaves no hope of preserving the status quo, a curfew to assure the population that the new power brings law and order, and the continuation of the existing bureaucracy to effect the transition smoothly. That, in line with Machiavelli, holds for authoritarian societies; conquest and change of free societies generally goes through the stage of physical or cultural extermination.

McArthur tricked the Japanese into thinking that the new order was a mere continuation of their age-old beliefs. He did that by co-opting Emperor Hirohito into supporting the changes and particularly into renouncing his own divinity.

America didn’t change Japan substantially, but only unleashed a political process that had been brewing for a long time. America used the existing Japanese government rather than demolishing it, as in Iraq. The Japanese had a working parliament, and their democratic rights were lagging only a few decades behind the US, which had granted women suffrage only twenty-six years before. The notorious Japanese industrial monopolies were second to the American ones, which continued for decades after McArthur broke the Japanese monopolies.

Japan was not a strict autocracy – the military exercised considerable influence on the emperor. Japan was a crumbling feudal state with clearly emerging features of liberal rule. The Japanese had all the preconditions for democracy: a culture of learning, a certain amount of mutual respect, transcendent values, work ethics, and potential affluence. Extremely unusually among nations, the Japanese are innovators, and they eagerly experimented with a new social order. The wartime devastation signaled an end to the previous social order and made the Japanese receptive to a new one. The culture of discipline made the Japanese agree to the changes suggested by the strong occupier and approved by the emperor.

Japan now is not a participatory democracy in practice. Arguably, no country is; voter turnout of less than 50% hardly qualifies Western countries as democracies. The Japanese exercise unique self-restraint in their demands and liberties. The praised Japanese “consensus” is an expression of their inherent obedience to authority. Feudalism substantially survives in the economy (mega-corporations with huge political clout) and politics (factionalized parties). The bureaucracy has established itself as a ruling class. Radical dissent is almost non-existent. Brainwashing “to conform” is very high at all levels, notably in the schools and the media. Japan remains xenophobic, imperialist (if only economically now), and poised to rapidly transform itself in a major military power if threatened by China or North Korea.

Japan can slip into the contemporary Western-style decadence and superficial political turmoil mistaken for freedom of speech, but could just as likely become a high-tech military superpower under authoritarian rule.

When hearing about democracy, my first thought is of Nazi Germany – it was perfectly democratic. Stalinist Russian and Saddam’s Iraq also come to my mind – they, too, were democracies, and the people overwhelmingly supported the autocrats. Currently, two thirds of Russians support Putin, who rooted out the early Russian democracy, stifled the media, and returned to the Soviet quasi-imperialist policy of stirring up trouble abroad to spite the imagined enemies: America and Western Europe. Is there a freedom to sell oneself into slavery? The people who democratically choose dictators – do they need democracy?

Dictators come in various shapes, from Stalinist-type wolves to Ahmadinejad-type demagogue sheep who ostensibly do nothing but serve their nations. Bush’s re-election showed that Americans shrink from making hard choices just like everyone else. Faced with a debacle in Iraq, Americans chose the simplest approach – let it go on, do nothing, continue wasting lives and money. A few citizens insist on controlling the government while most are resigned to corruption, pork barrel spending, and government service to interest groups and corporate interests. Voter turnout in civilized countries hovers around 50% - most don’t care to vote. The lower classes vote more diligently because it’s attractive to spend other people’s money, and democratic decision-making is the perfect way to do that. The original democratic idea – that people decide how they live – turned into nonsense in huge countries where one’s voting choices are unlikely to specifically affect one’s own life. Statecraft is a complicated art. Faced with myriad policy choices, voters gladly pass the decision-making power to dictators who promise to solve the issues without bothering the voters. Putin is popular because he cleared the country of the Yeltsin-era bustle and eliminated choices. For the most part, citizens need democracy only to relay their responsibility for governance to a dictator.

America’s stance on democracy is twofold. Idealists from the left and cynics from the Administration proclaim democracy a panacea to the world’s ills. Realists understand that democracy is a method of spreading American influence amenably to the affected locals and of undermining unfriendly governments. America never accepted the democratic choices of Soviet-era Russians or Iranians. In Afghanistan, America employed democracy to legitimize its protégé, Karzai while conveniently removing his opponents from the election race through intrigues. America tried democracy in Palestine and Lebanon to obtain the governments that would crack down on the insurgents, and was surprised that the world is less rational than taught in the Sherman Kent School: locals chose sound insurgency over weak and uncertain moderation. Americans moved to mitigate these errors with admirable speed, and started strengthening Saniora and Abbas to subvert the democratically elected Hezbollah and Hamas. Likewise in Ukraine, the United States staged and paid for the 2004 revolt against the pro-Russian presidential candidate. After subsequent parliamentary elections defeated the American protégé’s party, the US Administration agreed that he would dissolve the duly elected parliament and pledged $65 mil to cover the official cost of elections – that’s besides a lot more in campaign costs.

Democracy stops after elections. The parliamentary majority seeks no consensus with the other parties, but enforces its objectives in an authoritarian manner. The parties that make it into the parliament shut the minor parties out through the election barrier without concern for the voters’ free expression. In Israel and Europe, 10-20% of voters are effectively disenfranchised because they vote for small parties that don’t overcome unwarrantedly high election barriers of 2-5%.

People and governments are reasonable, and skeptical of democracy.

How odd is it to demand a Jewish state among world democracies? The Vatican is a Catholic, and Saudi Arabia a Muslim, state. It is no less reasonable for Judaism to demand a state of its own. Religious traits are common not only in modern culture but also explicitly in politics. Europe is full of Christian Democratic parties, and Ireland split along religious lines. Scores of military conflicts in Europe have proceeded along the religious divide. Religion has a prominent place in American politics and cultural symbolism. Religious or ethnic communities can be perfectly democratic. In fact, only monocultural democracies can be stable.

The Greek democracies did not give political rights to descendants of immigrants. The Italian city-states of the Renaissance period banned dissent. The United States essentially disallows Communism. States are built around values. Territorial expansion or contraction is largely irrelevant, but significant ideological changes generally break states. When they don’t, the changes are really evolutionary. The French revolution looked radical, but it only readjusted the prevailing values of liberty and respect for property to fit modern circumstances.

Relations depend on a degree of trust, which is a matter of predictability. Only people with similar values are predictable. Others meet xenophobia, the natural suspicion of aliens. But aren’t modern liberal democracies multicultural? Emphatically not! The United States has successfully integrated scores of immigrants only through the melting pot policy. Americans may be right or left, Christian or Buddhist, but at the core they subscribe to a degree of economic and political freedom. If a state can be monocultural in the sense of accepting a single governing ideology, why cannot another state be monocultural in the sense of accepting a single religion and ethical system?

No American has a political or military claim upon any other American: Californians do not want revenge on Arizonians for taking their ancestors’ land. In Israel, Jews and Arabs have serious claims and grievances against each other. Unless injured groups are thoroughly suppressed, past injuries can break states down.

Multiculturalism runs against the Jewish state’s reason for existence. Israel is sufficiently small to remain monocultural without significantly injuring others. Relocating the Arabs fifty miles, less than many people in the West travel to work, will let both Jews and Arabs live comfortably in their own states of like-minded people.