In his book “Surplus Enjoyment,” Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek sharpens the distinction between catastrophe and apocalypse. A catastrophe is a past event that has solidified into an entity in memory. We are the survivors of what remains. An apocalypse, by contrast, is a future disaster whose timing is unknown. If we adopt an effective strategy, it is within our power to prevent it. Catastrophe and apocalypse, two poles on the axis of time, can also converge into a single event.
The Great Depression struck Wall Street and illustrated for the world what a catastrophic and apocalyptic disaster looks like.
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Israel’s war aim with Iran must be apocalyptic
(Photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst, Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS, INSS)
In his book “1929,” New York Times reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin describes how in the 1920s New York “rose vertically” in an unprecedented economic boom. The surge was financed through bank debt and mortgages for anyone who wanted them. The boom evaporated into dust overnight. On October 28, 1929, the titans of Wall Street went bankrupt. They were crushed into paupers, desperately shuffling after a bowl of hot soup. The Great Depression descended on Wall Street and showed the world what a catastrophic and apocalyptic disaster looks like.
In its war against Ukraine, Russia declared the annexation of four regions: Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. One of Ukraine’s nuclear reactors is located in the Zaporizhzhia region. In the future, if a nuclear accident were to occur at the Zaporizhzhia plant, or if President Vladimir Putin were to decide to use tactical nuclear weapons in the war in Europe, catastrophe and apocalypse could merge into a single terminal entity.
According to Žižek’s framework, it can be argued that Israel has already experienced a catastrophe in the Iranian context. In Operation Rising Lion in June 2025, the Iranian attack caused property damage and human suffering, but the state was not strategically harmed.
Now, ahead of any future war with Iran, Israel’s war aim must be apocalyptic. Israel must deliver a crushing blow, catastrophic from the perspective of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. At the end of the war, they must cease to exist.
Dr. Shmuel Harlap is a businessman.