Thursday, January 08, 2009

Circle Jerk In the Middle East

One of the most striking things about the Middle East is how little things really change. Read a book or an article written years ago and except for the names of the players, the game remains the same. And looking at today's news, we can get a good idea of the reason why.

Today was a particularly florid day of Israel bashing in the press and elsewhere. There were a number of examples in the dinosaur media, with the flagship effort being anti-Semite and hired Saudi shill Jimmy Carter's appearance in the Washington Post. It was such a self serving, bigoted helping of outright horse manure that it would be beneath me to dignify it by deconstructing it , although Jules Crittenden and Don Surber do a decent job of rebutting this senile bigot if you're interested.

Meanwhile, the Nation's resident buffoon David Corn makes the case that anyone who finds a tad of Jew hatred in the Israel bashing coming from the Left is 'playing the anti-Semitism card.' And Time Magazine's Tim McGirk, supposedly a serious reporter pens a feature three pager asking 'Can Israel survive Its Assault on Gaza?'

In the UN, the Arab bloc and the Europeans are working around the clock to save Hamas, and al-Guardian is writing about the Obama administration wanting to negotiate directly with Hamas once he's in.

What's happening of course is the Middle East version of the film 'Groundhog Day' where the same events keep repeating themselves over and over.

Israel is provoked beyond measure and defends herself, and then is hit with 'outrage' by the so-called international community who were nowhere to be found when the Arabs were launching aggression against the Jews. And just at the point of a decisive victory, Israel is forced to accept a ceasefire to preserve the status quo and spare the Arab aggressors 'humiliation.'

This happened in the 1948 war when Israel was forced to accept a ceasefire in place, in 1956 when Israel was forced to withdraw from the Sinai in exchange for security guarantees that were never kept, in the Six Day War, in the Yom Kippur War when Arik Sharon was prevented from destroying the Egyptian Third Army and eliminating any military threat from Egypt for the foreseeable future, in Lebanon when the IDF could have eliminated Arafat and Fatah for all time, and in the Hezbollah war when Israel finally committed her full ground troops at the end of the war, had crossed the Litani and had Hezbollah in an iron ring in South Lebanon when they were pressured to withdraw leaving Hezbollah in place to rearm and fight another day. And the pressure appears to be ramping up for the same kind of open ended non-solution to Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza.

Actually McGirk's piece, rife with misinformation and faulty reasoning as it is* makes my point in a left handed way the author didn't intend. The longer this process keeps being repeated,the farther away peace will be.

What really brings peace is not sparing the aggressor 'humiliation'. That only leads them to believe that victory is just another throw of the dice away, and gives rise to revanchist fantasies.

What brings peace is defeat and the realization that further hostilities are useless and too costly to pursue..particularly when the side that gets defeated is the one that initiated the war in the first place and the entire ideology that sparked the war is discredited and humiliated. Both the United States and Israel have experienced the historical truth of this directly and would do well to remember it.

The Germans and the Japanese experienced total and catastrophic defeat in WWII,and because of that the fascist ideology that drove them into aggressive war was totally abandoned. The results speak for themselves.

Egypt and Jordan only ended hostilities with Israel after a series of defeats that destroyed the ideology of Pan-Arabism, showed them that Israel was there to stay and that the dream of pushing the Jews into the sea was a hopeless fantasy.

The Jordanians and Egyptians had and have no great love for the Jews. They made peace because they saw no sense in continuing. They made peace because they were broke and desperately needed US aid, because in Egypt's case,they had a real leader in Anwar Sadat capable of seeing this and because the Egyptians realized that Israel has the capability to blow the Aswan Dam and put most of the inhabited part of Egypt under 15 feet of water in the event war breaks out again.

In Jordan's case, the Hashemite monarchy is a Bedouin aristocracy ruling over what was originally created by the British to be the Arab state in Palestine, with a population that is over 80% non-Bedouin Palestinian Arab. Another lost war would undoubtedly lead to the end of Hashemite monarchy.

Both Egypt and Jordan thus understand the consequences of another war....and the benefits of peace, even with a nation they largely despise.

If the international community actually cared about peace in the Middle East, they would applaud the idea of Hamas and its genocidal creed suffering a total defeat. It would provide the Palestinians with their first real concrete consequences of aggressive war, destroy and discredit a poisonous group of Islamic fascists and provide an incentive for the Palestinians to realize that Israel is not going anywhere and that it is time make the compromises necessary for peace.

Instead,by taking Hamas' side,they are choosing to prolong the conflict...thus causing more death and destruction for the people they claim to want to 'help.'

Apparently deligitimizing Israel is more important to them. I can only speculate as to why.


*(As only one example, McGirk cites the ridiculous 'demographic' argument as an imperative for the Israelis to give the Arabs whatever they want in hopes of being left in peace, failing to realize that the Jewish birthrate in Judea and Samaria has been more than keeping pace with the Arabs, or that according to impartial census,the Palestinian population is much lower than claimed. The Palestinians have been vastly inflating their numbers for years, both to convince gullible Israelis to swallow the same demographics argument and because the Palestinian's aid is figured on a per capita basis.

McGirk also assumes that any final settlement that involves swapping populations will of course only involve Jews being removed from their homes, while both Arab 'refugees' enjoying the so-called right of return and the present Arab population will continue to live in what's left of Israel without any changes. There are a number of indicaters that point to a very different outcome.

For the record, McGirk is the 'journalist' who broke the story of the Haditha 'massacre.' Now that they been acquitted,there are seven marines who might consider suing Time for libel.)



