Sovereign or Satellite?

By Victor Rosenthal

“Israel has the right to defend herself,” said Joe Biden to cheers from the Jewish state. But not too strongly or for too long, apparently. When the pressure from the left wing of his party began to get uncomfortable, he issued an ultimatum. And when America says “jump,” Israel jumps.

One of the greatest mistakes Israel has made in the 73 years since its declaration of independence was to sign on as a satellite of the United States, in return for military aid. The aid has been corrosive: it gives the US too much leverage over our policies, distorts our military procurement decisions, corrupts our decision-makers, cripples our own defense industries, and damages our sovereignty. We don’t need it and we would be better off without it.

While many Americans support Israel, there are those, including some in the US Congress, Senate, and administration, who would prefer that she disappear. Even among those who support Israel, knowledge of the facts about our situation is rare. American media, with few exceptions, is at best strongly biased toward a policy of Israeli concessions that most Israelis oppose. Some of the media’s misconceptions are risible, like their repetition that Benjamin Netanyahu is a “hardline right-winger.” Many Israelis would respond to this, “if only!”

Israel and its conflict with the Palestinian Arabs has become a highly partisan issue, with American politicians spouting nonsense in order to activate their political bases. Anti-Israel propaganda has become a large-scale industry in the US, with numerous organizations springing up, financed by our state enemies and non-state actors like the groups associated with George Soros, probably the single most prolific funder of anti-Israel initiatives.

In addition to all this, the US is currently going through a convulsive social upheaval centering on the subject of race. The mix of violence and incoherent ideologies, along with what is probably a deliberate attempt to destabilize the country, has also given rise in some segments of society (as political and economic instability always does) to antisemitism and its constant companion, misoziony, the irrational, extreme, and obsessive hatred of the Jewish state. There has been a deliberate effort by some to tie domestic racial issues like the relations between the police and black Americans to Israel. Despite the absurdity of this proposition, it has garnered a great deal of support.

Henry Kissinger once said that Israel does not have a foreign policy, only a domestic one. This is becoming true of America as well. All politics, as Daniel Moynihan said, is local. In more and more ideological localities, they don’t like us, and that has an effect on national policy.

Do we, as Israelis, want to tie our survival to the USA? Or any other great power, like China for example? I don’t think so.

But what is the alternative? Israel is a very small country with a small population in an increasingly hostile world. It is located in a very strategic spot, both physically and in the conceptual geography of much of the human race. Without allies, she would be at the mercy of much larger and stronger nations. Today she is facing a direct threat from Iran, a country with a population almost ten times greater.

The Trump Administration, whatever else can be said about it, was solidly pro-Israel. Its actions regarding Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, as well as its sharp reduction of financial support for UNRWA and the Palestinian Authority, strengthened Israel with respect to her internal and neighboring enemies. The Abraham Accords it brokered provided – for the first time – a true light at the end of the tunnel for the Israeli-Arab conflict, in a way that the cold peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan did not.

I was very optimistic at that time that Trump’s policy marked the beginning of progress away from international isolation, as well as – for the first time – an end to the artificial support for the poisonous and destructive Palestinian movement. Israel, I thought, could develop into a leader of a strong non-aligned movement, including Arab countries and possibly India, that could deter Iranian aggression. I thought that maybe the irredentist PLO and Hamas could be pushed out, and some form of Palestinian autonomy established that would both provide a better life for the Palestinians and end the plague of terrorism that has accompanied our nation since her beginnings.

Unfortunately, the Biden Administration, feeling the need to reject all things Trump, rejected his pro-Israel policy. It went back to the failed and dangerous initiative of the Obama Administration to appease Iran, a policy that guarantees a new regional war in the Middle East – one that will make the recent fracas in Gaza look like a schoolyard squabble. In addition, it is impossible for me to understand how Iran, where “death to America” is a popular slogan, will be a better ally to the US than the nascent Abraham Accords community promised to be.

