Israel’s Hidden Victory: The ‘Defeat’ Of The West Is a Myth | Yakov Rabkin

## A case that reframes a larger story The account of an academic detained on arrival in Israel, held under opaque security charges and largely cut off from public view, is not merely the troubling tale of one man. It crystallizes a set of tensions about law, ideology, and geopolitics that the conversation with Yakov Rabkin brings into sharp relief: unequal justice within Israel’s legal architecture; the erosion of civil protections under the rubric of “security”; the ways in which Western states normalize and benefit from those practices; and the broader implications for how we understand Zionism as a political project. What might look like an isolated event, therefore, functions as a window onto systemic patterns—patterns that reach from courtroom secrecy to the export of surveillance techniques, and from domestic majoritarian politics to international impunity. ## The Kirpichenok episode and the mechanics of secrecy The reported detention of Artyom Kirpichenok, a scholar with ties to both Russia and Israel, is striking for what it reveals about procedural opacity. The lawyer reportedly allowed visits only after prolonged interrogation; charges may have been withheld; and the official record, where it exists, is often shrouded by the label “security offense.” That combination—extended incommunicado interrogation, nondisclosure of accusations, and the routine invocation of state security—creates a legal environment where ordinary safeguards can be suspended. The conversation underscores that even when a detainee does hold Israeli citizenship, the state’s security apparatus can place them beyond ordinary civic rights. For observers, the precise facts of the Kirpichenok case may remain unsettled, but the episode is emblematic of how “security” functions as a legal category that can override transparency and due process. This style of adjudication is not exceptional in Israel’s case law; it is woven into the fabric of the state’s handling of perceived threats. When courts accept secrecy claims as grounds for restrictive procedures, they confer judicial imprimatur on a system that can operate with minimal external scrutiny. The result is a punitive architecture that disproportionately affects Palestinians but can, as Kirpichenok’s story suggests, reach others who challenge the state. The broader lesson is institutional: a legal system that tolerates sealed accusations and prolonged interrogation without counsel risks producing miscarriages of justice and eroding public faith in rule-bound norms. ## Two legal tracks: military law, civil law, and the tyranny of different standards One of the clearest themes that emerges is the existence—and the consequences—of two parallel legal systems applied within the same geographical matrix. Palestinian residents of the occupied territories live under military law; their Jewish neighbors in settlements are governed by Israeli civil law. Israeli citizens of Palestinian origin technically possess voting rights but routinely experience differentiated treatment in policing, prosecution, and access to justice. The consequence is not accidental: it is ideological and structural. The segmentation of law by nationality or ethnicity produces predictable outcomes—higher arrest rates, harsher sentences, and diminished acquittal rates for Palestinians—and normalizes a hierarchy of rights. Rabkin’s intervention is blunt: the Israeli judicial system functions well in routine, non-security cases, but aligns with a dominant Zionist ideology on matters of national security and settler violence. Historical parallels are invoked to sober effect—courts that “functioned perfectly” in autocratic contexts, because they had been captured by an ideology. When police or the military operate with sympathetic public sentiment or a shared ideological frame, enforcement is not neutral; it becomes an instrument of political exclusion. That dualism—the coexistence of procedural normalcy and extraordinary security prerogatives—helps explain episodes where militant settlers act with impunity and where Palestinians and critics alike see criminalization in political terms. ## Western complicity and the politics of selective sanctioning Perhaps the most unsettling aspect of the exchange is the mapping of Western tolerance and strategic appetite onto Israeli practices. The conversation frames Israel not as an isolated actor but as a partner—an experimental laboratory and operational adjunct—for Western states. Whether through tacit diplomatic cover, rhetorical legerdemain about “two states,” or the avoidance of meaningful economic or political sanctions, Western governments have normalized conduct toward Palestinians that they would condemn in other contexts. Rabkin and the interlocutor converge on the uncomfortable truth: the West’s response is not merely inconsistent, but selective in ways that reflect geopolitical priorities and domestic political economies. This