7 comments:

Anonymous said...

excellent post!! All of your posts are good but I think this is truly one of your best!! Only when the Arabs suffer complete and castraphoic defeat will peace be possible. As long as Israel continues to accept ceasefires, long term peace will be impossible and it will only lead to more death and suffering on all sides. This part of the post I could not have said better myself.

As to Israel being forced to accept a ceasefire. There probably has been some validity to this point. First America gets pressured to pressure Israel and then Israel gets pressured. At least this is how things used to work, however, there are some differences this time around.

While the EU, Russia, and the Arabs can still pressure America in very serious ways, there is very little America can actually do at this point. The Aemrican economy is in a weakened state, the budget deficit is massive, and the Aemrican military is worn down from its continuous deployments in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere in the misnamed war on terror. As such, Israel need not worry about American pressure.

There is very little that America can actually do to Israel at this point. In addition to this, with the Aemrican economy struggling as it is the Obama Administration will be unable to devote much in the way in time or resources to the Arab/Israeli war. Most of their energy and resources will have to be spent on the economy.

Ymarsakar said...

This is why the UN not being in Iraq is why Iraq won. And why NATO in Afghanistan is causing more problems than it is fixing.

Fighting a war by committee produces some interesting results.

Anonymous said...

Well, when you use the term Judea and Samaria you give the game away. Sure, Jordan and Egypt could make peace with Israel (and prove that peace is possible). But the Palestinians can't make peace with Israel because they've not been allowed a workable settlement. I would argue that Israel has several times inflicted crushing defeats on the PLO (Sharon in Lebanon was not a crushing defeat?), but the idea cannot be defeated. Remember what happened after the first world war when we totally defeated and humiliated Germany ...

Freedom Fighter said...

Good morning Ivan, and welcome to Joshua's Army.

Exactly what 'game' am I giving away by mentioning Judea and Samaria? They are historically part of Israel and that is what those areas are called. The term 'West Bank' merely serves to try and distance the area from Israel, AND ONLY MAKES SENSE IF one IS LOOKING AT IT FROM A jORDANIAN PERSPECTIVE. Language matters.

But the Palestinians can't make peace with Israel because they've not been allowed a workable settlement.

That is the crux of the matter is it? Perhaps you'll recall that Arafat was offered 97% of Judea and Samaria by Israel in exchange for peace by Ehud Barak- and turned it down.

Actually, I question why it is Israel's responsibility to come up with a 'workable settlement' at all.

It is the Arab states, after all, that caused this refugee problem when they illegally attacked Israel in 1948 - with substantial assistance from the UK, I might add. Why is it Israel's responsibility to make good for a refugee problem they did not cause, especially since many of these 'refugees' left voluntarily?

Is the Arab world short on land?

In addition, bear in mind that Britain had already created an Arab Palestinian state out of 80% of Palestine in 1923. It's called Jordan, and was designed by Churchill to attempt to eliminate future conflicts. It failed miserably, because the problem for the Arabs is Jews having any land at all in the Middle East.

And by the way, were you aware that according to Jordanian law, all inhabitants of Judea and Samaria have Jordanian citizenship ( 'unless they are Jews' is the exact language of the statute). So what we have is the spectacle of the Arab Palestinian State denying entrance to its own citizens!

Additionally, there is the question of the almost one million Jewish refugees ethnically cleansed from the Arab world after 1948, almost all of whom settled in Israel. Were they ever offered a 'workable settlement' or evn elementary compensation by the Arabs?

Chrushing defeats - the PLO was defeated in Lebanon, by Arafat and his cohorts were allowed to leave the country safely because the West insisted on it. Had that not happened, a lot of innocent blood would have been spared.

The German Army was defeated in WWI, but not decisively, as it was in WWII. That's what gave rise to the myth after WWI that the army was 'stabbed in the back by the Jews and the Communists', allowed the army to retain its power and prestige and provided an opening for revanchism and Hitler.

Thanks for dropping by.

ff

Anonymous said...

Excellent Post! I have been saying the exact same thing in all of my Blog comments on other Posts.

All the Humanitarian NGOs should see this more than anyone else. From a Humanitarian prospective, Israel should be allowed to destroy Hamas in this conflict, therefore saving Civilian lives that would be lost in the next conflict in 12 to 18 months.

If Israel has already killed 700 people, but it only takes another 500 more to crush Hamas's will, and force them to surrender, isn't that better than losing the 700 in this conflict and then having to kill another 1300 next time.

Less lives will be lost in the long run if Israel is permitted to finish the job today.

Anonymous said...

Since the Israelis entered Gaza I have not read a single article that supported the Israeli action, until I found yours. I've read dozens of Jewish blogs that mimic the "war crimes" claims of the Palestinians.

I just can't believe how little support Israel is getting. Everyone seems to be so concerned by the death of civilians, which are used as Human Shielkds by Hamas. UNfortunatyely Hamas is coated wit Teflon, and so Israel must assume all the blame. I am very angry at the lack of support for the situation Israel is under.

Thank you so much for your support!

P.S Jewish families in Denmark are being told not to bring their children to school. The Arabs in Denmark are so angry at the Jews, that the children's lives are in danger. Didn't Denmark do a great job supporting Jews during WWII. No the Jews are unprotected because there are Arabs in Denmark, and the Arabs are in control.

Jeffrey

Freedom Fighter said...

I wouldn't quite say that, Jeffrey.

The Danes are nowhere as dhimmified as say, the Brits.