Biden is a good guy. He said that Israel had the right to defend herself, and said that “until the region, says unequivocally, they acknowledge the right of Israel to exist as an independent Jewish state, there will be no peace.” He is not personally confrontational to Israel or her leaders, as Obama was. But one has to look past what politicians say at what they do. His administration is moving ahead to restart the Iran deal and resume funding the PA and UNWRA. And his ultimatum over Gaza, no matter how polite, was still an ultimatum.

I hope it will be possible for Israel to make the necessary changes to reduce its dependence on the US. It won’t be easy.

In the meantime, this week we are facing a test of our sovereignty and independence. That is the conflict over the Sheik Jarrah neighborhood. Israel’s courts have decided, after a legal struggle that continued for decades, that four Arab families who have never paid rent to the Jewish owners of the property, must be evicted from it. If the evictions are not carried out, it will establish that Israeli law does not apply in Israel when it doesn’t suit the Arabs and their international supporters.

PM Netanyahu will have a chance to prove that he is the leader of a truly sovereign and independent state in the next few days. Let’s see if he can do it.
May 23, 2021 | 11 Comments »
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11 Comments / 11 Comments

  1. It is interesting that the Israeli Jews actually care more about the Arabs than about the Diaspora (or their own) Jews.

    Especially after the recent events have shown conclusively that the Arabs in Israel are the 5th column and as such represent a security threat.

  2. @ peloni1986:
    The Pal-Arabs would like Israel to disappear or have a one state solution depending on the individual. That said the non Hamas guys in Gaza or elsewhere do not like to have their houses blown or live without electricity.

    They are not all guerilla fighters. I know many of these people over the years. That said, that does not mean you can turn your back on them. Before Oslo Gazans and Arabs from J & S used to work all over Israel. Actually many Arabs from J & S still work in Israel some legally and some illegally.

  3. @ Bear Klein:
    You are, of course, absolutely correct in your statement, Bear. The two state solution was the solution proposed to rid the many parties of the outlier of doing business, namely Israel. The US-Israeli relationship extends well beyond the gov’t’s of the day within each nation. So, a convenient way to remove the problem(read as us) is to destabilize Israel which, as you state, is the only rational outcome of the two state solution negotiations which the Pals won’t ever accept in any case. So, Einstein’s quote of insanity is not even relevant here. They don’t mean for a different outcome and the Two State Solution will take them where they mean to go. Put more succinctly, they mean to have a solution without us in it and the team of Blinken-Biden-&-Nides will soon begin their work in earnest towards this end. If we ever form a viable, working gov’t it would be a good thing, because I suspect the next shoe to drop will likely not be one to our benefit.

    One point of variance of opinion related to your statement, though. I do not believe the Pals are sick of war. In truth, as I have state often, propaganda works, much to the regrets of many chickens and pigs. And we Jews. The miserable Pals live in unfortunate circumstances of their own construction and I believe they are as responsible for their dilemma as the Germans of 1940 were for the rise and sustained rule of Hitler. It is a statement that Abbass(not the dentist the other one whose name escapes me at present) cancelled elections for fear that Hamas would unseat him. So, if this is not more dis-info, it would seem that the Pals have unified upon a choice between the two devils rivaling to determine who will be able to kill more of us. And also with the Israeli Arabs to conduct a series of pogroms in the streets of a war torn nation in solidarity with these monsters, they all seem to be content with achieving the high state of life as exercised by their brothers in Gaza. I can’t wait for the Jordan option to come into being where they will all likely unite together in Jordan where it will be Mudar’s great task to educate these mindless beings into accepting our existence. He will certainly have his hands full, and I truly hope to see him have his opportunity to solve the riddle of this Gordian Knot.

  4. @ peloni1986:
    The Biden Administration can be characterized in many ways!! One of them is arrogant and not intellectually very deep to put it bluntly. They also think it is possible to be friends the Palestinians and Israelis both. The Palestinians goal (or all of their organizations) is the destruction of Israel!

    So you can not be a true friend to Israel if you supply Gaza with building materials. These materials will be used by Hamas for their military infrastructure. There is no way around it as long as Hamas is in charge of Gaza. This has been proven previously.

