"Ehud Barak's Curse of 80 Years:" Palestinians and Iran mistaking Israeli strength for weakness

There have been a lot of articles in Palestinian and Iranian media over the past couple of days that say this:

Former Israeli premier Ehud Barak has expressed concern that Israel will cease to exist before the 80th anniversary of its 1948 establishment, Israeli media reported on Saturday.

In an interview with the Hebrew-language newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, Barak predicted a doom-and-gloom scenario for Israel.

“Throughout the Jewish history, the Jews did not rule for more than eighty years, except in the two kingdoms of David and the Hasmonean dynasty, and in both periods, their disintegration began in the eighth decade,” Barak said.

Barak noted that many regimes, including those in the United States, Italy, and Russia, have experienced the curse of the eighth decade, and that Israel is no exception, drawing an analogy between the Zionist regime and fascism, nazism and communism.

Needless to say, this is not what Barak wrote in his YNet article.

Barak warned that Israel's biggest threat is internal strife, saying that many major nations suffered internal crises in their eighth decade - the split of the Davidic monarchy into two kingdoms, internal strife in Hashmonean rule, the US Civil War, Italy embracing fascism and Germany embracing Nazism after eight decades of reunification, the disintegration of the Soviet Union after eight decades.

Nowhere did he say Israel won't survive to its 80th birthday. Nowhere did he compare Israel to fascism, Nazism or communism.

Instead, Barak says:

We are not the only ones. But it is up to us to choose. Are we letting Stychia and the two precedents of destruction in the past lead us? Or we have the strength, sobriety and self-confidence to take our destiny into our own hands, which was the purpose of Zionism in the first place, and to lead Israel to new heights?

Ehud Barak is issuing a warning, not a prophecy or a curse. He wants Israelis to overcome the problems that plague many new nations as the early generations pass and to combat the complacency that can set in. 

Strong nations engage in self-analysis and self-criticism. They look ahead at potential threats - both eternal and internal - and plan for contingencies. They look honestly at their strengths and weaknesses. This is what this article is about.

Iran and Palestinian media think that self-criticism and transparency is a sign of weakness. Coming from an honor/shame mindset, they believe that publicizing weakness and fear is shameful; appearances are everything and there is no difference between perception and reality. They read Barak's words and think, Israel's own leaders say it is weak and vulnerable, so it must be! It will disappear on its own! They don't realize that to be strong, one must be honest about one's weaknesses.

They are projecting their own ideas of the weakness of self-criticism to Israel, when in fact it is part of its strength.

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