selectivity helps explain why sanctions so readily fall on states deemed inconvenient—Russia is a prime example—while long-standing patterns of occupation and collective punishment in Palestine generate, at most, symbolic admonitions. The conversation points to the utility Israel provides to Western elites in other domains: counterterrorism expertise, surveillance tools, and battlefield-tested techniques to manage dissent. Where those capabilities are valuable, political will to punish declines. The result is a permissive environment in which structural dispossession can proceed even as specific practices—illegal settlements, collective punishment, stringent security laws—draw occasional censure. In short, international norms are applied unevenly because sovereign interests and technological appetites trump moral consistency. ## Zionism, colonialism, and the bluntness of contemporary rhetoric A throughline in the discussion is the insistence that Zionism must be assessed as a political movement with colonial features—not merely a cultural or religious revival. For Rabkin, the current political moment reveals what earlier diplomatic craft and public relations had smoothed over: not a paradox but an ideological continuity. There were times when figures like Abba Eban could present the project in palatable terms; today, the language of major political actors is far less guarded. Open declarations against a two-state outcome, the candid ambitions of certain cabinet ministers, and the visible entrenchment of settler power all make plain that the settler-colonial dynamics once dressed in diplomatic euphemism are now being enacted with far less camouflage. This unvarnished posture also intersects with a particular strand of Christian Zionism and imperial histories—especially in Britain—that supplied both rhetorical and theological cover for dispossession. The conversation traces how religious-political alliances and colonial nostalgia shaped, and continue to shape, Western engagement. Far from being a marginal factor, that legacy helps explain the resilience of support for policies that would otherwise face stronger censure. When political premises rest on a blend of ideological conviction and strategic calculus, public discourse ossifies, and the space for critical engagement narrows. ## Surveillance, dissent, and the limits of electoral correction Another key theme relates to technology and its political consequences. Israel’s export of surveillance and population-control techniques—refined through decades of managing occupation—has global reach. Democracies that procure these tools often adopt corresponding frameworks for limiting dissent at home, normalizing practices first tested in conflict zones. The conversation warns that this is not abstraction: democratic backsliding in Europe and North America has, in part, been abetted by the ready availability of tools for monitoring, classifying, and neutralizing opponents. Coupled with technological diffusion is the observation tha

Israel’s Hidden Victory: The ‘Defeat’ Of The West Is a Myth | Yakov Rabkin Yakov Rabkin discusses Artyom Kirpichenok’s reported detention in Israel, stressing the scarcity of confirmed information. He examines unequal legal protections, Western support for Israel, and the relationship between Zionism, colonialism, and Christian Zionism. Rabkin challenges claims of inevitable Western decline, arguing that regional fragmentation may serve strategic objectives. The conversation also explores Israeli education, surveillance exports, restrictions on dissent, and the limits of electoral change, before considering public pressure, diplomatic assistance, and Jewish opposition to Zionism through his published books. Yakov's Links: Yakov Rabkin’s website: https://yakovrabkin.ca/ Yakov Rabkin’s Substack: https://yakovrabkin.substack.com/ Zionism Decoded in 101 Quotes: https://www.ipgbook.com/zionism-decoded-in-101-quotes-products- 9781771864121.php Israel in Palestine: Jewish Rejection of Zionism: https://israelpalestinebook. com/ Neutrality Studies Links: Neutrality Studies Substack: https://pascallottaz.substack.com Support Neutrality Studies: https://neutralitystudies.com/donate Neutrality Studies shop: https://neutralitystudies.com/shop Time Stamps 00:00 Artyom Kirpichenok’s detention 05:29 Security courts and unequal justice 17:06 Western support and double standards 28:30 Colonial pride and the “new Hebrew” 35:44 Britain and Christian Zionism 39:42 Israel’s hidden victory and Western decline 46:56 Security laws and shrinking civil liberties 53:36 Helping Kirpichenok and finding Rabkin’s work #Pascal Welcome back, everybody, to Neutrality Studies today with an update by the brilliant Jakob Rapkin, Emeritus Professor at the University of Montreal. Jakob, welcome back. #Yakov Rabkin Thank you for inviting me. #Pascal Well, thank you very much for coming back. And just for context, you are, of course, the author of many books, one of them being Zionism Decoded