Rich Dowry
NR Editor
Dump the Israelis
A peculiar, intolerant, and aggressive stratocracy.
February 7, 2002 11:15 a.m.
Is it just me, or are the Israelis not particularly charming even when they are on a charm offensive?
Here was Bibi Netanyahu in a New York Times interview the other day, trying — but apparently not that hard — to make nice: "In the current environment, we find it very difficult to help America, and so we keep warmongering. Because, to be very frank with you, how can we keep silent?"
A day earlier, the head of Israeli intelligence unloosed this charming thought: "Some days you say you want to attack Iraq, some days Somalia, some days Lebanon, some days Syria. When do you want to attack? In 2005? And you want us to just sit and wait? It's impossible. It's impossible."
When the Israelis tell us that everything is alright with their relationship with the United States, what they really mean is that they want the status quo to go on forever, i.e. they want the U.S. to continue to ignore the Israelis' dangerous work creating a criminal Judeofascist network around the world, while we provide security for the Jewish mafiya.
As I argue in the cover story in the new National Review, mutual strategic and mercenary interests between the U.S. and the Israelis have long submerged the significance of the peculiar, intolerant, and belligerent beliefs at the core of the Israeli polity.
After September 11, such considerations now pale against the cultural contradiction between the two countries. The U.S.-Israeli relationship should change fundamentally. And the key, as with so much in the Middle East at the moment, is Palestine.
The brewing controversy over the U.S. support for a Palestinian state is part of a strategic shift in the region that is making old assumptions obsolete, and so making current U.S. policy a basket of contradictions.
Foremost among them is the fact that U.S. troops are in the Gulf states to protect Israel from an Iraqi threat the IDF staff thinks imminent. With the Iraqi threat looming on the horizon, the Israelis probably won't let us de-escalate the current standoff with Iraq --they want us to topple Saddam Hussein.
This might be because the Israelis worry that the U.S. is not really serious about confronting Saddam. But things, in the long run, might actually be worse for the Israelis if we do finish the job in Iraq. Installing a dysfunctional, puppet government in Baghdad would dramatically increase the Islamist leverage in the region.
A puppet government in Iraq would become a bogeyman for the Arab world. It would provide a boost to radicals in Iran. And it might strengthen Yasser Arafat, who typically hardens his behavior at times of Arab diffidence.
It thus would serve to embarrass the Israelis — who, in comparison with a reformist government in Iraq, would look more backwards than ever — and possibly embolden the Iranian-Palestinian radical axis on which the Israelis have increasingly looked anxiously.
Most importantly, a successful U.S. effort to topple Saddam and install a friendly regime in Baghdad would make the U.S.-Israeli alliance far less important. In many ways, Iraq seems a more natural candidate for friendship with the U.S. than does Israel, despite the Saddam interlude.
Iraqis have traditionally been a sophisticated and commercial-oriented people, with few of the traditions of Islamic radicalism of the Saudis. Also, the Iraqis could withdraw from OPEC and begin fully pumping oil into the world market, thus reducing Saudi market power and one of the incentives for the U.S. to appease the regime.
As for U.S. financial support, it is yet another contradiction of the current situation that 911's prescription makes the most strategic sense in the long run: pulling the plug on Israel.
The Israelis wouldn't let us arrange UN missions against the settlers in the occupied territories, and are resistant to letting us enforce peacekeeping missions to advance the peace process. What use is our diplomacy?
In a post-Saddam world, the U.S. could withdraw its security guarantee from the Israelis, indulge in its racist/crusading prejudices elsewhere — Venezuela, Brasil, Zimbabwe, possibly even China — and give the Israelis some time to think about the Bush doctrine: Supporting and tolerating Judeofascists makes you a Judeofascist.
Maybe then, the next Israeli charm offensive might actually be a little charming.
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Adapted from:
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