Army destroys Arab homes; media, UN, NGOs yawn

Posted on October 30, 2014 by Victor Rosenthal
Army destroys Arab homes, expels residents

Army destroys Arab homes, expels residents

The army is destroying civilian structures and expelling residents en masse, claiming that the operation is necessary for security reasons.

The plan is to create a buffer zone on the border with Gaza, to evacuate some 10,000 Arabs in a few days. Ultimately a water-filled separation barrier will be built all the way to the Mediterranean.

Already dozens of homes have been destroyed by dynamite and bulldozers and more than a thousand men, women and children are homeless. The army warned residents to get out within 48 hours or homes would be destroyed whether not anyone was inside.

But for once the international community is not agitated. There are no calls for emergency sessions of the Security Council. It is not on the agenda of the UN Human Rights Council. There are no international activists lying down in front of the bulldozers, no demonstrations in American universities, no midnight phone calls from Barack Obama expressing his “red-hot anger.” Jen Psaki hasn’t condemned the action and John Kerry is not racing to the region.

Human Rights Watch hasn’t issued a press release. Amy Goodman doesn’t feature this assault on human rights on her Democracy Now website. Even Codepink ignores it while urging its supporters to boycott Israeli-made Ahava and Sodastream products.

This, of course, is because the destruction is taking place on the Egyptian side of the border, and it is the Egyptian army which has had enough after at least 33 soldiers were killed last week by what the government says were Palestinian terrorists who infiltrated through tunnels from Gaza.

Now I am not saying that the Egyptians are not justified. There are still hundreds of smuggling tunnels between Egypt and Gaza, and they are also used to move Hamas terrorists into Egypt, where they attack the Sisi regime on behalf of their patron, the Muslim Brotherhood. This may be the only way to stop the attacks.

What is interesting is the reaction. The people who live on the Egyptian side of the border in Rafah are not significantly different from the ones on the Gaza side. Apparently, it is acceptable for Arabs to defend themselves against terrorism by other Arabs.

Just don’t try it if you are Jewish.

Posted in Terrorism | 1 Comment

Chickenshitgate

Posted on October 29, 2014 by Victor Rosenthal
Is this man a chickenshit?

Is this man a chickenshit?

The folks in the White House are not holding back any longer. They are not moderating their hysterical antipathy to the Jewish state and its leaders as befits officials of the world’s leading superpower, but have turned to schoolyard taunts.

“The thing about Bibi is, he’s a chickenshit,” says an unnamed (as always) senior  administration official to journalist Jeffrey Goldberg.

Chickenshit? This is how they talk about our Prime Minister? Would they publicly use language like that to describe David Cameron or even Hassan Rouhani? Goldberg quotes another anonymous official as expressing a “red-hot anger” about Israel building over the Green Line. It’s strange that no such anger has been expressed toward the Iranian regime for continuing to make fools of Western negotiators as it progresses steadily toward the bomb Obama promised it would never have.

So why are they calling Binyamin Netanyahu a coward? Well, for one thing he is “afraid to start wars” — yes, this is a direct quotation! Goldberg’s official explains:

It’s too late for him to do anything. Two, three years ago, this was a possibility. But ultimately he couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger. It was a combination of our pressure and his own unwillingness to do anything dramatic. Now it’s too late.

In other words, when Israel planned to hit Iranian nuclear facilities back in 2012 and the attack was vetoed by the Obama administration, Netanyahu didn’t proceed despite the veto.

Cowardice? A good case can be made for prudence in the face of direct US threats. Such an operation would be very complicated and difficult, and could be compromised at many points. The US had already leaked details of Israeli operations on multiple occasions, and it has the means to detect an attack the moment it begins. All it would have to do is allow the Iranians to find out that Israeli planes were on their way to frustrate the operation and cause the deaths of Israeli pilots. Remember that Obama adviser Zbig Brzezinski suggested in 2009 that US forces might even attack IAF aircraft in this precise situation.

Another important consideration is that an attack on Iran would almost certainly trigger a war with Hizballah, Iran’s terrorist foreign legion, which has as many as 100,000 missiles aimed at Israel. It would be foolhardy to invite this confrontation — and certain civilian and military casualties — unless there were a very good chance of significantly damaging Iran’s nuclear project.

How hypocritical can they get? First they tie his hands and then they call him a coward for not fighting!

