It’s the narrative, stupid

Posted on September 2, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal

How do you characterize a population as a people? Most of us would say that a people has some combination of language, religion, culture, place of origin, and genetic makeup, and that its members identify with a historical narrative that describes how they came to be.

The Jewish people is a paradigm case of a people, with a unique language and religion, a definite origin, clearly distinguishable genetics, and a historical narrative spanning thousands of years that is probably the most powerful story in much of the civilized world. This is why it is so typically chutzpadik for Palestinians to argue that there is only a Jewish religion and not a Jewish people.

The Palestinians do not have a unique religion, language, genetic identity, or place of origin – unless you count having an ancestor who lived in Mandate Palestine for at least two years as establishing rootedness there. But they have a historical narrative with which they very strongly identify.

It is a relatively new narrative, having originated in the mid-20th century as a reaction to the establishment of the Jewish state. It is to a great extent false – there is no long-term ‘Palestinian’ presence in the land of Israel (claims going back to biblical times are ludicrous, and few ‘Palestinians’ can trace their lineage in the land prior to about 1830; most are descended from 20th century migrants). Their story about their dispossession by the Zionists is also to a great extent false and self-serving. But none of this matters.

What does matter is that virtually all Palestinians believe the narrative, and it is perfectly designed to combine with the features of the Arab and Muslim culture of the Palestinians in such a way as to create endless, insoluble conflict with the Jewish state.

The narrative tells of a proud culture rooted in the land, dispossessed by foreign invaders who have no connection with it. It tells about humiliation of the Palestinian people, their wealth and property taken from them. It tells about a Muslim land being ruled by infidels, or almost worse, by Jews, Mohammad’s historic enemies whose inferior role is demanded by the Qur’an. It tells about Arab manhood being insulted by repeated military defeats by the children of pigs and monkeys.

The narrative tells about an intolerable condition, and its collision with Arab culture and Islam can’t be resolved by a compromise which permits the continuation of Jewish sovereignty in any real sense. Any solution acceptable to the Palestinians must include the return of their ‘property’ – that is, the ‘return’ of the descendents of Arab refugees to ‘their homes’. For Muslims, there is also the fact that the entire land, having been ruled at one time by Muslims, is a part of dar al islam and must return to Muslim rule. And of course, no situation in which a Jew is superior to a Muslim in any way is acceptable.

Worse, Arab honor, which was stolen by military defeat and which continues to be taken by the daily humiliations of Israeli security measures, must be regained. This requires equal humiliation and violence against the Jews.

But why can’t the Jews make a similar argument on the grounds that the rights of the Jewish people were abrogated by the Arab conquest of the 7th century? The Palestinians take this threat quite seriously, which is why they insist that there is a Jewish religion but no Jewish people. And it is why they make ridiculous statements like “Palestinians are descended from ancient Canaanites,” “There was no Jewish Temple in Jerusalem,” or “Jesus was a Palestinian.” It is why they are working assiduously to get UNESCO to declare all Jewish historical sites to be Arab or Muslim.

As long as the Palestinian narrative is believed there will be no peaceful two-state solution or any other compromise that allows a Jewish state to continue existing. And as long as Arabs understand that their lost honor needs to be regained there will be no end to murderous outbursts of violence against Jews by Arabs.

These are not things that are in our power to change. There is no way we can educate the Arabs to stop believing their narrative and to start believing ours. No matter how kind we are, how conciliatory, how fair, how just, how many concessions we make, how much economic opportunity we provide, the fundamental problem remains. If you think I’m exaggerating, read this about Palestinians in general, and this about Arab citizens of Israel. If anything, as time goes by, the narrative gets embedded more firmly in the Palestinian psyche.

So does this imply that there is no hope?

Not exactly. There is no hope for a peaceful compromise, true. But there are other ways a conflict between peoples – yes, I think their narrative makes them a people, if not an ancient one – can end. One side or other can prevail, can overpower its enemy to the extent that it gives up the idea that it can win, and stops fighting.

The usual example of this is WWII in which the losers were crushed so badly that they gave up, accepted occupation, and even changed their ways of thinking so as to reject militarism and ultimately became allies of their erstwhile enemies. But there is another example that is much closer to home and might provide a model for a solution that requires somewhat less death and devastation than that wrought by the bombing of Dresden or Hiroshima.

That is the example of the Arab citizens of Israel.

They are not any less committed to the Palestinian narrative. But most of them have come to understand that they are not capable of overthrowing the Jewish state. They lived under military rule from 1948-68, but since then have had the same rights (if not responsibilities) of Israel’s Jewish citizens. The combination of the perception of an overwhelming imbalance of power plus the availability of economic options has not canceled the Palestinian narrative, but has made it possible for them to live peacefully in a Jewish state. What other country in the world can say that it has a 20% Muslim minority that is not a source of violent instability?

