By Caroline B. Glick, JWR
The “brilliant” “academic” president who theorized that diplomacy-by-apology was more powerful than governing-by-strength is being outmaneuvered — and outright humiliated — by the Arab world: Hamas, the Muslim brotherhood and Fatah
Wednesday night, Israelis received our first taste of the new Middle East with the missile strike on Beersheba and Netivot. Iran’s Palestinian proxy, the local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood known as Hamas carried out its latest war crime right after Iran’s battleships entered Syria’s Latakia port.
Their voyage through the Suez Canal to Syria was an unadulterated triumph for the mullahs. For the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran’s warships sailed across the canal without even being inspected by the Egyptian, US or Israeli navies. On the diplomatic front, the Iranian-dominated new Middle East has had a pronounced impact on the Western-backed Fatah-led Palestinian Authority’s political posture towards the US.
The PA picked a fight with America just after the Obama administration forced Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to surrender power. Mubarak’s departure was a strategic victory for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and for its sister branch Hamas in Gaza.
As part of his efforts to neutralize the threat the Muslim Brotherhood posed to his regime, Mubarak sealed off Gaza’s border with Egypt after Hamas seized power there in June 2007. The Gaza-Sinai border was breached during last month’s revolution. Since Mubarak’s forced resignation, the military junta now leading Egypt has failed to reseal it. The revolution in Egypt happened just after the PA was thrown into a state of disarray. Al Jazeerah’s exposure of PA documents indicating the leadership’s willingness to make minor compromises with Israel in the framework of a peace deal served to discredit Fatah leaders in the eyes of the Israel-hating Palestinian public. In the wake of the al Jazeerah revelations, senior PA leaders escalated their anti-Israel and anti-American pronouncements. The PA’s chief negotiator Saeb Erekat was forced to resign.
The shift in the regional power balance following Mubarak’s fall has caused Fatah leaders to view their ties to the US as a strategic liability. If they wish to survive, they must cut a deal with Hamas. And to convince Hamas to cut a deal, they need to abandon the US.
And so they have. Fatah’s first significant move to part company with Washington came with its relentless bid to force a vote on a resolution condemning Israeli construction in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria at the UN Security Council. In an attempt to avert a vote on the resolution that the US public expected him to veto, Obama spent fifty minutes on the phone with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas begging him to set the resolution aside. Obama promised to take unprecedented steps against Israel in return for Abbas’s agreement to stand down. But Abbas rejected his appeal.
Not only did Abbas defy the wishes of the most pro-Palestinian president ever to occupy the White House, Abbas told the whole world about how he defied Obama.
Abbas’s humiliation of Obama was only the first volley in the Fatah leader’s campaign against the US. Abbas, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and their PA ministers have sent paid demonstrators into the street to protest against America. They announced a boycott of American diplomats and journalists. They have called for a boycott of American products. They have scheduled a “Day of Rage,” against America for Friday after mosque prayers.
While excoriating Obama and the US, the PA is actively wooing Hamas. Wednesday the PA accepted the legitimacy of Hamas control over Gaza. Three and a half years after Hamas wrested control over Gaza from Fatah in a bloody coup, on Wednesday Fayyad said that the PA is willing to end its objection to Hamas control over the area if Hamas agrees to participate in the general elections Abbas has scheduled for September.
At the same time as he publicly beseeched Hamas to join forces with Fatah, Fayyad announced that the PA is willing to forego US financial assistance if that assistance continues to come with political strings attached. The only real string attached to US aid is the stipulation that no US financial assistance can be used to finance Hamas.
US financial aid to the PA
The PA’s announced willingness to end its receipt of US aid is by far its boldest move to date. With the Arab world going up in smoke Fatah officials know they cannot expect to receive any significant funding from Arab states for the foreseeable future. That makes them entirely dependent on US and Europe.
And make no mistake; the PA budget is entirely a creation of foreign aid. The PA is the largest per capita foreign aid recipient in the world. Last year it received $1.8 billion in foreign assistance. US direct assistance accounted for $550 million or nearly a third of that amount. The US gave the PA another $268 million in indirect assistance through UNRWA. UNRWA is the UN agency devoted exclusively to providing welfare benefits to the Palestinians while subordinating itself to the Palestinian political agenda.
Without US assistance, the PA would cease to be a political factor in the region. So by offering to forego the aid, Fayyad, Abbas and their colleagues are essentially threatening to commit political suicide.
US aid to Israel
The Palestinians’ declared readiness to forego US aid is all the more remarkable when compared to Israel’s refusal to countenance the thought of foregoing or even cutting back the assistance it receives from the US. Whereas the Palestinian economy will collapse without US assistance, were Israel to forego the $3 billion in military assistance it receives every year from Washington, the move would have little impact on the economy.
