Is America Still Behind Us? Ask our Enemies.

Posted on April 25, 2021 by Victor Rosenthal

Today Israel is living in “interesting times,” as the saying goes. The northern border is tense, as Iran continues its efforts to transfer more dangerous accurate missiles to Hezbollah in Lebanon, and to build up its bases in Syria, while Israel continues to intercept them. Recently an ground-to-air missile fired at an Israeli aircraft missed its target and continued on until it eventually exploded several hundred kilometers to the south, near Dimona (speculations that this was actually an attempt to attack the nuclear research center nearby are most likely incorrect).

Meanwhile, the nuclear negotiations with Iran are moving rapidly in the direction of a return to the original, worthless, deal, and probably an end to sanctions – including sanctions for non-nuclear terrorism that are not related to the deal.

You have probably also heard about civil disturbances in Jerusalem. Western media have (of course) focused on a demonstration in which anti-Arab Jews chanted “death to Arabs,” but left out or minimized the fact that it was prompted by social media videos showing Arabs slapping and kicking Haredi Jews on the light rail system in Jerusalem. Arabs have rioted in the area around the old city for several days, throwing rocks, fireworks, and firebombs at police, and attacking Jewish passers-by. I’ve seen horrendous videos showing groups of young Arabs surrounding Orthodox Jews, beating and kicking them mercilessly. As far as I know, no one has been murdered yet, but if the riots continue it is certain to happen. Demonstrations in sympathy with Jerusalem Arabs have started to take place in other Arab towns.

If that isn’t enough, Hamas or other factions in Gaza attacked southern Israel with a barrage of at least 36 rockets and mortar shells yesterday. They were either intercepted by Iron Dome or fell in open areas, with only some minor damage to buildings and agricultural equipment. But the potential for serious escalation remains.

It’s Ramadan, so some of this is inspired by the usual religious indignation that Jews have the chutzpah to exist in places that Muslim Arabs believe they shouldn’t. But all of these phenomena have a common contributing factor: the growing feeling on the part of Israel’s enemies that America is behind them, or at least that America will not stand behind Israel.

The Biden Administration’s series of appointments of people with clear anti-Israel attitudes to numerous positions related to security and foreign policy – the worst being the choice of Rob Malley as head envoy to the Iranian nuclear talks – sends a strong message, as does resuming aid to the Palestinian Authority and to the poisonous “refugee” agency UNRWA, and rejoining the UN’s ludicrously anti-Israel “Human Rights” Commission.

Meanwhile, the increasingly powerful left wing of the Democratic Party has been flexing its muscles: Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, as well as other Democratic officials, spoke to the convention of the phony “pro-Israel pro-peace” J Street organization, calling for the ouster of PM Netanyahu and the restriction of military aid to Israel, and falsely saying that Israel was obligated  by international law to provide Covid vaccinations to Palestinians in the PA and Gaza. They also excoriated former president Trump for his pro-Israel actions. Warren’s speech was particularly harsh.

In the US Congress, Rep. Betty McCollum (D, MN) introduced a bill that

Prohibits Israel from using US taxpayer dollars in the Occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem for the military detention, abuse, or ill-treatment of Palestinian children in Israeli military detention; to support the seizure and destruction of Palestinian property and homes in violation of international humanitarian law; or, to extend any assistance or support for Israel’s unilateral annexation of Palestinian territory in violation of international humanitarian law.

The chance of such a bill passing are minuscule, and the Congress responded with a letter signed by some 330 members opposing the placing of conditions on the use of US military aid by Israel. But regardless of that, the bitterly anti-Israel and even antisemitic tone of McCollum’s bill, along with the list of cosponsors, indicates the depth of opposition to Israel by a growing faction of US lawmakers.

One can understand how all of these signals are received and decoded in Tehran, Ramallah, and Gaza, and as presented to the Palestinian street by Arab media. President Biden himself has said little, and has so far avoided the open conflict with Israel’s PM that characterized former president Obama. But the actions of his administration and much of his party speak loudly enough, and are amplified by those in the region that want to create problems for Israel.

Israelis are worried about the rioting in Jerusalem developing into another “stabbing intifada” like the period between 2015 and 2018 in which Palestinian terrorists murdered dozens of Jews. They are concerned that the rocket fire from Gaza will escalate into yet another war, in which hundreds of rockets a day will fall on Israeli towns and cities as far north as Tel Aviv. They can imagine the northern border erupting into a war with Hezbollah like the one in the summer of 2006; only this time, Hezbollah has 130,000 rockets that can hit every point in Israel. And of course, they can see Iran obtaining nuclear bombs under the protection of an international agreement that will criminalize Israel’s actions to prevent it.

They also know that Western media will cover all of these occurrences by following the now-standard procedure of “it all started when Israel hit back.” The disturbances in Jerusalem, in particular, have been presented as state-supported Jewish extremism, rather than what they were, primarily an outbreak of vicious Arab violence against soft targets which triggered a (rare and universally condemned) Jewish response. I can only imagine how another war with Hamas or Hezbollah would play in the NY Times and on CNN and NPR.

You probably remember those T-shirts bearing a picture of Israeli fighter jets and the legend “Don’t worry, America, Israel is behind you.” The joke, of course, was that the reality was the reverse. Unfortunately, that may no longer be the case.

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

Have the Jewish People Become too “WEIRD?”