The continued docility of our Arab citizens isn’t guaranteed. In order for it to continue, there are several things that are important: they must continue to understand that they will not obtain national rights in the Jewish state, either by violence or political means, although their civil rights will be protected. Israel will remain a Jewish state, not a binational one. The flag and national anthem will not be changed, and there will always be a Jewish right of return, and never an Arab one. The overwhelming imbalance of power must be maintained. But at the same time their rights to equal treatment under the law and their economic opportunities must not be foreclosed.

The same principles apply to the Arabs of the territories, although it is probably not a good idea to suddenly grant them citizenship and hope that they will behave like the Arab citizens from 1948. But we are presently far from establishing the necessary imbalance of power as long as the Fatah and Hamas organizations are operating. They and similar enemies of Israel must be defeated and destroyed as a first step. We wouldn’t tolerate Fatah operating in Tel Aviv, so we should not tolerate it in Ramallah either.

The strategic geography of the land of Israel implies that we cannot give up control of Judea and Samaria and still be capable of defending our nation. That in turn means that we have to deal somehow with its Arab inhabitants. Their dedication to the pernicious Palestinian narrative precludes a Western-style compromise, but if we can decisively end their ability to make war, then maybe their only remaining option – as in the case of the Arab citizens of Israel – will be to live in peace.

Posted in Israel and Palestinian Arabs, Israeli Arabs, The Jewish people | 3 Comments

Mrs. Keret’s delusion

Posted on August 28, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal

Like most popular Israeli authors, Etgar Keret leans left. There are lots of reasons for this, which include the fact that the literary establishment here doesn’t exactly welcome writers that don’t fit politically. But in any event, I find him entertaining.

His memoir “The Seven Good Years” (שבע השנים הטובות) which I was reading yesterday is not an especially political book, but one passage was revealing. In it, Keret tells about a discussion he had with his wife, Shira Geffen, about whether their then 3-year old son, Lev, should serve in the army when he grows up. Keret is speaking:

“Listen to yourself.” I said. “You’re talking as if serving in the army is an extreme sport. But what can we do? We live in a part of the world where our lives depend on it. So what you’re actually saying is that you’d rather have other people’s children go into the army and sacrifice their lives while Lev enjoys his life here without taking any risks or shouldering the obligations the situation calls for.”

“No,” my wife responded. “I’m saying that we could have reached a peaceful solution a long time ago, and we still can. And that our leaders allow themselves not to do that because they know that most people are like you: they won’t hesitate to put their children’s lives into the government’s irresponsible hands.”

The chapter concludes with Keret and his wife agreeing to disagree, while they will both spend the next 15 years working for “family and regional peace.” That certainly isn’t how such a discussion would end in my house, assuming that my wife would be silly enough to offer this argument (believe me, she wouldn’t).

My guess is that Keret agrees with the position he allows his wife to articulate, but that isn’t important. What is important is that the second paragraph presents an argument that is taken seriously by the Left, and even considered a legitimate response to the first paragraph.

Shira’s statement contains a fundamental mistake: the belief, part of what Dr. Kenneth Levin calls the “Oslo Syndrome,” that it is in our power to change reality enough to cause the Palestinians to make peace.” A corollary, which she also enunciates, is that if we haven’t succeeded, we (our leaders) just haven’t tried hard enough. We haven’t been creative enough or we haven’t had the “courage” to make the concessions that – if we only would take the risk – would bring peace.

This is an arrogant position, and one that denies agency to the Palestinians. Some things aren’t only up to us. Today’s State of Israel has a great deal of power, but it does not have the power to change what is in the hearts of the Palestinians: a combination of false narratives, religious principles, shame, anger, envy and hatred.

We can (and have, and will) defeat them in military confrontations, but we will not – especially not by demonstrating weakness – get them to want to live in peace alongside a Jewish state. There is no popular Palestinian leader who would agree, no significant segment of the population that would accept one that did, no way to guarantee an agreement reached with any Palestinian regime, and no way to change the geography of the region to make a pre-1967-sized Israel defensible.

But why do so many insist on this? Levin explains Mrs. Keret’s delusion as a psychological mechanism to compensate for the feeling of powerlessness that Israelis experience as a result of decades of living under physical and psychological siege. Can it really be true that this must go on forever, where parents plan for their children’s army service fifteen years in advance? Isn’t it less frustrating to think that we haven’t pushed the government hard enough to end the occupation? To think that there is something more we can do?

