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Dr. Joseph Dillard is a psychotherapist with over forty year's clinical experience treating individual, couple, and family issues. Dr. Dillard also has extensive experience with pain management and meditation training. The creator of Integral Deep Listening (IDL), Dr. Dillard is the author of over ten books on IDL, dreaming, nightmares, and meditation. He lives in Berlin, Germany. See: integraldeeplistening.com and his YouTube channel.

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Important Parallels Between the Ukrainian and Israeli Conflicts

Joseph Dillard

Frank Visser's Chat GPT mediated essay, "Jeffrey Sachs on the Russo-Ukrainian War", has provided a public service by highlighting Sachs' position and its differences from both the mainstream Western and Russian positions regarding the Russian/Ukraine conflict.[1] Visser's questions and Chat GPT's responses not only clarify all three perspectives - that of the mainstream West (including that of Ukraine), Sachs, and Russia - but also surfaces fascinating parallels between the conflicts going on in Ukraine and Israel.

Once again, Chat GPT demonstrates its credibility, this time by doing a good job of representing Jeffrey Sachs' position on the wars in Ukraine and Israel. This is impressive because Sachs thinks outside the western groupthink box, although he is a famous economist and tenured professor at Columbia University, who was in the vanguard of US economists in the Soviet Union during its death throes, supervising the dismantling of the Soviet economy under Boris Yeltsin. Because he views the conflict in Ukraine, based on decades of consultancies with global leadership in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas, as a proxy war instigated by the West, primarily the US and UK, to destroy Russia as a competitor, Sachs is persona non grata in mainstream western media.

In his essay, Visser asks, “Why does Sachs condemn Israel's destruction of Gaza, but not Russia's destruction of Ukraine?” The Chat GPT response highlights differences in Sachs' assessments based on historical and contextual conditions, historical solutions and compromise, perceived double standards and moral responsibility, and humanitarian impact.

In what follows, I want to highlight not some of the differences between the Israeli and Ukrainian wars, but rather their interesting and important similarities. Here are some of them:

Unwillingness to enter into meaningful negotiations

Neither Ukraine nor Israel are willing to enter into negotiations that meet minimal requirements of their adversaries. Ukraine holds out hope that it can escalate the conflict to the point that the US and NATO will actively intervene and rescue its fat from the fire. In the case of Israel, any real negotiations would mean it has not defeated Hamas, an oft-repeated central Israeli governmental requirement. Any acceptance of Hamas' demands for a permanent cease fire would indicate an Israeli willingness to grant Palestinians rights in a two-state solution, something Israel has repeatedly declared itself adamantly opposed to.[2] The fundamental historical and current intent of Israel is to occupy all Palestinian lands. Those Palestinians it cannot subjugate it attempts to permanently exile, as is seen in its attempt to push Gazans into Egypt. Failing that, its intent is to exterminate Palestinians, either by bombing, starvation, or torturing them to death. Anyone who is familiar with the history of Israel knows that these are not mere claims, but historical facts laid out in detail by Jewish historians themselves, like Ilan Pappé and Norman Finkelstein. Israeli “negotiations” exist as a way to claim moderation and appease supporters in the US and EU who are concerned that association with the ongoing murdering of children may not be good PR.

Facilitation by the United States and its allies

The major military, economic, and informational supporter of both Ukraine and Israel is the United States. The US refuses diplomacy with Russia. It backs Israel while conducting a diplomatic ruse that serves as a facade for active military, economic, and informational support for an ongoing genocide. The US is clearly unwilling to address the security concerns of either Russia or the Palestinians. The NATO allies of the US are largely functioning in tandem, applauding an x-Nazi Ukrainian in the Canadian parliament and arming Ukraine with German Panzers, representative of an army that once killed some 27 million Russians. Ironically, the state that most infamously conducted mass genocide on Jews is now sending weapons in support of a genocide carried out by Israeli Jews, while prosecuting as anti-Semitic under “hate crime” laws those who protest the genocide and Germany's support for it.