The other reason he is “a chickenshit” is that he is allegedly afraid of right-wingers in his coalition and outside of it and panders to them by allowing construction in Judea and Samaria and especially eastern Jerusalem. The possibility that he actually believes that it is legitimate and in fact is bravely standing up for his convictions against US pressure does not seem to have been considered. The administration official continued:

The bad thing about him is that he won’t do anything to reach an accommodation with the Palestinians or with the Sunni Arab states. The only thing he’s interested in is protecting himself from political defeat. He’s not [Yitzhak] Rabin, he’s not [Ariel] Sharon, he’s certainly no [Menachem] Begin. He’s got no guts.

Really? Do you remember 2013, when he agreed to release more than 100 convicted terrorist murderers from Israeli jails in response to US demands, in order to “bring the Palestinians to the table?” Probably nothing could have hurt him as much in domestic politics, not only with the right wing but with the average Israeli.

There have also been multiple freezes in construction, official and unofficial, which have angered pro-settlement elements. And then there was Bibi’s 2009 speech in which for the first time an Israeli Prime Minister accepted the idea of a Palestinian state. The accusation that he is “afraid” of making concessions for peace is simply a lie. The truth is that no matter what he does, only complete capitulation to Palestinian demands will satisfy the administration.

The extreme hypocrisy, contempt and vulgarity of the charges against PM Netanyahu are indicative of more than a policy disagreement. They signify a particular attitude toward the Jew among nations and the Jew among prime ministers that rises from the White House like a stench of corruption. There is no ‘special relationship’ between this administration and Israel unless is it the same old special treatment reserved for Jews from time immemorial.

I urge American Jews to pay attention. These people are not only Israel’s enemies, they are yours too.

An aside: I know it isn’t a Jewish tradition, but doesn’t Bibi have the right to demand satisfaction from the official who called him a coward? I suggest pistols at ten paces. I think we know who would win!

 

Posted in Jew Hatred, US-Israel Relations | 8 Comments

Vote Republican

Posted on October 28, 2014 by Victor Rosenthal

republicans-democrats-symbolsOn November 4th there will be a midterm election in the US in which 33 of 100 senators and all 435 members of the House will be up for election (there are also state and local races).

I’ve tried to stay away from partisan US politics in my blog. I haven’t hidden my opposition to President Obama’s foreign policy, but I have avoided the progressive-liberal-conservative debate except when it touches on the conflict between Islam and the West. I have never discussed Obamacare and rarely mention immigration or voter ID, although as an American I clearly have opinions about these issues.

But today I have an extremely partisan message for Americans: Please elect Republicans to the House and Senate.

I am speaking as an American, but also as a Jew and an Israeli. I am asking for your help in preserving the Jewish people in one of the most dangerous times since WWII.

Barack Obama is an enemy of the Jewish state and the Jewish people. His policies — his actions — despite what he claims publicly, aim to weaken Israel and to prevent her from defending herself, while strengthening her greatest enemy, Iran. For example:

1. Despite all evidence that it would result in a terrorist enclave next to Israel’s heartland, the administration continues to insist on withdrawal from the territories and the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state. It takes the positions that Israel is not sovereign in any part of Jerusalem, and that any construction outside of the 1949 armistice line is “illegitimate,” whatever that means. It encourages European boycotts of Israeli goods over this issue. Pressure on Israel on these issues is unrelenting, even though Islamist violence throughout the region is exploding.

2. When Hamas viciously attacked civilians with its rocket barrages, the administration tried to prevent Israel from defending herself both by demanding that Israel unilaterally cease operations and by taking concrete actions — embargoing weapons deliveries, shutting down flights to Ben-Gurion Airport, etc. Obama and Kerry took the position that collateral damage in Gaza was ‘disproportionate’, despite the fact that the ratio of civilian to military casualties was better than that of any of the US or NATO operations in similar situations. Kerry promoted a ceasefire agreement proposed by Qatar and Turkey, the main supporters of Hamas, rather than the Egyptian version that was ultimately accepted.

