One of the enduring myths of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is that
much of the West supports the Palestinians out of natural sympathy for
the underdog. Victor Davis Hanson of Stanford’s Hoover Institution
effectively demolished
that myth last week, pointing out that if sympathy for the underdog
were really driving the massive pro-Palestinian demonstrations sweeping
the West, one would expect to see equally massive demonstrations in
support of occupied Tibet, the undoubted underdog against superpower
China, or embattled Ukraine, the equally undoubted underdog against
superpower Russia. In reality, he argued, anti-Israel sentiment
flourishes not because Israel is Goliath, but because it is David:
Israel is inordinately
condemned for what it supposedly does because its friends are few, its
population is tiny, and its adversaries beyond Gaza numerous, dangerous
and often powerful.
Or to put it more bluntly, condemning Israel entails no costs and
frequently provides benefits, whereas supporting it could invite
retaliation from its numerous enemies.
...
[I]t’s no exaggeration to say that without the support Hamas receives
from Turkey and Qatar, it could never have built the war machine that
enabled it to start this summer’s war, and thus the death and
destruction the world is now decrying in Gaza would never have happened.
Since both America and the European Union have designated Hamas as a
terrorist organization, one might expect this flagrant support for Hamas
to prompt sanctions on Qatar and Turkey as state sponsors of terrorism.
But Qatar is the world’s largest natural gas exporter and richest
country, as well as home to the main U.S. air force base in the Middle
East, while Turkey is a NATO member and major emerging economy. So in
fact, far from sanctioning Qatar and Turkey, both America and Europe
consider them key partners. In short, it’s simply easier for the West to
condemn Israel’s response to Hamas attacks and pressure it to accede to
Hamas demands than it would be to condemn and penalize Turkish and
Qatari support for Hamas.
Clearly, Israel has many strengths, including a thriving economy, a
relatively powerful army, and strong American support. But as Hanson
noted, it’s still a tiny country with few friends and many enemies, and
anti-Israel protesters intuitively sense this. So don’t be fooled by
their pretensions to “moral indignation” against Israel’s “oppression of
the underdog.” They’re just doing what mobs have done since time
immemorial: targeting a victim they see as fundamentally vulnerable.
I am in the process of reading Joshua Muravchik's new book From David to Goliath, which looks at how the World's sympathies shifted away from Israel since 1967. Among the factors he lists are terrorism, oil, the strength of the 'non-aligned' nations at the United Nations, and the perception of the 'Palestinians' as being 'progressive' (perhaps the most ridiculous idea of all).
I also understand - but have not yet seen - that there was a column written by Eytan Kobre in Mishpacha over the summer in which he showed how the rabbis of the 1930's and 1940's predicted with stunning accuracy how this would be the exact result of the creation of a Jewish state. If anyone has access to an electronic version of that article, I'd appreciate if you could email the article or a link to me.
Clearly, classical anti-Semitism is also a factor here, particularly with respect to the world's obsession with Israel.
South Sudan says it has signed an
agreement with several Israeli oil companies, a potentially significant
strategic move that will consolidate the Jewish state's relations with
the fledgling, oil-rich East African state.
It will also bolster Israeli moves to counter Iranian inroads into
the Red Sea and a major gunrunning route from the Revolutionary Guards
base at Bandar Abbas in the Persian Gulf to the Gaza Strip via Sudan.
South Sudan, which became independent of Arab-ruled Sudan in July
2011 after a decades-long civil war, is locked in a frequently violent
confrontation over its oil reserves with the military-run Khartoum
regime, an ally of Iran, under President Omar al-Bashir.
Sudan has become a battleground in the mostly clandestine war between
Israel and the Islamic Republic, which funnels missiles and other arms
for Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip through the Red Sea.
South Sudan's petroleum and mining minister, Dhieu Dau, announced the
oil deal last week after he returned from a visit to Israel.
He said negotiations were ongoing with Israeli companies, which he did not identify, seeking to invest in South Sudan.
There's just one slight problem... South Sudan is landlocked.
South Sudan sits on around 80 percent of Sudan oil reserves, which
total 6.6 billion barrels, according to the BP Statistical Review.
This gives the south, which is overwhelmingly Christian and animist,
immense economic leverage over the Muslim Arab regime in Khartoum, which
depended on oil revenues to prop up its economy.