Ignoring of obvious escalatory dominance

Neither Ukraine nor Israel have what Obama called “escalatory dominance,” that is, the ability to outlast their enemies. In the case of Ukraine, Russia has five times the population in addition to the necessary resources and industrial base to generate a growing military. Russia is the world's primary autarky. It has no problem recruiting soldiers to fight, and has demonstrated the ability to bring overwhelming artillery, aircraft, and missile capabilities to bear. In the case of Gaza, Iran has demonstrated it has escalatory dominance in the Middle East. It has most recently done so by penetrating Israel's missile defenses in response to Israel's bombing of the annex to the Iranian embassy in Damascus Syria. More broadly, it can close the Strait of Hormuz and destroy the world economy, including the economies of the US and EU.

Hezbollah has also demonstrated the capability to neutralize Israel's Iron Dome defense umbrella. Israel and the US have been unable to neutralize, much less defeat, the Houthi ability to close down the Israeli port of Eliat on the Red Sea, stop shipping to Israel via the Suez, and even hit its ships in the Mediterranean as well as Israeli Mediterranean ports like Ashdod. Even Iraqi irregulars have effectively targeted Tel Aviv with missiles. What this lack of escalation dominance by both the West and Israel means is that Russia and Palestine will outlast the ability of Ukraine, Israel, and the US to fight.

“Rights” of nations exist within the context of geopolitical realities

Regarding issues of the “right” of Ukraine and Israel to determine their own futures, that right exists within the context of their geographical locations. Ukraine and Israel cannot, under international law, exercise their rights at the expense of their Russian and Palestinian minority populations without a realistic expectation of major blowback.

Neither Ukraine nor Israel can or will accept neutrality

Neither Ukraine nor Israel are anywhere close to accepting neutrality, making that proposal by Sachs an unrealistic non-starter. Both Ukraine and Israel affirm a supremest ideology, which intrinsically places minority populations in an “occupied” position, with fewer rights than the “übermensch.” For both, legal provisions stipulate discriminatory and racist policies as law.

The west lacks the ability to force its agenda on Russia or Palestinians

It is not a matter of “allowing” Russia to keep the four regions it has invaded or “allowing” Israel to drive all Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank and claim “the river to the sea” for itself. Ukraine, Israel, and the US, not to mention NATO and the EU, do not have the ability to disallow Russia, in the case of Ukraine, and Palestinians and their supporters, from doing what they will. This is less obvious at present in the case of Israel because of its ongoing campaign to starve Gazans to death and bomb them into oblivion while destroying their infrastructure, schools, mosques, and hospitals, all obvious war crimes. However, due to the missile capabilities of Iran, Houthis, Hezbollah, and even Iraqis, it is highly unlikely that Israelis will ever return to their towns surrounding Gaza, much less live within Gaza's current boundaries. It is also highly unlikely that Israelis will ever return to their settlements in the north along the Lebanese border due to the unmitigated threat of Hezbollah missile attacks. What is far more likely is that future missile strikes will drive more Israelis from their homes not only in the north but throughout Israel. Again, this is due to the proven ability of surrounding states and forces to defeat Israeli air defenses. Will Russia allow Ukraine to continue to exist as an independent state? Will the global majority allow Israel to continue to exist?

Ignoring the obvious hypocrisy of anti-Russian and anti-Palestinian positions

Chat GPS says, “From a broader ethical and geopolitical standpoint, allowing a superpower to retain control over regions acquired through military aggression does indeed set a dangerous precedent. It undermines international norms and the principle of territorial integrity, potentially encouraging other states to pursue similar actions.”

This statement reflects the pro-Western bias of the AI algorithm underlying Chat GPT. It ignores what military aggression looks like from the broader ethical and geopolitical standpoint from victims of centuries of Western colonialism and imperialism. From that broader ethical and geopolitical standpoint, control over Syria, Libya, Yugoslavia, or Afghanistan acquired by military aggression by the US, EU, and NATO does indeed set a dangerous precedent. The West is presenting a classical geopolitical example of “do as I say, not as I do,” or, “International law for thee, the Rules-Based Order for me.” Another obvious example, carefully ignored or overlooked by the Usual Suspects, is the Monroe Doctrine. Hypocrisy much?

