Tag Archives: Palestinians

Netanyahu.

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            Benjamin Netanyahu was born with the State of Israel.  He was born in Tel Aviv in 1949, the son of the brilliant Revisionist Zionist fanatic Benzion Netanyahu.  He spent much of his youth in the United States,[1] then returned to Israel for military service.  No shirker he: Netanyahu spent five years in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), much of it in combat with the special forces.[2]  Then back to the United States to pursue a degree in Architecture at M.I.T.[3]  He eventually received the BA, plus an MA in Management.[4] 

            Netanyahu made a rapid ascent in politics.  One way and another, he had a lot of connections in Israel.  In 1984, those connections, brains, a familiarity with the United States, and a really good war record led to his appointment as Israel’s representative to the United Nations.  Back in the US, he gave good interview to television reporters.  In 1988 he entered parliament (the Knesset); in 1993 he won the leadership of the Likud party; in 1996 he became prime minister.  In 1999, voters gave Likud, and Netanyahu with it, the heave. 

            Since then, Netanyahu’s career has been linked to Gaza and the West Bank.  He got a cabinet position when Likud regained a majority, then, in 2005, resigned when Ariel Sharon ordered an end to the occupation of Gaza.  Hamas soon evicted the Palestinian Authority from Gaza, creating a radical anti-Israel and pro-Iran bastion on the border.  In 2009, as Israeli voters confronted these harsh new conditions, Netanyahu returned as Prime Minister.  Since then, he has campaigned for a regional alliance with Sunni Arab states to contain (at the least) Iran.  At the same time, however, he has had to juggle the rivalry between the Palestinian Authority (governing the West Bank) and Hamas.  In the case of Hamas, he has allowed Qatar to send millions of dollars in aid to Gaza.  He’s also had to bargain with the tiny, far-right parties who make his parliamentary majority possible.  This has forced (or allowed) him to permit expanding settlements in Arab territory on the West Bank.  He had a lot of irons in the fire. 

            Perhaps his skill at managing those irons made him complacent.  Iran had armed and advised clients all around Israel’s borders.  Hamas in Gaza, but also Hezbollah in Lebanon,[5] and the Assad regime in Syria, and the Houthis in Yemen.  In any event, on 7 October 2023 Hamas launched a devastating surprise attack that killed 1,200 Israelis and captured a couple hundred others before the Hamas troops scuttled back into Gaza.  There they hid among the Palestinian civilians in anticipation of an Israeli counter-attack.  They may also have expected Netanyahu to have been tossed out of power after this disaster.  They may have expected Hezbollah and even Iran to have joined in the war.  But Netanyahu refused to resign.   He was inventive, ruthless, and brave as a special forces soldier.  Now he’s that again.  He held onto power, while launching a “savage war of peace” against Hamas, then Hezbollah, and then Iran. 

            Now Gaza lies in ruins with scores of thousands dead.  The architect, the special forces soldier, and—for the moment—the dominant force in the Middle East. 

[1] He didn’t much like the American culture of the 1960s.  It was fun at the time, but he may have a point.  He doesn’t think much of recent American presidents.  Who would: three adolescents, a dotard, and a feral child. 

[2] So, no bone spurs, no asthma, no “politically viable,” no Air National Guard.  More like JFK and Bob Kerry. 

[3] Look at the realities, develop a vision, work to make it real. 

[4] His studies were interrupted by a return to the IDF during the 1973 war.  Must have been interesting sharing a dorm room with him.   

[5] To the point that the country might better be called Hezbollanon. 

From the river to the sea, Zion will be free. Alas.

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            The surprise attack of 7 October 2023 on Israel by Hamas continues to send out shock waves.  However, those psychological and social shock waves strike a restricted area of world opinion.  First and foremost, there is the quarrelling within Israel.  Roughly, one might divide opinion into the “rally ‘round the government” party and the “hunt for guilty men” party. 

For the “rally” group, the most important issue right now is the defeat of Israel’s enemies.  First, this means Hamas, then it means Hezbollah in Lebanon, and ultimately Iran.  In the eyes of this group, the multiple blows rained down on Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran restore faith in Israel’s ability to defend itself.  It seems not to matter how long this mission will take or what collateral damage it inflicts.  It is a war unlike any other. 

For the “guilty men” group, Israel’s resilience as a nation rests upon Israeli “faith in the decency of our society…and trust in the integrity of our leaders.”  These elements matter at least as much as does armed force.  How is that faith and trust possible when the current leaders bear the responsibility for the security failures that made the attacks possible and who are now escalating the war?  Moreover, they are alarmed by the duration and savagery of the war.  Israeli journalist Amir Tibon has written that, in the wake of the 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas, he would have expected the government to produce a radically better situation in short order.[1]  This better situation would have involved a swift recovery of the 200-plus hostages seized by Hamas and the creation of a new government for Gaza comprised of moderate Palestinians.  Instead, the war grinds on in Gaza, it has begun to extend into Lebanon, and many of the hostages are still in the hands of Hamas—or dead.  Most of all, the government has no “clear strategic endgame.”[2] 

