The gathering storm around Israel
With Bibi in its eye.
Since we all tend to self-select on Twitter, it wasn’t a surprise that my timeline was filled with thrill for Benjamin Netanyahu’s surprisingly strong victory in the Israeli elections.
Sure, technically it was a win for Likud and the Israeli “right,” but it was all Netanyahu’s win on Twitter.
Or rather, it was Obama’s loss. Domestically in the U.S. among those whom Obama has beaten twice, and stuck with weak Republican opposition in Congress, Bibi standing up to Obama is about all we have these days.
And so too with the Europeans. As we watch the planned decline of Western Civilization in the cradle of Western Civilization, at least Bibi is willing to stand athwart the EU bureaucracy, yelling Stop!
So whatever Bibi is in real life, he has come to represent a willingness to fight that is missing from our own political structure and politicians.
Yet this victory celebration will be short-lived.
The storm of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism that has been gathering for over a decade will not stop, and may accelerate.
Last night, as Israeli results rolled in, I was moderating a presentation on Legal Complexities in Contemprorary Assymetrical Conflicts, presented by IDF Major Nadav.
It was a fascinating discussion of international law as relates to issues such as Hamas deliberately placing rocket launchers and weapons caches in civilian areas.
Throughout the discussion, I was struck by the contrast between the vile anti-Israel propaganda that has infected so much of the world, and the reality of what faces Israel in addressing implacable enemies who seek to destroy it while complying — singularly — with the law of warfare.
Those enemies are growing militarily. Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran in Syria, ISIS and various similar groups in Sinai and elsewhere. An Iranian nuke, of course, would be the trump card for Israel’s enemies.
Those implacable enemies practicing assymetrical warfare are not limited to people armed with rockets and suicide belts.
Some high-profile so-called human rights groups, dozens of European-funded NGOs, and various U.N. agencies, are key components in the assymetrical war on Israel. Their obsession with Israel and Israel and Israel, is not a reflection of the reality of human rights problems in the world. They have become foot soldiers armed with biased reports and distorted images.
So too many faculty and students on campuses, who repeat anti-Israel falsehoods and distortions like mind-numbed robots.
Bibi won the election, but the assymetrical war on Israel has not gone away. If anything, Bibi’s reelection will cause that war to grow in intensity, as his stubbornness which is so vital to preventing threats from the strong East is viewed as insubordination in the weak West.
There is a gathering storm surrounding Israel in a world gone mad, as much the day after the election as the day before.
Whether you love him or hate him, let’s pray that Bibi is up to the task that awaits him.
[Featured image via Jonah Mandel Twitter – Netanyahu post-victory Western Wall visit]
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Comments
If not Bibi , then who? And if not now, when?
The storm is gathering for America also. Who do we have that is up to the task?
The Tea Party, and everyone associated with it.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
The rise of anti Jew and Christian rhetoric, aided by
the media, along with the barbarous acts will accelerate, not because Bibi was re-elected;
however, because the terrorist organizations have been getting away with the killings. Where is the UN, where is Europe, where is the US, etc.?
The terrorist organizations know that Obama won’t stop them.
In fact, it is suspected he aids them.
Sometimes I get the feeling that the whole world is
sitting back and doing nothing until Obama is out of office.
America owes the world an apology. We elected a Marxist child to the most powerful office in the world and now, when his lawlessness is totally exposed, we haven’t the guts to remove him.
Obama isn’t the only one they’re laughing at.
Evil doers in the world are not sitting back. Rather, they are making all the progress they can while obama is in office. The next 22 months is their opportunity, as well as obama’s.
To WH & Val: The asymmetrical leadership ‘conflict’ is definitely weighted in Netanyahu ‘s favor. You had better up your golf game Obama. Put your tail between your legs and make nice. BTW: your anti-American “flexible” comment helped Vlad the bear increase his domain. Great foreign policy. Not!
Asymmetrical conflict in the Middle East as I read it: Israel’s Westphalian type of straightforward statehood diplomacy as opposed to the borderless and lawless ‘Ebola’ of fundamental Islam spread via tribal sectarianism in the neighboring states and now easily entering Africa via free-falling Lybia.
