by Prof. Ron Breiman
The
discord between the United States and Israel over the Iranian nuclear
program is grabbing headlines, and the gap between how these two
countries understand the reality of the situation needs to be discussed.
The Americans in
general and the Obama administration in particular are making mistake
after mistake in their analysis of the developments in the Middle East.
Because of this they are perhaps surprised at the results of their words
and actions, while their allies, who know the region and are more in
tune, are proved right.
There are plenty
of examples: Obama's Cairo speech; excitement about the "Arab Spring";
the manner in which they handled the regime changes in Egypt; their
handling of the Syrian regime's use of chemical weapons; the way they
have fallen for the charms of the new Iranian president's smiles; their
eagerness to reach a deal with Iran, which strengthens their adversary
in Tehran; and standing alongside Palestinian Authority President
Mahmoud Abbas and his cohorts (Secretary of State John Kerry is
threatening Israel with the renewal of the Oslo War -- or in other
words, a third intifada).
The assumption
that totalitarian regimes will think and act like Western democracies
crashes over and over into the hard wall of reality, unfortunately for
those democracies and for all of humanity. The most prominent example,
but not the only one, has been known for 75 years: the Western powers'
fateful courtship of Hitler in Munich in 1938. On Sept. 13, 1938,
then-British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain wrote a detailed letter
to King George VI. After touching on Hitler's belligerent speech from
the night before and after reminding the king of reliable intelligence
reports concluding that Hitler had already decided to attack
Czechoslovakia and continue eastward, he quoted a report submitted by
the British representative in Berlin saying that Hitler would be
prepared to accept a diplomatic solution. Against this backdrop,
Chamberlain proposed the dramatic and surprising step of going to meet
with Hitler, with the goal of changing the situation and reaching an
Anglo-German understanding. The rest is known: The Munich Conference at
the end of that same month, the sacrifice of Czechoslovakia and the
deterioration into all-out world war.
Meanwhile,
things now are much the same. On one hand, the axis of evil:
Iran-Syria-Abbas and Abbas' friends in the Palestinian Authority (one of
the faulty basic assumptions of Oslo was the baseless distinction
between the "good" terrorists in the PLO and their "bad" terrorist
brothers in Hamas, while both work towards "liberating" all of
"Palestine" and cleansing it of Jews. The only difference is in the
style and method). In the face of these determined and sophisticated
forces, the Chamberlain-like Western democracies of our time have sent
out naive representatives who lack an understanding of the reality: John
Kerry (and Obama), EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, chief
Israeli negotiator Tzipi Livni. When this is the lineup, it is not
surprising that the representatives of the axis of evil are able to
outmaneuver them and become bolder in their demands.
We are told that
no deal is better than a bad deal. This is true over the Iranians and
Syrians, and no less so over the Arabs in the Land of Israel. None can
be met with hesitation and we must not blink first. Hesitation is
perceived immediately as weakness and as an invitation to increase
demands. Arriving at a bad deal means we have failed.
Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu is displaying determined leadership and is reading
the map of the situation correctly in his handling of the Iranian
nuclear bomb threat. He would do well to show similar resoluteness when
handling the Palestinian bomb, which is also an existential threat to
Israel. We can only hope that the government shortens the rope it has
given Livni.
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=6307
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
No comments:
Post a Comment