Paradoxically, our own mechanisms play against Palestinian culture in the worst possible way. When we make concessions to them, or even when elements of our society demand that the government make concessions, the Palestinians understand that they are winning, and increase the pressure.

Keret is popular in Europe, which isn’t surprising from a political point of view. The European-supported Left in Israel works to encourage Israelis to feel guilty toward Palestinians, and to make Palestinians more angry at the Jews who – they are constantly told – have stolen their birthright. I think the Europeans know they are making the conflict worse; I don’t know about the Israelis.

The Western, even Christian, impulse to solve the problem by making ourselves better – more conciliatory, more humane, more embracing or even loving of our enemies – is exactly the opposite of the strategy that we should take. The best way to reduce the intensity of the conflict would be to teach the Palestinians that it is not possible to get rid of us, to force us to withdraw piecemeal from the land of Israel by making our lives here unpleasant. Will they then consider coexistence an option?

That is up to them.

Posted in Israeli Politics, Israeli Society | 1 Comment

Can Russia be Israel’s ally?

Posted on August 26, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal

It’s hard to understand Vladimir Putin’s attitude toward Jews.

On the one hand, Putin-controlled media continues to pour out vulgar anti-Jewish memes, including a recent TV program in which Jews sunk the Titanic, blew up Chernobyl and took down the World Trade Center. And Russia has surprising connections and influence in European radical right-wing political parties like Hungary’s Jobbik, France’s National Front and more.

On the other hand, at the same time, Russia is hosting a conference of 500 European rabbis in order to discuss the problem of Jew hatred in Europe, and in January Putin even suggested that Jews fleeing Europe should go to Russia. Jews “should come here, to Russia. They left the Soviet Union; now they should come back,” he said.

On the one hand, there appear to be good relations between Putin and Israel’s PM Netanyahu. Arrangements in place to prevent accidental clashes between Israeli and Russian air forces operating in Syria seem to be working. It does not seem to be the case that Putin is preventing Israel from taking action against attempts to transfer game-changing weapons to Hezbollah.

On the other hand, Russia is supplying modern weapons to Iran, and it appears to be cooperating with the Iranian regime’s project to control the arc of land from its eastern border through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon to the Mediterranean, as well as opening a direct line through Anbar province in Iraq, via  Jordan, to Israel’s midsection. This is not “good for the Jews.”

When Putin occupied Crimea two years ago, he claimed that Ukrainian nationalists who overthrew the pro-Russian Yanukovych government were neo-Nazis who threatened Jews. He might have been partially right, but Jews there are also accused of being allies of the right wing. Vicious anti-Jewish propaganda has appeared, which the nationalists claim is produced by the FSB (the current incarnation of the Russian secret security service) to discredit them.

The explanation is not that Putin likes Jews or that he dislikes them. It is simply that the Jews and Jew-hatred are convenient and helpful tools for achieving his objectives. Some of these are to weaken the EU and NATO and destabilize Europe, at which he has been spectacularly successful. This is why Putin wants to strengthen the right-wing movements – to create as much chaos in Europe as possible.

You may recall that NATO was originally established to contain Soviet expansionism by building a nuclear-armed wall around the USSR. Today it is a quaint relic of that period, almost toothless. NATO didn’t stop Putin from taking Crimea and isn’t likely to send its tanks or bombers to protect Ukraine, Abkhazia, South Ossetia or Transnistria.

The Jewish state, too, can be helpful to Putin. In the Middle East, his immediate goal is to weaken the influence of the US over the region, both in objective geostrategic ways, by placing military assets in critical spots – S-400 air defense systems in Crimea and Syria, bombers in Iran, bases in Syria – and diplomatically, by driving wedges between the US and its traditional allies, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Israel.

The US, either by incompetence or design, has played into Putin’s gambit. Both the US and Russia have wooed the Iranian regime, but only Putin has received anything in return. The Iranians have pocketed US concessions made during the nuclear negotiations without ending their hostility to the US, their support of terrorism or their intention to obtain nuclear weapons (which may have been delayed by a short period, if at all).

In addition to the strategic benefits Russia gets from its alliance with Iran, the American attempt to appease Iran has damaged relations between the US, its (former) Sunni allies and Israel; this is a definite plus from Moscow’s point of view.

As Obama continues to pressure Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians and to restrain her from taking action against Iran, Putin is offering help, both in controlling Iran and Hezbollah and as a mediator (along with Egypt) with the Palestinians.