Posted on April 22, 2021 by Victor Rosenthal

Earlier this week I wrote about what Yoram Hazony calls “The Virtue of Nationalism,” the idea that independent nation-states with ethnically homogeneous populations and limited borders provide a better opportunity to maximize individual freedom and satisfaction than large imperial conglomerations that try to meld diverse groups into an ethnically neutral state of all its citizens.

I noted that nationalism is a natural extension of the inherent human tendency to like and trust others that resemble them, beginning with family members and expanding outward to include clans, tribes, and nations. I argued that this tendency was probably developed as a result of evolutionary forces over hundreds of thousands of years, and is now essentially hardwired into humans.

Zionism, Jewish nationalism, is naturally based on these human feelings.

But it’s not simple. As Jonathan Haidt notes in his fascinating book “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion,” the “wiring” is not the same in every culture, and even within cultures there are individual differences. Haidt identifies five or six different “moral foundations” which give rise to our intuitive feelings about right and wrong, and good and evil. Individuals seem to possess these foundations in different proportions, and that causes divergent moral judgments about the same factual situations. For example, most people feel quite strongly that, other things being equal, human pain and suffering should be minimized. And most people have a conception of fairness or justice as morally good. But there are other moral foundations that are not as widespread: those for loyalty, for deference to authority, or for sanctity (the opposite of degradation or contamination).

Haidt suggests (I’m oversimplifying) that liberals tend to emphasize minimizing harm and realizing fairness, while conservatives add concerns about loyalty, authority, and sanctity. He also notes that in WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, and Democratic) cultures, the last three seem to have atrophied. Many WEIRD people do not go past the “harm” criterion – they will say “no behavior is immoral unless someone is harmed by it.” Here is a link to an excerpt from the book which contains some examples. It’s entertaining to think about the examples given and ask yourself “how WEIRD am I?”

The pursuit of a Jewish nation-state is more than just a search for a way to protect ourselves against the antisemitism that is rife in the diaspora. Zionists feel a strong pull to make common cause with their fellow Jews, a feeling related to the moral foundation of Loyalty. And most of them, even the secular ones, feel that it ought to be located in the Jewish people’s historical homeland, which is related to the moral foundation of Sanctity. Zionism, in other words, is less likely to appeal to WEIRD people, who are less likely to be strongly influenced by Loyalty and Sanctity. And this is borne out in several ways.

Here in Israel, there is a controversy about the Nation-State Law, a strongly Zionist explication of the Jewishness of our state, which says (among other things) that “[t]he exercise of the right to national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish People.” In general, the Right supports it, while the Left believes that it should be weakened in the name of democracy and equality. The breakdown according to Haidt’s categories is almost perfect, with non-WEIRD people of Mizrachi and Russian backgrounds supporting it, and upper-class people and academics opposing it.

In the US, too, we see the same phenomenon. Most American Jews are descended from working-class immigrants, but since then they have done very well. Today, they tend to be well-educated and well off. Perhaps this is part of the reason that younger Jews, far from the culture of their struggling ancestors, seem to feel the connection to the Jewish people and to Zionism much less strongly than their grandparents did.

An individual’s set of moral foundations can change throughout life. Education, experience, and introspection can change it, albeit slowly. Most people seem to move toward the right with age, although there are notable exceptions. But at any given time, a person’s moral perceptions come through a fixed lens. This is why it’s so hard to change someone’s mind about these kinds of issues, as the subtitle of Haidt’s book implies.

And we can see why there seems to be a growing gap between American and Israeli Jews. Of course there are obvious differences in our experience – Israelis are much closer to the security situation and have more immediate personal concerns. But in addition, American Jews have been wealthier and well-educated for a much longer time, so the strength of their Loyalty and Sanctity foundations is less. And American culture in general deprecates the idea of peoplehood, although recently it has begun to try to develop it for specific groups (but not Jews).

This relates to the question that many of us ask: why are there so many Jewish anti-Zionists? Why do so many Jews take the side of their enemies, compared to Arabs who – while they may fight amongst themselves – more or less all agree to fight Israel as well?

The answer is that Jewish culture, because of its long exposure to the West, has lost some of the moral foundations that are still powerful in Arab cultures. It has become WEIRD. And that doesn’t serve us well in the Middle East.

Posted in American Jews, Israeli Society, Zionism | 2 Comments

Nationalism vs. Empire

Posted on April 19, 2021 by Victor Rosenthal

Recently I’ve had some arguments with Jewish anti-Zionists (although they sometimes claim they are Zionists). These are not the ones who wear Palestinian keffiyes and say kaddish for dead terrorists. These are the “moderate” ones who say that they totally understand why Israel should exist, but think that it should repeal the Nation-State Law and become a “democratic state of all its citizens” instead of one that privileges one group at the expense of others. It makes them nervous that Israel has a Jewish symbol on its flag, and refers to the “Jewish soul” in its national anthem.

They believe that ethno-religious nationalism, of which Zionism is a sub-species, has been the cause of great trouble in the world, giving rise to wars, ethnic cleansing, and genocide in the recent past.

This is a common view today. Humans are apparently genetically wired to feel trust for and loyalty to their immediate family, their extended family, and to broader and broader circles (clans, tribes, and nations) of people that are in some sense like them. But many people believe that this is a negative characteristic that leads to hatred and violence. They believe that social progress requires eliminating it, at least for circles wider than the family. In particular, the loyalty of individuals to national groups has been blamed for the destructive wars of the 20th century. Indeed, the European Union was intended from the beginning to grow into a super-nation that would ultimately absorb the loyalties of the various European peoples, and thus make future wars unlikely.