in 101 Quotes, a book which is out also in Russian and many other languages. It has been translated into many of those. So you are a keen observer of what is happening in and around Israel and about Zionism. And recently we got that sad news from over a month ago, almost two by now, that a colleague of yours, who you know personally, has -- 1 of 18 -- been imprisoned in Israel, Artem Kirpichenok. I'm sorry if I pronounced this wrong, but he is an academic. He wrote the foreword for one of your books. And he is, as we speak, still held in an Israeli prison. Can you give us an update of what is happening to him? #Yakov Rabkin Well, actually, I wrote a preface for his book. Kirpichenok is, well, a 51-year-old specialist in the Middle East. He lives in St. Petersburg, Russia. And I met him a few years ago when I visited St. Petersburg. And he was actually at the launch of that book that you showed, the Russian edition of my book, which is now, I think, in seven languages already. And he went to Israel, and I spoke with him literally before he left because he was supposed to take part in the roundtable discussion that I was organizing in St. Petersburg after his return. Well, he never returned, and we had the roundtable without him. But that's the least of the problem. So he arrived on the 2nd of August in Israel and was immediately arrested. Now, we don't have any confirmation of that from official sources. We only have some information about him from a lawyer that apparently met him. And now it becomes a bit Kafkaesque because she was not allowed to see the accusations. That's quite normal in Israel. Many security prisoners not only get indicted, they get prison sentences without ever seeing the nature of the accusation because it's secret. It's a security offense. Israel is very strict in that sense. And I think that, well, what she said, the lawyer, is that he is accused of espionage, I find it very difficult for two reasons. First, he doesn't live in Israel, so it's very, very difficult to spy on a country if you don't live there. Secondly, if someone would recruit a spy, I don't suggest they would recruit someone who writes critical articles about Israel. Well, it really doesn't square in my limited mind, but we'll see what happens later. Well, personally, I find it very sad, and I'm not surprised because there are over 8,000 Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli prison system. So here's one who is not Palestinian. And, well, we'll have to wait to see the results. I mean, unfortunately, I cannot say more. And I don't like to express hypotheses and guesses because I don't know. #Pascal But do you know if he is held incommunicado, or is it just—I mean, you're not connected to his family, so you don't have more updates, and there's no public information available about him. But I suppose there must be information that goes out to his family, I hope. #Yakov Rabkin No. #Pascal -- 2 of 18 -- No. #Yakov Rabkin No, no. What we do know, I mean, officially, we know that a security prisoner was brought to court without naming him. A security prisoner was brought to court on serious security charges, and he was remanded by the decision of the judge. But we don't know if that's him, maybe someone else. We are just guessing. We are putting together two pieces, and we think that that must have been him. So the lawyer said that he was in a bad condition, and he—again, I haven't spoken with the lawyer. I only repeat what has been published, so I don't have any privileged access. What I think it shows, however, is the character of the Israeli penitentiary system and the Israeli justice system. I think that's very clear. #Pascal Maybe we should talk about this, because supporters of the Israeli cause, let's call it that, or of the Zionist cause, will never get tired of repeating that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and has a separation of powers, and everything works the way it works in the West. It's a proper state and everything. But what does this tell us? I mean, how is it possible that a country can just arrest people like that on arrival for—I mean, we would suppose that this Israel criticism has something to do with this. But does he actually also have an Israeli passport? I mean, because he's an Israeli citizen. #Yakov Rabkin He lived in Israel, I think, for over 10 years. He served in the army. He did his graduate degree at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. So he's both an Israeli and Russian citizen. Apparently, the Russian diplomatic mission in Israel is trying to get more information, but again, they haven't disclosed anything. It's really—you have to realize that the lawyer was allowed to see Artyom after 20 days of interrogation. Oh, no. So in most countries, you don't say a word without your lawyer present. That certainly is not the case in Israel. As to the image of Israel as the only democracy in the Middle East and so on, well, there have been many myths of Israel that have