By Leon Hadar, Haaretz
“We cannot exist alone.” That is Israel’s national security axiom acknowledged by President Shimon Peres during an address in Jerusalem in November. “For our existence we need the friendship of the United States of America,” stressed the Israeli statesman, highlighting the geostrategic reality. “It doesn’t sound easy, but this is the truth,” he added. It’s not easy for a client-state to admit that its own survival depends on a global patron.
It’s even more challenging for leaders of a dependent state to recognize that the great power they are relying on may be entering into an imperial twilight time — that it’s not so great anymore. Inertia, wishful thinking and the power of vested interests explains why elites in the empire’s capital — as well as in the provinces — continue to share in the misconception about the hegemon’s ability to exert global influence even as that influence is being eroded.
But after a prolonged “recognition lag” — extending from the military fiasco in Iraq to the financial meltdown in Wall Street — it’s becoming clear to policymakers in Washington that the U.S. is facing the prospects of geostrategic decline. The military is overstretched in unwinnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a decaying economic base financed by Chinese loans is making it difficult to sustain expansive global commitments. The unipolar moment is coming to an end and rising global powers are creating the conditions for the evolution of multipolarism.
It seems, however, that Israeli leaders continue to operate under the illusion that the U.S. remains the paramount global power. Israeli ultra-nationalists delude themselves that the muddled U.S. policy the Middle East and the Washington’s tensions with Israel are temporary, reflecting Barack Obama’s temperament and biases. When the Republicans return to power the hegemon will rise again and together with its Israeli deputy will bring order to the Middle East — just like in the good, old days of George W. Bush.
Members of the Israeli peace camp believe that the role of Washington remains central to a resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict which could encourage the formation of a U.S.-led regional bloc, ready to contain the threat from Iran and its satellites in Lebanon and Palestine. They regard the support of a global patron not as a substitute for integrating Israel in the Middle East — but as an element in a strategy to achieve peace.
During the Cold War and in the brief Unipolar Moment — from the collapse of the Soviet Union to the fall of Saddam Hussein — Washington was in a position to work with Israeli and Arab moderates in promoting peace. But that window of opportunity for this U.S. role may be closing.
The failed attempt by the neoconservative-guided policies to” “remake” the Middle East — while marginalizing the Israel/Palestine issue — ended up weakening American power in the Middle East and strengthening Iran and its allies, marking the start of the end of Pax Americana.
So in reality the Obama administration’s current difficulties in setting the global agenda, whether that involves North Korean aggression and China’s undervalued currency, Iraq and Afghanistan — or bringing peace to the Holy Land and disabling Iran’s nuclear capability — reflect the long-term structural problems that are eroding American power. They are not going to be resolved anytime soon under either Democratic or Republican presidents and could gradually turn the U.S. into Israel’s undependable global patron.
While the U.S. will not collapse with a bang a la the Soviet Union, it will cease being number one and will start playing the role of first among equals. Traditional allies of the U.S. like Turkey, Japan and Brazil, are recognizing that and are hedging their strategic bets and diversifying their global portfolios. They maintain their close ties with Washington while also trying to form alliances with like-minded regional and global powers.
There is no reason why Israel should not consider pursuing such a “hedging” strategy as it recognizes that U.S. military forces are going to disengage from the Middle East in the future and that the U.S.-Israeli alliance — a product of the unique historical constellation of the Cold War — is bound to weaken, a result of U.S. geo-strategic decline as of demographic changes, such as the drop in the number of American-Jews and a growing non-European population.
American neoconservatives and Israeli right maintain that support from the American patron could become a substitute for peace with the Arabs and fantasize that Muslim terrorism would ignite a clash of civilizations — a U.S.-led West vs. the “Caliphate” — with Israel serving as America’s strategic outpost in the Middle East, a Crusader State that for ever will depend on American support for its survival. But Muslim terrorism would only help bolster American isolationism and speed up U.S. disengagement from the Middle East.
In an example of dialectical thinking run amok, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has turned the strategic logic behind the patron-client state relationship on its head. He has “threatened” Washington that unless it supports his radical Zionist agenda, Jerusalem would ally itself with another global player that would supposedly be willing to prop up a militarized anti-Arab Jewish Ghetto in the Middle East.
But why would the European Union (EU), Russia, China, India or Turkey be interested in hooking up with a state that brings into the marriage a dowry in the form of the animosity of the entire Arab and Muslim worlds and the prospect of being entangled in dead-ended peace processes? Israel’s promise as a strategic ally is in being a strong military power and a advanced economy playing a constructive role in sustaining a stable and prosperous region, the Singapore of the Middle East — not its Cuba.