Ukraine and Israel are actively sabotaging their own claims to sovereignty

Sachs talks about supporting the sovereignty of Ukraine. Both Ukraine and Israel are busily undermining any justified claims to sovereignty and instead steadily moving themselves into the category of failed, pariah states. In the case of Ukraine, this is due to its refusal to negotiate, leading to its slow but steady assimilation by Russia. In the case of Israel, blatant daily genocide is turning it into an international pariah.

Chronic ignoring of the security and sovereignty of minority populations

Regarding Chat GPT's response regarding Sachs' interests in securing the security and sovereignty of Ukraine, at present these ideas are largely unrealistic non-starters. Even if Ukraine accepted a neutral status, something it demonstrates no interest in doing, why should Russia believe that Ukraine, the EU, NATO, or the US would support the maintenance of such a status? Based on proven duplicity regarding Minsk II and the undercutting of the Turkish peace negotiations by the West, why should Russia believe that Ukraine would accept a neutral status or that western powers would not work to undermine that status?

Similarly, when has Israel relented from its policies of undercutting the security of Palestinians? When has it ever admitted to or accepted the sovereignty of Palestinians? It hasn't. Why should anyone expect that it will?

The futility of international guarantees

That brings us to Chat GPT's suggestion regarding “international guarantees.” It proposes that such guarantees by international actors would be backed by international organizations like the UN. But the US has demonstrated an ability to block implementation of UN resolutions not to its liking, to withdraw funding from the UN, and declare itself outside the jurisdiction of UN courts and laws. Agreements made by one US administration are regularly overthrown by the next, as the nuclear proliferation agreement reached with Iran under Obama was disavowed by his successor. So why should Russia put any faith in international guarantees?

In terms of Israel, Palestine has repeatedly experienced the futility of international guarantees with the Oslo Accords and other US-mediated negotiations with Israel. All have been broken. Israeli crimes against Palestinians have continued unabated.

No foundation for diplomacy

Sachs and Chat GPT both recommend economic and development support, diplomatic engagement, and respect for sovereignty and international law. Regarding the last two, without trust and a willingness to negotiate in good faith, they are meaningless, except as virtue signaling to home populations. Regarding economic support, Ukraine has no interest in supporting its ethnic Russian populations. It has a history of doing the exact opposite. The US is interested in Ukraine not only as a staging area for missiles aimed at Russia, but as a source of agricultural and mineral wealth. That is, it is willing to use Blackrock and other western countries to exploit its riches, which are quickly being sold off by Ukraine to the highest bidder.

The reality is that Russia is the only country that has any genuine investment in the economic and developmental support of Ukraine. That is because, due to centuries of unification with Russia prior to the 20th century, Russia regards Ukraine as part of itself and the current conflict as a civil war, not an international one. Those Ukrainian lands that end up under Russian sovereignty will be economically developed, as is already occurring in the Donbas and Mariupol. Those that do not will be left to languish or be plundered and exploited by Western economic interests.

Endless and profound enmity

While Russians generally feel a brotherly kinship with Ukrainians, Ukrainians, at least the ultra-nationalistic ones that are in charge of the government and military, hate Russians. So do the British. This dates back to the 1840's, when Britain feared Russia would interfere with its monopoly on Persian oil or even drive further south and threaten India, the jewel of its colonial empire. The US finds hatred and fear of Russia as useful devices for rallying public opinion around incessant military spending, turning Washington into Sparta on the Potomac. It covets Russia's oil and mineral wealth. Regarding the historic Middle East, while Arabs, Moslems, and the Palestinians have a record of peacefully co-existing with Jews (there is a flourishing Jewish community in Iran today), Zionist Israelis either want to drive the Palestinians out or, failing that, exterminate them. Golda Meir, past Prime Minister of Israel, notably said, “When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons.” “…having forced us to kill their sons.” Think about that. Polls show that only 4% of Israel's Jewish population thinks Israel is using too much force in Gaza. Think about that.