Yoram Hazony, in his book “The Virtue of Nationalism,” argues that in fact the main cause of the world wars was not nationalism, but rather imperialist expansionism. Hitler, according to Hazony, wanted to destroy the order of independent sovereign states and replace them with an empire, the “Third Reich,” modeled on the “First Reich,” the Holy Roman Empire. Hazony contrasts two divergent ideas of the best way to bring about peace and prosperity: “an order of free and independent nations, each pursuing the political good in accordance with its own traditions and understanding; and an order of peoples united under a single regime of law, promulgated and maintained by a single supranational authority.” The former, he believes, provides the best opportunity to maximize each individual’s liberty and opportunities for self-realization. Empires come into being and maintain themselves by coercion of their subject nations, which naturally inhibits personal freedom.

In the best case, an independent nation’s population shares a common language, religion, and other cultural features, along with a shared vision of the kind of society it wants to have. Such a nation can provide a high degree of autonomy for its citizens, because they work toward common purposes. In the worst case, you have Lebanon or Syria, where ethno-religious strife tear a nation apart, allow despotic regimes to take power, and sink into a state of daily hell for their people.

Empires, on the other hand, invariably stratify their populations into advantaged groups, who make the rules and consume the fruits of empire, and those who make do with what the elites allow to trickle down to them. The latter have little autonomy, because they must be guided – coerced – to act in ways that promote imperial objectives, and prevented from rebelling. Today there are several empires or aspiring ones: the US, Russia, China, and the European Union.

The nations that consistently score highest on the World Happiness Report scale are not the richest or largest nations, but smaller, ethnically and religiously homogeneous ones, like the top three: Finland, Iceland, and Denmark. Of course there are many other factors that affect rankings, but there is no doubt that their homogeneity plays an important part in their people’s satisfaction.

“But that’s racist!” I hear. No, it’s just fact. Anyway, skin color or other genetic properties have nothing to do with it except as markers for culture in the broadest sense, including language and religion and numerous other things. I suspect that the desire and ability to live together with others who are like you is a property that developed by an evolutionary process, and as I suggested, is now hard-wired into the species. Those who want to change it, to create a new kind of human who will be totally free of bias won’t be pleased to hear this, but they are fighting hundreds of thousands of years – going back to pre-human species – of evolutionary development.

I suggest that we should work with the nature of our species. Nations should be small nation-states of similar people. Countries like Iraq that were created by strokes of a pen on a map without consideration of who lives in the area circumscribed by those strokes, are bound to have problems, as well as artificially balanced multiethnic constructions like Lebanon. Empires can provide stability, but at the cost of the exploitation and oppression of the majority of imperial subjects. A majority in the UK decided that they would prefer full sovereignty to attenuated self-rule as part of an empire, and voted to leave the EU.

Not every group with national aspirations can have a state. Some people will live in countries like the US, which are defined as states of all their citizens. Others will live as members of a minority in someone else’s nation-state.

Jews have a special reason to need a state of their own; their unique history of ever-mutating persecution. It takes a surprising degree of historical ignorance, or something less innocent, to deny that today. The Jews got their state at the cost of an enormous amount of blood, and then had to defend it again and again. And their enemies, both the local ones who simply want to take their land and their wealth, and the European empire for which the Jewish state stands as a reproach, show no evidence of giving up.

Israel did pretty well in the World Happiness Report, coming in 11th out of 149 (the US was 14th and the UK 17th). That is despite the fact that Israel is not Finland: there is a large Arab minority (one out of five Israelis is an Arab) that is excluded from the national mission of the Jewish state. They are not, however, excluded from economic and political life the way minorities often are, as (for example) America’s black minority was for many years. There is a very delicate balance here that the state needs to maintain in order to thrive, or even survive, with such a large national minority within its borders. One doesn’t have to go very far here in the Middle East to see what can happen as a result of unhappy minorities.

One of the reasons that Israel has been so successful, despite the challenges it has faced from its external enemies, the tension between religious and secular Jews, and the complications created by its internal minority, is its sense of national purpose as the nation-state of the Jewish people. I cannot imagine the state would survive the cancellation of this national purpose, even if it maintained, for a time, its Jewish majority. Why would it be more desirable for a Jew to live in Israel, with its mandatory army service and periodic wars, than to live in Europe, America, or Australia? Many of those who had the option to leave would do so. And why would those that stayed have a desire to improve anything in the public sphere, anything beyond their personal situation?

Nationalism, including Zionism, is not anti-democratic, racist, or otherwise evil. I would rather see a world of independent sovereign states coordinating their activities by means of treaties of mutual advantage, than the one governed by one or several powerful, coercive empires toward which we are tending.

Posted in Europe, Post-Zionism, The Jewish people, Zionism | 1 Comment

Thoughts on Yom Hazikaron

Posted on April 15, 2021 by Victor Rosenthal

A few moments ago, at exactly 11 am, I went up to my roof to stand at attention for two minutes during the siren that honors the 23,928 people, soldiers and civilians, who have died since 1860 in the struggle to create and defend the Jewish state.

Today, Wednesday, is Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day) for fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism. It’s been said that on Yom Hazikaron we consider the price of having a state, while on last week’s Yom Hashoa, we think about the price of being without one. Most Israelis understand that the latter’s cost would be much greater, but still, the pain of those who have lost loved ones is almost unbearable. And that pain is worsened when the loss was avoidable, perhaps caused by incompetence, laziness, or selfishness on the part of political or military leaders that failed those who put their trust in them (and who mostly had no choice in the matter).