China and India may not be ready to become major players in West Asia, but their growing dependency on Middle East oil is drawing them into more diplomatic activism in the region. The Chinese are actually benefiting from status quo: The U.S. is wasting its resources in trying to manage the Middle East — while the Chinese continue to grow their economy, ensuring that when Americans leave — the Chinese will be the ready to assume more security responsibilities in the region.
And while the EU may be in a midst of an economic and institutional crisis, the Europeans, and in particular, the French, Germans and Brits have important strategic, economic and even demographic (large Muslim communities) interests in the region. They may consider advancing a peace deal under which in exchange for its concessions, Israel would join the EU.
Then there is also the “Turkish Option” — a democratic, free-market oriented and pro-Western Muslim state emerging as a regional hegemon and in a position to promote Arab-Israeli peace and contain Iran.
No one is suggesting that Israel sue for an instant divorce from Washington and jump into bed with Turkey or China. But in this period of eroding American unipolarism and budding multipolarity, Israel should start reassessing it options — very much the way its leaders have done in the past.
In fact, two of the major victories of the Zionist movement in the twentieth century followed historic transformations in foreign policy orientations in response to changes in the global balance of power. Chaim Weizmann anticipated the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and made a diplomatic bet on Britain, the new power in the Middle East — a policy that resulted in the Balfour Declaration. Thirty years later, Ben-Gurion recognized that the British Empire was crumbling — and that the U.S. and the Soviet Union were the new global powers — and took advantage of the evolving Cold War to win support for the new Jewish State.
‘Indeed, while it runs contrary to reigning narrative about the American-Israeli “special relationship,” it’s important to recall that Stalin’s Soviet Union was the most enthusiastic supporter of establishing Israel in 1948. Moscow recognized Israel immediately after the state was proclaimed and provided it with arms, while it took the Americans more than a year to grant de jure recognition to Israel, on which they imposed an arms embargo.
Israel cannot exist alone. But as an adherent of realpolitik like Peres recalls from his own experience, interests do change. Peres was, after all, a proponent of a “European orientations” and the main architect of the Israeli alliance with France which served as Israel’s main source of arms in the 1950s and early 1960s and helped it develop its nuclear arsenal. Indeed, Israel’s survival depends on recognizing that international friendships come and go. It doesn’t sound easy, but this is the truth.
Sorry Yamit. I couldnt resist razzing ya.
I fail to see your point here Arnold. Poker was never my game I lived in and out of European csinos for a few years and played only those games with a high percentage chance of winning like twenty one or derivatives like backgammon. I won more than I lost and lived off my winnings while I was in Europe. The secret Arnold is to know when to quit while you are ahead. Kapish?
What is owly?
I’m not mad (angry) maybe crazy but not angry.
He is mad because he is always waiting for some single HOT chics (in his mind only) to comment on his blogs…and they NEVER stick around.
Yup, you got me pegged. and you’re right they never do stick around. 🙁
In a perfect world evryone would sticj to proper etiquette. In real life it doesn’t work that way most people comment on others comments which makes on ocasion for interesting threads that invariably drift off topic. I have found that many if not most of the drifting off topic comments are more interesting than the comments relating to the topic threads. It’s called in parlance of the internet open forums.
Now being an elderly adult I assume you have enough self discipline to be able to separate the corn from the stalk and ignore threads that either are not interesting to you or digress from main topics in other-words you are into BORING big time. Skip them and move on but you have no lack chutzpa to tell anyone else that they should conform to your narrow and restrictive concepts of proper debate and forum interaction. If you pay attention, in most cases the off topic comments generally begin when the comments on topic have usually run their natural course and have ended. I think you are too obtuse to see that nuance though.Nobody here wishes to waste your most valuable time frivolously. Draw your own conclusions.
PLEASE NOTE: THIS OFF TOPIC DEBATE WAS STARTED BY YOU WHEN YOU BROUGHT UP YOUR CRITICISMS OF THOSE WHO DO NOT, LIKE YOURSELF USE THEIR OWN REAL NAMES! I SEE MUCH HYPOCRISY IN YOUR CRITICISM!
I whole heartedly agree with you Arnold.
Mer, I’m a busy man, and I comment on Israpundit and elsewhere for serious purposes. Therefore, I do not intend to waste time or energy dreaming up any more ‘gotchas’ or other cute responses to off-topic comments by others that either are aimed at my attention or at anyone else’s.