    The Palestinians have been offered a state numerous times but agreeing to have a state always meant agreeing to a Jewish State as a permanent neighbor. That is not something they have agreed to. The USA Administration is going back to an old proven formula of failure to solve the conflict. They regurgitate the only solution is a two state solution. That is not a solution for peace but for war with less secure borders for Israel. So that is not the act of a friend.

    They are not even helping the Palestinians in Gaza because those people their who are sick of war (probably a very large number) will not be helped by a repeat of 2014. Meaning Hamas gets in a war they know they will lose and Gaza will get horribly damaged and people get killed. The international community bails them out by rebuilding. So the cost to Hamas financially is not so great as housing and infrastructure is taken care. If Biden stops the sanctions on Iran they will certainly buy Hamas more weapons.

    As Einstein said trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is insanity.

    Making the Palestinians realize that they need to come to grips of the reality of the Jewish State’s permanent existence would be step one on a long road to finding a solution to the conflict. Encouraging them to fantasize more about their dream to destroy Israel is not helping them get to a better future.

    So the Biden Administration’s approach is simply a failure from the start with no hope of improvement and question of much harm will they do to Israel and Palestinians.

  5. @ Reader:

    why does the best friend of Israel insist on killing Israel with a two-state final solution

    Because they and Israel both see Israel as the lesser member of the US-Israeli relationship. It began with HW Bush who would have made his Nazi-partnered father proud. The HW Bush policy shamelessly used Israel’s desperate need of the loan guarantees as a bargaining chip to manipulate Shamir to his will. This scandalous treatment of Israel set the mark for the following administrations to manipulate Israel to placate the Arabs, that is until Trump. But beyond the tactics employed, the US, historically, had a need for the Arabs, namely oil, that can only be remedied by a US first policy, such as was seen under Trump. But Trump ended this need of the Arabs and he made this known in 2017 in his historic speech at Riyadh. You saw how the Arabs responded, and it didn’t take long. Terrorism was down and peace was up. Imbecile in chief is trying to backtrack on this policy to the detriment of the US and the good fortune of the Arabs. Meanwhile, Israel has dragged her feet in compliance with US demands for peace concessions as far as could be done and bought time while waiting for the next new administration along with a possibly new Mideast policy. From Madrid to present, this was the policy pursued by the Right(yes, Hebron was a mistake). The Left tried repeatedly (twice I think) to give the Arabs everything requested to succeed in their peace initiatives , when in truth the only thing the Pals really want is all of us dead. When total annihilation was not included on the list, they couldn’t ask for it, so they just said no, walked away and started an open state of war against the Jews.

    A more poignant question is revealed when considering why the US opposed the UN Council move against Israel over the past couple of weeks. I believe it is because of a longer game by whoever is making decisions in Washington and their priorities are not relevant to the Hamas attack on Israel. What their priorities are would be interesting to know, because I am confident that it is not in Israel’s interest.

  6. @ peloni1986:
    So why does the best friend of Israel insist on killing Israel with a two-state final solution as the ONLY way to solve the conflict between Israel an the “Palestinians”?

  7. @ Bear Klein:
    Well stated, Bear. An enlightened analysis and well stated response that many might not consider given the two dogmatic choices proposed in the article’s title.

  8. Israel is a small country that is dependent on the USA for diplomatic support and supply of the best fighter jets in the world. Israel like many small countries has to balance its sovereign needs and the viewpoint of its Big Brother ally the USA.

    So Israel does not make decisions in a vacuum. Is a total satellite NO is totally Independent NO!

    So it is not just the aid that keeps Israel from being totally independent. At times I have argued against taking the aid that Israel from a dollar and cents standpoint could live without in-spite of it helping.

    It has been out to by knowledgeable US friend in the Defense/Diplomatic Area that our enemies look at the cooperation between the USA and Israel as an Israeli strength. Also have signed legislation in the US helps Israel get weapons that would have to undergo a different process anyway.

    Sometimes Israel would prefer to obtain Blue/White products as they maybe better or just as good. However some things like the F-35 and other aircraft are simply not obtainable from Israeli companies. Israel also makes parts for the F-35.

    So the question of Sovereign or Satellite does not boil down to a simplistic one word answer.