The 1973 war is considered the most prominent example of unnecessary losses in the history of the state. Repeated failures by military and political officials (including the PM, Golda Meir) to take seriously the warnings from numerous sources that an attack was imminent – even King Hussein of Jordan personally warned Meir – led to the catastrophic lack of preparation for the joint Egyptian-Syrian attack. At least 2,500 Israeli soldiers died in the war that followed, many of them in the first hours of the war when inadequate Israeli forces faced large invading armies on the Golan Heights and the Sinai.

After the war, a commission of inquiry (the Agranat Commission) investigated the failures, and after the release of its report, several military commanders were forced to resign, as well as Meir and her cabinet. Although Meir’s government was succeeded by one led by Yitzhak Rabin, it’s generally thought that the debacle of 1973 led directly to the end of the left-wing monopoly on power, the triumph of Menachem Begin’s Likud Party in 1977.

Another, more recent example was the Second Lebanon War. The three men who managed the war in the summer of 2006 were unqualified to do so. The Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, and the Defense Minister, Amir Peretz, had little military experience and went to war without a clear objective or exit strategy. The Chief of Staff, Dan Halutz, was an Air Force officer who didn’t understand the workings of the ground forces, and how to get them to do what he wanted. The army, especially the ground forces, suffered from a long-term lack of discipline, which manifested itself in an abysmal lack of preparation. There were serious failures in intelligence, logistics, tactics, and execution. 121 Israeli soldiers died in the inconclusive month-long war, which ended in a UN Security Council resolution that proved worthless in preventing Hezbollah from rearming for a second round.

The theme of the tragic loss of young people in war pervades Israeli culture; it appears throughout popular music, films, and literature. It’s felt especially strongly on Yom Hazikaron – the newspaper, radio, and TV are full of stories about young men and women who were everything to their parents, who were full of plans for the future, had talents and dreams, but whose lives ended at the age of 23, or 20, or 19. And the thought that it may not have been necessary is excruciating.

Today Israel is facing Iran, a large country whose leaders seem to have a limitless hatred for us, a hatred greater than just their geopolitical ambitions. They have surrounded us with proxies, in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza, armed and waiting for the conflict to begin. The Iranian regime is committed to building nuclear weapons, and we are committed to stopping them. For both sides, this is an issue that is not amenable to compromise. Unless something very unexpected happens, there will be war yet again, and yet again our young people will offer themselves generously on behalf of the am Yisrael. We know, beyond any doubt, that they will not all return to take their after-army trips around the world, or go to university, or marry their sweethearts. We know this for certain. This is the terrible cost of defending the Jewish state, which is still less expensive than the cost of not having one.

If there isn’t a way to prevent it – and I think there isn’t – at least we can do our best to minimize the number of those that will be lost because of incompetence, laziness, and selfishness in the higher echelons of the government and the military.

The present situation in which there is no permanent government, in which vital functions – including the military budget – are held hostage to the ambitions, fears, personal grudges, and egos of a few dozen people who lead our political parties and our legal establishment, must end now. Not after the missiles start falling on the unprepared home front, and not after reserve soldiers whose training was cancelled for budgetary reasons are thrown into combat.

You know who you are – Bibi, Bennett, Lapid, Sa’ar, Smotrich, Gantz, Lieberman, as well as Kochavi, Mandelblit, Hayut, and all the rest. You know that the state is in a perilous situation, and that it needs the attention of leaders that will put aside everything else except the good of am Yisrael and its nation-state, who will start earning the exorbitant salaries that we pay them. You know what you have to do. Do it.

Now. Before it is too late.

Posted in Israeli Society, War | Comments Off on Thoughts on Yom Hazikaron

Irrational, Dangerous Iran Policy is No Accident

Posted on April 11, 2021 by Victor Rosenthal

Joe Biden’s people say that his move to return to Barack Obama’s JCPOA, the nuclear agreement with Iran, is the only reasonable path. After all, they argue that Donald Trump’s policy of “maximum pressure” failed, as evidenced by Iran’s signing a 25-year agreement to cooperate economically and strategically with China. They also note that Iran responded by ramping up their violations of the agreement.

Although Biden initially talked tough, saying that the US would not weaken sanctions until Iran returned to compliance with the original agreement by ending enrichment of uranium to 20%, reducing its stockpile of enriched material, and other items, American resolve seems to be slipping in the face of Iranian stubbornness. The person he put in charge of the negotiations, Robert Malley, has said that he prefers to return more or less to the original deal first, and then try to negotiate a new, better one later. On the face of it, this is silly. If the US gives up leverage by removing sanctions, why would the Iranians want to renegotiate later, just to obtain a deal that is worse for them?

The original deal was simply a disaster. It removed the restrictions placed on Iran by the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that it had signed and ending international sanctions enforcing several Security Council resolutions intended to deter it from its nuclear ambitions. It granted Iran an unprecedented “right to enrich” uranium that the NPT denied, with limits that would be removed in a decade. That decade ends soon, in 2025, after which there will be no limits on Iran’s nuclear program.

Even those temporary limits were technically inadequate, as was the inspection routine, which had holes big enough to drive numerous large trucks through. As a side benefit to Iran, Security Council resolutions that forbade Iran from developing ballistic missiles that could carry nuclear weapons were replaced with one that only “called upon” Iran to eschew such technology (Iran has since developed such missiles). It is not an exaggeration to say, as PM Netanyahu did in 2019, that the deal “paved Iran’s path” to nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them rather than blocking it.