I think we all ought to do that, otherwise we will each be contributing to lessening the value of this fine blogsite, which Ted Belman and others have put a lot of effort and probably some expense as well, in the service of Israel and the Jewish nation. Hopefully, all of us here are here because our support for the Jewish state and the Jewish future is meaningful to us. If we write divisively about one another, we not only will waste each other’s time, but we will reduce our joint effectiveness in discussing and clarifying issues important for what most of us want.
Hopefully, what I have written here makes good sense. Unless someone has a better idea.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Arnold. Havent you figured out why Yamit is so owly? He is mad because he is always waiting for some single HOT chics (in his mind only) to comment on his blogs…and they NEVER stick around.
Why do you think you need to know anything personal about me? This a a blog forum not show and tell. Most veterans of this site do know a lot about me based on a myriad of posts. You are new and frankly with regards to yourself I don’t want to know anything, You are not that important to me. Of course I’m speaking only for myself.
With regards to trying to analyze my motives to my comments, I advise you to stick to what you know and not play junior psychologist.
In the four years I have been commenting on this site my comments and opinions have been very consistent, check the archives if you have any doubts.
Arnold my original comment related to your strong criticism of those who do not use their real names. It was never about you personally. BTW nobody here gives a damn what your name is or mine or anybody elses. Just You! You have made a point against non use of familiar names. I can only presume that your pique reflects who you are but not who we are.
You have no sense of humor and you apparently forgot that you have communicated with me by email and have my real name. Get off your holier than thou attitude.
Yamit,
I’m the only Arnold Harris (without a middle initial) in the whole of the Madison, Wisconsin metropolitan area. If you want to push the envelope even farther than you do with your particular brand of persistent idiocy, you can always look me up in the local telephone directory. Or ask Ted Belman, who communicates with me via email. You can also google me up and find my comments under that name from more than one blogsite.
One thing I never do is lie. That way, I never have to remember different falsehoods that people routinely palm off on one another. In any case, I’m not seeking your approval. And why would I? I know exactly who and what I am, what I’ve done, where I’ve studied, and precisely what I think about any issue that concerns me. But I know nothing about you, whom or what your represent, or much of anything else about you, except a sense that you act contrary online purposely to attract attention to yourself.
Anyway, you challenged me to list my address and telephone number, and I called your bluff. Now show your cards, for whatever they are worth or not worth.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Missed my point. I never said there was no Arnold Harris. I said how do we really know that the one calling himself Arnold Harris is Arnold Harris in fact? Point is using familiar name is essentially no different from using screen name.
Yamit,
I don’t know how much of a player you ever were in the holy game of Poker, as Leonard Cohen* once called it.
But from this little ploy of yours, if you sat across the table from me playing either 5-card draw or 7-card stud, I think I’d walk away with all your spare cash. Because I never bluff. And I always make sure I have the cards to call the other guy’s bluff.
http://www.rhapsody.com/leonard-cohen/the-essential-leonard-cohen/the-stranger-song/lyrics.html
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
The black choppers are on their way!
Arnold Harris
3427 County Rd P
Mount Horeb WI 53572
608-798-4833 (business phone)
608-347-1985 (cell phone)
Driving directions from Madison, Wisconsin:
1) Straight west on County Rd S (Mineral Point Rd) to junction with County Rd P
2) South on County Rd P approximately one mile
3) Pass County Rd J
4) Road makes sweeping S-curve around heavily wooded bluff on right-hand side
5) First set of driveway to right are 3423, 3425, 2427; ours is 3427
6) 500-ft long curving and steeply sloped driveway up to the top.
7) No dogs, but beware of owner; he keeps genuinely frightening guns, so don’t even think of fucking around with me.
Why not just give Arnold a call?
Arnold as a Jew you SHOULD have a better understanding as to the need of anominity and being able to discern the real friends of Israel from the fakes regardless of the name they use.
How do we Know Arnold Harris is your real name?
Care to leave your telephone # and address?
Arnold, grow up, old man.
The story you gave is an example of the person’s weakness, at least in your eyes. There are actually situations where – especially decades ago, as in your 1972 story – there were common cases where a person’s livelihood could seriously be damaged by wearing a kippa. I wouldn’t want to step in such a person’s shoes.
Anyway, you can grumble all you want. None of us are leaving. Nice chatting with you.
Some of you justify hiding behind false names on ground that “require anonymity due to other areas of life we’re involved in”?