Ukraine and Israel are on parallel paths to self-destruction

The Ukrainian and Israeli conflicts are also similar in that they are very likely to end in similar ways. Regarding Ukraine, the West is running out of weapons to send and Ukraine itself already has almost no counter battery or air force left. Ukraine is running out of humans to capture and send to the front lines. Russia has reduced Ukraine's energy generating capacity by approximately 90%. Ukraine is subsequently heavily dependent on energy imports from Europe. When and if those lines and networks are destroyed, the coming winter will be brutal for Ukrainians. Is Europe prepared for the mass emigration of millions of Ukrainians descending on Berlin, Frankfurt, Strassburg, Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam in the fall of 2024?

Similarly, some 500,000 and probably more Israelis have already emigrated since October 7th. That is a sizable chunk of the Israeli Jewish population. These people are wealthy, professional Israelis who have the wherewithal to emigrate. Israel is losing its professional class. If the war does not wind down we can expect that trend to continue and probably accelerate. At some point, Israel will no longer possess a sufficient Zionist population to maintain itself as a viable entity. Israel is a last attempt at western colonialism, extending into the 21st century. Colonialist, genocidal projects cannot exist in an age of Tik-Tok, Instagram, and You Tube videos which daily disclose genocide and crimes against humanity for all the world to see. It is increasingly obvious that racism and apartheid, as state policies in both Ukraine and Israel, have outlived their viability.

Multiple self-serving and flawed reasons for the Western position

The case GPT lays out for Western maintenance of its current position is entirely understandable. The prevailing geopolitical stance of the West is that the US is the world's hegemon and upholder of human rights, freedom and democracy. Its NATO allies are its willing vassals. Russia is an autocracy and Israel a democracy in the eyes of the West. Even Ukraine, which no longer has an elected leader and is under martial law, is a democracy in the eyes of the West. While the EU and UK noblesse agree, the rest of the world grows increasingly tired of a hegemonic status quo and democratic charade. The global majority is actively working toward change. For example, more than 50 countries are currently lining up to join BRICS.

Chat GPT mentions “historical context.” It is a fact that the US, through the CIA, has financially and militarily supported fascists in Ukraine since WWII as foils against first the Soviet Union and then Russia.[3] This has promoted neither democracy nor stability in Ukraine.

Regarding “security concerns,” the US and EU continue to deny the security concerns of Russia. This is most recently seen in its ignoring of the proposals for European security put forward by Russia in December of 2021. Russia cannot expect the West to recognize or respect its security concerns. In light of that basic understanding - or lack of understanding - Russia is left little choice but to do what it believes it must to safeguard its own security.

Regarding “moral and legal principles,” there was nary a peep out of western governments and press regarding the eight years from the Maidan to the invasion by Russia when thousands of ethnic Russian Ukrainians were being shelled and murdered by their own government.

Chat GPT says, “There is a strong commitment in the West to upholding international law and principles of territorial integrity.” This is laughable. Do we need to enumerate the multiple extra-legal wars, invasions, extraordinary renditions, drone assassinations, tortures carried out by the US and EU since WWII?

Regarding “rewarding aggression,” this has been the name of the game for US weapons manufacturers, their investors, and those politicians dependent on their campaign donations for their reelections, since at least WWII. The reality is that American lawlessness has come at a low price in comparison to the benefits to the US economy and its political class. Few Americans have died in these foreign wars. Since foreign aggressions have been financed with bottomless, unlimited deficit spending, they have not taken an appreciable toll on the standard of living of average Americans (although many other factors have). Americans generally feel protected between two vast oceans. How does it “reward aggression” for the West to consistently ignore both the sovereignty and security concerns of Palestinians since the Balfour Agreement? The reality is that Israeli, European, and US aggressions have been amply rewarded.

The wars in Ukraine and Israel are nasty, tragic, and chaotic but unlikely to escalate to a nuclear exchange

Will either of these conflicts escalate into WWIII? I can make a pretty substantial case that we are closer to a nuclear war than at any time in my life, and I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis well. Yet there is much less alarm now than there was back then. Why? Humans demonstrate a remarkable ability to adapt to the unthinkable: the boiling frog syndrome. There are multiple causes for serious concern about a possible nuclear exchange. The West shows no interest in respecting the sovereignty and rights of either Russia or the Palestinians. It demonstrates a strong preference for doubling down on stupid, such as endless tranches of backfiring sanctions on Russia and sending US and UK military into Gaza. It is widely known that Netanyahu wants to provoke the US into a war with Iran, just as Israel encouraged and supported the US in war with Iraq and Syria. These provocations could lead to major escalations on the part of Russia or Iran. Ukraine is becoming less and less a proxy war and increasingly a direct conflict between the West and Russia, as the US and EU supply Ukraine with missiles that can only be fired by western technicians while providing all the targeting information for missiles that are attacking civilian as well as military targets deep into Russia.