Putin’s longer-range goal is to replace the US as the dominant power in the Middle East. This will place him in conflict with Iran, which also wants the role of top dog. Putin understands Iran’s expansionist ambitions. It would be rational for him to want to place limits on the regime, especially in regard to her nuclear weapons development. Iran is developing or may already have a nuclear-capable missile that can reach Moscow. I don’t believe that Russia wants to see such missiles with nuclear warheads in her backyard, 1500 km. from Moscow. Putin is willing to partner with Iran in order to achieve his objectives, but he very much intends to be the controlling partner.

Can Putin be trusted? No, of course not. Regardless of the propaganda flowing from his psychological warfare factories, he is not sentimental about Jews. The ex-KGB officer is not sentimental about anything. But I think he is smart enough to understand the potential stability that a strong Israel – the only nation in the Middle East that can at the same time be powerful without also being tempted to engage in aggression against its neighbors – would give to the eastern Mediterranean region, which incidentally contains large reserves of natural gas.

Unlike Obama, who I believe is both stupid and irrationally anti-Israel, Putin is both smart and rational, and the smart, rational thing for him to do is to allow Russia to benefit from a powerful but nonthreatening Jewish state that is prepared to view her as an ally.

Within the next few years it will become clear if he sees it this way too.

Posted in Middle East politics | 1 Comment

They hate Bibi but they know he’s right

Posted on August 20, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal

I’ve been reading Ha’aretz lately and listening to some of our left-of-center politicians, and it seems like they are living in an entirely different world than I am.

The usual piece starts off with an attack on Binyamin Netanyahu, each one trying to find a new angle. Ari Shavit tells us that he’s dishonest, he’s obsessed with his father, he hates Arabs, he will destroy the country, he is little by little crushing democracy, and on and on. Avraham Burg claims that Israel is becoming a dictatorship and refers to Iran and the Hamas terror tunnels as “some … Netanyahu phobia.” Phobia!

Former PM Ehud Barak claims that Netanyahu has made serious errors recently that have made Israel vulnerable to a “central security threat.” But he won’t say what, exactly, so we are waiting for it to leak. This from the guy that opened the door to the Second Intifada, and who allowed Druze IDF soldier Madhat Yusuf to bleed to death because he didn’t want to anger the Palestinians.

Most of these writers and politicians admit that Israel is doing well economically and that Bibi has made some serious diplomatic gains, with Turkey, the Sunni Arab states, several African nations, India, even China to some extent. They have to admit that there have been few wars during his years as PM, and they’ve been limited in extent. He has kept us from getting entangled in Syria, seems to have reached a modus vivendi with the Russians, and avoided the big one with Iran/Hezbollah.

They blame him for our bad relationship with the US. They might as well blame him for climate change too, but anyone with eyes can see that the Obama Administration – correctly viewing our PM as the main obstacle to realizing their goal of reversing the outcome of the 1967 war – has it in for him and for us as a result. That’s why they blame him for the PLO/PA’s refusal to even sit down to negotiate and why they tried to intervene in our last election.

But, but, but, say the Ha’aretz writers. What about The Occupation, the source of everything evil, the poison corrupting our society and unfairly victimizing the suffering Palestinians, who only want to live  beside us in peace if we’d just give in to their demands and evacuate Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem.

Then, according to Ha’aretz, we would have peace, democracy would return, and Bibi’s irrational “phobias” would be banished. Terrorism would stop as the Arabs happily worked on building their state. The Left, whose politicians are scrupulously honest, would return to power, and since we wouldn’t need to spend so much on defense, everybody who wanted an apartment in North Tel Aviv could afford to buy one. The media would stay safely in leftist hands, and the looming danger of more Mizrachi music on the radio would be averted. Free newspapers, those instruments of totalitarianism, would be abolished. Nobody would object to artistic expression, like “artists” sticking Israeli flags in their anuses at Ha’aretz-sponsored conferences. Nobel Peace Prizes would be given out. Even the publisher of Ha’aretz would get one.

Stupid morons! What would really happen? The PLO would immediately press the rest of their demands, total control of the Temple Mount and the Kotel with Jews forbidden to visit, free entry to Israel for the millions of Arabs that claim to be descended from 1948 refugees, and the de-Judaization of our state. Oh, we don’t agree? Then we get rockets on Tel Aviv, Kfar Saba and Ben-Gurion Airport. More infiltration and terrorism than ever before. A vicious war on multiple fronts, but fought without strategic depth. Possibly tens of thousands of casualties, Jews and Arabs. Maybe we win, maybe they do, but either way what’s left looks like Syria or Iraq.

