Israel must be self-reliant?
Caroline Glick proves that there are no conceivable circumstances under which the Obama administration would attack Iran (and even if there were, that attack would not be a surprise attack, which makes it not much better than an Israeli one) and shows that the United States has taken various steps to degrade Israel's qualitative advantage against its neighbors. She therefore reaches the following conclusions:ALL OF these factors constitute overwhelming evidence that there are no conceivable circumstances under which Obama would order a US strike on Iran's nuclear installations to forestall Iran's development of nuclear weapons. And this reality should lead Israel's leaders to three separate conclusions.Interestingly, the first comment on Caroline's site makes a correction to the last paragraph, and says we should be relying on Hashem and not on ourselves. That's definitely true. But the first step to recognizing that reality is recognizing that we cannot rely on others. Relying on others saves us from facing the fact that we cannot do it ourselves without Hashem's help.
First, and most urgently, Israel must attack Iran's nuclear installations. Iran's nuclear ambitions must be set back at least until 2017, the latest date at which a new -- and hopefully more rational -- US administration will certainly be in office.
Second, given the fact that the US will not take action against Iran's nuclear installations, there is no reason for Israel to capitulate to US pressure on lesser issues. The Obama administration has nothing to offer Israel on this most important threat and so Israel should not do anything to strengthen its position. Among other things, this conclusion has clear implications for Jewish construction in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, Israel's future responses to Lebanese aggression, as well as for Israel's continued cooperation with the UN probes of the Turkish-Hamas terror ship.
Finally, Obama's behavior is a clear indication that Israel was wrong to allow itself to become militarily dependent on US military platforms. Former defense minister Moshe Arens wrote recently that Israel should strongly consider abandoning plans to purchase the F-35 and restore the scrapped Lavi jetfighter to active development. Arens suggested that in doing so, Israel may find willing collaborators in the Indians, the French and even the Russians.
No, the US has not become Israel's enemy - although the Obama administration has certainly struck an adversarial chord. Polling data suggests that most Americans disagree with Obama's treatment of Israel and recognize that Iran is a threat to the US.
But polls aside, the answer to Israel's desperate queries is that it is up to us. If the Obama administration teaches us anything, it teaches us that we must rely first and foremost on ourselves.
Read the whole thing.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:30 AM
5 Comments:
I will let Eliezer Ben Yisrael speak for me. He wrote a famous letter in 1969 that somehow still rings with a great deal of truth after his passing at the age of 92 in 2006. Nothing much has really change since he wrote it more than 40 years ago:
Here is Part I:
I am not a creature from another planet, as you seem to believe. I am a Jerusalemite – like yourselves, a man of flesh and blood. I am a citizen of my city, an integral part of my people.
I have a few things to get off my chest. Because I am not a diplomat, I do not have to mince words. I do not have to please you or even persuade you.
I owe you nothing. You did not build this city, you did not live in it, you did not defend it when they came to destroy it. And we will be damned if we will let you take it away.
There was a Jerusalem before there was a New York. When Berlin , Moscow , London and Paris were miasmal forest and swamp, there was a thriving Jewish community here. It gave something to the world which you nations have rejected ever since you established yourselves - a humane moral code.
Here the prophets walked, their words flashing like forked lightning.
Here a people who wanted nothing more than to be left alone, fought off waves of heathen would-be conquerors, bled and died on the battlements, hurled themselves into the flames of their burning Temple rather than surrender, and when finally overwhelmed by sheer numbers and led away into captivity, swore that before they forgot Jerusalem , they would see their tongues cleave to their palates, their right arms wither.
For two pain-filled millennia, while we were your unwelcome guests, we prayed daily to return to this city. Three times a day we petitioned the Almighty: ”Gather us from the four corners of the world, bring us upright to our land, return in mercy to Jerusalem, Thy City, and swell in it as Thou promised.” On every Yom Kippur and Passover, we fervently voiced the hope that next year would find us in Jerusalem.
Your inquisitions, pogroms, expulsions, the ghettos into which you jammed us, your forced baptisms, your quota systems, your genteel anti-Semitism, and the final unspeakable horror, the holocaust (and worse, your terrifying disinterest in it)- all these have not broken us.
I will let Eliezer Ben Yisrael speak for me. He wrote a famous letter in 1969 that somehow still rings with a great deal of truth after his passing at the age of 92 in 2006. Nothing much has really change since he wrote it more than 40 years ago:
Here is Part I:
I am not a creature from another planet, as you seem to believe. I am a Jerusalemite – like yourselves, a man of flesh and blood. I am a citizen of my city, an integral part of my people.
I have a few things to get off my chest. Because I am not a diplomat, I do not have to mince words. I do not have to please you or even persuade you.