been dethroned, have been denied, and no one believes them. For example, one myth is that the Palestinians in 1948 left because other Arab countries called on them to leave. You know, this was a myth that was very present, that perhaps is still present somewhere. But there are many myths about Israel that little by little are being debunked. One of them is, of course, the judicial system. But you see, the judicial system works like in most democratic countries, except on security issues. So this is a very important thing. #Pascal -- 3 of 18 -- Hey, just a very quick note. The best way to support this channel is by signing up for my free Substack. You can also help with a paid subscription there, or you can get some of our new merch on NeutralityStudies.com. Links below. See you there. #Yakov Rabkin You know, for example, before talking with you, I checked some statistics. Since 1967, since the occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, Israel has imprisoned one million Palestinians. #Pascal One million? #Yakov Rabkin Yeah, we are talking about... So every sixth person has been imprisoned, which means every family knows someone or has someone who was imprisoned at one point by Israel. And one must say that the acquittal rate for Palestinian security accusations is less than 1%, which means that 99% plus are being convicted and imprisoned. So it's a system that has a very strong ideological component. You know, the judicial system is aligned with the Zionist ideology. It's not a neutral judicial system. And therefore, Palestinians are seen as enemies, and they are treated differently. There was an episode, I think, maybe 15 years ago. There was a demonstration of Palestinians who were citizens of Israel in the Galilee, near the town of Afula. 13 of them were killed by the police. Now, no demonstration of Jews in Israel would receive this treatment. You see, you have to realize that there are two standards, double standards concerning Arabs, even if they're Israeli citizens, and of course if they are not Israeli citizens. So the system works in most criminal cases, which are not security cases. It works pretty well. But I think that we have examples of countries where the judicial system was ideologically aligned with the regime. Say, well, the German judicial system was functioning perfectly in the '30s, but it was aligned with a dominant ideology. So I think we have to realize that when that episode near Afula, when 13 people were killed, I saw the interview with the police commander who did this, and he was an immigrant from Romania, if I remember correctly. And he couldn't understand why he was interrogated. He says, "Well, I came to Israel to defend Jews, so what's the problem?" You see, for many people, many simple people, there cannot be the same justice for Palestinians and for Israelis, and even for, say, people like Kirpichonok. You know, I looked at the Russian-language social networks, which I usually don't look at. -- 4 of 18 -- There's so much hatred of him just because he criticizes Israel. So when you said that Israel is a democracy, it is a democracy. I agree. And as a result, the government you see and what it does reflects public opinion in Israel, which is not the case in other countries. You know, what, say, the German government does doesn't reflect what the German population wants, or even the American government doesn't. But, say, in America, the population is very much opposed to Israel now, but the government is entirely pro-Israel. But in Israel, I think there is a perfect alignment between the population and the government. #Pascal This is, I mean, on a political level here, the issue is that with Israel, we have a real-life example of what happens when you create a tyranny of the majority against an outcast minority. Not that the Jewish population of the territory that Israel controls is the majority, but it is the voting majority, and thereby can set the political agenda for what happens to the minority, even when the minority is population-wise in the majority, but not in one block and not inside the political system. #Yakov Rabkin Let me just, for our listeners, it would be useful to remind them that about two million Palestinians are citizens of Israel because they belong to the territory that Israel occupied in 1948, and they had not been expelled from it. #Pascal And they have Israeli passports, right? #Yakov Rabkin They have Israeli citizenship and they can vote. And then there are about 5 million Palestinians in the occupied territories who don't have Israeli citizenship and who don't have political rights. So you have a situation, say, on the West Bank, where Palestinians are subject to military justice, which I think the expression itself is a bit of an oxymoron, military justice. And people living next to them in a settlement, in a Zionist settlement, are subject to Israeli civil law. So, in other words, you have two systems that apply to people living within 100 meters from each