I remember that back in 1972 in Chicago, about a half-year before Stefi and I travelled to Israel for ulpan and university graduate studies, I was invited to the home of a most religious orthodox American Jew, who spent much more of his share of my time lecturing me on keeping this and that mitzva, maintaining the sanctity of shabat, the sacredness of “glatt” kashrut, and on and on. Then, one day, we accidentally encountered one another in Chicago’s central business district, the famed Loop. The first thing I noticed about his all-Jewish persona was the absence of the kipa that had never left his head when I was in his home or he was in the company of other Jews. I asked him why he was now going about with his head uncovered. His answer was:
“For business reasons”.
I never looked him up again, and I haven’t even laid eyes on him for almost 39 years. But I never have forgotten his cowardly hypocrisy and I never shall.
So that’s my answer to the lot of you. Go hide under your anonymous names, or go hide under a rock, because I consider all this one and the same.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Arnold, some of us require anonymity due to other areas of life we’re involved in. Welcome to the Internet! You’ll get used to it. 😉
Arnold, I can appreciate your use of your real name. It wouldn’t stop someone from using it though to post opinions that are not yours, and perhaps make a really bad name for you on the internet. BTW, Yonatan is my name.
Yamit’s suggestion of using a gravitar was great. I immediately did that – now if you don’t see the little picture of my boys on the tank, you know its not me.
Instead of wasting space on this blogsite, complaining about people stealing use of your faked-up names on their own comments, why don’t all of you use your own REAL names, exactly as Ted Belman does, and exactly as I always have done in almost nine years of commenting and posting original articles on all kinds of blogsites and online forums? I even identify my local place of residence in the USA. That in itself makes it more difficult for someone to steal your identity.
As for purported dangers of someone personally looking me up and coming out here to make physical threats, I certainly can’t stop any such person from making the mistake of trying.
In any case, I think people who express opinions under fake names are just behaving like cowards. And if someone tries stealing their name and gets away with it, I really don’t give a damn.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Any bets that dan Fiedman and S Shamrack are one and the same?
Israel tops my list.
Jeff,I have a good idea who is behind using your screen name. He has used mine on numerous occasions and other forums and blogs as well.
Get an avatar then it’s not likely he can use your screen-name or identity.
Seems Hymie is still active.
Ted and Yamit,
This is the real Sanderzack. I have no idea who posted comment # 8 above but I am wondering why someone would impersonate me or attribute drivel to me.
If you have any idea about what is going on, please let me know.
None of the above foreign policy reforms on Israel’s part will be likely or probably even possible, unless and until Israel gets a change of government in which all the old-time obsequious fools who thought they could count on the USA are replaced by purely Jewish nationalist government, both secular as well as religious elements. These should include the following, other other political combinations that may arise in Jerusalem along the same general policy lines:
First, Yaakov Katz’s National Uniion (Ha’Ichud Ha’Leumi).
Second, Moshe Feiglin’s Jewish Leadership faction (Mahhigut Yahudit) of the Likud Party.
Third, Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beieinu (Israel Our Home)
Fourth, both Shas and the National Religious Party, along with other minor Jewish religious parties who will support Jewish nationalism.
Each of these groups has its own particular strengths and weaknesses. But collectively, they are far stronger in defense of authentic Jewish nationalism than any coalition that would include Labor or Kadima personalities, most of whom are leftists, appeasers, or both.
I think that a clear majority of Israelis are ready for a government based on a clear-cut assumption that no peace with the Arabs can be achieved either through the usual faked-up negotiations with the US government dangling everyone involved like so many punch-and-judy show puppets. I think they also are ready to recnognize that Israel cannot safely retreat from any part of its Jordan River border, which is the minimum last-ditch defense line against the Arab world if and when they coalesce against the Jewish state irrespective of the various phony peace arrangements various governments in Washington have cooked up over the decades.
Israel must also either grow — militarily, economically, in population size, and territorially — or it must eventually die. I think there is no other long-term choice, and I think this is an assumption whose case can clearly be made both to the Jewish nation and to its friends.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
yamit:
You are not including Israel in that category? Are you?
Sharbano
Well said- I think it is obvious to all, without the inspiration and the divine connections of Israel, America would have been long kaputt by now.
So was I.
I never said and I hope I was not misunderstood that I am not against normal relations with every country and that surely means trade and social interaction. I am against dependency relationships where Israel becomes dependent on any single nation or ally. I am not opposed to Israel purchasing weaponry from America, Russia or any other country but never alliances where we become dependent and thus subservient to their interests above and at our expense as a consequence.