The icing on the cake was the infusion of cash the JCPOA provided, which Iran promptly used to pay for its intervention in the Syrian civil war, the arming of Shiite militias in Iraq, support for the Houthi rebels in Yemen and their attacks on Saudi Arabia, and of course the continued buildup of Hezbollah’s and Hamas’ missile arsenals – which the Iranian regime intends as the main weapon in its campaign to wipe Israel off the map (its nuclear-tipped missiles will provide a deterrent umbrella against Israeli retaliation).

Trump reversed Obama’s policy, exited the deal, and re-imposed sanctions to pressure Iran economically. Either the regime would collapse, or Iran would be forced to accept real restrictions on its nuclear and missile programs. The sanctions crushed the Iranian economy, and combined with the Covid epidemic and the domestic Iranian opposition, pushed the regime onto the ropes. The regime clearly understood this, and even tried to influence the 2020 American election against Trump.

The contention that Trump’s program didn’t work is false – the regime simply was able to hold out until he left office. Something that the NY Times et al don’t mention is that the agreement with China, the enrichment to 20%, and the introduction of new-generation centrifuges prohibited by the JCPOA didn’t occur until 2021, when Trump was either already gone or about to be. The Chinese undoubtedly knew that Trump would retaliate economically if they made their agreement with Iran during his term. And the Iranian regime clearly feared the US president, who had eliminated Qasem Soleimani, the single most dangerous terrorist operative in decades.

Biden’s policy – or that of whoever is making decisions for him – will empower the Iranian regime in reaching its objectives. And those objectives are quite ambitious: the establishment of a Shiite caliphate in the region, the replacement of various regimes (e.g., in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain), the destruction of the Jewish state, the control of all Middle Eastern fossil fuel resources, and so on. Iranian expansionism has already turned Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen into failed states whose populations are suffering enormously as a result.

If Iran continues with its nuclear program past Israel’s redlines, or if it orders its proxies to attack Israel, the result will be regional war. Such a war would be disastrous, especially for Lebanon, whose southern part has been turned by Iran’s Hezbollah proxy into one big launching pad for an estimated 130,000 rockets and missiles aimed at Israel. Israel’s defensive capabilities, although the most advanced in the world, could not deal with the number of weapons that would be fired at it, and so it would be necessary to respond by bombing southern Lebanon. That would cause thousands of casualties in a country already suffering from disease and total economic collapse.

The regime in Iran has made it clear that America, “the Great Satan,” is its most important enemy. It and its proxies have killed Americans in Lebanon and of course Iraq. It will work together with other enemies of the USA to harm it in any way it can. It even played a role in the 9/11 attacks. It isn’t unthinkable that it will provide nuclear material to terrorists in order to attack her in a “plausibly deniable” way.

Is enabling this regime’s regional takeover and nuclear project in America’s national interest? I don’t think so. The best way to forestall its plans is for the US to return to the policy of maximum pressure: to squeeze it economically until either it has no option but to retreat from its aggression, or it falls and is replaced by the more moderate government that most of the Iranian people would prefer.

Having said that, I am certain that this will not occur. What is going on is more than just a repudiation of Trump. Whoever is behind the project of strengthening the Iranian regime and enabling it to obtain its objectives knows what they are doing, and must share those objectives. The ideology of appointed officials is too consistent, the historical precedents too clear, and the functioning of the PR echo chamber too slick for it to be anything but deliberate.

Israel can only defend herself. It’s up to Americans to do whatever is necessary to move their country off this dangerous path.

Posted in American politics, Iran, Middle East politics | 6 Comments

Why Arab MKs Hate the State

Posted on April 8, 2021 by Victor Rosenthal

On Tuesday, Israel’s 24th Knesset was sworn in. They were asked to commit to “…be faithful to the State of Israel and to fulfill with devotion [their] cause in the Knesset.” The majority of them responded “I commit,” but four Arabs and one Jewish communist did not. The Arabs, members of the Hadash (communist) and Balad (“land” parties) said that they would commit to struggle against “occupation and apartheid” or “racism and racists.” The declarations were not accepted and the five were escorted out of the chamber. They will forfeit some privileges of Knesset membership until they make the proper declaration, as specified in the Basic Law for the Knesset. I have not been able to determine if they will also not get paid, although I’m not holding my breath.

This is not anything new. Arab MKs in 2013 left the ceremony before the singing of Israel’s national anthem, Hatikva. Then-MK Hanin Zoabi of the Balad party explained that “as an Arab woman born in this country, the anthem oppresses me and humiliates me.” The song expresses the “Jewish spirit yearning … to be a free people in our land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem.” Zoabi and other Palestinian nationalists reject the idea of a Jewish state; their official platform calls for a Palestinian state in Judea/Samaria and the “return” of  the descendants of the Arab refugees of 1948 to the area of pre-1967 Israel and the establishment of a binational state. They consider themselves the “true owners of the soil,” and so the sentiments expressed in Hatikva are offensive to them.

All the Arab parties and the Arab-Jewish communist party are explicitly anti-Zionist. Balad is funded by Qatar; Mansour Abbas’ Ra’am party  – which ironically (and in my opinion, outrageously) may end up supporting a Netanyahu coalition with its votes – is associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, the parent and patron of Hamas. The Basic Law for the Knesset says that “negation of the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state” disqualifies a candidate from standing for election to the Knesset. If it were enforced, probably none of today’s Arab MKs would qualify.

