By Ted Belman
From time to time I receive an email from a person who is anything but Israel’s friend. This time she/he send me a major article, The Root Cause of Our Problem in the ME and Steps we Might Take to Alleviate It, by Dr William E Howard III written during the Iraq war and published in American Diplomacy.
I replied:
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Howard ignores facts and arguments that undermine his thesis and invents facts in support. These errors or omissions are far too numerous to list and confront.
In essence he denigrates Israel and supports the UN and Muslims. I take a totally opposite position on each of these.
While one could argue against the US support of Israel, they must do so with proper respect to all the facts and circumstances. His failure to do so totally discredits his argument. It goes without saying that one could argue in favour of US support for Israel.
All this ignores values and simply lists interests. But he asserts that it is in America’s interest to make nice with the Muslims and he fails to make the case for why it might be in America’s interest to support Israel.
It totally ignores that Islam is a mortal threat to the US which in no way is dispensed with by the fact that there are so few “radicals”. Islam supports the radicals and the Muslims support Islam. Ergo, Muslims support the radicals.
Howard earned a Ph.D. at Harvard University. Now retired, his career was equally divided between government (including service on a senior level with the CIA) and non-profit organizations, where he was involved in research, teaching, and management.
Needless to say, Howard, Harvard, the CIA and NGO’s are not Israel’s friends.
The “realists” who tout “American interests” always assume they’re entitled to speak for America and define those interests without input from other Americans. And they always find that Israel and its supporters here are working against “American interests.” Their “arguments” are really nothing but antisemitic threats.
Funny how that works. (Actually not so damn funny at all.)
This points to the larger problem of how to “debate” with a liar. If “facts” are fungible commodities, there is no point in engaging in the exercise. (I suspect Obama right now is prepping himself for the “debate”, memorizing his whoppers, which he’ll deliver with aggressive hostility, and the MSM will swoon at the miraculous performance.)
All one has to do is look to the example of Europe. Europe did make nice with the muslims and go against Israel. They made a concious effort to do so after the Yom Kippur war. Well, is Europe any less threatened with jihad? Of course not and in fact Europe has a far worse muslim problem then we do. And what about the jihads taking place in Thailand, the Philippines and so many other countries? What do any of these conflicts have to do with Israel? Blaming Israel for our problems in the Middle East ignores centuries of islamic history and islamic doctrine which commands waging war against infidels until they are subdued. I’m not surprised this guy was CIA. This sums up the agency’s attitude and no amount of facts which conflict with their Mideast narrative will change them. If he wants to understand what is at the root cause of our problems in the Mideast, perhaps he and the CIA should look in the mirror. As long as they see Israel rather than muslims as the problem, we will continue to have one catastrophe after another. Robert Spencer and Andrew Bostom should be required reading for CIA agents. Perhaps instead of bashing Israel the CIA should learn from Israel. But that would require letting go of their prejudice against the Jewish state.