Super Sparta
In a recent (Sept 2025) headline-grabbing speech, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked Israelis to embrace life as a “super-Sparta” nation. Living as warriors, surviving, even thriving while cut off from a hostile world.
Athens and Sparta were the two most powerful city-states in Ancient Greece during the 5th century BCE. They led rival alliances that ultimately resulted in the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE). This conflict was a struggle for hegemony over the Greek world, driven by the growth of Athenian power and the alarm it inspired in Sparta. In 404 BCE Sparta won the war which established Sparta as the leading power in Greece.
However, Sparta’s dominance was short-lived, as its aggressive actions in imposing oligarchic regimes on former Athenian allies led to widespread resentment and eventually its defeat by Thebes at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BCE.
Netanyahu’s speech raises the question of what the implications of embracing such an isolationist strategy are. Are we seeing the burial of Start-Up Nation to give rise to a Sparta Nation?
In 2016, the US pledged a 10-year, $38 billion military spending commitment, covering the years 2019 to 2028. As a result and due to additional pledges, Israel receives between 10% to 20% of its military budget from the US.
Another solution to end the war?
A recent poll shows that 78% of Israelis prefer diplomacy over a permanent siege of Gaza. It could signal a new Israeli identity movement, rising in response to this bleak vision and avoid the same feat that Sparta suffered. It appears, even right-wing voters in Israel are feeling uneasy.
The poll reported in Walla! News (an online news service fully owned by The Jerusalem Post), said that 78% of Israelis said yes when asked, “Do you support a peace plan that involves the following features: End of the war, disarming Hamas, return of hostages, an expansion of the Abraham Accords, including Saudi Arabia, create a front against Iran and in order to achieve all this, not only not annex the West Bank or Gaza but instead begin the process of separation from the Palestinian people.”
The Israel Democracy Institute’s polling summaries agree: About two-thirds of the public support a deal that would include the release of all the hostages in exchange for the cessation of hostilities and the withdrawal of the IDF from the entire Gaza Strip. A majority of Jewish and Arab Israelis oppose Jewish settlement in Gaza.
Perhaps Israelis are getting tired of this 700 days (and counting) war against Hamas: Around one-third of the general public think that Israeli society will be able to bear the burden of prolonged fighting for only a few more months.
Around the same time as the Netanyahu speech, President Trump in the US announced he wants to change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War.
Internationally, views of Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu are predominantly negative across 24 surveyed countries, with unfavorable opinions rising since 2022, particularly among younger and left-leaning populations. In the US, only 32% support Israel’s military action in Gaza, marking a new low, and Netanyahu’s unfavorable rating has roughly doubled since 2019. However, in the US the opinions are sharply divided by party lines: 67% of US Republicans still hold a favorable view of Netanyahu, compared to just 9% of Democrats.
Many human rights organizations and scholars of genocide studies and international law, including an independent UN commission, say that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, an accusation Israel vehemently denies. The same organizations equally condemn the war crimes committed by Hamas.
Sparta nation
A Sparta nation is one that lives by the sword and whose identity is that of the warrior.
If you look at the history of Israel, it appears it rejected and avoided that identity. When the state was created three years after the Holocaust, it would have in some ways made sense for it to become Sparta nation. Not only coming out of the Holocaust, but because founding Israel could be seen as starting a permanent existential war. And yet the leaders of Israel, the people of Israel, Holocaust survivors, the generation that came out of the Holocaust, rejected Sparta nation.
Arguably, the greatness of Israel all these years has been the attempt to balance Athens with Sparta. To become a democratic, cultural center and an economic success story, a startup nation.
Netanyahu is shifting the Gaza war from being a war of self-defense, a war to defeat a terrorist enemy, to being a war that is transforming the identity of Israel and may be ever-lasting. He argues the prime power of the Israeli economy in the future will be the arms industry. He adds: “It is good to (want to) die for your country”.
Netanyahu also argues given the international criticism, Israel may not continue to be an export nation much longer. Israelis will have to get used to the fact that they have to produce goods domestically. The ability to import or export goods might well be limited, due to possible sanctions or lower approval ratings abroad. ‘So be it’ he replies.
Iron Swords war
The current Gaza war (lasting 700 days and counting) is part of the long-running Israeli–Palestinian conflict, which has its origins in the rise of Zionism and the migration of Jewish settlers to Palestine. It follows the wars of 2008–2009, 2012, 2014, and the 2021 clashes. In October 2023, Hamas defeated Israel’s defenses and intelligent services. An incursion killed and took hostage over 1200 Israelis. In response, after clearing militants from its territory, Israel launched a bombing campaign and invaded Gaza on 27 October 2003 with the stated objectives of destroying Hamas and freeing the hostages. To date, neither objective has been achieved.
Thus far this latest war, which in Israel is sometimes referred to as the Iron Swords war, has killed over 2,000 Israelis (1,139 killed on Oct 7 2023) and wounded over 13,000. The Palestinian casualties in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank are exceeding 65,000 with over 160,000 wounded.
It should be noted that an overwhelming majority in Israel supports the notion of war stemming from self-defense. In their view this self-defense doctrine allows for attacking, starving and killing tens of thousands of neighbors, especially if the intent of a portion of that neighbor’s leadership is to destroy Israel.
Indeed, a major obstacle to a resolution of the cnflict is the rigid ideology of Hamas. Since it was formed in 1987, Hamas has tethered itself to a hard-line Islamist ideology that doesn’t allow compromises on fundamental issues. They refuse to recognize Israel and oppose the development of Palestine as a secular state. In turn this has emboldened the view of a minority in Israel that there is no peace possible while Hamas is still in power.
From defense to war
Around the same time as the Netanyahu speech, President Trump in the US announced he wants to change the name of the US Department of Defense to the Department of War.
Likely a coincidence in terms of timing, but equally likely not a coincidence in terms of philosophy.
Israel receives between 10% to 20% of its military budget from the US. Estimates of the US contributions to the Iron Swords War range upwards to $20 billion.
The good news for Netanyahu and his coalition partners is that if, despite current public opinion at home and abroad, Israel succeeds in its transformation to becoming Sparta Nation, it doesn’t look like Israel will have to do it entirely alone.