Thread by @ShorrTirza

Israel's anti-legal reform protests are a form of internal, Soviet-inspired political warfare "decomposition" according to my friend and colleague historian Dr. Joel Fishman. Thread.🧵

Decomposition is being used by the left as a tactic of political warfare against the State of Israel, from within. Former PM Ehud Barak of Labour said in February that “historical experience has shown that when 3.5 percent of the population stubbornly persists in demonstrations

and protests by all means at its disposal, the government either collapses or falls. I don’t know what damages will be caused along the way, but I am sure that we will win because we are on the right side of history, and we are not afraid of anything or anyone.”

Barak revealed that he was following the tactics which Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan described in their monograph, Why Civil Resistance works: The strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict (New York, 2012). He was enamored particularly with its 3.5 percent formula.

Writing about the American student protesters in the 1960s, George F. Kennan, the historian, (who, in 1946 was probably the first to describe the Cold War), objected to the protesters attacking institutions of government instead of challenging governmental policies

In the late summer of 2012, a group of prominent Israeli intellectuals, politicians, influencers, and fashionable authors accused Prime Minister Netanyahu of being a dictator, a megalomaniac and war criminal, that the existing form of government was not a real democracy.

While our natural inclination is to regard the crises of 2012 and 2023 as separate, there is a continuity of players and ideology, and it is more than likely that both belong to an underlying counterculture.

A campaign of delegitimation and decomposition at home and abroad has resulted in a self-inflicted assault on the goodwill and respect which the Jewish State earned over the years, aimed at harming the tourism industry, damaging its credit rating, degrading the “Start-up Nation”

brand, and undermining the Israel-Diaspora relationship. The basic goal of decomposition is weakening and dividing free societies. It leads to demoralization, political paralysis, and, in the case of Israel, “disorganizing” the army, destruction of the cohesive force

of mutual responsibility, collective strength, resilience, and national pride. The emergence of a “New Class” in Israel and the emergence of a group of “knowledge workers,” with distinct political views commonly referred to as the elite

In his time, former Chief of Staff of the IDF, Moshe Yaalon spoke of Hon, Shilton, ve-Iton, a conglomerate of Wealth, Government, and Press. The process has continued. In short, Israel has grown a “New Class” which has convinced itself that it owns the state.

This development has changed the political reality in Israel and created a major opportunity, an invitation, for those who would seek to exploit the existing divisions in society and cultivate disunity. Hence, the tactics of political warfare and d decomposition, non-military war

In Kennan's words: “To undermine general political and strategic potential of major Western powers. Efforts will be made in such countries to disrupt national self-confidence, to hamstring measures of national defense, to increase social and industrial unrest, to stimulate

all forms of disunity. All persons with grievances, whether economic or racial, will be urged to seek redress not in mediation and compromise, but in defiant violent struggle for destruction of other elements of society. Here poor will be set against rich, black against white,

young against old, newcomers against established residents, etc.”

According to Włodzimierz Bączkowski, a Polish army counter-intelligence officer, this kind of political warfare was adopted by the Russians from the Chinese.

According to Bączkowski, “Russia, a country with a political culture much closer to Asian than European traditions, became an even more invasive and sinister empire under communist rule.”

A Chinese military writer wrote: Disorganize everything that is good in the enemy’s country, try to entangle representatives of the highest spheres in criminal undertakings, compromising their position and afterwards, according to opportunity, give publicity to their

transgressions. Enter into contact with the lowest and most objectionable individuals in your enemy’s country. Hamper the activities of the government of the country. Propagate disagreement and dissatisfaction among the citizens. Instigate the young against the old….

You should keep spies everywhere….

Possony, who studied Soviet political warfare observed in his essay, “Communist Psychological Warfare,” 1957: “in short, the Communists try to destroy what could be called the integrating elements of society.”

In August 1915, Lenin wrote that those who want revolution must work for the defeat of their own country: A “revolutionary struggle against the war” is an empty and meaningless exclamation… unless it means revolutionary action against one’s own government even in time of war.

Dr. Fishman concludes: Although the Soviet Union has passed into history, certain political agitators in Israel, while claiming moral superiority and acting in the name of democracy (as they understand it), have applied the Russian methods of decomposition.

For the full piece, read this. (all of the above are excerpts, taken by permission) israelnationalnews.com/news/373152