I grow more sympathetic to “Arabist” alternatives to the current Middle East equilibrium with every passing day. Israel conspicuously wastes time and money instead of doing what it obviously needs to do to defend itself. If Israel is too weak to stand up for itself, it is not worth anybody’s time.
… Netanyahu accused the Olmert government of failing the people of Israel by tolerating the relentless attacks out of Gaza, and said the IDF knew exactly how to counter the violence but was being prevented from doing so by “a failure of the political leadership.”
The Post reported Thursday that according to assessments in Jerusalem, a major IDF incursion into the Gaza Strip to significantly weaken Hamas - similar but more difficult than Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank in 2002 - would not take place until about a month or a month-and-a-half after US President George W. Bush’s planned visit here in mid-May.
By then, the last of the world’s leaders to have come here to celebrate the state’s 60th anniversary would have left. The timing would also place the incursion in the middle of summer, considered an optimal time for this type of operation.
If we didn’t already have such a copious track record of passivity from Olmert, I would have assumed this was disinformation.
It would be so horrific if world leaders decided to boycott Israel’s 60th birthday, simply because Israel decided to defend herself.
Meanwhile, global commodities markets teeter on edge. Israelis are too weak to defend themselves; it’s well known that over 1/3 of the IDF is first- or second-generation Russo-Israeli, not native Israeli. Clearly the preponderance of native Israelis doesn’t see national self-defense as particularly urgent.
The positive justifications, not to mention the opportunity costs, of American Mideast involvement are approaching their own Minsky Moment.
Olmert is not simply consigning “valuable” Israeli lives to the guillotine of global opinion. He is becoming an impediment to orderly commerce far beyond Israel’s borders and a profound drain on American resources.
The fact of the matter is that any institutional actor with a nuclear weapon does not abuse it. Iran is not going to nuke anyone. The world doesn’t look quite so threatening and insecure once you have an atomic bomb.
Israel is holding up a regional accommodation because it would then be doomed to slow extermination by incremental violence. However, it’s not so perturbed that it will actually do any heavy lifting to quash Hezbollah by itself. They are either dragging out American involvement in Iraq or lying to themselves; it’s one or the other.
Only the most feeble or complacent of peoples would tolerate such a derelict for a leader, as Israelis have of Ehud Olmert.
I’m with you that Israel has to make an assault and let the opposite side know they mean business. They could nuke Tehran, Damascus, and throw in Riyadh, Mecca, and Medina for a chaser. But everyone knows they won’t do that.
I can empathize with Olmert who is terrified he will unleash a Pandora’s Box. Truth is the Muslim world has the means and motivation to annihilate Israel. If need be, they can spare a million or two casualties. Jews feel they can’t.
Israel is scared and does worry the US may not even back them up if they do the dirty work. The US is playing both sides ominously.
A sad state of immobilization, as the situation only gets worse.
Mike
A few disagreements:
The US is *already* backing up Israel by having 160,000 troops sponging up Iranian men and materiel across Iraq. Not to mention the Expeditionary Battle Group off of Lebanon. I strongly doubt that they will be any impediment whatsoever to the IDF.
Hezbollah/Iran has already opened the Pandora’s Box, by shattering Israel’s aura of conventional invincibility.
The Muslim world doesn’t have the motivation to annihilate Israel currently. However, once Iran gets a nuclear bomb, it will be able to turn all its Hezbollah advisors into an Iranian conventional division, entrench them south of the Litani, and bleed the IDF to death by brushfire warfare, while declaring that it will protect its own division with nuclear weapons, just like the US does for its division on the NKorea-SKorea border.
It’s not a choice of “turn the Mideast into a parking lot” or do nothing. There are lots of in-between choices.
Israel has more than enough power to destroy Hamas right now, and cripple Hezbollah in a month. The only thing Israel has to lose is Gilad Shalit. And if Hezbollah does kill Shalit, the Israelis can kill every Hezbollah prisoner in their custody. A PR disaster for Olmert perhaps (considering that he already wasted one war to get Shalit back), but a huge win for the Israeli people.
The American occupation of Iraq is not politically sustainable at the current tempo, because the US balance sheet has deteriorated drastically in the past nine months and has a lot further to go. Iran, on the other hand, can sustain its own tempo. So something must be done to permanently slow Iran’s tempo of operations in Iraq.
Meanwhile, crippling Iran’s proxies is obviously in Israel’s interest, as well as the Americans’. Obama and his coterie of anti-Israeli advisors are not just ideologically biased; the last two years have significantly augmented their credibility.
Israel profits far more than the United States, or anybody save the Saudis, from American involvement in the Middle East. They have been massively subsidized, overtly and implicitly, by American foreign policy for a long time. Israel isn’t the only country in the world facing tough choices.
With economy-wide deleveraging and explosive growth in the government’s “off-balance-sheet” debt, it’s time for American allies who have been subsidized much more than they returned, to put up or shut up. The Israelis find excuse after excuse to refrain from acting in their own interest, because the United States is doing most of their heavy lifting for them.
Certainly, doing nothing is preferable to Israel when the United States will be around to take all their bullets for them. But the United States won’t be around forever, especially if Obama gets in.
I’m surprised I have already turned so negative on Israel, too. If there are other rationalizations for Israel’s behavior I would be glad to hear them. But I don’t see it.