Athens, Sparta and Jerusalem: Why Netanyahu’s ‘Super Sparta’ Shouldn’t Surprise Us

Over the past few days, Benjamin Netanyahu has stood before journalists and articulated a vision that startled many and comforted few. He warned of a coming era of economic and diplomatic isolation, urged Israel to brace for embargoes and boycotts, and declared that the Jewish state would need to become a “Super Sparta.” In the same breath, he insisted Israel must remain an Athens as well, a society of innovation, intellectual brilliance, cultural confidence, even as it girds itself like Sparta for a long siege.

To his critics, I imagine this sounded like desperation dressed in classical allusion. To his admirers, it must have been realism at last. Acknowledgement that the Western world is moving on, that Israel must depend only on itself. But to students of Zionist history, none of this was shocking. Netanyahu was not inventing a new philosophy, he was restating an old one. The tension between Athens and Sparta, openness and fortification, building and defending, has been with the Jewish people from Tanakh through Jabotinsky and into the present moment.

The prime minister’s remarks, covered widely in the Israeli and international press, included four essential claims. First, Israel faces intensifying economic and diplomatic isolation: European governments flirting with sanctions, arms suppliers reconsidering their commitments, trade channels narrowing. Second, Israel must cultivate radical self-reliance, developing domestic defense industries, ensuring supply chains independent of hostile actors. Third, the metaphor of Sparta captures the discipline and resilience he envisions, while Athens symbolizes Israel’s intellectual, technological, and cultural vitality. Fourth, this dual posture will come at a cost — austerity, sacrifice, and vigilance— but survival demands nothing less.

What alarmed observers was less the policy than the candor. For decades, Israeli leaders have insisted the country is simultaneously secure and globally integrated. To describe Israel as a potential Sparta, even a Super Sparta, is to admit the fragility of those ties.

And yet, in 1923, in his essay “On the Iron Wall,” Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky argued that the Arabs of Palestine would never consent to Jewish sovereignty. “It is utterly impossible to obtain the voluntary consent of the Palestinian Arabs,” he wrote, “for turning Palestine into a country with a Jewish majority.” Zionism, therefore, could succeed only by building an “iron wall which they will be powerless to break down,” a power so unassailable that resistance became futile. Only then, he insisted, would peace become possible.

A companion essay, “The Ethics of the Iron Wall,” insisted this realism was not immoral. On the contrary, self-defense was the precondition for eventual reconciliation, because only after strength was undeniable would compromise be conceivable.

In other words, Jabotinsky combined two truths: the need for power, and the promise of peace. Netanyahu’s Super Sparta echoes this. He is warning that, once again, Jews cannot depend on the benevolence of outsiders. Our survival depends on what we can build and defend with our own hands.

Jabotinsky combined two truths: the need for power, and the promise of peace. Netanyahu’s Super Sparta echoes this. He is warning that, once again, Jews cannot depend on the benevolence of outsiders. Our survival depends on what we can build and defend with our own hands.

This, too, is not an innovation of Revisionist Zionism. It is a biblical inheritance. In the book of Nehemiah, the exiles return to a shattered Jerusalem and begin to rebuild. They face mockery and opposition from neighbors. Nehemiah rallies them to both construction and defense. “They who built up the wall, and they who carried the materials, every one of them with one of his hands worked at building, and with the other hand held a weapon.”

Yuval Levin, in a 2024 address at the Jewish Leadership Conference hosted by Tikvah and later published by Mosaic, seized on this image. Speaking largely about the American experience, renewal, he argued, always requires two simultaneous postures: institution building and vigilant defense. “The task before us is not only to build but also to defend what we build, to work with one hand while the other holds a weapon.”

Nehemiah’s lesson complicates the debate about Netanyahu’s Sparta. Sparta alone would be too narrow, Athens alone too exposed. The biblical model is both — not alternating, but simultaneous.

Athens, in Netanyahu’s metaphor, stands for openness, creativity, and intellectual flourishing. That, too, has biblical roots. Proverbs and Ecclesiastes probe questions of wisdom and meaning like ancient philosophy seminars. Job stages a dialogue about justice that rivals Socratic disputation. Isaiah imagines nations streaming to Jerusalem, for Torah shall go forth from Zion. The Song of Songs is sheer poetry, unabashed beauty.

Israel has always had Athens within it — a place of learning, culture, universal vision. Even the prophets, fierce in judgment, were also poets, seers of possibility, dreamers of new worlds.

Israel has always had Athens within it — a place of learning, culture, universal vision. Even the prophets, fierce in judgment, were also poets, seers of possibility, dreamers of new worlds. But alongside Athens, we have Sparta.

But alongside Athens, we have Sparta. Joshua conquering Canaan, Judges rallying militias, David fighting Philistines, Nehemiah erecting literal walls, all testify that survival in a hostile landscape requires arms and vigilance. Psalm 125 compares Jerusalem to mountains that surround and protect. Zechariah imagines God Himself as a wall of fire around the city. Defense is not an embarrassment to the tradition — it is inscribed within it.

The danger, of course, is that Sparta overwhelms Athens. That is what happened historically. Sparta’s rigidity bred stagnation and eventual decline, while Athens’ openness allowed for innovation but also for vulnerability. The Jewish genius has been to combine them, Athens and Sparta fused in Jerusalem.

In invoking Super Sparta, Netanyahu is not so much innovating as invoking Jabotinsky and Nehemiah. He is reminding Israelis that international legitimacy can be fickle, that alliances shift, that boycotts and embargoes are not theoretical. The task is not to despair but to prepare. Build the walls, develop the industries, ensure deterrence.

His addition of Athens is equally important. Israel cannot afford to become only Sparta, a garrison state devoid of imagination. It must remain a global center of technology, art, Torah, philosophy, or it ceases to be the Jewish state as envisioned by prophets and sages.

And yet, metaphors matter. To call for Super Sparta risks making austerity, suspicion, and isolation into virtues for their own sake. Jabotinsky insisted that the Iron Wall was temporary, a means to eventual peace. Nehemiah rebuilt walls in order to reopen the Temple, restore worship, renew covenant, not to hunker down forever. If Israel confuses means with ends, it may entrench an isolation that corrodes its Athens and disfigures its Jerusalem.

History also complicates the Sparta metaphor. Sparta was never fully isolated — it relied on allies and tribute. Its vaunted discipline masked dependence. The lesson for Israel is that even the toughest Sparta needs partners, trade and openness. A Sparta without Athens is a Sparta doomed.

The Jewish story is one of trowels and swords, prophets and soldiers, Athens and Sparta. To be a people that endures requires building institutions, cultivating wisdom, and defending both with vigilance. From Nehemiah’s walls to Jabotinsky’s iron wall, from Netanyahu’s speeches to Israel’s daily realities, the challenge is the same: how to keep both hands busy, one constructing, the other guarding.

Our task is not to become Sparta or Athens but to be Jerusalem: strong enough to withstand siege, wise enough to teach nations, humble enough to know that building and defending are always simultaneous.

Netanyahu has offered the metaphor of Super Sparta. Jewish history suggests a deeper one: Jerusalem, the city that is both fortified and luminous, both mountain-ringed and word-radiating. Our task is not to become Sparta or Athens but to be Jerusalem: strong enough to withstand siege, wise enough to teach nations, humble enough to know that building and defending are always simultaneous.

Adam Eilath is the Head of School at Wornick Jewish Day School in Foster City, California. He is proud to lead a talented team of educators who are committed to raising the next generation of leaders steeped in the Jewish tradition.