3. Most important, administration policy toward Iran’s nuclear program has been pusillanimous to the extreme. For example,

Al Arabiya on Monday [Oct. 27] cataloged [Arabic] a series of concessions that the Obama administration is rumored to have made to Iran as negotiations approach the upcoming November 24 deadline, a week after the New York Times reported on plans by President Barack Obama to “do everything in his power to avoid letting Congress vote” on a nuclear deal that many lawmakers have publicly worried will be inadequate to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. The pan-Arab outlet suggested that lawmakers were particularly unnerved by reports of fundamental concessions across all core areas up for negotiations, including: that the U.S. has dropped its demand that Iran close its underground military enrichment facility at Fordow, that the U.S. has accepted Iran’s characterization of its enrichment rights regarding uranium, that the U.S. will permit Iran to operate the plutonium-producing reactor at Arak, and that the U.S. has delinked Iran’s ballistic missile program from the rest of its nuclear program. [continue reading]

Even if this is exaggerated, there is no doubt that Administration policy is to allow Iran to have the capability to enrich uranium, something which is needed only for weapons development and not for power generation. Iran will be left with a ‘breakout’ capability, which will permit it to deploy weapons in a matter of weeks or months. In the past the US has acted to prevent Israel from striking against Iranian nuclear facilities; if the coming agreement turns out to be as weak as expected, then US and Israeli interests will be directly in conflict.

Despite disingenuous pronouncements of support for Israel’s security, this administration is aligning itself with Israel’s enemies in a futile bid for the favor of Islamists, both the Shia and Sunni varieties. Unfortunately, an American president has tremendous power in foreign policy, and can’t be deposed by a vote of no confidence as in parliamentary systems. After next week’s election the President will be the lamest of ducks, and there will be little reason for him to hold back his anti-Israel animus.

The only limitation on the President and his cadre of unelected and unaccountable advisers is the US Congress. And, while there are exceptions, the primary opposition to administration policy comes from Republicans. Possibly some of them push back against Obama’s anti-Israel actions out of partisanship, simply because they see an issue that resonates with many Americans, but frankly I don’t care. It’s enough that they try to restrain him.

I understand that you are concerned with domestic issues. But if you care about what happens to Israel and the Jews, think hard about this when you vote.

Posted in American politics, US-Israel Relations | 2 Comments

Palestinian child soldiers

Posted on October 26, 2014 by Victor Rosenthal

Recently, several Arab teenagers were shot fatally by Israeli security forces. Here is one of them, Orwah Hamad, 14:

Orwah HamadHe was shot in the head with live ammunition. How could we do such a thing to a child?

There is an answer to this question. Hamad was holding a burning Molotov cocktail when he was shot, a gasoline bomb which can burn people to death. It is as deadly a weapon at short range as a gun. Here is what Hamad was trying to accomplish (the picture is from a 2011 incident in Jerusalem):

burning policemanSo what is the appropriate response to a child aiming a deadly weapon? The target of the firebomb would be as dead (or burned badly enough to wish he was) regardless of the age of the perpetrator.

Self-defense is an absolute right, whether it is applied to people (even policemen and soldiers have it!) or to nations. Judaism does not ask us to turn the other cheek or suffer violence rather than do it; if there is no alternative, it requires us to kill those who are trying to kill us, even if they are only 14.

Those of us who have children (and even those that don’t) shudder at the horror of a child being killed. But the burning border patrolman in the photo above also has parents, probably a wife and children of his own.

The relevant question is “what is the matter with Palestinian Arab society that it approves of its children becoming murderers, even encourages them to do so?” Here is a recent example from the main Fatah Facebook page (courtesy of Palestinian Media Watch):

Fatah Facebook pageThe text reads “The old man’s [Yasser Arafat’s] Shabiba [Fatah youth movement] – set the land on fire!” Fatah, if you don’t know, is the Palestinian faction that dominates the PLO and the Palestinian Authority. Its chairman is the ‘moderate’ Mahmoud Abbas.

Fatah, Hamas and other terror factions are recruiting and training child soldiers for their movements. Here are some from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza:

PIJ child soldiersEverything about this is tragic.

Posted in Terrorism | Comments Off on Palestinian child soldiers

Obama Administration officials dump on Ya’alon again

Posted on October 25, 2014 by Victor Rosenthal

News item:

The White House refused to give Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon an audience with Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry, and National Security Advisor Susan Rice during his trip to the United States this week, senior American officials confirmed Friday. The reason for the cold shoulder was a number of statements Ya’alon made six months ago, in which he criticized the Obama administration and Kerry in particular.

“Given some of his comments in the recent past, it should come as no surprise that he was denied some meetings,” a senior U.S. official told Haaretz. During his visit, Ya’alon met with Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power. A senior American official told the Associated Press that the White House wanted to instruct Power to decline meeting with Ya’alon but that they had only learned of the meeting after she had consented.