And, don’t forget, Iran is currently infiltrating South America with the same ‘Ebola’ fundamentalism. Open borders and general amnesty do not bode well for our own sovereign nation.
Definite asymmetrical advantage: Israel has G_d, if the people turn to G_d for His salvation.
“I was struck by the contrast between the vile anti-Israel propaganda that has infected so much of the world, and the reality …”
What you saw was an effect of the Hamas Covenant, which includes an agreement to engage in an advertising campaign to convince Muslims that they have an individual, religious duty to kill every Jew on the face of the earth. This campaign has been in effect since 1988, and is currently active, as shown most recently by the use of human shields by the Hamas, and the murder of their own people, which they then pretended had been done by the Israeli military. During the last conflict between Hamas and Israel, the lying by Hamas was so blatant, the Saudi King recognized it, and called them on it, in a 5-minute public address on Saudi TV.
There will be no peace until the Ummah (Muslim world-wide community) repudiates the Hamas Covenant for its slander against Allah and Islam. In the meantime, the Daesh, like the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda and Boko Haram before them, will continue to murder Muslims in increasing numbers and horrifying manner. They will continue to do this, all in the name of killing the Jews, with the excuse that they are doing it to please Allah.
A sociologist might say that when a society accepts murder for trivial reasons, it becomes chaotic. A religious person might say that the Daesh and the other progeny of the Muslim Brotherhood are Allah’s punishment for blasphemy.
“slander against Allah and Islam”? Would that be the same “Allah and Islam” that told the Barbary pirates they had a right and a duty to attack and plunder American merchant ships for the sole reason that the ships belonged to non-Muslims?
The same Allah and Islam that motivated many centuries of brutal jihad conquest with the aim of forcing the whole world to “submit”? That justified a massive slave trade long before the transatlantic trade began, and still condones slavery today?
Was it the Hamas covenant that taught Muslims in Pakistan and Indonesia that they are right to kill non-Muslims on charges of “blasphemy,” or for the simple crime of not “submitting” to Islam?
Was it the Hamas Covenant that encouraged Arab Muslim states to launch repeated attacks against Israel just because they couldn’t stand the thought of JEWS governing territory that was once controlled by Islam? Oh, that started before 1988, didn’t it?
Is the genocidal agenda of the Iranian mullahcracy inspired by the Hamas Covenant?
How did Hamas manage to fool so many good, pious Muslims into believing that they’re supposed to hate Jews and other non-Muslims and wish for the destruction of everything infidel?
The sins of Islam against civilization and humanity started long before Hamas existed. If there were no Hamas Covenant and no Hamas, the problem of hatred and aggression in Islam would not go away, because hatred and aggression are written into the heart of Islam, particularly in the example of Mohammed himself.
It really isn’t hard to understand, once you get free of the weird obsession with trying to save Islam from its own ghastly reputation.
do you knoe the truth about Islam. The Daesh are practising the Islam of Mohammed. There is no slander against Allah and Islam. They represent the real Islam.
What of the Palestinian right to self-determination?
Explain what you mean. In detail.
Palestinians have the right to self-determination: their leaders let them chose a) be a suicide bomber or b) be a human shield.
what of it? They have the West Bank and they have land that is holy to Christianity.
There is no reason for them to remain. They could go to any other Middle East country, especially Iran where they could live happily ever after with all of their Sharia laws.
Aussie: There is no reason for them to remain. They could go to any other Middle East country, especially Iran where they could live happily ever after with all of their Sharia laws.
So you propose ethnic cleansing.
The world is noticing how our poor, sick, child is reacting to this election.
He doesn’t even had the grace to have called Bibi with congratulations.
That’s because he is poor and sick and has no more idea of manners than the man in the moon.
He’s outraged that his coup to oust Bibi backfired.
I have never understood the Israeli strategy for the West Bank and the millions of Arabs who live there. Certainly Israel has the responsibility to ensure defensible borders, but does that mean maintaining control over the West Bank to the Jordan river forever? Does Israel believe that settlements in the West Bank (excluding Jerusalem) can someday drive out the Arabs? Push Arabs back to defensible lines so that when hard borders are drawn only a few Arabs will be offered citizenship?
