2021 is going to be a decisive year for Europe. The Old Continent has become a cesspool of divisiveness among countries, factions, movements, and peoples. The UK, Germany, France, the Balkans, Italy, Spain, everything is so divided and splintered that unless Europeans start thinking of themselves as one entity very soon, they will suffer terribly. It will certainly not be easy, but a pan European identity is their only way out of anguish.
Europe is in many ways the cradle of human development. As such, the world will look at it and learn, and Europe should show the world what the future of the world can be like. It must show that despite all the many colors, races, nationalities, and their war-ridden history, they can rise above it and build themselves as one family, truly as one family. Otherwise, they will simply consume one another. If they do not unite, I see no future for them.
Besides their internal frictions, China, Russia, and the US will vie over control in Europe, and nothing will be left of “the Old Lady.” Even Africa will join the “party,” as is already happening with the migration of refugees, but in other ways, as well.
When you look at the world map, it’s interesting to see the unique role that each place has in bringing the world to a better place. The US is an example of a nation divided into myriad factions that are still one nation. Europe is an example of many nations that must function as one nation. Each must provide an example of unity above the differences that the world can follow. If either of them fails to carry out their role, they will suffer. I can’t say who will suffer more if they do not execute their required union, but both will certainly agonize.
Israel, too, has its unique role. In fact, Israel’s role is perhaps the most important in the process of unifying the world. Israel must provide the philosophy, the theory, the ideological infrastructure for unity: where it comes from, why unity is essential, and by which rules and regulations we are to arrange it.
The current European Union will not achieve these goals. In fact, I am all for dismantling it, and I’m happy that the UK left it. The current EU was not built in order to unite Europe. It was established in order to bolster banks, industrialists, and billionaires, but not to unite Europe. One could drive from one end of Europe to the other before the establishment of the EU, so there is no benefit in terms of open borders. The regular person does not gain anything from living in a so-called united Europe.
As I said in the beginning, a European union should be a union of the hearts, where they feel that they are in deep connection. And the more different they are, the more tightly they will unite, according to their efforts. The ones who are the farthest now will be the closest once they unite.
This union must be completely unrelated to the existing institutions of the EU. It must be a separate entity that functions whether or not the current EU survives the approaching upheavals. This union of hearts is the union they were searching for over the past thirty years or so since they established the EU.
And as for Israel and the ideology that Israel is required to provide, the level of hatred that Europeans will harbor toward Israel depends on the level of their hatred for connection. If Israel offers a way to connect—which isn’t the current situation, but presumably—and the Europeans shun it because they do not want to connect, then they will have no choice but to take some more beating from other countries or from nature until they yield and become receptive to the notion of connection.
And speaking of antisemitism, we think it is impervious to reason, and perhaps this is so, as are all hatreds. However, antisemitism is not impervious to a model of unity coming out of Israel. Even Henry Ford, whose antisemitic ideology Hitler admired, wrote in his rabid composition The International Jew—the World’s Foremost Problem, “The emergence of the Jewish Question is a part of the culmination of destiny that has come upon us, not for harm but for good. …The justification of a discussion of the Jewish Question is the good for the Jews, and the greatest present obstacle to that good is the Jews themselves. The time is here when they shall see it.”
In other words, antisemitism is not necessarily a fact of life, but something that Israel can overcome by carrying out its role, and by the nations accepting Israel’s contribution—the ideology of unity. The future of Europe hangs in the balance; if Europeans overcome their divisions soon, they will triumph. If not, they will lose bitterly. Israel, for its part, must do its duty in the healing by providing the ideology of unity above differences and by setting an example.
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