Facebook Feed

5 days ago

Yoram Ettinger
2023 Jewish demographic momentum in Israel: bit.ly/40qV0aV ... See MoreSee Less
View on Facebook

4 weeks ago

Yoram Ettinger
Purim Guide for the Perplexed 2023: bit.ly/3ZdlxHY ... See MoreSee Less
View on Facebook

4 weeks ago

Yoram Ettinger
אתגר מרכזי לביטחון לאומי: bit.ly/3xkSwh1 ... See MoreSee Less
View on Facebook

Israel’s Public Diplomacy: it’s the Moral High Ground, Pal!

Secretaries of State, Schultz and Baker did not agree with Prime Minister Shamir’s worldview, but they respected his principle-driven tenacity. Upon concluding a meeting with then Senate Majority and Minority Leaders, George Mitchell and Bob Dole, the latter told Shamir: “Irrespective of our disagreement with your policy, we respect you, because you’re tough.” 

The international arena does not respect Israeli prime ministers who seek popularity rather than respect, transforming Red Lines to Pink Lines, in order to avoid confrontation. The world does not appreciate prime ministers who subordinate long-term vision and conviction to short-term diplomatic and political convenience.

In contrast to the legacy of Prime Ministers Ben Gurion, Eshkol, Golda Meir, Begin and Shamir, Israel’s current public diplomacy reflects frail conviction, while expressing empathy for claims made by Israel’s enemies. It tolerates simplistic Western assumptions about the Arab-Israeli conflict and downplays Israel’s contribution to the national security of the USA. Israel has hardly leveraged the current Arab turmoil that underscores the tenuous/violent nature of Israel’s enemies and the inherent obstacles to intra-Arab peace (let alone to Israel-Arab peace). Israel has failed to emphasize the uniquely high threshold of security requirements of the Jewish State in the most dangerous neighborhood in the world and the special role played by Israel as an outpost of Western democracies and a sole beacon of democracy.  

In contrast with the Arabs who highlight their “rights,” Israel highlights security-requirements, while minimizing well-documented and unique ancient roots. While Israeli leaders pride themselves on their “pragmatism” and willingness to distance themselves from historical roots, they, in fact, undermine Israel’s global legitimacy. The Jewish State ignores the lesson of King Solomon’s Trial: He who agrees “to split the difference” forfeits his rights to everything.

Since 1993, the Jewish State has downplayed its moral high ground, embracing moral-equivalence.  Therefore, it has legitimized the Palestinian Authority as a supposed partner for peace negotiations, despite Abu Mazen’s track record: establishing Palestinian hate-education, Holocaust denial, coordinating PLO relations with ruthless Communist regimes, co-planning of the Munich Massacre, perpetrating subversion in Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon and collaborating with Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait.  Moreover, Israel has adopted the “Land-for-Peace” state of mind, in spite of the fact that the conflict has always been over the existence – and not the size – of the Jewish State.  Since 1993, land conceded to the Palestinian Authority has been transformed into a platform of hate education and terrorism, fueling the conflict.

The current seismic events in the Arab World beg for an Israeli public diplomacy offensive.  Such events should remove the “Middle East Screen Saver,” exposing the region as the role model of instability, ethnic-religious-tribal-geographic fragmentation, terrorism, violence as a norm of settling political disputes, hate culture, one-man one-revolution regimes, tenuous regimes-accords-alliances, treachery, volatility, unpredictability and uncertainty.  The deeper the uncertainty and the violence, the higher the Israeli security requirements, the more critical become the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria, the Golan Heights of Jerusalem and of the 15 miles wide pre-1967 Israel. Israel stands out as the only stable, reliable, capable, democratic and unconditional ally of the USA.

The intra-Arab upheaval also removes the “Palestinian Screen Saver,” revealing the Middle East order of priorities.  Hence, the Palestinian issue is not the root cause of regional turbulence, not the crown-jewel of Arab policy-making, not the core cause of anti-Western Islamic terrorism and not the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict.  Regardless, Israel persists in subordinating its vision, policy, security requirements and public diplomacy to simplistic misperceptions, which are resoundingly refuted on the Arab Street in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Oman, Bahrain, Syria, etc.

But, like a deer caught in a headlights-look, Israel is glued to the “Palestinian Screen Saver.”  On the other hand, Arab leaders shower Palestinians with rhetoric but not with resources. They do not shed blood on behalf of the Palestinian issue. Furthermore, they consider the Palestinians a subversive element, based on PLO violence in Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Kuwait.  What do Arabs know about the PLO that Israel refuses to share with the world?!

Israel has refrained from presenting the threat posed – to vital American and Western interests – by the proposed Palestinian state: death sentence to the pro-US Hashemite regime; a tailwind to anti-US terrorism in Iraq and throughout the region; enhanced access by Russia, China, North Korea, and possibly Iran, to the eastern flank of the Mediterranean; rewarding a regime which drives Christians out of Bethlehem; an additional anti-US vote at the UN, and an added fuel to the Middle East inferno.