Face it folks, “The Occupation” is here for the foreseeable future, unless we figure out how to encourage the Arabs to emigrate, which is unlikely. Instead of insane schemes to make deals with imaginary peace-loving Arabs, the best plan is the one put forward by Binyamin Netanyahu, which is to try to improve the economy of the Arabs in the territories, reduce the friction caused by Israel’s security measures to a minimum, fight the terrorist organizations, build international support outside of the US and Europe, and most important, make it clear to the Arabs that they have no chance of defeating us.

Deep in their hearts, those members of the Left that haven’t allowed their long exile from power to completely dry out their brains, have to understand this. Even Labor candidate Yitzhak Herzog had to admit that a “two-state agreement” would be unrealistic now.

But boy, do they ever hate Bibi!

Posted in Israel and Palestinian Arabs, Israeli Politics, Media | 2 Comments

Seven things Israel doesn’t need

Posted on August 18, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal

A popular idea in the West is that you solve conflicts by satisfying people’s needs. Just figure out how to meet everyone’s needs, and the result will be peace and harmony. The American administration and the Europeans want to help the rest of the world – and especially Israel – meet these needs.

This is backwards. The problem here today is that the Middle East has too much help. Israel, for example, receives many gifts that it would be better off without. And as many of them are supplied by our friends in the US and Europe, I am asking them to stop giving us these things. So, dear friends, here are seven things that we don’t need that I would like you to stop supplying us with:

We don’t need the millions of dollars and Euros that go to subversive non-governmental  organizations in Israel. We have dozens of them, supposedly working for human rights, but in truth demonizing Israel in the eyes of the world, weakening our ability to defend ourselves, strengthening our enemies, creating and maintaining conflict between Jews and Arabs, keeping us busy with lawsuits and investigations, and interfering with our political processes. Our cadre of anti-state activists gets little support from Israelis. Would you please stop paying them?

We don’t need your help to make us a more just society. We understand that you are obsessed with racial, religious and gender issues, and we are sympathetic. But you really don’t understand our society at all, and when you send delegations over here to take part in (sometimes violent) demonstrations at the security barrier or make threats about what will happen if we don’t become more friendly to non-Orthodox Judaism, you are possibly on the wrong side and certainly not improving the situation.

We don’t need advice from ludicrously uninformed or misinformed American Jews, who get their information from anti-Zionist organizations like J Street, and seem to believe that their Jewish descent entitles them to a share in the governance of the state of Israel. If you want to help determine the fate of this country, you are welcome to move here, send your kids to the army, pay taxes, worry about rockets and terrorism, and vote. Otherwise, don’t tell us what to do.

Americans have plenty of racial violence at home, and Europe is experiencing an epidemic of rape and sexual harassment. May I suggest that you fix these things before giving us the benefit of your advice? Thank you.

We don’t need you to be our building department. We have complicated laws of land ownership dating back to the Ottoman period, and we have an elaborate process of for getting approval to build. We have courts that adjudicate issues that arise, and they are very fair to Palestinians. We can and should be able to enforce our zoning rules without interference. Presently we have a situation where anti-Israel NGOs, supported by European and American money, report to the US State Department what they claim are discriminatory actions, after which the State Department protests to the Israeli government.

And – EU, I’m talking to you – building structures in our country without approval, and then claiming that “diplomatic immunity” means you didn’t need a building permit doesn’t fly. Don’t complain when we tear them down.

We don’t need you to tell us where Jews can live. Even – especially – in our capital city, Jerusalem, the US and EU regularly protest when Jews move into a neighborhood that “Palestinians want for their planned state.” Does Israel protest when a Christian family moves into a Jewish neighborhood in Silver Spring, MD? The fact that the West actually supports the racist Arab plan to create a Jew-free state by ethnic cleansing in the 21st century is mind-boggling if you think about it.

We don’t need you to define our borders. Our borders are where they are, just like everywhere else in the world, as a result of wars and bilateral agreements. We understand that our enemies would like to see them shrink so it will be easier for them to wipe us out, but we can and will defend the ones we have. We don’t need the corrupt “United Nations” or the hostile Obama Administration to pressure us  to reverse the outcome of a defensive war and make ourselves as vulnerable as we were before 1967. Let the US give much of its southwest back to Mexico first.

We don’t need you to intervene in our democratic elections. Israel has possibly the most democratic (if frustrating) electoral system in the world. If anything, it’s too democratic, with small parties having too much influence. We don’t need foreign powers and their surrogates injecting money into our elections or providing consultants to one or another party. I know you don’t like Netanyahu, but Israelis keep electing him, so just accept it. That’s called “democracy.” We don’t like Obama so much either.

We don’t need your military aid. Here, I’m talking to Americans. Military aid damages our own industries, makes us buy things we don’t need, skews the decision-making of our military planners, and gives you way too much leverage over our politics. We can buy what we need with our own money, and that would be good for Israel and for America.

