Israpundit
posted by Ted Belham
Another Tack: Putty in his handsBy SARAH HONIG, JPOST
Obama’s pressure is all about attempting to make Israel more of an international pariah than it already is.
If we examine the history of Israeli-American relations in the non-distorting sunlight, we may conclude that the US consistently deprived Israel of victory, indirectly encouraged Arab attacks, instigated terrorism and gave incentive to Arab intransigence. What’s euphemistically labeled a “peace process” was always the process to divest Israel of vital strategic assets. Israeli governments in effect never negotiated with Arab interlocutors without intervention by America.
Lonely, vulnerable, affection-craving Israel always yearned for friends. It always also liked to kid itself that it has friends. Hence, at a ceremony half-a-century ago, standing alongside Charles de Gaulle, David Ben-Gurion extolled French friendship for little, renascent, plucky Israel. With no compunctions, haughty de Gaulle doused BG’s warm sentiments. “In international affairs,” he intoned superciliously, “there are no friends, only interests.”
Though unpleasant and untactful, de Gaulle was at least honest, which is more than can be said for Barack Obama.
It doesn’t take a paranoid conspiracy-theory promoter to speculate that the pressure brought to bear by the US president on Israel has little to do with furthering the peace process. Obama’s pressure in fact contradicts the cause of peace. It’s no conjecture to argue that it has everything to do with attempting to diminish Israel, shoving it into a corner, intensifying the ostracism to which it’s subjected and making it more of an international pariah than it already is.
Why?
Because that would weaken and demoralize Israel to such an extent that it would become putty in Obama’s hands. He could then appease the Arab world at its expense.
Along that line too we may conclude that Obama, having wasted more than a year’s worth of invaluable time, doesn’t really intend to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. He certainly doesn’t want Israel to preempt that probability either. He prefers it helpless, threatened and frightened.
Why?
Because then it would be putty in his hands and he’d presumably earn the undying gratitude of the Arab/Muslim world.
That’s why, rather than engage in dialogue, Obama spoils for a fight – all the while professing to be our best friend. And we credulously repeat his assurance and use it as a cogent rationalization for why we mustn’t displease him. Who can afford to upset a devoted friend? Especially when friends are so rare.
IT ALL calls to mind an old Plains Indian admonition that “what looks true by the glow of the camp fire isn’t always true in sunlight.”
Native Americans, after all, learned from bitter experience to mistrust the compassionate posture of the Great Father in Washington and his treaty promises.
Our own tribal myth, often repeated around our proverbial camp fire, persistently portrays various White House residents as trusted friends, who presume to know better than we what’s best for us. Thus Obama presses for benevolent eugenics – needless to say for our own good – when insisting we forthwith freeze all construction and effectively end natural growth in what he calls settlements, including significant swaths of Jerusalem. No greater problems plague the world than Jewish babies.
This hardly began with the 1,600 Ramat Shlomo apartments. Already months ago, Obama’s radical ideologues looked exceeding askance on blueprints for a new hotel and shopping center near the Old City. They’re into the nitty-gritty of daily metropolitan minutiae. They know the devil is in the details and no detail, no matter how outwardly trivial, escapes their scrupulous attention. They’ll relentlessly breathe down our supposedly sovereign neck and show us who’s boss – friendly like.
But who are we to quibble and second-guess? Our best friends may indeed be shrewd beyond our inferior comprehension. Or it might be that what looks like friendship isn’t what it seems.
If we examine the history of Israeli-American relations in the non-distorting sunlight, we may conclude that the US consistently deprived Israel of victory, indirectly encouraged Arab attacks, instigated terrorism and gave incentive to Arab intransigence. What’s euphemistically labeled a “peace process” was always the process to divest Israel of vital strategic assets. Israeli governments in effect never negotiated with Arab interlocutors without intervention by America.
Way back in 1948, despite Harry Truman’s hesitant de facto recognition of newborn Israel, America’s arms embargo emboldened Arab invaders. When Dwight Eisenhower forced Israel out of the Sinai in 1957, he promised to keep the Tiran Straits open. Gamal Abdel Nasser blockaded them a decade later, but America reneged on its assurances, signaling Egypt that its aggression would be tolerated. Had the US honored its undertaking, there would have been no Six Day War and no “occupation” for Washington to urgently seek to end.
The US-brokered 1970 Israeli-Egyptian truce hinged on American guarantees that no heavy weaponry would be advanced. On the cease-fire’s first night, however, the Egyptians moved dozens of anti-aircraft missiles to the Suez Canal’s bank, facilitating the eventual launch of the Yom Kippur War. American silence was deafening. At the end of the 1973 war, the US saved the surrounded Egyptian Third Army from surrender, thereby robbing Israel of incontestable triumph.
Recurrently imposed cease-fires – whenever Israel begins inflicting pain on the terrorists – fit the above pattern.