The late General Alexander Haig, who was the Supreme Commander of NATO and US Secretary of State defined Israel as “the largest American aircraft carrier, which does not require a single US soldier, cannot be sunk, most cost-effective and battle-tested, deployed in a critical area for vital US economic and national security interests, sparing the US $20BN annually, which would be required to deploy real aircraft carriers.”

Will Israel’s public diplomacy leverage the aforementioned significant data, shifting to a determined, lucid, defiant, politically-incorrect and principle-driven tactic, or will it persist in its hesitant, ambiguous, popularity-driven and apologetic tactic, which intensifies pressure and threats, undermines security, distances itself from peace and brings war closer?




Videos

The post-1967 turning point of US-Israel cooperation

Israeli benefits to the US taxpayer exceed US foreign aid to Israel

Iran - A Clear And Present Danger To The USA

Exposing the myth of the Arab demographic time bomb

US-sponsored anti-Israel UN Security Council statement – acumen

*The US’ co-sponsorship of an anti-Israel UN Security Council Statement reflects the return of the State Department’s worldview to the center stage of US foreign policy-making. This was the first time, in six years, that the US enabled the UN Security Council to act against Israel.

*This is not merely a worldview, which is highly critical of Israel, as has been the case since 1948, when Foggy Bottom led the charge against the re-establishment of the Jewish State.

This worldview has systematically undermined US interests, by subordinating the unilateral, independent US national security policy (on Iran’s Ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestinian issue, etc.) to a multilateral common denominator with the anti-US and anti-Israel UN and international organizations, as well as the vacillating and terrorists-appeasing Europe.

*It has sacrificed Middle East reality on the altar of wishful-thinking, assuming that the establishment of a Palestinian state would fulfill Palestinian aspirations, advance the cause of peace, reduce terrorism and regional instability; thus, enhancing US interests.

*However, the reality of the Middle East and Jordan and the rogue Palestinian track record lend credence to the assumption that a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River would doom the pro-US Hashemite regime east of the River, yielding traumatic ripple effects, regionally and globally:

^Replace the relatively-moderate Hashemite regime with either a rogue Palestinian regime, a Muslim Brotherhood regime, or other rogue regimes;
^Transform Jordan into a chaotic state, similar to Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, which would be leveraged by Iran’s Ayatollahs to intensify their encirclement of the pro-US Saudi regime;
^Convert Jordan into a major arena of regional and global Islamic terrorism;
^Trigger a domino scenario into the Arabian Peninsula, which could topple all pro-US, oil-producing Arab regimes;
^Imperil the supply of Persian Gulf oil, which would be held hostage by anti-US entities, catapulting the price at the pump;
^Jeopardize major naval routes of global trade between Asia and Europe through the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and the Suez Canal;
^Intensify epicenters of regional and global terrorism and drug trafficking;
^Generate a robust tailwind to US’ adversaries (Russia and China) and enemies (Iran’s Ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS) and a powerful headwind to US economic and national security interests.

*The State Department assumes that Palestinian terrorism – just like Islamic terrorism – is driven by despair, ignoring the fact that Palestinian terrorism has been driven (for the last 100 years) by the vision to erase the “infidel” Jewish entity from “the abode of Islam,” as stated by the charters of Fatah (1959) and the PLO (1964), 8 and 3 years before the Jewish State reunited Jerusalem and reasserted itself in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank).

*Aspiring for a Palestinian state, and viewing Israel’s control of Judea and Samaria as an obstacle to peace, ignores the Arab view of the Palestinians as a role model of intra-Arab subversion, terrorism, corruption and treachery. Moreover, the State Department has held the view that the Palestinian issue is the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict and a central to Arab interests, which has been refuted by the Abraham Accords. The latter ignored the State Department, sidestepped the Palestinian issue and therefore came to fruition.

*The State Department overlooks the centrality of the Palestinian Authority’s hate education, which has become the most effective production-line of terrorists, and the most authentic reflection of the Palestinian Authority’s worldview and vision.

*The State Department has also taken lightly the Palestinian Authority’s mosque incitement, public glorification of terrorists and monthly allowances to families of terrorists, which have documented its rogue and terroristic nature (walk), notwithstanding its peaceful diplomatic rhetoric (talk).

*The State Department’s eagerness to welcome the Palestinian issue in a “red carpet” manner – contrary to the “shabby doormat” extended to Palestinians by Arabs – and its determination to promote the establishment of a Palestinian state, along with its embrace of Iran’s Ayatollahs and the Muslim Brotherhood, have been interpreted by rogue regimes and organizations as weakness.

Experience suggests that weakness invites the wolves, including wolves which aim to bring “The Great Satan” to submission throughout the world as well as the US mainland.

Support Appreciated

 




Videos

The post-1967 turning point of US-Israel cooperation

Israeli benefits to the US taxpayer exceed US foreign aid to Israel

Iran - A Clear And Present Danger To The USA

Exposing the myth of the Arab demographic time bomb