Apparently the meeting with Power consisted of her berating him about Israeli building in Jerusalem. There’s more:

During his visit to the U.S., Ya’alon tried to clear the air between him and the administration. Just before he left and following Economy Minister Naftali Bennett’s statements attacking John Kerry, Ya’alon issued a statement in which he praised U.S. support of Israel. During his visit to the American capital Ya’alon gave an interview to the Washington Post in which he claimed that the crisis between him and Kerry was over. “We overcame that,” he said.

Ya’alon was surprised to learn that U.S. officials leaked reports of their denying him an audience with senior officials, but he has no intention of starting another public quarrel with the Obama administration.

Could anything be more juvenile? These are supposedly professionals! The intention was to weaken Ya’alon here in Israel, but it probably had the opposite effect. According to Ha’aretz, Ya’alon was informed a week ago that his meeting requests would not be honored, but US officials waited for the most opportune time to leak it to the press.

Just more evidence, if more is needed, of the US administration’s contempt for Israel.

I have a message for the crowd of middle-school pupils that Obama has selected as advisers and staff:

You don’t get it, but Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Iranian regime, Bashar al Assad, and other Islamist radicals that you either support or fail to oppose are your enemies. They would love to cut off your head, Susan Rice, and yours too, Zbig Brzezinski. Today Israel is sitting right on the seam line between civilization and barbarism, and if you know what’s good for you, you will hold your Israel-hating noses and support her.

Posted in US-Israel Relations | 2 Comments

Was Kahane right?

Posted on October 22, 2014 by Victor Rosenthal
The funeral of 3-month old Chaya Zissel Braun, murdered by a Hamas terrorist (courtesy Isarel Hatzolah).

The funeral of 3-month old Chaya Zissel Braun, murdered by a Hamas terrorist (courtesy Isarel Hatzolah).

Some years ago I was arrested by the Israeli police and charged with “incitement to revolution.” The grounds? I had reached the conclusion that it was impossible to find a solution for the Arab-Jewish confrontation in the Land of Israel (both the State of Israel and the lands liberated in 1967); that the Jewish state was inevitably headed toward a situation like that in Northern Ireland; that the only possible way to avoid or to mitigate it was the emigration of Arabs. Consequently, I had sent letters to several thousand Arabs offering them an opportunity (funds and visas) to emigrate voluntarily. The fact that many Arabs replied positively and that a major Arab village in the Galilee, Gush Halev, offered to move all its inhabitants to Canada in return for a village there did not prevent the worried Israeli government from arresting me. — Meir Kahane, They Must Go, 1981.

Yesterday’s murderous attack in Jerusalem was carried out by a Hamas member, Abdel Rahman al-Shaludi, a resident of eastern Jerusalem, who deliberately drove his car into a crowd near a light rail station in Jerusalem.

According to witnesses, Al-Shaludi drove the car 14 meters on the tracks itself, hitting disembarking passengers and continuing on along the length of the track. He stopped after hitting a pole a few hundred meters down and then attempted to flee on foot, when he was shot, arrested, and hospitalized. …

An eyewitness reported seeing the car hit the mother and baby and continue plowing through the crowd. “The stroller was shattered and the mother was screaming.”

There are conflicting reports at this time about whether al-Shaludi is alive or dead. If he lives, he will receive the best trauma care in the Middle East, possibly the world, and then he will be imprisoned together with other Hamas terrorists where he will be able to take correspondence courses for college credit and receive visits from family members. His release may be demanded in return for future kidnapping victims.

His victim was only 3 months old. She was thrown through the air and struck her head, dying at the hospital shortly after. Her parents and several others were also injured, but survived.

Here are a few comments that were made about this incident:

The US State Department spokesperson, Jen Psaki, called the attack “despicable,” but added “we urge all sides to maintain calm and avoid escalating tensions in the wake of this incident.”

All sides? Did she ask the police in Boston to “maintain calm” after the Marathon bombing? The subtext is that “all sides” are partly responsible for the conflict. No — only one side, the side that slaughtered Jews in Jerusalem in 1921, in Hevron in 1929, and has murdered thousands more since then is responsible, not ‘the occupation’ and not the fact that Jews bought some apartments in eastern Jerusalem.