Just wondering how the Gordian knot will be cut.
Wholly unimaginative, Batman!
How ’bout the Golda Meir option, dude? The one where the Muslims give up on their genocidal drive and join civilization?
Ok, sounds like a plan. If Netanyahu puts a tooth under his pillow will the tooth fairy make the attitude changes overnight?
So as long as Arabs on the West Bank remain angry that they live, ultimately, under Israeli rule the West Bank Arabs will remain under Israeli rule? Have I got that right? And this is a long-term solution?
Is the solution to create yet another Gaza? But one that borders on Jordan which means plenty of arms smuggled in for the fanatics. That doesn’t sound terribly viable either.
“Have I got that right?”
Nope. But you’re not even trying. As we all can see.
No need to be contentious. I think my question is a reasonable one that must be answered sooner or later.
I don’t believe the Muslim Arabs in the West Bank or throughout the region will change from the genocidal xenophobes they have been since at least the end of the Ottoman Empire. I do think Israel deserves defensible borders, particularly when the neighbors are so committed to wiping out Israel and every Jew who lives there. I do support Israel’s right to defend itself vigorously against the constant attacks from places like Gaza. etc., etc, etc.
But what to do with the West Bank? Population relocation into neighboring countries willing to accept them save for a tiny fraction that would make good Israeli citizens? Get Jordan to annex parts of the West Bank (just as Egypt should annex Gaza)? Or maintain the status quo for another few decades?
Recently, President al Sisi of Egypt offered the “Palestinians” a sizable chunk of the Sinai for their “state” but the Pals refused his kind offer.
The reality is that the Koran commands the murder of Jews. Even if Israel ceased to exist entirely and the Muslims took over what is now Israel, the Koran would not change an iota. And remember that, for Muslims, the Koran is literally the “word of Allah” and so is not susceptible to revision or interpretation. Furthermore, Mohammed is believed to be the last prophet, so there can be no further “revelations” to amend the Koran. Hence, there can be no Israeli agreement or accommodation with Islam which will result in peaceful neighborliness with Muslims. The “two state” solution is an abject fantasy.
Israel must maintain military superiority in the region and, for that reason, Iran cannot be permitted to have nuclear weapons. Moreover, Iran’s Shiism postulates that human activity, viz., war with Israel/infidels, will bring about the return of the “12th Imam” (devoutly desired) and the cataclysmic “end of times.”
No Arab state (Jordan, Egypt) will take the Palestinians because they are troublemakers. They will alternatively try to take over or attack Israel from any state they are brought into.
The Palestinians can’t be given a state of their own because they are not trustworthy. They would not abide by any agreements made and would continue hostilities as before. Israel would rapidly have to declare war and attack any such state.
So, there isn’t a peaceful solution. The options are ‘kill them all’, ‘wait for opportunities to do something useful’, and ‘add some pressure in ways that we hope might make for opportunities to do something useful’.
Israel is trying #3, very mildly. Results are mixed.
Israel had the opportunity, but not the guts, to march every single Muslim out of the West Bank and across the Jordan River.
The political environment for doing so has never been better since then, and is not likely to be so in the future.
The best man won again. Despite Obamas coup to oust him.
In the US and Europe we now see a malignant detachment from reality. The diplomatic game of chess is played as if the fate of real people is no more serious than the occasional pawn
falling off the table. Checkmate in the real world is for keeps. Negotiations from afar are sanitized and theoretical…
cold, detached and callously impersonal. In Russia, God was too high and the Tsar too far away…. Israel has no spare room for human mistakes… fortunately God is a lot closer.
Grading my Professor…
I find this an apt summation.
I was so relieved that Likud prevailed I don’t have words.
With two 4 year old daughters, I was worried I may not see grandchildren were Netanyahu not standing.
I do believe that.
Moving right along to the other point:
Taxpayer dollars used in an attempt to steer a foreign election.
I find this quite interesting, and hope you might care to expand on the implications.