Ronald Reagan frequently noted that without Israel the Soviets would have occupied Saudi oil fields. This, though, never prevented Washington from trying to squeeze Israel back into the precarious June 4, 1967, lines.
But what about American assistance? Contrary to popular lore, the equivalent of what Israel contributed to the US immeasurably surpasses, even in monetary terms, the sum total of what America gave Israel from the 1970s on (prior to that we got nothing, yet miraculously managed to thrive). America enjoyed access to Israeli intelligence, including information on Soviet weaponry, battlefield tryouts for American military hardware, their innovative improvement, etc.
Moreover, American aid costs us big time and 75 percent of it must be spent stateside. It coerces Israel to consume American-manufactured goods – from arms to uniforms. These can be produced locally. The fact that they aren’t contributes to unemployment here and stunts research and development. America’s new-generation fighter planes are so exorbitantly priced that it’s no longer prudent to buy them. Yet what’s the alternative? Our reduction to vassal-state status was completed when the US vetoed the Israeli-made Lavi and exports by our defense and aviation industries.
LAST SUMMER the Pentagon nixed Israel Aerospace Industries participation in a tender to supply military aircraft to India. Israel is essentially ordered to withdraw from whichever tender US firms also compete in or face the consequences of jeopardizing the “special bond.” Israel was forced to prefer Boeing to Airbus and retract higher import tariffs on large cars. Hillary even badgered Bibi to allow seven containers of American carp into Israel customs-free. Our gefilte fish is Washington’s business.
America has its own interests, however misguided, and Obama takes to extremes the underlying premise that Israel is a pain in the backside. When Israeli leaders obsequiously suck up, they allow dim and flaring camp fire illumination to obstruct this reality. They duplicate their predecessors’ flagrant fundamental misconceptions to Israel’s detriment.
It’s not that we have better friends than America. We don’t. In fact, we have no friends. De Gaulle’s harsh truth should guide our policymakers and be enunciated loudly and fearlessly. Pseudo-friends can be only comforting and useful occasionally, on condition that we maintain suspicious vigilance, as another bit of Native American folk wisdom advises.
It enjoins: “Beware the friend who covers you with his wings, only to injure you with his beak.”
The writer was The Jerusalem Post’s long-time political correspondent (as well as for years of the now-defunct Davar). She headed the Post’s Tel Aviv bureau, wrote daily analyses of the political scene as well as in-depth features. See her personal blog at http://www.sarahhonig.com
COMMENTS ON ISRAPUNDIT ... WHAT OTHERS ARE THINKING
9 Comments »
The thing about wild monkesy at the zoo is that you don’t really want to get close to one, because they maul human beings, reacting on instinct that humans are more violent and vicious than they are.
Would it have made sense for God to tell Joshua, “I want you to have a two state solution with Canaan.” In fact, in the Bible did God say to Abraham, “I want Isaac and Ishmael to have two states in Canaan?” Uhm. No. And what was Israel’s demise? The fact they allowed foreign governments to set up their idols in their land. And the setting up of other gods was what exiled Israel for 1,814 years! Now, the international community is demanding that Israel tolerate their false gods and idols and to allow the false god Allah to sit over the God of Israel and rule in His Place. Even the apostate Catholics, who are not representative of true Christian faith and practice have made it a habit of using replacement theology to ruin Israel. The goal of nations is to repeat Israel’s destruction, corrupt their leaders, and get Israel to tolerate idolatry, homosexuality, and whatever else will give the God of Israel’s enemies control and power over that land.
What we have learned from the American experiment is that when you allow foreign governments to have power in your own country, whether it is the legislative powers, the executive branch, the judicial branch and its corporations, it gives a base to shut a whole country down. The current economic crisis is the fault and blame of democrats who worked in harmony with communist governments to bring the global markets down = and the war of the international stock exchange was played in harmony with the forces and powers of destruction.
Israel’s Sovereignty rests in the Creator’s promises and our own faithfulness to God’s Covenants. yes, we are all sinners, but God’s covenant for Israel to inherit this particular land, especially in the last days is important. Obama is working for the wrong team, the team that might have a few short lived victories here and there, but as the final curtain is about to draw to a close, Israel’s God has promised how HE is going to answer the nations who have oppressed, injured and hurt His people. As in Israel’s exile history, all nations will look like the Dome of The Rock as Israel’s God collects and harvests that which is EMPHATICALLY HIS.
Comment by Michael Sunstar — April 3, 2010 @ 9:42 am
Let me, as an American, apologize to the State and People of Israel for the embarrassment of having an evil dictatorship in America. I pray you establish your own leadership and hold fast to the land that is YOURS. I know, as a Christian, that land is not mine - it is YOURS and I fight verbally for your rights to pray on the Temple Mount and build the Third Jewish Temple, not because I want Jesus to come soon, a twisted adn stupid theology brought on by bad church politics led by imposters…………..but because I truly believe it is your right! When it comes to a choice between choosing Israel or Israel’s enemies - choosing Israel’s side all the way.
