4 | OCTOBER 10 • 2024 
J
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PURELY COMMENTARY

opinion
How to Kill an Idea
O

ver the past year we’ve 
heard repeatedly that, 
while it is possible to kill 
Hamas’ or Hezbollah’s leadership, 
it is impossible to kill an idea. We 
were told that while Israel should 
do its best to defend 
against threats (which 
includes preemptively 
destroying offensive 
infrastructure), there 
is little to nothing we 
can do about the ideas 
that drive the Sunni 
(Qutbist) and Shiite 
(Khomeinist) versions of Islamic 
Imperialism. That the best we can do 
is draw our swords and wait.
This defeatist attitude not only 
leads to the pessimism of militarism, 
it is also simply untrue. There is no 
way to have victory if the enemy 
continually reforms and regroups. 
Countless ideas have been killed over 
the course of human history; dozens 
of political movements squashed in 
recent memory alone. Even if embers 
continue to burn in odd pockets, the 
animating spirit of ideas including 
fascism, Leninist Communism and 
Klanist white supremacism, to name 
a few, have been defeated.
This is how it’s done:
• The idea’s champions need to be 
either silenced or defeated.
• The idea’s adherents need to be 
starved of resources.
• The idea’s recruits need to 
be targeted with a more enticing 
alternative.
For example, in the 1930s, fascism 
as an idea was on the march. It used 
the new social media channel of the 
time — radio — to ride a wave of 
populism to capture the mechanisms 
of state. It then recruited the 
economic engines of Europe 
and developed for itself a solid 
foundation for continued growth. It 
used its success to convince those on 
the fence that they would be better 
off wearing the red armband than 

waving the flag of liberal republics. 
Despite remaining a minority party 
as it rose, Nazism terrorized the 
opposition through shows of brute 
force to silence opponents.
There are still armband-wearing 
Nazis today, but they keep to 
the shadows because they are 
unwelcome in the limelight. This 
is not only because Adolf Hitler 
and his band of miscreants and 
propagandists are dead. It is 
because the enemies of Nazism 
worldwide banned the movement 
and took industrial capabilities out 
of the hands of those who fed it. It 
is also because they understood that 
to prevent a Nazi resurgence, they 
needed to offer an alternative.
The vision of a united Europe 
with Germany at its heart, financed 
through the Marshall Plan with 
the support of Germany’s former 
enemies, was sufficiently enticing 
to convince former Nazis they 
were better off with us than against 
us. It justified a rewriting of the 
educational curriculum, a retelling 
of the German story. The result: a 
continent that knew only war for 
millennia has experienced nearly a 
century of peace.
Importantly, it isn’t enough to kill 
the leaders and destroy a movement’s 

economic base to end its influence. 
The aftermath of the first World 
War provides a good example, 
where defeat on the battlefield 
and economic collapse led to the 
mutation of Germany’s imperial 
ambitions into Nazism. 
Similarly, despite the West routing 
the Soviet Union on battlefields 
and overwhelming its economy, the 
decision to leave Russia out of 
Western Clubs opened the door to 
a former KGB agent to seek Russia’s 
return to glory while other former 
Soviet Republics included into the 
West have flourished.
Without the victor proposing 
an alternative — one that credibly 
benefits both sides and provides the 
second- and third-rung leaders of 
former enemies an opportunity to 
gain the dignity they desire within 
a new power structure — we restart 
the cycle all over again.
Another, more local, example: the 
attempted elimination of Baathism 
from Iraq. After America eliminated 
Baathist leadership and crushed its 
industrial base, it made no room 
for former Baathists by name or 
function, driving them to join with 
former enemies who offered them 
a dignified way to make a living. 
Without a credible alternative, 

the myriad peoples of Iraq found 
themselves under the power and 
influence of their former arch enemy, 
the Islamic Republic of Iran, who 
were more than happy to pay the 
bills of reconstruction. The culprit? 
America’s allergy to nation building, 
leaving a vacuum that Iran was able 
to fill with an alternative.
Or even more local: Israel has 
eliminated the top leadership of 
both Hamas and Hezbollah multiple 
times in the past. Yet each time we’ve 
stopped there, leaving Qatar and Iran 
to finance their reconstruction while 
providing no alternative path to their 
potential recruits to find dignity 
outside their ranks. If we would 
like this set of assassinations to 
break with past patterns, we need to 
propose an alternative, not only from 
the floor of the United Nations, but 
directly to the people who are most 
likely to fall into the orbit of the 
Islamic Imperialist movements. An 
alternative that we can credibly live 
with, a shared dream they can see 
themselves part of.
If we intend for Israel to win — if 
we intend for the world to relegate 
Islamic Imperialism to the same 
heap as Nazism and Leninism — we 
need to promise the people of the 
region a better future. We need them 
to join us to kill the idea so many 
have died for in this past year alone. 
We need to envision a future in 
which we are on the same side and 
then back that up with the resources 
required. 
Israel has completed the first two 
steps, and the Abraham Accord 
countries plus Saudi Arabia are 
waiting for us to present the vision 
to make the third step possible. Now 
all we need is leadership courageous 
enough to make that happen. 

Ariel Beery is a strategist and institution builder 

dedicated to building a better future for Israel, 

the Jewish People, and humanity. His geo- 

political writings can be found on his Substack, 

A Lighthouse.

Ariel Beery
Times of 
Israel

A man points to an image of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah with a black 
stripe for mourning on the frame during a broadcast from the private Lebanese 
station NBN in Beirut on Sept. 28, 2024.

JOSEPH EID / AFP / TIMES OF ISRAEL

Jonathan S. Tobin is an American 
journalist. He is Editor in Chief of 
JNS.org, the Jewish News 
Syndicate. Tobin is a frequent 
commentator on domestic 
politics, Israel, and Jewish affairs. 
His column "View from America” 
appeared for many years in The 
Jerusalem Post. His work has also 
appeared in Israel Hayom, the 
Christian Science Monitor, The 
Forward, Britain's Jewish 
Chronicle, the New York Sun and 
many other publications.

Tobin lectures widely across the 
United States on college 
campuses and to Jewish 
organizations and synagogues. 
He tours North America debating 
political and Jewish issues with 
J.J. Goldberg of The Forward and 
has appeared on CNN, BBC 
Radio, Fox News, Newsmax, 
i24News and local network 
affiliates to discuss politics, 
foreign policy and Jewish issues. 

Friday, November 
1, 
2024

6:00 p.m. Lively musical T.G.I.S. service

7:00 p.m. Shabbat dinner (registration required)
Dinner Cost: $30 members | $36 not-yet-members 

8:00 p.m. Lecture with Jonathan Tobin
Whitewashing Antisemitism Is the
Defining Challenge of Jewish Life

Saturday, November 2, 2024 
9:30 a.m. Shabbat Service
Morning D’var Torah with Jonathan Tobin in the sanctuary 
Contemplating with Courage the Possible End of Our World

12:00 noon Shabbat lunch (registration required)

1:00 p.m. Discussion with Jonathan Tobin
Should We Be Debating the Legitimacy of Zionism?
In the Bernstein Chapel after lunch and Minchah
Children’s activities will be offered during the lecture.

To register scan the QR code or
visit tinyurl.com/TobinCSZ

For more information call the
synagogue office (248) 357-5544.

Sponsored by
The Morris and Beverly Baker Foundation 

We look forward to
having Jonathan Tobin
join us for the weekend:

SCHOLAR-IN-RESIDENCE
WEEKEND WITH JOURNALIST 

November 1 & 2, 2024
 JonatanTobin

Sponsored by
The Morris and Beverly Baker Foundation 

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