All of the above are aspects of one basic problem: the US and Europe do not treat Israel like an independent, sovereign state. Noninterference in internal affairs of other nations is a basic principle of international relations, and yet in our case it is more honored in the breach than in the observance.

Little by little, every time we yield to foreign pressure, we become less and less independent. This is our country, our capital, our elections, our borders, our streets and our buildings, and our army. None of it belongs to Washington or Brussels. It’s governed by our Knesset, according to our laws as interpreted by our courts and enforced by our police.

Israel has some problems that are not in our power to change. There will not be peace with the Arabs until they accept the existence of a Jewish state, and that is up to them. But although I have addressed my complaints above to the US and Europe, we can fix almost all of them ourselves, just by being more assertive. Here are some of the ways we are trying, or should be trying, to do so:

  • The Knesset took on the subject of controlling foreign-funded NGOs and after long labor gave birth to a mouse, an NGO transparency law whose maximum penalty for failing to report on the millions being spent on subversion is a fine of $7500. A tough law would help with several of my concerns, since so much foreign intervention is mediated by these groups.
  • Until just recently there was no systematic vetting of “tourists” entering the country to ensure that they were not activists intending to participate in demonstrations. Now there is, and we’ll see if it’s effective.
  • Israel has begged – and continues to beg – the US for military aid. Phase it out.
  • Rather than standing up for our sovereignty against the State Department or the EU, we often take refuge in bureaucracy, make excuses or even apologize. But the only way to teach them that we’re serious is to take a firm stand in each and every case. The answer to “Jews living in eastern Jerusalem is an obstacle to peace” needs to be “don’t tell us who can live where in our capital” and nothing else.
  • Our position on borders should be that we have a historical, moral and legal claim on the territories that is stronger than that of the Arabs, and while we might relinquish some land in the context of negotiations, we are not obliged to do so. And we are certainly not obliged to “swap” land west of the Green Line for any that we keep on the east side, as if the 19-year illegal Jordanian occupation somehow conferred ownership of the land on the Arabs.

Israel became a sovereign state in 1948, but it seems that we’ve forgotten this. Sovereignty needs exercise, like a muscle: use it or lose it.

Posted in Europe and Israel, US-Israel Relations | 2 Comments

The crook vs. the demagogue

Posted on August 16, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal

Notes on the American election

I’m an American as well as an Israeli (just ask the IRS) and although I live in Israel and don’t plan to return to the USA, I still care about the country where I was born, grew up, was educated and lived much of my life. In November I will cast my absentee ballot for one of two very problematic choices.

There are multiple issues with both of the major candidates, but I want to focus on two of the main ones: Hillary Clinton’s dishonesty and the nature of Donald Trump’s movement.

Let’s start with Mrs. Clinton. She and her husband have institutionalized the sale of favors to foreign powers and domestic special interests through the Clinton Foundation and by way of exorbitant payments for Clinton speaking engagements.

The famous private email server can have had only one purpose, which was to enable her to hide her correspondence from possible subpoenas and Freedom of Information Act requests.

I know Clinton fans have talking points to explain all this away. Please don’t insult my intelligence with them. Some things are uncomplicated, and this is one of them. She is a crook, in a way and to a degree that no American president since 1900 has been. Not Warren Harding, certainly not Richard Nixon, not any of them.

There is also the matter of her being an inveterate liar (here are just a few of her recent false statements). Can someone serve as president while being corrupt and a liar? Certainly – she might even implement some good policies. But explain this to the middle class or working class person who has seen his or her livelihood evaporate as the elites with which Clinton is associated thrive like never before. Or explain it to someone who thinks the concept of national honor is meaningful.

That working class or middle class person (if they are not Mexican or Muslim) is probably voting for Donald Trump. Is he a breath of fresh air as his supporters say, or the Devil incarnate?

Mr. Trump has numerous moral issues as well, like the disgraceful Trump University scam, and his penchant for not paying people who do work for him. Unlike Hillary, who steals indirectly from the little guy by allowing big banks (for example) to rig the system, Donald sticks his hand right into the pockets of carpenters, cooks, and carpet companies. Of course he too is a liar.

Trump is getting very bad treatment from the media lately (although they gave him free coverage at the start of his campaign, before they believed that he had a chance). But the real problem is not so much Trump’s policies as the kind of movement he has built.