Economic analyses of US military assistance have noted that several factors degrade the value of the aid. The US requires Israel to spend 75 percent of the assistance in the US. Israel’s inability to open its purchases to competitive bidding in the world market has forced it to pay inflated prices for much of what it buys.
So too, by buying US weapons systems, Israel has harmed its own military industries which are blocked from selling or developing systems for the IDF.
Moreover, because the US has tied its aid to Egypt to its aid to Israel and justified its military aid to Jordan and Lebanon through its military assistance to Israel, by accepting the aid, Israel is enabling its neighbors to upgrade their military capabilities. Their upgraded military capabilities in turn force Israel to invest still more resources in its defense budget to maintain its qualitative edge against its US subsidized neighbors. With all the hidden costs the military assistance entails, it is reasonable to discount the actual value of the assistance by fifty percent. That is, the actual value of annual US military assistance is about $1.5 billion.
The direct military cost of the Second Lebanon War is estimated at $2.2 billion. The direct military cost of Operation Cast Lead is estimated at $1.4 billion. The actual costs of both wars to the Israeli economy were several times higher. Those who claim that Israel cannot manage without US military aid ignore the fact that neither of these wars had any discernable sustained impact on the economy.
The political cost to Israel
The political cost Israel has paid for US military assistance has been astronomical. As a recent study of US military assistance by the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies demonstrated, the psychological impact of the US aid on Israeli and American leaders alike has had a disastrous impact on the relations between the two states. It has impaired their ability to understand the actual strategic rationale of their alliance. Israeli leaders have developed a subservient mentality towards the Americans and the Americans have forgotten that a strong Israel is the US’s most valuable strategic asset in the region. The Palestinians’ expressed willingness to forego their assistance from the US is no doubt a bluff. And Congress would do well to call their bluff and cancel US assistance to the PA.
Yet their behavior presents Israel with an important lesson about the fundamentals of diplomacy that appear lost on our leaders.
The Palestinians understand the rules of diplomacy far better than Israel does. Israel believes that diplomacy is about getting other governments to be nice to us. The Palestinians understand that diplomacy is a non-violent means of weakening your enemies and expanding your own power. They also understand that the starting point for any effective diplomatic strategy is a reality-based assessment of other governments’ interests.
As the revolutions throughout the region show, in the real world the Arabs do not care about the Palestinians. Europeans and leftist Americans care about the Palestinians. European leaders need to support the Palestinians for domestic political reasons. US leaders support the Palestinians to maintain good relations with Europe and with the American Left. Recognizing this, the likes of Abbas and Fayyad understand that no matter what they say or do the West will probably not abandon them. European leaders need them to continue carrying out their political war against Israel because that is what European voters demand. US leaders will continue to support the Palestinians because they follow Europe’s lead.
On the other hand, given their newfound power, PA leaders have to bend over backwards to appease Hamas and Iran if they wish to survive.
Since they rightly assess that the West needs them more than they need the West, not only are the Palestinians unwilling to pay any price to maintain Western support. They are willing to initiate ugly confrontations with the US and humiliate Obama in order to win the approval of Hamas and Iran.
Facing this reality, Israel’s best bet is to initiate a few confrontations of its own to demonstrate its strategic importance to the US and Europe. With the conflagrations raging in the Arab world essentially making its argument that a strong Israel is imperative for the West, Israel should be going on the offensive against the Palestinians and the international Left that supports them.
But instead, of pointing out the truth, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his colleagues maintain their posture as supplicants to Washington, making concession after concession in exchange for further abuse in the hopes of avoiding a confrontation. For instance, Netanyahu has defied his own party and broken his word to the public by maintaining an undeclared freeze on Jewish building in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. Since January 2010, Netanyahu has systematically denied Jews building permits in the area in the hopes of appeasing Obama.
And how has Obama repaid Israel for our government’s willingness to deny Jews their civil rights? The Obama administration has branded all Jewish communities in post-1967 Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria as “illegitimate,” and blamed Israel for the absence of peace in the region.
As our region is consumed by the flames of rebellion and revolution, the challenges and threats Israel faces multiply by the day. In these new and trying times, our leaders must shed their failed concepts of statecraft based on weakness and adopt new ones founded on strength. The PA is playing a bad hand wisely. We are playing a good hand foolishly.
