There was a segment in last year’s Louis Theroux documentary The Settlers that stuck with me where Israeli settler leader Daniella Weiss refers to Zionism as a “magic system”.
“Jewish settlements in Gaza is a very difficult step that demands a lot of work,” Weiss told Theroux. “You have to influence the leftists, the government, the nations of the world, using the magic system: Zionism.”
It isn’t surprising to learn that Weiss views her operations as a kind of magic. On paper she and her ilk shouldn’t be able to do what they do. Forcefully dropping a foreign ethnostate on top of a pre-existing civilization and violently hammering it into place against every organic impulse of the region is freakish enough, but then convincing the rest of the world to support this? To the point that it actually affects our interpersonal relationships and interactions on the other side of the planet? It shouldn’t work. But it does.
I don’t really know what magic is, but it makes sense that some Zionists would see it that way. Because from the outside looking in all that mass-scale psychosocial manipulation kind of does look like an inexplicable sort of wizardry.
Luckily, the magic seems to be wearing off. The old tricks just aren’t working anymore. Calling someone who criticizes Israel an “antisemite” is widely recognized for the fraudulent manipulation that it is. Pro-Palestine politicians are winning elections despite highly coordinated smear campaigns saying their candidacy makes Jews feel unsafe. Everyone knows Israel lies about everything all the time. Trust in the media is at an all-time low, while awareness of the pro-Israel bias of the mainstream press is at an all-time high.
Having seen that documentary, she also seems like she's stuck in a cult with no idea how to get out. Like she knows too much, desperately wants to leave, and there are soldiers with guns pointed at her if she says anything bad about the cult.