Hillary’s supporters are a little embarrassed by her dishonesty and try to cover for her, but Donald’s don’t care, because “at least he tells it like it is.” And it is true that Trump despises the political correctness that characterizes the Obama Administration. But there is a lot more behind the way Trump’s followers respond to him. They don’t seem to care what he says as much as how he says it, especially if he strikes a blow against the complex of politicians, corporations and minorities that they believe are responsible for screwing them. The more aggressively he attacks his targets, the more his people like him. Inconsistencies, falsehoods and obvious errors in his statements are entirely irrelevant. It’s only important that he hits the enemy, the harder the better.

Trumpism is two things, both of them dangerous: it is a cult of personality and it is a revolutionary movement.

It is a cult of personality because it is all about The Leader. If Trump were to disappear, so would the movement, unless it found another similarly charismatic leader. The movement has only the flimsiest ideology associated with it. Policy isn’t the point: Trump supporters simply want to place themselves in the arms of a strong leader who promises to shatter the structures that they don’t entirely understand, but that they know are responsible for their own problems and for the decline of the US as a world power. That’s why the inconsistency and instability of his positions don’t bother his followers.

Trump is a good speaker despite his sometimes fractured syntax because he projects the image he needs to project: a strong, aggressive, authoritarian leader who doesn’t take shit from anyone. His speeches are 95% emotional content with 5% factual filler. Nobody even listens to the factual part except the journalists writing fact-check stories.

As Jonathan Haidt explains so well, emotion is in the driver’s seat. Reason just comes along for the ride.

Everything Trump does radiates alpha maleness. He has the most wealth, the  best women, the biggest buildings. What do you do with an alpha male? You follow him.

It is a revolutionary movement because Trumpism doesn’t respect the courts, the Congress or the Constitution. Perhaps Obama subverts or sidelines these institutions, but Trump doesn’t even pretend to accept their authority. When a court threatened to rule against Trump, he attacked the judge’s ethnicity. He and his supporters believe that the existing system does not deserve respect, and they won’t hesitate to attack any part of it that they see as opposing him.

The combination of a charismatic cult-of-personality leader and an energized, revolutionary movement has historically proven dangerous to the maintenance of a democratic republic.

Trump got his chance from a combination of circumstances. The economic slaughter of the American working class, the presidency of Barack Obama whose contempt for this very group (“they cling to guns and religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them”) is so evident, the enforcement of political correctness, and a sharply leftward-moving Democratic Party whose candidate is not only grossly dishonest but a widely disliked poor campaigner who is only good at backroom maneuvering with corporations and the elite – all these have opened the door for him.

Trump has succeeded to do what the Left has been failing at for decades: he has built a revolutionary mass movement that actually has a chance of gaining power. The Left could never connect with the working class but billionaire Trump seems to have no trouble doing so.

To me, a particularly worrisome aspect of the Trumpist movement is the support it gets from the most vicious Jew-haters in the political ecosystem, a group that has been marginalized in the Republican party since W. F. Buckley called out Pat Buchanan in 1991. They’re back.

Ironically, the movement is much like Black Lives Matter, which also takes advantage of the carefully nurtured anger of a segment of the population in order to try to overthrow the existing order (and another irony is the anti-Jewish turn of BLM). One main difference is that BLM doesn’t seem to have a charismatic leader yet.

A Trump victory in the election seems unlikely at this point, but if he loses Trumpism will not go away. A narrative in which Trump loses because he is stabbed in the back by election fraud and by never-Trump Republicans – who, incidentally, include a large percentage of high-profile Jews – is already developing.

I know historical parallels are always misleading, but the similarity to the Germany of the late 1920s is hard to miss.

Of course Trump is not a Hitler. I don’t see him as especially racist and certainly not capable of genocide. But his movement is anti-democratic. It is quite ready to put aside the niceties of checks and balances in order to free its champion to fight for its idea of Truth, Justice and the American Way.

On the other hand, many people think that government in America is already completely dysfunctional, too far gone for politics as usual to save it. They believe that democracy, fairness and individual liberty have been seriously compromised, and that a revolutionary movement like Trumpism is the only hope of restoring them.

So whom do I intend to vote for?  Both prospects are so awful that I haven’t decided. I’ll tell you in a few weeks.

Posted in American politics | 9 Comments

How to recover Israel’s national honor and save the US taxpayer billions

Posted on August 12, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal

Israel’s sometimes impulsive Defense Minister, Avigdor Liberman, was forced to apologize for a statement issued with his approval that compared the Obama Iran deal with the 1938 Munich agreement, which as we know fed Czechoslovakia into the maw of Nazi Germany in a vain attempt to stave off war.

Ha’aretz reported that “the White House was furious. Obama’s senior aides couldn’t understand how, at the very moment when they were negotiating with Israel over the largest military aid package America has ever given any country, the Israeli defense minister could release a statement like that against Obama.”