While the US is serious about its red lines, it continues to believe that Russia is bluffing regarding its own and that Russia will not dare to attack a NATO state and trigger Article Five. That calculation may be correct, but what if it is not? Is it worth the gamble? Russia has declared that if F-16's, which are nuclear capable, are deployed against it, it will attack the bases on which they are situated, be they in Ukraine, Romania, Poland, or some other state. If that happens, what will the West do? In reality, we will undoubtedly witness a lot of frothing at the mouth, but little else. Why? There are several excellent reasons. All NATO states have to agree for Article 5 to be implemented. Why would Hungary or Slovakia agree? They have said they will not. Secondly, NATO doesn't have the armaments to fight Russia. It has sent them all to the Ukraine and Israel. Third, NATO lacks the logistic capability to fight a war with Russia. Fourth, most Americans and Europeans don't want to turn into thermonuclear ash over Ukraine. Personal annihilation is also bad for the grifting enterprises of western military corporations.

Obstacles to the western agenda are real and insurmountable

I agree with Chat GPT regarding its very excellent list of obstacles to Sach's formula: mistrust and hostilities, domestic political pressures, geopolitical interests, security concerns, economic factors, international legal and ethical concerns, internal and external stakeholder, implementation and enforcement. All these factors are in place for Israel as well as Ukraine. They all work to tip both conflicts in favor of the powers that have escalatory dominance. Regarding Ukraine, that is Russia, not the West. Regarding Israel, that is Iran and its proxies, not Israel and the West. In addition, global opinion and state governmental policies are both increasingly shifting toward support of Russia and Palestine, as can be seen in multiple votes by the UN General Assembly.

Why does the West keep doubling down on stupid?

While the reasons are obvious, denial is a marvelous thing. As Upton Sinclair famously observed, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” But the explanation is not simply “follow the money,” although that is a good first factor to rule out. When our identity, our sense of self, is dependent upon our worldview, and that worldview is threatened, cognitive dissonance sets in. Better to double down than to face the reality that who we think we are and what we have lived for has been based on false premises.

Regarding Europe, the purpose of NATO was “to keep Russia out, the US in, and the Germans down.” That “US in” part meant Europe could focus on social welfare because it didn't have to spend money on its military, since Big Brother was there with his stick, watching over the neighborhood. This false sense of security has been a major factor in explaining why Europe keeps doing self-destructive things in the name of subjugating itself to the policies of the US: stealing Russian assets, accepting the blowing up of its pipelines and its de-industrialization, fighting in US instigated illegal wars.

Regarding the US, its core identity has been as an evangelical, crusader state, with no war or genocide that couldn't be justified in terms of American exceptionalism and right to protect and defend its autocracy over all nations and peoples. Such self-serving delusions die hard, feverishly screaming and kicking to the last. To not double down would be for the US to deny its own identity as exceptional, the source of global enlightenment. We can't have that.[4]

Conclusion

The Western understanding of Russia and the actions the West takes toward it are based on fundamental misunderstandings of Russia and the myopia of its entrenched established worldview. However, I view Sachs' position as unrealistic as well, largely due to the West viewing diplomacy with Russia as a sign of its weakness and an opportunity to double down. Sachs' position on Israel is much more realistic than his approach to resolving the Ukrainian conflict because the latter is grounded in distinctions under international law between the rights and responsibilities of an occupying state entity, like Israel, and those of an occupied non-state entity, like Palestine.