            Second, there is the quarrelling within the United States.[3]  Elite Young Boobs (EYBs) at some leading American universities immediately sided with Hamas and the Palestinians.[4]  In September 2024, an F.B.I. report on Hate Crimes declared that more than two-thirds of reported religion-based hate crimes were anti-Semitic and the total number of such incidents were greater than any previous level.  Universities that accommodated such actions suddenly found themselves assailed by alumni, donors, and politicians.  Still, “let kids be kids.”[5]  More importantly for American politics, the attack on Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) aroused Arab Americans against Israel and against the Biden Administration which has backed Israel’s war effort.  In 2016, Joe Biden won the “battleground” state of Michigan by 154,000 votes.  The state’s 200,000 Arab-American voters are believed to have voted overwhelmingly for the Democrat.  Now, many of them are threatening to vote against Kamala Harris.  Common sense will surely reassert itself.  Putting Donald Trump into the White House will not produce a more humanitarian Gaza policy.  Trump is an admirer of Israel’s prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu. 

            Lost in all these quarrels is any recognition that Hamas could have stopped Israel’s attack by surrendering, possibly even to the International Criminal Court.  Why blame only the Jews? 

[1] “Israel: A sense of security forever shattered,” The Week, 18 October 2024, p. 15. 

[2] Oh, but it does if you would but see it.  Force out the people of Gaza, then turn to the West Bank. 

[3] “Oct. 7: How Hamas’ massacre changed the world,” The Week, 18 October 2024. 

[4] Although those are not necessarily the same thing.  Probably they should read Thucydides. 

[5] The phrase turns up all the time on my “Nextdoor” feed after adults complain about acts of petty vandalism or harassment by minor or near-minors. 

Nationalism and Democracy.

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One hundred years ago this year, the First World War ground to an end.  During the peace-making that followed, much attention focused on the American President, Woodrow Wilson.  Wilson was highly intelligent, well educated, and very articulate.[1]  He was also a fool.  Wilson hoped to remake the political system of the world by sponsoring democratic nationalism within the framework of an international organization.  In fact, during the “Twenty Years’ Crisis”[2] that followed the war, democratic nationalism clashed with international organization, and nationalism often got the better of democracy.  While Wilson sponsored democratic nationalism, he did not create it.  That already had been done.  The tension between democracy and nationalism ran through the last century and into our own.  Like the bulls at Pamplona, often trampling everything in its path.

Now people in search of explanations for current upheavals have rediscovered this history.[3]  Take the case of Israel.  It was a mistake from the get-go.  A colony of Europeans set down in the midst of a territory mostly populated by Arabs and at a time when the Arabs were first beginning to stir with nationalist ambitions of their own.  This had tragedy written all over it in John Deere green.  Far better if every Jew in Poland and Rumania and all those other benighted places had emigrated to the United States.[4]  But the United States had adopted immigration restrictions because many voters felt overwhelmed by strangeness.  Democratic nationalism at work.  These restrictions continued after the Second World War, so many Jews had no choice but Israel.  Wars followed (1948, 1956, 1967, 1973).  Israel expanded its territory and captured many Palestinians.  The Palestinians hate Israel, all the more so because Israel has held them captive for half a century[5] and Israel is a modern country that can continually slap-down their efforts.  In any event, Israel now seems to have jolted toward a position where democracy is for Jews, while non-Jews are excluded.  Probably, what has thinking people worried is that the next drawing-of-lines (and there will be one) will be over who is “more Jewish” or “really Jewish” based on ideological purity.

Then, what if Israel is not a circus-freak among the nations, but the wave of the future?  At least in the choice that people will have to make.  In Israel, that means “Is Israel a Jewish state or is it a non-sectarian democracy?”  What if the cosmopolitanism that appeals to many highly-educated, highly successful people collides with the nationalism of many less-qualified people?  Does the American left really want to adopt a politics that will lead them toward both anti-capitalism[6] and the authoritarian enforcement of their views?  I think not.

JMO, but Harris, Warren, Booker, and Biden are all losers in 2020.  Start looking.

[1] There are obvious parallels to Barack Obama.

[2] E. H. Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis: 1919–1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations (1939).

[3] Max Fisher, “Israel, Riding Nationalist Tide, Puts Identity First.  It Isn’t Alone.” NYT, 23 July 2018.  Is it just me, or have the headlines of the NYT become more “literary”?

[4] What if there were twice as many Jews in the United States today?  Think what we might be as a country.

[5] Well, OK, that’s only partially true.  The Arab countries refused to absorb the Palestinian refugees after 1948-1949, and kept them penned-up in squalid refugee camps paid for by Western (i.e. American) generosity.  The territories that the Palestinians now claim for their own state—the West Bank and Gaza and East Jerusalem—were in the possession of Jordan and Egypt from 1948 to 1967.  If the Arabs had wanted to create a Palestinian state, they had every opportunity to do so.

[6] See; Venezuela under Hugo Chavez and Nicholas Maduro, or Nicaragua under Daniel Ortega.