This is at least the fourth or fifth time – usually it’s because of construction plans in Jerusalem – that Obama and his people have been reported as “furious” with Israel. There are, however, few non-satirical reports of Obama being furious with Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad or even Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. It seems that no country or national leader can ignite White House anger like Israel, Bibi Netanyahu or (now) Liberman.

It’s easy to understand why. We are granted $3 billion each year in military aid, and then we turn around and “spit in Obama’s face” by building apartments in our capital, by having the wrong capital, or by opposing the Iran deal, which, after all, really does have much in common with the Munich agreement.

Israel and its leaders are expected to be subservient, and when an underling doesn’t follow orders, then it is not just wrong, it is insubordinate and insulting. Insubordination provokes anger. Putin, on the other hand, is expected to oppose American interests, so nobody loses their temper when he does what he is supposed to do.

The problem is exacerbated by the increasing “daylight” between the Obama Administration and Israel. But even a more friendly administration would expect to get what it believes it is paying for.

Be aware that with every verbal slap in the face, every lecture from the White House or Secretary of State, every time our Prime Minister is called a ‘chickenshit’ or made to cool his heels while the President has dinner, every time one of our ministers has to grovel in order to be forgiven for making a true statement, every time Obama vents his fury at our country as at a disobedient servant, we lose some of our national honor.

Some people think this is nothing. An apology is just words; don’t we have the strongest army in the Middle East? But they are wrong. National honor is important, nowhere more so than in the Middle East. It is a component of deterrence, along with a powerful air force. A nation without honor is a legitimate target to its enemies, it is not worth defending by its friends, and it is not worth fighting for by its own people.

Our enemies know this, and that’s why they try to humiliate us, to steal our honor, whenever possible – even a bus ride or a handshake at the Olympics is worth exploiting.

But nothing steals honor more than being a whore, that is, someone who allows herself to be humiliated and does things that are opposed to her own sense of self and well-being in order to be paid. A whore has no honor. Zero.

Israel has become a whore for American military aid. For $3 billion a year we are expected to keep our mouths shut about the Iran deal that is going to bring us our next, possibly nuclear, war. We are expected to take seriously the insane idea of withdrawing from Judea and Samaria and allowing them to become a base for terror attacks against the center of our country. We are expected to freeze building in our capital city, while rising prices are driving Jewish residents out. And when we fail to do these things, the administration gets ‘furious’ at us.

There are plenty of good reasons to phase out American military aid. Since most of it (and soon all of it) must be spent in the US, it weakens our home-grown defense industry. It requires us to purchase systems like the F-35 that are unsuitable for our needs, perform poorly or are too expensive (the F-35 seems to be all of these). If you don’t agree, consider whether Israel would embrace the F-35 if it had to spend its own money.

Very significantly, it subverts the decision-making processes in our military chain of command. When our Minister of Defense and Chief of Staff evaluate possible courses of action – to bomb an enemy’s nuclear facilities or not? – it is impossible for them to forget that 20% of their budget comes from the US. Even their opinions on broader political issues can be colored by concern for the funding of their favored projects. This happens not only at the highest levels, but is pervasive throughout the IDF. How could it be otherwise?

Most important, the aid reduces Israel from a sovereign state to a satellite nation. We become subservient both in the political and military arenas to an administration which, increasingly, would just as soon see us disappear. We become a nation without national honor.

But we have options. It is not impossible to cut off the so-called “golden handcuffs.” A gradual phase-out of aid would permit our native defense industry to pick up the slack and soften the blow to the American contractors. There’s no doubt that many items could be produced here at a significant cost saving. We even buy our army’s boots with American aid today – making them in Israel would both save money and return it to our economy. Our expanded military industries would also be capable of increased export business. We don’t need to stop buying from American contractors where they produce the best products. We would simply use our own money to do it.

There would be great opposition to such a plan, from our generals who would have to think a bit outside the box that they have been in for decades, and from the US defense contractors who are the biggest beneficiaries of the aid. But the results would justify the effort. The $3 billion each year could be put to use within the US or even (gasp) be returned to American taxpayers.

It would be good for America – and better for Israel.

Posted in US-Israel Relations | 5 Comments

US sends arms to Hezbollah-controlled Lebanese army

Posted on August 10, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal

Hezbollah has effective control of Lebanon, and the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) are thoroughly infiltrated by Hezbollah.

So why is the US providing weapons and equipment to the LAF? There is no way to keep them out of the hands of Hezbollah.

The IDF will be facing these weapons in the near future. Thank you, Barack Obama!

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Posted in Middle East politics, War | 1 Comment