About 20% of Israel’s citizens are Arabs, mostly the descendants of Arabs that did not flee the area that became Israel in 1948. Some are residents of eastern Jerusalem who accepted Israeli citizenship when it was offered after the 1967 war (although most refused and remain permanent residents who can vote in municipal elections but not national ones). Arabs are an essential part of Israel’s economy and cultural life.

And they are not going anywhere. Meir Kahane argued that if they were not removed from the country, they would overtake the Jewish majority demographically; but as time has passed and the Jewish and Arab birthrates have tended to converge, this worry has receded. On the other hand, if it turns out that the political positions of the Arab MKs are representative of the population, then the presence of a large minority that opposes the existence of the Jewish state as such is exceedingly dangerous. Is there in fact such a minority?

It’s not a simple question. Several surveys in recent years show a large majority of Arab citizens of Israel are happy with their lives here, and would not choose to live in another country – certainly not in the Palestinian Authority or Gaza. Surprisingly, a recent poll shows that one-third of them even approve of the performance of PM Netanyahu, whom the Jewish Left constantly accuses of anti-Arab racism.

On the other hand, a large majority assert that they oppose the definition of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people as expressed in the Nation-State Law, and would prefer a state of all its citizens. But it seems – and anecdotal evidence supports the idea – that the economic and physical security that they find in Israel overrides ideological considerations.

This situation is not ideal, but is probably the best that can be expected. The ideological disagreement comes from the traditional Palestinian narrative, in which they see themselves as the aboriginal inhabitants of the land who were pushed aside and had their land violently stolen from them by a wave of European Jewish invaders. This story imparts a serious blow to the honor of the Arab community, honor that some of them believe can only be recaptured by the violent expulsion of the invaders. This is sometimes understood as a loss of honor to the Muslim ummah as well, in which case there is a strong religious imperative to regain it. The combination of these beliefs can inflame their holders to commit acts of violence, even suicide terrorism.

While most Arabs in Israel are not extremists, the narrative powerfully influences their collective consciousness. Sometimes this is expressed in ways that shock us, as in the recent welcome given to a terrorist who was released after 35 years in prison for the gruesome torture and murder of a young Jewish soldier.

The Palestinian narrative is taught in the Israeli-Arab school system, and by left-wing Jewish and Arab teachers in universities. It pervades Arab culture: theater, poetry, and music reflect it. Although hatred for Jews and the glorification of martyrdom in the service of the cause is not part of official curricula as it is in Gaza or the Palestinian Authority, it is part of the conventional wisdom in Arab communities that anti-Israel terrorists are heroes and heroines even if their actions are thought impractical. And the Palestinian narrative is an essential part of the ideology of Arab intellectuals, including members of the Knesset, whether or not it is connected to a religious, Palestinian nationalist, or pan-Arab message.

Could there be an Arab consciousness that is truly accepting of the fact of a Jewish state, a consciousness that understands that there is nothing fundamentally illegitimate about the state, and one that can see the decision to live as a minority in a state that belongs to someone else as not shameful?

That would require teaching a new understanding of the history of the state that sharply contradicts the existing Palestinian narrative. It would need to take into account the actual history of the Jewish people and the Palestinian Arabs in the region, rather than the myths that have been created for political purposes. It would have to describe the migrations of the various groups that make up today’s Palestinians, and not make up stories about Philistines and Canaanites. It would need to accept that Jews lived in the region for thousands of years, and built a Temple in Jerusalem (and incidentally that Jesus was a Judean). Finally, it would need to drop the ideas that Palestinians are victims of Jewish colonialism, and that they are indigenous and we are not.

Unfortunately, the academics that would teach this version of the story, a version that could be accepted by both Jews and Arabs because it is true, are rare indeed. The post-modern view that all narratives are equally true (or false) is common today. The politicians that would adopt it would be forced to give up political advantage gained by stirring up resentment and hatred, placing them at a disadvantage to those who didn’t (which is why all Arab MKs at least pay lip service to Palestinian nationalism).

I don’t expect this to happen, at least not today with today’s cast of characters, both Jewish and Arab. So the best we can hope for is an increased pragmatism, an understanding that everyday life is more important than ideology. It’s not perfect, but we can live with it.

Posted in Israeli Arabs, Israeli Politics | 2 Comments

America Switches Sides

Posted on April 4, 2021 by Victor Rosenthal

The US is “recalibrating” its relationship with Saudi Arabia (read: withdrawing support in its struggle with Iran and its proxies). It has removed several Patriot antimissile batteries from the area, ended the permanent stationing of an aircraft carrier in the region, and eliminated surveillance systems that were operating there. It stopped providing arms for “offensive” Saudi operations in Yemen (the Saudis say they are defensive), and canceled the designation of the Houthi rebels in Yemen as a terrorist organization. The Iran-supported and controlled Houthis, in turn, have recently stepped up their attacks on Saudi Arabia, using Iranian drones and missiles. Last month, the Biden Administration also released a report about the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi that accuses Saudi Crown Prince and de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman of ordering the grisly affair.

Part of the arrangements for the Abraham Accords, the normalization of relations between Israel and several Arab countries, was that the Trump Administration agreed to sell advanced F-35 stealth aircraft to the United Arab Emirates. Israel, surprisingly to some, did not object. But within a week of his taking office, Biden’s administration froze the deal, and is not expected to reinstitute it. Apparently this has not damaged the relationship between Israel and the UAE, but one wonders about the motivation. The only obvious beneficiary here is Iran.