But Khartoum controls the only export pipelines from the landlocked
south that run through the north to Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
Most of the oil fields lie along the border between the two parts of
Sudan, and there have been repeated military clashes as both sides seek
control of the reserves.
...
There has been talk of building a 1,000-mile export pipeline from
South Sudan across Kenya to the Indian Ocean that would free Juba from
reliance on Khartoum's pipelines.
But no definite plans for the project, expected to cost around $2 billion, have yet materialized.
It may be that Israeli companies are seeking to help out in that
regard -- if only to undermine the Islamic-oriented Khartoum regime and
its alliance with Tehran, and to gain access to the Nile River, Egypt's
primary source of water and a strategic target.
Give Honda a lot of credit for this ad... or maybe not
Here's a new advertisement for Honda's hybrid cars. I'm not sure where it's been aired, but this would get me to go out and buy a Honda... and even a hybrid... if only Israel didn't tax new cars so heavily....
Let's go to the videotape.
Oy. Someone with whom I shared this claims it's a hoax.....
Middle East falling apart and - shocka - it has nothing to do with the absence of a 'Palestinian state'
Former JPost editor Douglas Davis writes that the Middle East is about to come apart in a paroxysm of violence and hatred, and - surprise, surprise, surprise - it has absolutely nothing to do with the absence of a 'Palestinian state.'
Europe’s political and media classes are missing the point. Lazy,
ignorant or both, they persist in reading from a clapped-out,
30-year-old script – if it was accurate even then – when they declaim on
Middle East affairs. As if the "occupation", the "settlements", the
"tunnel", the "wall" and other “crisis issues” are the cause of the all
world’s ills; as if the birth of Palestine holds the key to tranquillity
and peace, perhaps even utopia.
Solve the Palestinian problem and you solve the problems of the world.
Or at least the region. Wrong then, wrong now, according to a senior
Arab political source. “Make no mistake,” he told me earnestly over
dinner last week, “We are on the brink of a catastrophe. And it has
nothing whatever to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
He added:
“The Palestinians have never been among the top-10 priorities of any
Arab government. Arab leaders don’t give a damn about the Palestinians.
They have simply used the Palestinian issue to divert attention from
their own failures – to cover up their ineptitude, inadequacies and
corruption. Their oppressive security measures were never meant to
combat ‘Zionist aggression’ but to suppress the anger of their own
people. It’s been an exercise in cynicism, pure and simple. And even
Western governments swallowed it.”
Now, he says, the Arab world – and the wider Islamic world – is facing
reality. It is a reality that has nothing to do with the Arab Spring,
democracy, freedom and liberty. Nor does it have anything to do with
rage-fuelled violence supposedly incited by the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict, conspiracy theories about Western imperialism, Jewish
influence-peddling, crusader aggression, insulting cartoons or YouTube
videos (though such pretexts are often used to justify pre-ordained
spasms of violence).
“It’s true that there are sanctions against insulting the Prophet,”
notes Bernard Haykel, a professor of Middle East studies at Princeton
University, “but this is really about political or symbolic opportunists
who use religious symbols to advance their own power or prestige
against other groups.”
The reality is not a contest over symbols and power. The Arab world,
which has been in decline relative to the West for 300 years, is at
bursting point (the 57 Islamic states account for some 20 per cent of
the world’s population but account for less than 7 per cent of its
output).
Today, the Middle East is standing on the edge of an internecine
eruption that is likely to sweep away the existing order and radically
alter the regional order, with far-reaching strategic implications for
the West.
The region is splitting apart and ready to explode out of its largely
artificial boundaries along two major fault lines, ethnic and religious.
Read the whole thing, because he's got it right. And what's worse is that if Obama is reelected, the United States - which is the only power that might be able to do something about it - will have it wrong at just the wrong time.
The Arab world, one of the driest regions on the planet, will tip into severe water scarcity as early as 2015, a report issued on Thursday predicts.
By then, Arabs will have to survive on less than 500 cubic metres of water a year each, or below a tenth of the world average of more than 6,000 cubic metres per capita, said the report by the Arab Forum for Environment and Development. Per capita supply has plunged to only a quarter of its 1960 level.
Gee, I know a country that can sell them desalination equipment.... Go ahead. Cut off your noses to spite your faces. Boycott Israel.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
