WarSclerotic

Kerry stumbles again, Israel Hayom, Prof. Ron Breiman, July 28, 2014

(Regardless of whether Hamas, et al, are insane, they are rationally pursuing courses that can lead to the demise of Israel. That, as they acknowledge, is what they want. Israel objects. The Obama Administration? What it wants is not entirely clear, but to the extent that it is aligned with Hamas, et al, it is not unreasonable to assume that their goals are similar. Please see also Obama’s peace processors: Brotherhood love — DM)

Kerry expects both sides in Gaza to show sanity, which is to say he is putting Israel and a terrorist organization on an equal plane, as if they are two countries, rather than a victim and an aggressor.

Like a blind person groping for the ladder to climb down from the roof but instead falling down the chimney, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and the government he represents have not missed an opportunity to step in all the Middle Eastern potholes along their way. Kerry is imbued with good will, but this is not enough. Kerry and U.S. President Barack Obama suffer from a misunderstanding of reality in our region, as well as in other parts of the world.

Over the years, the policy of our best friend, the U.S., toward us has been characterized more by important common values — of which there are many — than by recognition of shared interests between the large superpower and its small ally. Hence the differences: Sometimes the U.S. treats Israel as a giant aircraft carrier representing democracy in a problematic region of the world, while other times it treats us as its “concubine in the Middle East,” as the late Professor Ezra Zohar put it. In practice, the U.S. has stolen victory from Israel’s hands every time it has been on the verge of decisively defeating its enemies on the battlefield. This was the case in the War of Independence, Sinai Campaign, Six-Day War, War of Attrition and Yom Kippur War, among others. It appears this will also be the case in Operation Protective Edge.

Kerry has traveled here time and time again over the past two years, in an attempt to find an impossible solution to an existential struggle that has gone on for a century already. There will be no solution in our generation, certainly not along the Oslo path, which is nothing but repeatedly banging our heads against the wall of reality on the basis of false premises and turning a blind eye to the risks involved. This brings to mind Professor Albert Einstein’s insightful definition of insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Kerry expects both sides in Gaza to show sanity, which is to say he is putting Israel and a terrorist organization on an equal plane, as if they are two countries, rather than a victim and an aggressor. By doing so, Kerry is mimicking Israelis who acted similarly two decades ago, putting Israel and the PLO terrorist group on an equal plane.

Making peace between a victim and a totalitarian aggressor has proved historically to be unachievable and disastrous. Ask Neville Chamberlain about the “peace” he brought back from Munich in 1938. The West has apparently not learned from its past mistakes and it is repeating them, at Israel’s expense. And, of course, those who are not willing to learn from history are destined to experience the same mistakes again and again.

It is not enough to make statements about Israel’s right to defend itself (which are correct) if the demand of the international community (a code phrase for those who regret the establishment of a Jewish state) is that Israel operate with its hands tied. Jewish minds created the Iron Dome, but Israel cannot win with its hands tied. Israel is not asking foreign armies to fight its battles. Israel just wants to be left alone as it acts to achieve its goals. Israel’s success will also serve the naive West, which is currently being taken over by a reverse “reconquista” (the reconquest of Spain by Christians from Muslims) process.

Israel aside, the U.S. is hurting its own interests with its policy. America’s status as the world’s sole superpower is eroding, and sometimes it merely looks like a tired reflection of the leader of the free world. Russia is returning to the arena as a re-emerging superpower, Iran is laughing all the way to a nuclear bomb, Syria is “dismantling” its chemical weapons (who knows how many remain in its warehouses?), Egypt is being hurt repeatedly by America’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood, and Israel is suffering from the support given to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas by naive Washington.

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