SAVING THEM FROM THEMSELVES

The “you lie” shouting representative from S. Carolina, Joe Wilson, is not the only one dissing the president these days. A chorus of criticism, equally shrill, is emanating from the Israeli right wing and the American Zionist establishment. This developing policy rift between the president and his Jewish critics has both profound implications and interesting antecedents. To read the otherwise insightful Caroline Glick‘s editorials in Haaretz would make you think that Obama was a descendent of Sennacherib, the Assyrian king that destroyed Jerusalem in 722BC. Hyperbolic and full of vitriol was Gluck take on Obama’s Mideast policy. Read it for yourself http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0609/glick060509.php3?printer_friendly.

Elliott Abrams weighed in as well in the Wall Street Journal. On August 1st, in the article “Why Israel is Nervous”, he wrote a length piece attacking Obama’s administrations policy towards Israel with an emphasis on the Iranian nuclear threat. The list of the discontented goes on, no matter that some of the best and brightest Jews in the American political establishment are advising the president. No matter that there are more advisors who can speak and read Hebrew in this cabinet than any before, somehow compared to Bush, Obama falls short in his support for Israel.

Fortunately, Patrick Tyler to the rescue. This longtime Mideast journalist for the New York Times and the Washington Post has written an insightful, well researched and penetratingly accurate book about our relationship with the Arabs and Israelis called “A World of Trouble…the White House and the Mideast from the Cold War to the War on Terror.” For our purposes, the chapters on the U.S. relationship with Israel are worthwhile reading.

Basically, like all human affairs the Israelis are full of foibles, dithering, wrong conclusions and self-inflected wounds. How could it be otherwise? Mistakes are inherent in the decision making process and in a country as divided and pressurized (both internally and externally), foreign policy decisions are not always pure and clear or, for that matter, well thought out and effective. This may come as a shock to faith based Israeli supporters, but the invasions, wars and occupations that Israel has fought were not always launched from a unified political base. Dissention and disagreement accompanied every action. When the American Zionist movement criticizes Obama they are doing so in the face of the same criticism coming from at least half of all Israelis.

-Is this problem only Israel's?

Tyler’s chapters on the Suez crisis and the Lebanese invasion are especially eye opening. He details the decision making process that Israel used to basically shoot itself in the foot of Arab and world opinion. Even worse to have these wars rebound on Israel in the form of economic drain, motivating enemies and increased isolation…for no clear purpose. We would all like to think that all Israeli prime ministers have a “yiddishe cup,” but it’s fairly clear, at least from the last few, they are often just as petty, venal and less than inspirational as most politicians are. The chapter on the Israeli policy response to the Iran-Contra affair shows that Israel has students of the Marx Brothers in high places. Let’s not forget the Israeli backing of Hamas once viewed as an alternative to the P.L.O. Should the U.S. have endorsed that too? Should we have sent American tax dollars to build Hamas? Clearly uncritical, unquestioning loyalty may not do anyone any good.

On a very personal note I remember very clearly some twenty-three years ago, being in the west bank city of Ramallah with a famous photo journalist on Land Day, the day of Palestinian protest over the occupation. I watched fully dressed battle clad Israeli paratroopers chasing twelve-year old Palestinian boys down the narrow streets. Watching this I knew there had to be a better way, not that anyone in the Israeli government has found it all these years later. The occupation goes on, the worldwide protests mount and the government is still dithering at what to do with the demographic bomb it absorbed. I don’t think Obama was elected to endorse and support every single action Israel’s fractured government’s du jour wants to explore. That’s not how you treat sovereign allies and democratic equals; it’s how you treat spoiled children.

Now let’s get to the heart of the matter: the Iranian nuclear threat. All of a sudden if you read the Obama critics, even today's Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal, America should either support an Israeli air attack on Iran or conduct one itself. Elliott Abrams states it clearly, “Israel believes the military option has to be on the table and credible if diplomacy and sanctions are to have any chance…” The problem here is in the delusional thinking that western sabre rattling will make a difference to the Ayatollahs. Recent history shows the exact opposite will occur. Sadam had no WMD’s when we threatened him. He could have come clean and saved his neck. He failed to do so because Arabs and Persians for that matter don’t like to be threatened and show weakness. The absolute smartest thing the Israeli and American foreign policy establishments could do is to talk sweetly to Iran, engage them at every diplomatic level, extend an outstretched policy hand while loading up on bunker busting bombs and mid-air fuel supplies. Stop the endless silly threats and prepare for real action.

Obama’s Israeli critics live in a 1950’s style vacuum. Do they really think that Israel or the U.S. combined can just ignore E.U., China and Russia? Is not a nuclear-armed Iran a threat to Rome, Paris and Moscow? Not to mention Cairo and Rydia. Will the world be as it was the day after an attack on Tel-Aviv? Will the fallout, both literally and figuratively, from such an attack and its counter attack, not plunge the planet into a global crisis and depression that will feel like the end of days? Do E.U. policy planners not know this? Does the American Zionist establishment think the Chinese economic ministers have not done a calculation on their export potential after a series of nuclear explosions are triggered? Are we all going to go to the mall to buy Chinese anything the day after twenty nuclear bombs go off in the Mideast? What will the value of Gazprom stock be a week later? It is doubtful that either the export driven Russian or Chinese governments would survive a month. Look at the charts of these countries’ export and foreign exchange indices from a mere banking crisis and multiply that a million times from a nuclear one.

Obama has the mantle of the leader of the world, his concerns and decisions are broader than the Israeli ones and yet what happen in Israel and Iran are world changers. He and the rest of the world must get it right the first time. Goading him and criticizing him for not being a visible warmonger (which by the way George Bush wasn’t either when it came to Iran) is just not smart and is strategically silly. If Mossad and the Israeli air force have concluded that they must and can strike Iran, just do it. Don’t telegraph your punch and show dissention with your friend. If on the other hand, the Israelis have concluded that they will just have to live with the bomb or that one will not be developed, then show the world you are united with your patron and best friend… all the way. Make the decision not to attack and make it appear to be a wise and united front and not the result of discord and failure to unite.

About a year ago I attended a talk by Ephraim Halevy, the ex-head of Mossad and one of the great men of the Israeli policy establishment. He was asked about Iran and the nuclear bomb. He said he did not want to get into specifics, but he unambiguously stated in unemotional language that, “Iran will never have a nuclear bomb.”

I believe him. I believe he knows something we don’t. I have my own prediction on what it is and I will share that with you. I believe that NATO air forces will take out the Iranian threat, if Iran does not back down. I believe both Markel and Sarkozy and Tony Brown when they say that a nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable. I believe they have as much to lose as Israel. I believe that Russia knows this too, but is posturing for its own reasons.

Now I just wish that the ragtag army of Neo-cons (who got Iraq so wrong) and the knee jerk Israel “is always right” crowd, would stop lashing out at Obama and just do what we were all told in Hebrew school, and that was “sheket bevakasha”, QUIET PLEASE.