I owe you nothing. You did not build this city, you did not live in it, you did not defend it when they came to destroy it. And we will be damned if we will let you take it away.
There was a Jerusalem before there was a New York. When Berlin , Moscow , London and Paris were miasmal forest and swamp, there was a thriving Jewish community here. It gave something to the world which you nations have rejected ever since you established yourselves - a humane moral code.
Here the prophets walked, their words flashing like forked lightning.
Here a people who wanted nothing more than to be left alone, fought off waves of heathen would-be conquerors, bled and died on the battlements, hurled themselves into the flames of their burning Temple rather than surrender, and when finally overwhelmed by sheer numbers and led away into captivity, swore that before they forgot Jerusalem , they would see their tongues cleave to their palates, their right arms wither.
For two pain-filled millennia, while we were your unwelcome guests, we prayed daily to return to this city. Three times a day we petitioned the Almighty: ”Gather us from the four corners of the world, bring us upright to our land, return in mercy to Jerusalem, Thy City, and swell in it as Thou promised.” On every Yom Kippur and Passover, we fervently voiced the hope that next year would find us in Jerusalem.
Your inquisitions, pogroms, expulsions, the ghettos into which you jammed us, your forced baptisms, your quota systems, your genteel anti-Semitism, and the final unspeakable horror, the holocaust (and worse, your terrifying disinterest in it)- all these have not broken us.
Part II:
They may have sapped what little moral strength you still possessed, but they forged us into steel. Do you think that you can break us now after all we have been through? Do you really believe that after Dachau and Auschwitz we are frightened by your threats of blockades and sanctions?
We have been to Hell and back- a Hell of your making. What more could you possibly have in your arsenal that could scare us?
I have watched this city bombarded twice by nations calling themselves civilized. In 1948, while you looked on apathetically, I saw women and children blown to smithereens, after we agreed to your request to internationalize the city. It was a deadly combination that did the job-British officers, Arab gunners, and American-made cannon. And then the savage sacking of the Old City-the willful slaughter, the wanton destruction of every synagogue and religious school, the desecration of Jewish cemeteries, the sale by a ghoulish government of tombstones for building materials, for poultry runs, army camps, even latrines.
And you never said a word.
You never breathed the slightest protest when the Jordanians shut off the holiest of our places, the Western Wall, in violation of the pledges they had made after the war- a war they waged, incidentally, against the decision of the UN. Not a murmur came from you whenever the legionnaires in their spiked helmets casually opened fire upon our citizens from behind the walls.
Your hearts bled when Berlin came under siege. You rushed your airlift “to save the gallant Berliners.” But you did not send one ounce of food when Jews starved in besieged Jerusalem . You thundered against the wall which the East Germans ran through the middle of the German capital-but not one peep out of you about that other wall, the one that tore through the heart of Jerusalem .
And when that same thing happened 20 years later, and the Arabs unleashed a savage, unprovoked bombardment of the Holy City again, did any of you do anything?
The only time you came to life was when the city was at last reunited. Then you wrung your hands and spoke loftily of “justice” and need for the “Christian” quality of turning the other cheek.
The truth-and you know it deep inside your gut – you would prefer the city to be destroyed rather than have it governed by Jews. No matter how diplomatically you phrase it, the age-old prejudices seep out of every word.
If our return to the city has tied your theology in knots, perhaps you had better re-examine your catechisms. After what we have been through, we are not passively going to accommodate ourselves to the twisted idea that we are to suffer eternal homelessness until we accept your savior.
For the first time since the year 70, there is now complete religious freedom for all in Jerusalem . For the first time since the Romans put a torch to the Temple , everyone has equal rights (You prefer to have some more equal than others.) We loathe the sword-but it was you who forced us to take it up. We crave peace, but we are not going back to the peace of 1948 as you would like us to.
We are home. It has a lovely sound for a nation you have willed to wander over the face of the globe. We are not leaving. We are redeeming the pledge made by our forefathers: Jerusalem is being rebuilt. “Next year” and the year after, and after, and after, until the end of time - “in Jerusalem ”!
Stanley Goldfoot
Founder Editor
The Times of Israel
August 1969
Yes, its up to Israel to insure Israel's safety. Hashem will not help those who do not help themselves.
So Israel should act in its own self interests, and stop trying to appease Obami.
Caroline is exactly right.
Agreed. So was Stanley Goldfoot.
As Carl would observed, not much has changed since he wrote it.
If anything the contempt and hatred for Israel today exceeds anything heard in the 1960s. Israel has still not been forgiven for winning the Six Day War.
And if there's one lesson that stands out, its the Jews must learn how to defend themselves. No one else is ever going to come to their rescue.
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