by Isi Leibler
The appointment of
Samantha Power as America's U.N. ambassador, combined with recent U.S.
foreign policy statements, reinforce concerns that the U.S.
administration is accelerating its policies of global withdrawal,
engaging rather than confronting rogue states, and appeasing Islamic
extremism.
Power is on record for
dismissing concerns about the Iranian nuclear threat. In addition, while
favoring greater U.S. assertiveness in relation to human rights issues,
she seems to have a somewhat jaundiced moral relativist approach,
jointly bracketing Israeli and Palestinian "crimes." On one occasion,
she even called for the U.S. to intervene militarily on behalf of the
Palestinians against the Jewish state.
Indeed, in an article
published 10 years ago entitled "Why do they hate us?" Powers perversely
compared U.S. behavior to that of the Nazis. While describing
Chancellor Willy Brandt kneeling in the Warsaw ghetto to demonstrate
atonement for the crimes of the Nazis as "ennobling and cathartic for
Germany," she implied that the United States should make a similar
apology for its global policies.
In view of her
exceedingly harsh former condemnations of Israel, the enthusiastic
endorsement of her appointment by pro-Israel stalwarts such as former
Senator Joe Lieberman, Anti-Defamation League head Abe Foxman, and Alan
Dershowitz were somewhat perplexing. We hope that their confident
predictions that she will confront the ongoing anti-Israeli onslaughts
at the U.N. will be realized. But having regard to her previous
statements on the subject, one would have expected of them at least to
suspend judgment.
President Barack Obama
was always upfront concerning his intention to reduce America's global
interventionist role and "engage" rather than confront rogue states. His
recent choice of personnel reflects this.
Secretary of State John
Kerry, a friend of Israel, has a checkered and messy foreign policy
track record including a disastrous effort, immediately before the
outbreak of the Syrian civil war, to rehabilitate Assad whom he regarded
as a reasonable, open-minded leader. His naïve efforts to promote the
peace process are respectfully tolerated by the Israelis and responded
to with outright contempt by the Palestinians, who mocked the $4 billion
private investment project he recently unveiled. Last month, Kerry
quietly waived the U.S. requirements of Egypt to "implement policies to
ensure freedom of expression, association and religion," and approved a
$1.3 billion arms grant to them. A few weeks later, the Egyptians
displayed their appreciation by sentencing 43 nongovernmental
organization workers, including 16 Americans, to five-year prison terms
for having funded pro-democracy groups.
Obama's Defense
Minister Chuck Hagel was an isolationist who harbored anti-Israel views
and John Brennan, who heads the CIA, is the principal architect of the
policy to appease Islam.
The so-called "Arab
Spring," enthusiastically welcomed by the Obama administration,
substituted authoritarian dictators -- some pro-Western -- with more
extreme Moslem Brotherhood fanatics and other radical Islamists who,
despite reliance on American financial support, display utter contempt
for U.S. concerns.
The absence of
international pressure from the U.S. as a superpower in the catastrophic
civil war in Syria has strengthened the extremists on both sides with
the now probable outcome being an Iran-Hezbollah-dominated Assad regime
or rule by Muslim Brotherhood extremists buttressed by al-Qaida.
U.S. appeasement of
Islamic extremism now also demands the exclusion of criticism of Islamic
terrorism from the lexicon of administration spokesmen. Thus, it is
prohibited to bracket the role of Islamic fundamentalism with acts of
terror orchestrated by jihadist elements. Despite the fact that 95
percent of global terror originates from Islamic extremist sources, one
is continuously bombarded by meaningless clichés, such as "Islam is a
religion of peace," designed to understate and cover up the Islamic
extremist element. To top it off, the administration has now initiated a
campaign of "outreach" to U.S. Muslim Brotherhood groups, even
including elements under investigation for charges of supporting
terrorism. This of course undermines the standing and influence of
moderate Muslims.
These developments have
severe ramifications for Israel. The United States is one of the very
few countries where the public remains strongly supportive on a
bipartisan level towards Israel. Obama's demonstrative display of warmth
towards Israel early in his second term, as evidenced during his visit
to the Jewish state, was undoubtedly largely influenced by the feelings
of rank-and-file Americans.
The U.S. global decline
is deeply disconcerting for Israel. It is paralleled by the increasing
power of China, which has few shared values with us and maintains a
purely pragmatic relationship, heavily influenced by the economic and
political power of the Arab bloc. The Russian leaders, unlike their
former Soviet counterparts, are not anti-Semitic but retain a strong
alliance with Syria and even Iran.
Israel's greatest
concern is whether, with the likely failure of sanctions, the United
States will fulfill its reiterated undertakings to resort to military
action to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. The repeated
articulation of "engaging" rogue states is regarded by many observers as
a prelude to the U.S. substituting its policy of preventing Iran from
obtaining the bomb, with a wishy-washy containment approach that paves
the way for Iranian regional hegemony or obliges other Arab states to
seek to obtain nuclear facilities.
Yet, notwithstanding
its global decline, the U.S. remains the world's greatest superpower and
its relationship with Israel remains crucial for us.
It is thus incumbent on
us to recognize and work towards two goals. The first is to remain
aware that in this regional scorpion's den, there is no mercy for the
weak and we must rely solely on our own resources and strength to deter
those states -- Shiite and Sunni alike -- which retain an obsession to
destroy us.
That the IDF is today
more powerful than it has ever been is the greatest reassurance for the
nation. We can never rely on third parties and the current chaos with
UNDOF on the Golan Heights, with the Russians offering to substitute for
the Austrian withdrawal, underlines the imperative of self-sufficiency
in defending ourselves.
The second goal must be
to maintain and strengthen our relationship with the American people
and Congress. If they continue backing our efforts to resist the
barbarians at our gates, the administration is likely to continue
providing us with the needed military and technological support.
To achieve these goals
we must impose greater discipline on our politicians and on ourselves.
We must speak with one voice, especially in these times of intransigent
Palestinian leadership when, for the foreseeable future, genuine
progress in the peace process is virtually inconceivable. It is the
height of irresponsibility for a deputy minister of defense to proclaim
that a two state solution is off the table or to call for the annexation
of all the territories. Such outbursts simply provide grist for those
seeking to distance the U.S. from Israel.
The government must
continue its nuanced policy of strengthening the relationship with the
U.S. without conceding on issues that abet the strategy of our
adversaries to undermine the state in stages and embolden Islamic
extremists.
We would hope that our
Jewish supporters and friends in the United States will continue
encouraging the administration at all levels to support Israel in its
struggle against its Islamic jihadist adversaries.
Isi Leibler's website can be viewed at www.wordfromjerusalem.com. He may be contacted at ileibler@leibler.com.
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=4639
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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