by Ruthie Blum
The 13th annual
Herzliya Conference kicked off on Monday afternoon with the usual
PowerPoint presentations illustrating that we Israelis feel more
confident about the state of our nation than is commonly perceived.
This, according to graphs and charts, is an internal strength which will
stand us in good stead when confronting the many external challenges
ahead.
That’s the good news.
Whether it is the result of faulty surveys, national naivete, or the
gorgeous weather gracing the gathering of the academic, social and
political elite at the Dan Acadia Hotel, is anybody’s guess. Mine is
that Israel is experiencing the false calm of the eye of a hurricane.
This sentiment was
given credence by IDF Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz during
his address, which concluded the first day of the conference. Gantz
said that the "chance of war against us in the foreseeable future is
low, but there is a high probability of deterioration" in the region.
Israel has to be
prepared, he said, to face different threats on the horizon, such as
Iran's nuclear program and terrorism emanating from Gaza and the West
Bank. It also has to be able to adapt to new situations, like the death
spree spilling over from Syria. He warned that the rebel forces
combating Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, once successful,
could subsequently set their sights on the settlements in the Golan
Heights, making Israel "next in line."
So what else is new?
Well, one thing that
comes to mind is what outgoing Defense Minister Ehud Barak asserted in
his parting speech to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
Mere hours before Gantz took to the podium in Herzliya, Barak was in
Jerusalem waxing poetic about U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.
U.S. President Barack
Obama's appointment of Hagel sparked a firestorm among pro-Israel groups
in America and abroad that nearly cost the latter the appointment. This
had to do with anti-Israel and anti-Semitic statements he had made
during his career as a senator, in addition to his appeasing stance
toward Iran and other radical Islamic entities.
The most "optimistic"
view on the part of Hagel's opponents was that Obama would be pulling
the Pentagon strings, no matter who ended up in charge of defense. The
Hagel nomination, some of us argued, was simply additional proof of
Obama's true colors.
To counteract
accusations of "too much daylight" between the American administration
and the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Obama announced
that he was coming to Israel. His visit, scheduled for March 20, is
cause for much trepidation in Jerusalem — particularly since Netanyahu
has yet to finalize his coalition. So far, it is not even clear who is
going to replace Barak as defense minister, or even from which party the
next defense minister will come.
Rather than taking the
opportunity of his retirement to sum up nearly six years in the post,
Barak chose to rush to Hagel's defense (no pun intended). "There was
exaggerated criticism against him," Barak asserted, still glowing from
his friendly meeting with Hagel in Washington last week.
Barak also felt it
necessary to claim that there has never been more "intimacy" between the
U.S. and Israel. It is a peculiar word to describe any global alliance,
let alone one that has been characterized by such strain over the past
four years.
But Barak clarified the
definition: "There is an understanding in the U.S. that Israel is
solely responsible for its own security, military, and intelligence."
And any disagreements on dealing with Iran's nuclearization are solely
on "the pace of the ticking clock."
If this revelation of
"intimacy" didn’t make the members of the Foreign Affairs and Defense
Committee blush, perhaps another embarrassing comment did the trick.
"I think that even if
we had reached an agreement with the Palestinians, the Muslim
Brotherhood would have taken over Egypt, Syria would have had a civil
war, and Iran would have continued to strive for hegemony in the Gulf
and to attain nuclear power," he ventured. "We live in a rough
neighborhood; that is hard to explain even to our closest friends in the
U.S. or Europe. There is no acceptance of Israel's presence in the
region."
Barak can be forgiven
for preaching to the choir in his platitude-laden words of farewell. But
rendering Hagel kosher in this context was worse than going beyond the
call of duty. It was a slap in the faces of all those true friends of
Israel who campaigned day and night to block his confirmation.
Barak must be pleased. Hagel and Obama are sure to be feeling vindicated.
The rest of us are
wondering when we will see some graphs indicating the rise of this
particular socio-political phenomenon in Israel — siding with the enemy.
It would be one PowerPoint presentation actually worth watching.
Ruthie Blum is the author of “To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the 'Arab Spring.'"
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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