Netanyahu’s pitch for Israel as ‘super-Sparta’ is a dystopian death wish

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to members of a bipartisan delegation of American legislators at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem on Sept. 15. Photo by Debbie Hill / POOL / AFP / Getty Images

Columnist Dan Perry September 16, 2025

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has, for once, been almost honest about the direction in which he is dragging the Jewish state.

In a speech yesterday, he shocked Israelis by warning that Israel may soon be forced to become a globally isolated “super-Sparta” with “autarkic features” — meaning little or no engagement with international trade. This vision is a disaster that would erase the qualitative edge that has enabled Israel to build a society that is not only a refuge but also a magnet — for immigrants, investors, trade, cultural exchange and tourism. A preview of the isolation it would bring was evident in today’s United Nations committee ruling that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

The next stop on Netanyahu’s path to building his “super-Sparta” is a takeover of Gaza City, and the likely subsequent creation of a military administration in the entire Gaza Strip. These plans were finally set in motion this morning, as the army announced that after about a week of airstrike demolitions of apartment towers in the city, troops were starting to move in.

This plan portends more years of bloody guerrilla war; more hostages dying in captivity; many more soldiers killed in ambushes; and vastly more civilian Palestinian deaths. The economic costs will be staggering, the moral costs greater still.

Israel’s security establishment understands this. Generals, intelligence chiefs and defense officials all oppose reoccupation of Gaza. They would prefer a deal to free the hostages, force Hamas to disarm, and end the war — and, if Hamas refuses, to enable Gazans who wish to leave. This path would allow Israel to repair ties with the world and pursue normalization with Saudi Arabia, followed by agreements with Lebanon and even Syria.

Netanyahu’s Sparta notions, articulated on Monday, would throw all that away.

He assumes that enough people will continue to buy his mantra that Hamas has not yet been eliminated, and that voters will forget that in early 2024 — now almost 2 years ago — he said Israel was “one step from victory.” Since then, each new operation has been presented as an existential matter of security. In practice, the army moves in and out of the same areas, over and over again. It is, at this point, obvious that Netanyahu’s real goal is war without end — so long as it props up his coalition and keeps his corruption trial at bay.

Past Israeli leaders, whatever their flaws, cared deeply about internal legitimacy and external alliances. Netanyahu focuses only on two audiences: his domestic base of far-right and Haredi parties, and President Donald Trump’s United States, indulgent and transactional, yet ultimately indifferent to Israel’s long-term survival. Everyone else — Europe, American Jewry, the global economy — he treats as expendable.

Why? Because his overriding interest is in securing his own hold on power. This pathological obsession explains, for instance, the grotesque spectacle of Netanyahu appearing at the site of last week’s Jerusalem terror attack — not to unite the country, but rather to disparage the Supreme Court, by forging a fantastical connection between the attack and a recent ruling ordering the government to adequately feed detained Palestinians.

Netanyahu’s strategy is transparent: to prepare his base — some of it, thanks to far-right National Security Minister Ben-Gvir, armed to the teeth — to view the court as an enemy, because it is the last barrier against election fraud in the next election, which must be held within 13 months.

Netanyahu’s far-right allies, on whom his coalition depends, want Gaza to be resettled; this new operation is an obvious effort to appease them. Ben-Gvir has already promised that a luxury community for police veterans will be developed along Gaza’s coast.

If this comes to pass, Israel’s international isolation would become unbearable. Its credit ratings would sink, its economy would suffer, and what’s left of its social cohesion would collapse.

And now Netanyahu presents this disaster as a cosmic necessity. Once again, he’s peddling an illusion.

His talk of “autarky” is wishful, for the simple fact that Israel cannot be self-sufficient on that scale. It imports nearly all its oil and coal, and even the discovery of natural gas has not changed its structural dependence on foreign energy. Nor can Israel feed itself: Despite its leadership in developing drip irrigation and desert agriculture, it lacks the land and climate to supply enough wheat, rice or animal feed to support its people and its economy.

It is equally short of the metals and raw materials that power its tech sector and industry. Steel, aluminum, copper, chemicals and countless industrial inputs must come from abroad.

Even more decisive is the structure of the economy itself. Almost a third of Israel’s GDP comes from exports. The country sells software, cyber technology, defense systems, and services to the world — and the world must be willing to buy. Autarky would not mean independence, but collapse.

And what of “super-Sparta”?

The ancient state of Sparta was intensely militarized, culturally barren and reliant on repression. Children were taken from their families at age 7 and molded into soldiers. Its discipline inspired fear, but it contributed nothing lasting to humanity. In time it collapsed and disappeared.

By contrast, ancient Athens was dynamic and open. Athens defended itself, but its strength came from trade, ideas and creativity. It gave the world democracy, philosophy, theater and science. Its legacy endures two-and-a-half millennia later.

From the beginning, Israel saw itself as Athens rather than Sparta. It aspired to be a light unto the nations, and in many ways it succeeded and flourished. It made the desert bloom, gave the world desalination technology, produced a start-up ecosystem admired around the globe, and turned scarcity into innovation.

It produced Nobel laureates in literature and economics, and formative thinkers like Daniel Kahneman and Yuval Noah Harari. It built a cultural canon in literature, cinema, music and the arts. The economy soared: GDP per capita surpassed $54,000, higher than Britain or France.

Until Netanyahu began burning down the house, Jews came to Israel not only out of desperation but by choice, drawn by creativity and prosperity. The Jewish state’s achievements weren’t just sources of pride — they were the foundation of survival. They allowed Israel not just to deter the Arab world, but also to draw parts of it into alignment.

If Israel follows Netanyahu’s call to become a “super-Sparta,” all of that will disappear.

Europe will abandon Israel; European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has already threatened to suspend Israel’s associate membership in EU research programs. The developing world will turn its back and side with the Palestinians in every forum.

American Jewry — once Israel’s lifeline in Washington — may well disengage as Israel becomes increasingly illiberal, authoritarian and theocratic. Israel will lose not only the Democrats but also face erosion among Republicans, a growing number of whom now favor isolationism and view Israel as just another foreign entanglement. And boycotts will spread: universities, technology partnerships, trade agreements.

Worst of all, a brain drain will accelerate. The very people who gave Israel its edge — scientists, entrepreneurs, artists and academics — will leave in droves. The so-called “start-up nation” will vanish.

Such will be Netanyahu’s “super-Sparta.” What Netanyahu forgets is that, in the end, the ideas of Athens triumphed over those of Sparta. That is what survived from ancient Greece. So, I hope, it will be here: Israelis will eventually shake off their oppressor, and better days will come.