The President of Israel, Reuvin Rivlin, said “they do not distinguish between haredi and secular, settler and leftist, or a Jew in Israel or in the diaspora…” Of course he is correct, but if they did distinguish it would be irrelevant. “Settlers” are not deserving victims of terrorism. There has been an unreported plague of ‘misdemeanor terrorism’ going on in Judea and Samaria for years, which every once in a while gives birth to a murder or two. Now it has moved to Jerusalem, where it is harder to ignore.

A Hamas spokesperson, Hossam Badran, said “this is a natural response to the crimes of the occupation and invasion of our land by the Jews.” I am not going to try to explain for the thousandth time why he is incorrect. I won’t convince him, nor will I convince his legions of ignorant fans, including many who are themselves Israeli Jews whom he would murder if he could. I also won’t won’t convince the logic-challenged ones who express horror at murders like this but still support the Palestinian Cause, like US President Obama and the Union for Reform Judaism.

Probably it is not worth speculating whether things could have been different if we had made different choices, like not agreeing to the Oslo accords or keeping control of the Temple Mount in 1967. As my wife likes to say, it is what it is.

No, my conclusion, the conclusion that I have finally come to after years of thinking that Jews and Arabs must find a way to get along, is this: There isn’t a way. Jews and Arabs cannot get along.

Oh, individual Jews and Arabs can get along very well, but as peoples they can’t live together. I blame the Arabs for this, but it doesn’t matter. It is what it is. The Jewish state is non-negotiable, and so are its security requirements.

So I ask seriously: was Kahane right?

Update [1133 IDT]: Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction (our Oslo peace partner) has already released a poster glorifying the ‘heroic’ baby-killer.

Fatah poster of 'heroic' baby killer al-Shaludi.

Fatah poster of ‘heroic’ baby killer al-Shaludi.

 

Posted in Israeli Arabs, Terrorism | 3 Comments

How to deal with irrationality and chaos — Part II

Posted on October 19, 2014 by Victor Rosenthal

In my last post, I gave several examples of irrational or even crazy international behavior that is dangerous for Israel. A country or other entity behaves irrationally when it acts in ways that are inconsistent with reality, do not serve the real interests of the regime, or both.

Note that I said ‘the regime’, not ‘the country’. Many regimes do things that are bad for their population in the long or short run in order to enrich themselves or stay in power. For the purposes of this discussion, these actions are considered rational. Bashar al-Assad may be destroying Syria, but he is acting to stay in power, the top priority of an autocrat after staying alive.

Ideology-driven regimes often behave irrationally, because ideology invariably distorts reality. Hitler drove out Jewish scientists before the war, and then diverted resources to killing Jews that could have been used for the war effort.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell when policies are ideologically driven and when ideology is just used as an excuse for pragmatic action. This is one of the difficulties in predicting the behavior of a country like Iran, where we don’t know how much influence the leaders’ religious beliefs have on their decisions.

Autocratic regimes usually act pragmatically rather than ideologically, but their behavior becomes irrational when they lose touch with reality. Think of the Egyptian generals in 1967 reporting to Cairo their imminent entry into Tel Aviv. But an autocrat doesn’t stay in power for long if he doesn’t act rationally (e.g., Saddam thinking he could defeat the US) so there is a kind of natural selection for rationality.

The US is different, because its president is often elected for reasons unrelated to competence, and he can stay in power for extended periods despite massive failures. He can’t be deposed by a vote of no confidence, nobody will overthrow him, and impeachment is rare (and slow). He also has an almost totally free hand in foreign policy; although Congress can theoretically rein him in, in practice he can take highly consequential actions before Congress can respond.

An effective foreign policy for Israel has to take into account all of these considerations. Irrational behavior based on ideology is the most difficult to handle — you can’t negotiate with someone whose ideological enmity exceeds his pragmatic interests.

Israel is in the interesting position today that the pragmatic interests of some of its traditional enemies (Egypt and Saudi Arabia) favor Israel, while the administration of its most important partner, the US, seems to have allowed ideology to warp its perspective. Rather than supporting countervailing forces to expansionist Iran (Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt), it appears to be cooperating with Iran.

The fundamental irrationality here is that Iran sees the US as its enemy, both ideologically and as an obstacle to its expansion. The only explanation that I can see for this contradictory policy is that its authors think that in the short term they will gain some boots on the ground against Da’ash and immunity from Shi’a terrorism, while in the long term a sufficiently abject apology for Western imperialism will change the Iranian attitude.