Biden has also begun to recalibrate the relationship with Israel. Although his administration makes the usual noises about concern for Israel’s security, it has returned to the idea of a two-state solution “based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed land swaps and agreements on security and refugees.” It has restarted aid to UNRWA, the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency which, instead of solving the problem of stateless descendants of the Arab refugees of 1948, perpetuates it as a weapon against Israel. It is in the process of finding a way to restore direct aid to the Palestinian Authority without violating US law (the Taylor Force Act) which requires the PA to first stop paying convicted terrorists and their families. It has expressed its intention to reopen the PLO office in Washington and the US consulate in eastern Jerusalem, the unofficial “US Embassy to Palestine.”

Recently, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told Israel’s Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi that “Israelis and Palestinians should enjoy ‘equal measures’ of freedom, security, prosperity and democracy.” On the surface, this is puzzling. The Palestinians are ruled by the PA, which is just the murderous PLO dressed in fancy clothes by the Oslo Accords, and Hamas, a vicious terrorist gang without even the patina of legitimacy possessed by the PLO. Neither of these regimes are sovereign states, and both live on funds provided by foreign donors; in the case of Hamas, the support is provided explicitly to encourage its warfare against Israel. Both are misogynistic, homophobic, dictatorial, corrupt, and of course antisemitic regimes. If Blinken thinks that these things should change, why did he not address his remarks to the PA and Hamas leadership? Why tell it to Israel’s Foreign Minister?

I suggest that what Blinken actually meant was that in his mind Israel and “Palestine” are equally legitimate. This in turn implies that “Palestine” should have an equal measure of sovereignty with Israel. This goes significantly farther than either the traditional position of Israel – which, since Rabin, has never gone past envisioning a Palestinian entity with significant limitations on its sovereignty – and that of the Trump Administration, whose two-state plan required the Palestinians to meet certain “governance criteria” before receiving statehood.

While the US administration would claim that the change in policy helps the Palestinian people without hurting Israel, it’s unfortunate that the nature of Hamas and the PA/PLO make the conflict a zero-sum game. As their repeated refusals to accept statehood or to abjure terrorism make clear, the primary objective of the Palestinian leadership has never deviated from the expulsion or killing of all the Jewish inhabitants of the land between the river and the sea.

Recently the Wall St. Journal published leaked information about Israel’s sabotage of Iranian tankers carrying oil to Syria in violation of international sanctions on Syria and Iran. Apparently this has been going on for the past 2-1/2 years and has cost Iran billions of dollars, money which could be used to supply weapons to Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies. The leak has been attributed to the Biden Administration, which wanted to “[neutralize] background noise which the Americans think might soon hamper the renewal of negotiations with Iran about the United States’ return to the nuclear agreement.” But the result may be an escalation of hostile actions between Iran and Israel. In essence, Biden’s people chose to harm Israel in order to improve its relations with Iran.

At the same time, Biden’s people have backed down on the demand that Iran first stop enriching uranium to 20% before talks on returning to the JCPOA could begin. It seems that, like the first time many of the same people negotiated a nuclear deal with Iran, they are hungry for an agreement, so much so that they have already started down the slippery slope of concessions. As all Middle Easterners, even Israelis, know, this is not how to make a deal in the shuk. They may think “this time it will be different,” but they are fooling themselves. I don’t know precisely why they are so hungry, but I am absolutely certain that displaying their hunger at the outset is a recipe for taking a beating at the end of the day.

In Plato’s Republic, Polemarchus argues that true justice consists of helping one’s friends and hurting one’s enemies, in particular by making oneself an ally in war with one’s friends against your common enemies. Whether or not this is justice in any sense (Plato thinks not), it is a fundamental principle of international relations, where “friends” and “enemies” are defined in terms of national interests. It seems that Biden (or whoever is making decisions in his administration) has decided that American interests lie in taking the side of Iran over that of the developing alliance between Israel, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and others who are threatened by Iran. Friends become foes, and former foes, friends.

Judging by the actions of the Iranian regime until now, it is hard to believe that an international agreement led by the US – which is removing the military assets that would buttress compliance! – will prevent the regime from achieving its goal of obtaining nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. Indeed, as we saw with the previous agreement, the deal may act as a shield for nuclear and missile development, as well as a deterrent to Iran’s enemies to act against it, without significantly slowing Iran’s nuclear progress. The ending of sanctions makes a huge amount of money available to the regime, which – again, as was manifest after the 2015 deal – may be used to export terrorism and build up Iranian proxies for warfare against Israel or other states.

The worst-case scenario is that Iran will obtain and use nuclear weapons directly against its enemies or as a shield for conventional aggression. Another possibility is that Israel and her anti-Iranian alliance will find themselves compelled to use force to prevent Iran from going nuclear, precipitating a very destructive regional war. It could also happen that Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and possibly other states would feel obligated to acquire nuclear weapons themselves as a deterrent.

If the new administration had chosen to continue Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign, along with supporting the regional alliance against Iran, Israel’s special operations, and the strong domestic Iranian opposition, it might have been possible to bring down the regime. But that is not the path they chose.

Posted in 'Peace' Process, Iran, Middle East politics, US-Israel Relations | 2 Comments

It’s All About Bibi

Posted on April 1, 2021 by Victor Rosenthal

The whole story of Israeli politics today is Binyamin Netanyahu.