A lot of Christian Americans do support Israel and do not believe in the two state solution at all. We stand with you and don’t worry about this evil American government led by corrupted officials who are drunk, stoned, immoral and corrupt.
God loves you - that is 100% true!
Comment by Michael Sunstar — April 3, 2010 @ 9:45 am
Superb piece.
yamit has repeatedly made this argument, and it is a compelling one.
American aid is a siren song designed not not to help Israel, but to regulate Israeli behavior.
The problem is that the Israeli public, being Jews, desperately seek affection at any cost.
Comment by ayn reagan — April 3, 2010 @ 1:49 pm
America has no business aiding Israel. The attempts to achieve for Israel closer ties with the US are a disservice to Jewish people. America will never, ever pursue Jewish interests as they are irrelevant to US voters and establishment alike. America embargoed weapons shipments to Israel during the Independence War, threatened intervention on Egypt’s behalf in the 1956 war, had operational plans for landing its troops in Sinai to defend Egypt in 1967, barred Israel from preemption in 1973 (and only shipped Israel weapons after we won the war), forced Israel to abandon Sinai, and now pushes us into the suicidal peace process. America gives more aid to Egypt and Palestine than Israel, fought for Kuwait but never for Israel, and has spent more in Iraq than the total aid to Israel since inception.
That is only natural, as we cannot expect America to care about the Jewish state. Why would the WASP establishment care, if Jews don’t? Polls indicate that American Jews overwhelmingly support the peace process and oppose war with Iran. No one hates Israel like American Jews: they want to prove to their Gentile friends that they are not too Jewish, and so they side with Arabs. They are trying to show that Jews are exactly like others; but the Jewish state is not like other states. And so most American Jews support a “democratic” Israel where Arabs enjoy equal rights with Jews: that is, the right to breed and vote the Jewish state out of existence.
The support Israel now enjoys from America is a self-delusion. The UN consistently fails to enforce sanctions against Iran, an international pariah; the chance of effective sanctions against Israel is infinitesimal. If Israel doesn’t follow South Africa’s path of decades-long oppression of aborigines, but ends the Arab demographic problem swiftly and ruthlessly, in a few years there will be no prospect of sanctions.
From 1948 to 1972, Israel survived with no official sponsor. We engaged with France, Germany, America, even the Soviet satelite Romania, and survived. Arab loyalty is non-existent and allegiance is prohibitively expensive; many countries would find it cheaper to buy regional influence by aiding Israel than the Arabs. America aids Israel to control her, and to brandish 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, realize that and would ally themselves with Israel.
In a show of absurd loyalty, Israel sticks to America, but America sells her at every corner—for oil. Israel pays with real concessions for fictitious American support.
Incidentally, our tactical goals partially agree with a major aim of American anti-Semites: divestment from Israel. For utterly different reasons, we too 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 need no cutting-edge weapons against regular Arab armies; nuclear bombs are good enough.
Rough, self-reliant, arrogant Israel has a good chance for a lasting armistice with neighboring Arabs. Israel the American client has no chance for lasting peace.
We have already tried relying on Assyria.
Comment by yamit82 — April 3, 2010 @ 2:00 pm
thank you dearest reagan!
Comment by yamit82 — April 3, 2010 @ 2:11 pm
yamit82,
Slum monkey trillionaire just gave superior weapons to Arabia and your enemies are outdating you guys pretty quickly.
If you are going to go SAMSON, that will be your only option.
Comment by Michael Sunstar — April 3, 2010 @ 2:17 pm
As an American I am one of Israel’s best friends. If you guys want me to blow up Iran or the Dome of the Rock, let me know - just give me the buttons and I’ll do it by satellite. Heck, let’s just blow up the whole Middle East off the face of the earth and start over again.
Comment by Michael Sunstar — April 3, 2010 @ 2:20 pm
I know that is your wet dream Michael but it won’t help you even if it happens which it won’t. There is no Jesus Christ he is a historical fiction and along with a trillion other reasons couldn’t be your awaited savior. Blow up America first and then we will see but heh you wouldn’t be there to be saved. You face only the Lake of fire for your paganism.
You know Israel will survive but America won’t at least most of America. America is Edom. Ask any real rabbi. The apocalyptic war between Islam and Christendom will seal your fate.
That is if you believe in the real bible Michael.
David Ben Ariel aka David Hoover tried to blow up the Dome on the Temple mount was caught and deported. Can’t come back here either. You are most welcome to try your hand at it.
Comment by yamit82 — April 3, 2010 @ 5:00 pm
The US is Israel’s worst “friend”, but not all.
Comment by RandyTexas — April 3, 2010 @ 6:0