But this is based on a misunderstanding of its partner. From the Iranian point of view, the message is that the US is weak and wants to surrender. Any cooperation will be exploited.

Since opposition to Israel’s existence is a high priority both ideologically and pragmatically for Iran, US cooperation with it undercuts the American relationship with Israel, which already is suffering from the administration’s lack of sympathy.

We saw this play out during the recent Gaza war, when the US applied various forms of pressure — including an apparent embargo on all kinds of weapons and ammunition — to try to force Israel to agree to a disadvantageous ceasefire proposal presented by Hamas allies Turkey and Qatar. I see this as primarily ideological, based on the administration’s misperception of the Palestinians as an indigenous people oppressed by a colonialist Israel, and their struggle to destroy the Jewish state as a ‘civil rights’ issue.

The US agreed to donate $212 million to rebuilding Hamas-controlled Gaza at the recent donor’s conference, to which Israel was pointedly not invited. In all, there were $5.4 billion in pledges. This is as if Hitler were allowed to remain in power in 1945 to help distribute Marshall Plan funds.

So we have the US, on the one hand, doing everything short of explicitly siding with Hamas in its aggression and terrorism against Israel, justifying its actions with hypocritical accusations of disproportionate use of force (while its own operations have been far more disproportionate); and on the other hand, moving closer to Israel’s most dangerous enemy, Iran, to the point of facilitating its acquisition of nuclear weapons.

Israeli policy has been to try to convince the administration that a) Hamas is an evil terrorist organization and b) Iran will be dangerous to the US if it gets nuclear weapons. Both of these efforts have been unsuccessful, because of ideological barriers to perception.

Israel’s leadership doesn’t seem to understand that relations with the US have taken a new turn with the Obama Administration. It is possible that political winds in the US have permanently shifted to the left. If this is true, then Israel can’t just wait until 2017: it needs a whole new approach.

The US is rapidly losing influence over the behavior of the Arab nations and Iran, who see it as unwilling to support its talk with action. Unfortunately, it retains a great deal of its ability to hurt Israel. While Netanyahu seems to be doing his best to take advantage of the pragmatic interests of the Arab nations to improve relations with them, if he understands the danger of the ideological shift of the US, he is keeping his thoughts to himself. Even the often outspoken Minister of Defense Moshe Ya’alon is speaking in conciliatory tones.

I think that an entirely different policy is needed. Israel is a powerful country, possibly the most powerful in the region. It should act like that, not like a supplicant begging the US and others to allow it to exist. It should, for example, make a clear statement that it will not permit the establishment of a sovereign ‘Palestinian’ state in Judea/Samaria. There is already one in Gaza, and it is a viciously hostile entity.

Soon there will be multiple nuclear powers here. With the US losing influence, someone will have to take up the slack. Contenders include Turkey and Iran. The idea of an Israel-Turkish alliance to secure the Eastern Mediterranean would be attractive and sensible, except that Erdoğan’s Islamist ideology prevents it (yet another example of ideology causing irrational behavior).

A conflict between Israel and Iran, probably taking the form of war with Hizballah, seems unavoidable. If Israel prevails, then it will be in a position to control its own destiny far more than it can today. But we should expect serious opposition from the US, perhaps even worse than in the Gaza war. Planning should be in progress now to fight this war without assistance from the US. It must be possible to destroy Hizballah’s fighting ability before it is saved by an imposed ceasefire.

This war will be a turning point. Either Israel will come out of it as a regional superpower, or it will be so weakened that its survival will be in question.

Posted in Iran, US-Israel Relations, War | 3 Comments

How to deal with irrationality and chaos — Part I

Posted on October 17, 2014 by Victor Rosenthal

Words like ‘insanity’, ‘derangement’ and (more mildly) ‘irrationality’ are used more and more these days in discourse about the Middle East.

In no particular order:

The insane hatred for Israel in Europe. David P. Goldman explains the European derangement (his word) here:

The flowering of Jewish national life in Israel makes the Europeans crazy. It is not simply envy: it is a terrible reminder of the vanity of European national aspirations over the centuries, of the continent’s ultimate failure as a civilization. Just as the Europeans (most emphatically the Scandinavians) would prefer to dissolve into the post-national stew of European identity, they demand that Israel do the same. Never mind that Israel lacks the option to do so, and would be destroyed were it to try, for reasons that should be obvious to any casual consumer of news media.