Those who disagree with me like to paint me as an apologist for authoritarianism, unpatriotic, anti-Semitic, or illiterate regarding the “real” facts. Both the US as a nation and the West, as a civilization, have nurtured and supported me in countless ways my entire life. For that I am deeply grateful. I spent fifty decades breathing in Western groupthink. I am motivated by a sense of betrayal by my country of its fundamental, bedrock principles. Rather than giving up on it, I am demanding that it live up to those principles. I am complicit, whether I like it or not, in the crimes committed by the West in my name, with my tacit authorization, and that I have a primary obligation to speak out in condemnation of those crimes.

That does not absolve Russia, China, Iran, or Palestinians for crimes committed in their names. But calling them out in order to virtue signal equivalence is neither honest nor fair. There is no equivalence. Ukraine is a wholly-owned fascist subsidiary of the US. Russia was almost destroyed by fascists and hates that ideology. Hamas is a terrorist organization. Israel is a terrorist state. There is no equivalency.

As the global hegemon, my country bears the greater responsibility and accountability, and so do I. I have followed people like Sachs (who is Jewish), Mearsheimer, and Finkelstein for years, weighing their arguments against the arguments of those who boycott and censor them in the mainstream media of the world's premier democracy. A new world is being born. It will include the amazing, transformative advances provided by Western civilization and the US in addition to a multiplicity of alternative worldviews, cultures, and international priorities. Integral has much work to do to reconstitute itself into a multi-perspectivalism that exists on a broader and more realistic foundation than it has to date.

NOTES

[1] Visser, F. " Jeffrey Sachs on the Russo-Ukrainian War". IntegralWorld.Net.

[2] Stone, M., “Israel's open rejection of a 'two-state solution' undermines US Middle East policy.” Sky News, 14 December 2023

“The comments by Israel's ambassador to Sky News' Mark Austin are remarkable and hugely significant.
Her insistence that there will be no Palestinian state and that Israel believes there is no prospect of a two-state solution represent a stark, bold, brazen admission.
She echoes a remark made by Israel's communications minister this week.
Shlomo Karhi wrote on X: "We live here, this is our country. The historical estate of our ancestors. There will be no Palestinian state here."
Repurposing the pro-Palestinian chant "from the river to the sea", which Israelis say is antisemitic because it infers the removal of all Jews from the land, he added: "We will never allow another state to be established between the Jordan & the sea."
His words were in Hebrew on social media. The ambassador's were in English and on camera for the Western world to absorb.
There is no longer any pretense. Israel is no longer dancing around the idea of two states. It isn't going to happen - that is their policy.”

[3] Lauria, J. “On the Influence of Neo-Nazism in Ukraine.” Consortium News, December 29, 2022.

[4] Ben Rhodes, "A Foreign Policy for the World as It Is: Biden and the Search for a New American Strategy", foreignaffairs.com, June 18, 2024. Quoted in: Arnaud Bertrand; X, June 1, 2024.

”This is an interesting piece by Ben Rhodes, Obama's Former Deputy National Security Advisor …
In an immense departure from US policy to date, he advocates that the US "abandons the mindset of American primacy" and "pivots away from the political considerations, maximalism, and Western-centric view that have caused [the Biden] administration to make some of the same mistakes as its predecessors".
He writes, and I find this a very powerful sentence, that "meeting the moment requires building a bridge to the future—not the past." As in not seek to regain a lost hegemony, but adapt to the "world as it is" which he calls "the world of post-American primacy".
To be sure, the piece still has strong relents of the liberal instincts to remake the world in America's image - a leopard cannot change its spots - but at least he acknowledges the reality that the world has changed and that the US should view itself as a power coexisting with others, not THE power that needs to dominate the rest of the world. Which is a first step...
Also, significantly, he points out the insanity of "framing the battle between democracy and autocracy as a confrontation with a handful of geopolitical adversaries" when the West's own democracies are in such sorry states today that they can hardly be called "democracies" anymore... He writes that instead of trying to constantly interfere in changing other countries' systems, "ultimately, the most important thing that America can do in the world is detoxify its own democracy".
Which I completely agree with: impossible to change other countries via coercion which is almost always counterproductive, but if you have your shit together yourself, you may be able to sometimes serve as an inspiration. America is a VERY long way from this today - in so many dimensions it's closer to a counterexample of what not to do - and that's obviously what it should focus its efforts on, because that's ultimately what its job is.”