I won’t bore you with countless scenarios, most of which are about as likely as the one in which I become Prime Minister. Everything is contained in six numbers:

Number of Knesset seats needed to form a government: 61.
Number committed to join a coalition with Netanyahu: 52 (Likud, Shas, UTJ, Religious Zionism).
Number opposed to Netanyahu: 57 (seven parties).
Uncommitted: 7 (Naftali Bennett’s Yamina party).
Committed to supporting Netanyahu from outside the coalition: 4 (Ra’am party of Mansour Abbas*).
Number considered “right-wing”: 72 (Likud, Shas, Yamina, UTJ, Religious Zionism, Tikvah Hadasha).

What this tells us is that if it were not for the contentiousness of Binyamin Netanyahu, there would be a natural right-wing government. It’s what the majority of Israelis want. Bibi’s Likud party received almost twice as many seats (30) as his nearest competitor, Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party (17). The Center, Left, and Arab parties (except Ra’am) amount to only 44. The right-wing-but-not-Bibi group has 20.

The ideological differences between this last group and Netanyahu are small to nonexistent. It’s personal to a great extent: Bennett, Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beiteinu) and Gideon Sa’ar (Tikvah Hadasha) were all formerly members of the Likud who were squeezed out by Bibi, who does not tolerate even theoretical competition for leadership of the party. Lieberman and Bennett had cabinet positions in several previous coalitions in which they were prevented from exercising their supposed authority by a micro-managing Bibi.

Netanyahu is presently on trial on several charges of corruption, and if he is convicted he will have to step down as Prime Minister. A great deal of what has happened in Israeli politics in the past two years revolves around his opponents’ attempts to bring him down by means of these charges, and his struggle to stay in power – and out of jail. The charges are a mixed bag: the ones considered most serious by the prosecutors are called by some “invented crimes” that are merely politics as usual. On the other hand, it seems clear that he (and his wife – who is a big part of the problem) took expensive gifts from foreigners who had business with the government.

Bibi is so hated by the Left that there have been demonstrations with thousands of participants going on outside his homes and in other locations every Saturday night for at least a year. They accuse him of “destroying democracy and the rule of law” for his attempts to rein in the judiciary, including the Supreme Court and the state prosecutor’s office. But while, obviously, he is pursuing his personal interest, it is still true that the left-leaning legal establishment has arrogated to itself almost unlimited power and has destroyed the balance of powers between the legislature, the government, and the judiciary that is essential for a truly just regime.

There is no question that Bibi jealously hoards his power, and does not delegate it in areas that he considers important. He breaks promises repeatedly, both to his constituents and to other politicians. He has on occasion been responsible for ugly campaigns of innuendo against his opponents, such as a rumor that Naftali Bennett’s wife worked as a chef at a non-kosher restaurant (Bennett is an observant Jew as are many of his supporters), and that Benny Gantz (Blue and White) had an affair with another government minister.

And yet…

And yet, Bibi has been a great Prime Minister, arguably Israel’s greatest. His reign, the longest in the history of the state, has been remarkably peaceful. Some say he has only “kicked the can down the road,” but others argue that he has managed the covert war against Iran and its proxies very effectively, preventing Iran from going nuclear and interdicting the supply of improved weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria. He has been criticized (unfairly, I think) for the poor relationship with former US President Obama (I blame Obama for this) but he presented Israel’s case to the US Congress forcefully, and galvanized opposition to the Iran deal, even if its opponents were ultimately outmaneuvered. On his watch the US finally moved its Embassy to Jerusalem, recognized Israel’s sovereignty in the Golan Heights, and exited the Iran deal. Bibi achieved improved relations with numerous countries, including the ground-breaking Abraham Accords with several Arab nations that were formerly counted among our enemies.

He has been criticized for the handling of the airport during the pandemic, as well as being too easy on the Haredim, who kept schools and yeshivot open and held massive weddings and funerals against government rules. But he did the one thing that was most important with respect to the Coronavirus: he brought us the vaccines that made Israel one of the most successful countries in the world in dealing with it. Yes, it is annoying that he constantly brags about it, and how it was a personal accomplishment, as if he himself vaccinated millions of Israelis. But as a matter of fact, it was – he truly did “obsessively” call the CEOs of the vaccine manufacturers. He did take the difficult decision to pay a premium price for the vaccine and provide data to the manufacturers. He did this. He had help of course, from the HMOs and the Health Ministry that set up the distribution system, but he is right in taking credit for it. Thanks to Bibi, today we are reopening our economy and returning to ordinary life, while Europeans are still struggling with lockdowns and shortages of vaccine.

I did not vote for him. Although his accomplishments are many, I am convinced that it’s time for new leadership. I voted for Bennett, whom I believe is smart enough and creative enough, as well as ideologically committed to strengthening Israel, including the Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria, and the Jordan valley, areas that are both the spiritual heartland of the nation as well as essential for its defense. And he has the moral qualifications, too. Is Bennett tough enough? Time will tell, although I think so.

But Bennett, whose party has a total of seven seats, is probably not going to be Prime Minister this time. I will go out on a limb and predict that Bibi will manage to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat once again. Maybe Bennett and Sa’ar will join his coalition, or he will persuade the necessary two members of the Knesset from other parties to jump to his side, or he will convince the other members of his coalition to accept the support of the Ra’am party – an Arab Islamist party led by Mansour Abbas, who for pragmatic reasons will support Netanyahu and Likud.

If this happens, it will prove once again that in addition to being one of Israel’s greatest Prime Ministers, he is also an incredibly adroit politician. If he is also smart enough to understand that now is the time to step back and start thinking about retirement, that would also be good.

_____________________
* An Israeli Arab politician, not to be confused with the head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas.

Posted in Israeli Politics | 1 Comment