Europeans cannot live with their past. They cannot live with their present, and do not plan to have a future, for they do not bear enough children to forestall demographic ruin at the hundred-year horizon. With its high fertility, national spirit, religiosity and unabashed national self-assertion, Israel reminds the Europeans of everything that they are not. Much worse: it reminds them of what they once desired to become. The idea of Israel as well as the fact of Israel are equally intolerable to them.

Europe is still Israel’s biggest market, unfortunately, and its spite can be painful, although not fatal.

While we’re talking about attitudes toward Israel, there is the consistent irrationality of the Obama Administration. For example, John Kerry said this yesterday:

I think that it is more critical than ever that we be fighting for peace, and I think it is more necessary than ever… As I went around and met with people in the course of our discussions about the ISIL (Islamic State) coalition, the truth is we – there wasn’t a leader I met with in the region who didn’t raise with me spontaneously the need to try to get peace between Israel and the Palestinians, because it was a cause of recruitment and of street anger and agitation that they felt.

This is nothing more than the discredited ‘linkage theory’ which claimed that every problem in the Middle East would be solved if only the Palestinians could be appeased by being given a nice piece of Israel to chew on. The fact that Kerry could bring this stinking red herring back from the garbage dump of bad excuses to squeeze Israel with a straight face is remarkable (but then Kerry has always been impervious to reality when it goes against his ideology).

Much of the problem with the administration is a combination of ineptness and the State Department’s permanent inability, since the days of Marshall and Truman, to come to grips with the idea of a Jewish state. Rigidity when ideology is contradicted by reality is a form of irrationality, and when carried to the extreme that it interferes with one’s functioning, becomes a mental disorder. But I’m convinced there are other, darker motives at work in the White House as well. Only some of it is rational.

Then of course there is the savagery of Da’ash (or ISIS if you prefer), which is so far from the norms of civilized society that its practitioners — many of whom originate in civilized societies — would be called insane if they acted the same way in a different context. Yes, public beheadings are a form of psychological warfare, but there is also a negative response to their subhuman behavior which they don’t seem to care about. To a great extent, they do what they do because it makes them feel good.

In addition to irrationality, the ongoing withdrawal of American power from the region is bringing about a chaotic situation as traditional alliances, blocs and in some cases (Iraq, Syria) nations crumble. This state of affairs is hugely complicated with numerous entities — Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran, Russia, the US, Hamas, Da’ash, the Kurds, etc. all with different agendas and shifting alliances. There is a mixture of rational and irrational motives.

Interestingly, Israel’s traditional bitter enemies Saudi Arabia and Egypt seem to want to cooperate with Israel. The Saudis know that Israel doesn’t want to overthrow their regime, and won’t bomb their oil fields — but Iran might. And Egypt’s Sisi and Israel have a common enemy in Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. At the same time, Israel’s traditional ally, the US, is moving toward an alliance with Iran against its former allies Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Michael Doran explains,

An examination of Obama’s recent moves in the Middle East reveals that he has exploited the U.S.-led military campaign against the Islamic State (IS) in order to increase cooperation with Iran in matters of regional security. Of course, administration officials dismiss any suggestion that they are “coordinating” with the Iranians militarily. In their next breath, however, they grudgingly concede otherwise—acknowledging, for example, that we provided advance notice to Tehran of the anti-IS coalition’s bombing plans in Syria. They also acknowledge opening “a quiet backchannel” to Tehran in order to “de-conflict” Iranian and American operations in Iraq. …

Too clever by half, this distinction is hardly lost on America’s traditional allies in the region, all of whom regard the Iranian alliance system, which includes Syria and Hizballah, as their primary enemy. Middle East media are replete with stories of backroom deals between Washington and Tehran. Given the enormous gap between what the Americans are claiming in public about Iran and what they are seen to be doing in private, even the false reports carry an air of plausibility.

As the US moves away from Israel and as the charade of nuclear negotiations with Iran continues, making it more and more likely that Iran will become a nuclear power, the Israeli policy of simultaneously aligning herself with the US and trying to resist US pressure to give up the store to the Palestinians is becoming more and more dangerous.

In part II I will suggest some different ideas.

Posted in Europe and Israel, Iran, Israel and Palestinian Arabs, US-Israel Relations | 3 Comments