Less of an asset?
The Chief of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, Meir Dagan, made some comments to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday, one of which has set off a lot of alarm bells and gotten all the media play. Here's the comment. Strategic ties between Jerusalem and Washington have been slowly changing since the conclusion of the Cold War, Mossad chief Meir Dagan told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday.Coming on the heels of Monday's battle with the flotilla of fools, Dagan's remarks have set off an uproar both in Israel and among Israel's supporters overseas.
"Bit by bit, Israel is becoming less of a strategic asset for America," Dagan said in his meeting with committee.
But if you read what Dagan is saying, there's nothing surprising here. During the Cold War, Israel was a strategic asset to the United States because we were a bulwark against Russian expansionism. In the post-Cold War period, Presidents Clinton and Bush 43 regarded Israel as a democratic outpost whose form of government they wanted to bring to other countries in the region.
But the Obama administration has dropped the democracy push and therefore really doesn't need Israel in the same way that its predecessors needed it. Dagan notes that there are good sides to this: For example,
the US views the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a lower priority after determining that neither side is ready for an agreement.Hopefully that means that Israel will be under a lot less pressure from the United States going forward than it has been for the last 15 months. Indeed, we cannot complain (too much) about the US reaction (so far) to what happened on Monday. Things could be a lot worse.
If we are 'less of an asset' it's because the US doesn't need the sorts of things it needed us for in the '70's and '80's and not necessarily because the relationship has gone sour. We should be warned, however, that Obama may yet try to sour the relationship as well. That may well depend on how the elections of 2010 and 2012 turn out.
UPDATE 9:18 AM BOSTON TIME
Haaretz has the quote as "Israel is gradually turning from an asset to the United States to a burden." That's a bit worse problem.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:04 PM
3 Comments:
The US gov, I feel, has now gone rogue; it is anti-Israel.
The people of America, on the other hand, mainly are pro-Israel.
In order to get the obama mafiosi out of power is going to be a major struggle because they have their tentacles WITHIN gov, like in the UK, but worse!
Israel is a jewel and the only country that stands between civilisation and islamification.
If obama prefers the latter, Israel must think carefully about its own survival.
The Iranians "pulled a rabbit out of their hat to split the international community at the last moment..
Extra Ordinary Things
The point is Israel has to learn how survive alone in a hostile world. Israel cannot surrender its sovereignty or give up its right of self-defense. This week's events have driven that point home. No country can compromise on those two things because if Israel's leaders do, then Jews are going to have to die. I don't see any other nation taking them in. Israel can either survive for a small period of time in the world's good graces as a shadow of itself or it can go it alone and ride out the storm. That's it - and there is no rescue from any quarter waiting over the horizon.
What could go wrong indeed
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