Tag: Israeli-Palestinian conflict

U.S. has many other priorities

It turns out Fidel Castro is still alive and making as much sense as ever. In an article in Cuban state media a few days ago, the former president ranted against the United States, Israel and NATO, the latter of which he equated with the Nazi SS. Even stranger, Castro believes that U.S. Senator John McCain and Israel’s intelligence agency the Mossad, created ISIS, the nihilistic terror entity sweeping Iraq and Syria.

Back on planet Earth, more serious commentators are wringing their hands over the state of U.S.-Israel relations. While it may not be exactly the Cuban missile crisis, relations between the United States and Israel are arguably at their lowest ebb ever. Part of this, of course, is a mere clash of personalities between their countries’ respective leaders. That’s old news and everybody by now accepts the fact that Binyamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama are not what constitute “great friends,” whatever that oft-used term means in the context of world leaders.

The Times of Israel is reporting that, during Operation Protective Edge, the United States put together a deal with Turkish and Qatari representatives in Paris that was intended to be a draft agenda for ceasefire talks in Cairo. When Netanyahu saw the document, he rejected it out of hand, seeing it as a putting the interests of Hamas ahead of those of Israel.

The United States, further according to the Times of Israel, was unwilling to put pressure on Qatar, an ally, perversely, of both the United States and Hamas, to “squeeze Hamas politically and financially.”

The United States is said to have come away from the experience shocked at Israel’s undiplomatic response, while Israel walked away distrustful of American intentions, says the Times.

Enmity will only grow with Israel’s latest announcement of more West Bank settlements.

But even that salt in the wound should be eclipsed by news that the blood-soaked regime of Bashar al-Assad has lost control of the part of what is left of the Syrian nation that abuts Israel at the Golan Heights. While no one is quite sure of the exact makeup of Assad’s opposition, it is the black flag of al-Qaeda that is flying over the checkpoint adjacent to Israel’s border with (erstwhile) Syria.

With explosive events also taking place daily in Ukraine, Iraq and so many other places in the world, American leadership sometimes seems to be the only hope for people under threat. Even the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are getting nervous as they watch the expansionist fantasies of Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

The American people have given a great deal of their financial and human resources to overseas conflicts in the past decade and it is understandable that they might be hesitant to reengage in the Middle East or to engage in Europe. America is exhausted.

Of course, what is taking place in the world today are precisely the types of things that the United Nations was envisioned to prevent or ameliorate. The tragedy of that organization is that it is now held captive by leaders who are more sympathetic to the objectives of ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah and Putin than they are to the democratic states of the United States, Israel, Canada and western Europe.

The people and leaders of western Europe are also hesitant to get involved in Middle Eastern affairs, perhaps reasonably, given the potential they might have for trouble far closer to home if the Russian bear is not put back in its cage. Putin might have alleviated some international concern had he indicated that eastern Ukraine was the extent of his territorial ambitions, but he has done nothing of the sort.

For Obama’s part, it often seems as though he wishes Israel and Palestine would just disappear. Certainly, every president before him going back decades has tried and failed to resolve the problem and he is probably fully aware that he is not going to solve it either. With everything else happening in the world, this conflict may seem more like a nuisance than a crisis.

As much as Obama’s disengagement from this issue rankles many people, here’s a different take. For weeks, months, even years, people like us have been calling for the world to devote more of its attention to catastrophes that exponentially exceed the comparatively minor conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Say what you will about Obama, but that seems to be exactly what he’s doing.

Canadian political support of Israel notable

As the conflict rages in Israel and Gaza, so it does, in a different way, worldwide. As is always the case when Israel is involved in a conflict, the rage level escalates swiftly among commentators, social media, street activists, politicians and diplomats. While both sides are engaging in heated and contentious “debate” – we should take nothing away from Zionists’ ability to engage in slapfests on social media – something darker is emerging.

Protests in France and Germany have been especially grisly. In Paris, one synagogue was firebombed while, at another, Jews were forced to barricade themselves inside the shul as a mob attacked with bats and chairs. Jewish-run businesses were ransacked in a Paris suburb. In Germany, overt neo-Nazis are marching daily, some chanting, “Gas the Jews.” “Anti-Israel” rallies worldwide are rife with anti-Jewish imagery and messaging. Individual Jews have been assaulted around the world. One man in Australia, badly beaten, told media that the antisemitic onslaught he experienced after going public was worse than the assault itself.

There are certainly examples of anti-Jewish prejudice amid the public discourse in Canada, though we have seen nothing near to what is happening elsewhere. In fact, the brightest spot in the whole sad global discourse around the conflict comes from right here in Canada. For the better part of a decade, the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been an unequivocal voice of reason and support for Israel’s right – obligation, he said – to defend its citizens from terrorism. Our foreign policy has been steadfast in defending our closest ally in the region, and the only democracy there, amid a cacophony of vitriol and hatred.

Significantly, what was a few years ago considered a surprising and unusually unambiguous position has become the dominant Canadian political consensus. Liberal leader Justin Trudeau has issued a statement echoing the Conservatives’ strong support for Israel.

More remarkable has been Thomas Mulcair’s extraordinary success at turning his New Democratic Party from what was once a nest of Canada’s most vocal anti-Israel zealots into a moderate party in line with the other two mainstream parties. He has done this in the face of a small but venomous clutch of extreme Israel-haters. A writer on the website Rabble recently referred to “Mulcair’s abhorrence of Palestinian rights.” (We have been known to employ some extravagant semantics in this space, but for a really eccentric level of rhetoric almost unknown since the fall of the Berlin Wall, head over to Rabble for a nostalgic walk down memory lane.)

Mulcair’s accomplishment, of course, is derided by Israel’s enemies as proof that the craven Zionists have finally got their talons into the last of the major parties’ platforms. In reality, it is an acknowledgement that Canada’s body politic has recognized, alas, that morality and pragmatism demand that we stand with our allies and against those who seek to slaughter them. There is nothing novel in this – what was novel was the years when we went off the rails trying to play an “honest broker” role between a democratic, peace-seeking, pluralist Israel and the genocidal terrorists determined to destroy the country and kill its citizens.

There is a place for extreme views in a democracy – in extreme, fringe parties. Which may explain why Green party leader Elizabeth May is right now taking up an anti-Israel cudgel just as the rest of the civilized political spectrum is affirming the only position mainstream, moderate parties can justify.

There are tactical reasons, too. Israel-bashers insist that Harper’s Israel policy (and now that of the Liberals and NDP) is a sop to win Jewish votes, which suggests they are as bad at math as they are telling terrorists from allies. The “Jewish vote” in Canada is miniscule and shrinking, while the number of new Canadians coming from places where hatred of Israel is something akin to a birthright is growing.

While the three main parties are doing the right thing, the Greens seem ready to welcome those who have been left out in the cold by a consensus that our country should stand with democracies when they are under assault from terrorists. It may be a political strategy for a tiny party seeking a foothold, but it doesn’t seem like a moral one.