The fact is you don’t have a vote here and your opinion is worth shit to us. For you information in Israel we vote for Parties and party lists not who tops the list. BB at the head of a minor party would not be PM today. Lieberman to have a chance to be PM would have to go into opposition to BB and swing strongly to the right of where he is today. Even then he still has criminal indictments potentially hanging over hius head and if he were a serious contender the leftist police and prosecution would surly indict even to block him and his political ambitions. Livni will not lead Kadima if elections are called in the next year or two. BB is sinking in the polls/ without any viable opposition, opening the way for opponents and he has many potentially in the Likud, knives are being sharpened and positions of others starting to adjust.
Palin, Huckbee and Romney Ba Ba Ba Ba! Three Losers. Obama will wipe the slate with all three of them.
Palin and Huckabee won’t run in the end and Romney a modern Nelson Rockefeller, will be more popular with independents than with the right wing of the Republican party and his record as gov. in Mass. not that great and a Mormon to boot. You really know how to pickem Oat! What you are really saying is you will vote for anybody not named Obama. You could have said that in less than ten words. Simplistic but that’s you isn’t it?
Thinker said:
Caroline certainly has a following among English-speaking Zionist Jews and their Christian allies; but that is a minority in Israel. Israeli voters seem to keep returning the same people to power. At present, they are Netanyahu, Livni and Lieberman. Pick your choose: I would pick Lieberman.
Yamit likes to continually criticize Israel’s leaders, but never supports any viable candidates. He recently accused me of doing the same. For the record, I support all the front-runners among the Republican candidates, namely, Palin, Huckabee and Romney. I also have a good opinion of some of the others. American elections are far less predictable than Israeli ones, especially several months ahead of the New Hampshire primary; so I am not very excited about the matter. By the time I get to vote, the primary candidates will pretty much have been chosen already; but in November 2012 I plan to vote for the party and candidates that have consistently supported Israel. Yamit, on the other hand, voted for Barack Obama. That’s one reason that few of us here take his ramblings seriously.
Caroline’s logic is compelling.
Well, THINKER, that’s the most constructive statement to come out of all the above comments. I’d support her if direct constitutional representation for the people of Israel was one of her platform promises. The deadlock blocking any action, good or bad on Israel’s part in this Middle Eastern chaos (which I believe is deliberately orchestrated for the benefit of those who seek to dismantle and destroy existing cultures in order to construct others more to their liking)is caused by a uniquely Israeli brand of government by committee that was popular in the old USSR. In this case, the road to self-destruction seems to consist of much political in-fighting to the detriment of a focus on the real problems of survival in the face of overwhelming odds against it. It reminds me of the situation that existed ca. 70 CE, when Jerusalem fell to the Romans.
What? More rocket fire from the extremist Idiots indicates nothing.
Let’s organize around Caroline Glick for Prime Minister.
That is a question directed only for pushy Jews who insist on being where they are not welcome or wanted.
The newest Middle East:
The long-time arab dictators are being overthrown. They are being replaced by more “democratic” regimes. These new people represent the legendary “arab street” who have been exposed to a lifetime of propaganda aimed at the destruction of Jewish Israel, promoted both by the dictators and their islamic opposition.
So anti-Israel feeling among the arabs will only increase and harden. But I see this as good news for Jewish Israel. It puts the Jew-hating Israeli Jewish left in an ever more absurd position (“only an immediate peace treaty with fanatics sworn to your destruction will save you”). And it makes it easier for Netanyahu to resist granting even more concessions.
On the other hand, the world-wide goal of the goyim to destroy Jewish Israel will only grow more frantic (the EU, the muslims, Obama, and the UN). So Jewish Israel will have to prepare for greater isolation. That will be the next phase of Jewish Israel’s fight for survival in a world of Jew-haters.
Here’s a thought experiment: in how many countries of the world can you walk down the street openly wearing a kippa (charmingly referred to English as a “skull-cap”) without being hated for the “crime” of being proudly Jewish?
I can tell you what we don’t need: “pro-democracy” demonstrations, demanding constitutional reform.
Nope. There is no consensus. There is no united citizen front where it’s all of us citizens versus the political machine for the same changes.
Thanks for agitating! 🙂
I don’t see Glick calling for new elections, nor advocating protests in Israel. Glick is basically giving advice to Bibi, which he is unlikely to listen to. Israel needs “pro-democracy” demonstrations, demanding constitutional reform.
Exactly my position for at least the last 20-25 years. What took Glick so long to figure it out?
Glick here has come damn close to paraphrasing my long standing positions. Waiting for others like her (opinion makers) to finally get on the same page. This is important as Glick a past adviser and ardent supporter of BB for all these years has finally come to the only realistic conclusions possible. Regrettably after so long and after so much damage inflicted upon us by BB Olmert and sharon.