Sanctions are always worrisome but never really work except one case South Africa and we are far better placed to whether sanctions. Nobody is better than us in a grey market economy and most of our biggest companies are global companies. The Arab Boycott was actually beneficial to our economy it forced us to develop markets and products impervious to the boycotts and boy-cotters. Worst case after a few years they will loosen and disappear.
I don’t believe it would ever get to sanctions. With the aid of our friends and other Jews it would be a non starter.
I was a trader and I can tell you there is nothing , nothing I can’t buy for cash. I was the exclusive agent in Israel for a certain product made in Taiwan and found out that a Singapore dealer was selling the product below my FOB. Then I knew that my company was screwing me on price and it cost me at least a million bucks. A found a competitor in China whose prices were better for similar line and reduced my dependency on the Taiwanese company by 2/3rds. Once the idiots sent me a fax addressed to Samsung with the prices and Qntys and part #s much cheaper than the unit prices I was paying so I knew I could negotiate lower.
Don’t worry we know how to get to sources and do the deals.
Well said Yamit. The US uses the weapons issue to PREVENT Israel from seeking trade with many countries. How many times have we read how the US put a STOP to Israeli bids only to allow the US ALONE to receive those contracts. This is UTTERLY despicable. Is this “friendship” when a country forbids competition from Israel. Therefore, how much money has the US actually caused Israel to lose. This alone proves that US support is costing much more than its support gives.
All one has to do is look at Torah. By any logical analysis there should be NO Jews alive today. No people have survived where there wasn’t a common land, a common language etc. It has only been the Jewish people that have survived where it shouldn’t have been possible. Survival of Israel is solely dependent upon Torah and Hashem, nothing, and nobody else. Just as Moshe prophesied and also Shlomo HaMelech, this people will be scattered among the nations, yet they will return to the land. As it was, so it shall be.
Yamit: If America realizes that it needs allies and needs them badly, how in the name of heaven can you suggest that Israel with a tiny population can stand alone. That is thoroughly absurd. Too many comic books, too many video games, a very overactive imagination and too much phantasizing.
Beres in his article was referring to strictly security matters. But Nations have a lot more at stake than security. We are all living in an interactive global economy and Israel is very much part of that economy. We know what sanctions can do to a nation and that ultimately is what is worrying Israeli politicians.
What is the writer talking about? Turkey is none of these things. It is an increasingly less democratic, less secular, more anti-Western and certainly more anti-Israel. As for containing Iran, turkey is aligning itself with Iran.
It came about naturally due to America becoming the world’s top economic and military power.
I’ve heard the same song before about America’s supposed decline. This was predicted during the 80’s that Japan would emerge as the world’s premier economic power surpassing America and that the era of American preeminence was over.
Objectively, no country conducts a sane and rational foreign policy and no nation conducts a foreign policy based on any moral or ethical considerations. Its usually based on greed and avarice or what is known as national interests, usually!
I don’t believe in friends. I do believe is various kinds of support which I welcome and do not oppose as long as we don’t depend on such support or even count on such support. I do not agree in any form of dependency relationships personal or national. You allude to changing situations. Yes but we too are not the same Israel as then. we have over twice the population have a relatively strong market economy that has learned how to fit into the Global economy. Our military is many levels stronger than in 67. In 67 we had no-one, backs against the sea 50 thousand graves dug in anticipation and even America had plans to invade to protect Egypt and Jordan.
Turkish option? I agree with you nonsense.
For your reference and review:
How, then, should Israel balance its almost ritual obeisance to Washington with its more obvious and indisputably more primary need for survival?
Eighth, again with a very clear view to changing nuclear doctrine in the United States, Israeli leaders and strategists will need to expand their consideration of much wider questions of nuclear weapons and national strategy. Ideally, this would be done in concert with all of the other above-listed strategic requirements. Key issues here would be nuclear targeting doctrine (counter value versus counterforce); preemption, and ballistic missile defense.
Depending upon Israel’s willingness to risk Washington’s displeasure, these strategic postures will be more-or-less impacted by President Obama’s naive and dangerous nuclear vision.
Nuclear weapons are neither good nor evil in themselves. In the case of Israel, such weapons incontestably represent an important instrument of peace. They are, in fact, an utterly critical impediment to regional nuclear war.
With its nuclear arsenal unimpaired, Israel – assuming rational adversaries – could effectively deter enemy unconventional attacks, and also most large conventional ones. While still in possession of such an arsenal, Israel could also launch assorted non-nuclear preemptive strikes against an enemy state’s hard targets. Without its secure nuclear arsenal, ambiguous or disclosed, any such expressions of anticipatory self-defense could trigger the onset of a much wider and more catastrophic war. This is because there would no longer be any compelling threat of an Israeli counter-retaliation.
Israel’s secure nuclear arsenal is required to fulfill essential deterrence options, preemption options, war-fighting options and even the so-called (last resort) “Samson Option.” This arsenal should never be negotiated away in any formal international agreements, especially in the midst of an American-brokered “peace process” and its attendant creation of “Palestine.” This Israeli existential obligation obtains no matter how appealing might be the idealized vision of “a world without nuclear weapons,” and no matter how high the authority of this deceptively attractive vision’s most enthusiastic and visible advocate.
In the final analysis, regrettable as it may seem, the structure of long-term Israeli security must be built upon the recognizable foundations of secure nuclear forces and strategic doctrine, and not on the thoroughly idealized world constructed by an American president.
LOUIS RENÉ BERES (Ph.D.,
Huffington Post actually posted this also. Hadar writes
. I agree. I believe it important to create alternatives rather than be wholly dependent on the US. Yamit mentions a time when Israel was on its own. I agree but now times are changing. A huge part of the world is ganging up against us. In such an environment it is nice to have some friends even if they might be temporary friends. We must make us of what support is available at the time.
Hadar also suggests a “Turkish option”. Nonsense.
Yamit. Its not just Israel that the U.S. mishandles. They pretty much mishandle all foreign relationships. What the U.S. needs to realize is that they MUST LISTEN to the concerns of their allies rather than listening to their enemies. They MUST realize that there was no World Court that appointed them as the numero uno country to lead the way with foreign policy. This was self appointed by them and it is broke so IT HAS to be fixed.
Israel and Kurds: the time for open support
Israel has quietly cooperated with Kurdish rebels for decades. We are essential to them as their only source of military expertise and an important source of weapons, and we need them for clandestine activities in Iran.
Now that the Iraqi government is impotent and Kurdish leaders have proclaimed their right to autonomy, if not secession, Israel must come out into the open. There are many pros and no cons.
Israeli support for the Kurds is our best threat to Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, which have large Kurdish minorities.
Kurdistan, with its mammoth oil reserves, will be one of the richest nations on earth, and a viable partner for Israel.
Kurds are by far the most civilized Muslims, and cooperation with them is an excellent way for Israel to break Muslim unity against us.
Helping the Kurds to break up Iraq would also be a good way to snub Obama.
The Kurds have a large standing army, which has won many battles against the Iraqis. We can help them win. We can stem Iraqi retaliation against them by promising direct involvement on their behalf. We can pressure the United States to recognize their independence.
Kurdistan is a historic opportunity for Israel, and it would be a crime to miss it.
Iran accuses Israel of kidnapping former deputy defense minister
The ‘Second Israel’
How being Kurdish is like being Jewish
by Clifford May
I wonder what Leon Hardar means by Israel cannot exist alone?
The support Israel now enjoys from America is a self-delusion. The US vetoed many UN resolutions which condemned Israel. But the very likelihood of such vetoes allows other UNSC members to behave more radically: they vote pro-Left and pro-Arab, knowing that the resolutions won’t pass. The US vetoes keep Israel in the UN while a stream of empty anti-Israeli resolutions would have forced Israel out of that Den of Vipers and ended Israeli adherence to such UN-sponsored nonsense as the 1956 borders.
From 1948 to 1972, Israel survived with no official sponsor. We engaged with France, Germany, America, even the Soviet satelite Romania, and survived.
America aids Israel to control her, and to flaunt that control before the Arabs, extracting concessions from them. Control over Israel gives America great leverage in relations with every Arab country; aid to Israel is an excellent investment.
Not only the US, but other countries too,might realize that and might ally themselves with Israel. In a show of absurd loyalty, Israel sticks to America, but America sells her at every corner—for oil.
Israel has payed with real concessions for fictitious American support. The US needs to show its Arab clients its power over Israel, and kicks her around just for the fun of it: witness the fight between Israel and America over settlement freezes.” As if the Arab attacks on Israel from 1929 onwards have had anything to do with those communities?
I believe that Israel must relinquish US aid and live on her own. Financial responsibility would signify the return to Israel’s fundamental political doctrine: Only the IDF is responsible for Israel’s safety. Israel doesn’t need Star Wars weapons to extinguish Palestinian terrorism; good old napalm will do. Israel doesn’t need cutting-edge weapons against regular Arab armies; nuclear bombs are good enough.