Op-Ed: Dempsey – Please Stay Out of It: Gerald Honigman ****
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/12097
Israel has never asked for American soldiers to help defend it. It has the right to defend itself.
“America has gotten involved in conflicts for reasons less pressing than what it faces with the potential of a nuclear Iran. If Washington chooses not to act decisively itself, the least it can do is not force Israel’s current six million Jews to face the prospects of what befell another six million not that long ago.”
Speaking to reporters upon his arrival in Afghanistan on August 19th, he stated that Israel and the United States view the Iranian nuclear threat differently. Their “clocks are ticking at different paces.” In fairness, the General also mentioned that Israel sees this more seriously “…because a nuclear Iran poses a threat to Israel’s very existence.”
The reality is that a nation some 3,000 miles wide, with over 300 million inhabitants, and two vast oceans separating it from its most-likely enemies should not be telling another nation (and one of its best friends and allies in the world)–a country that could fit some 34 times just into the state of Texas–what it ought to do to defend itself against would-be nuclear enemies who repeatedly call for its destruction and have already acted upon those deadly desires repeatedly via proxies and so forth.
Let’s be blunt about this…
Israel has never asked for any American blood to be spilt on its behalf. The Afghanistan Dempsey just visited has already cost much American life and limb–besides over a half trillion dollars to date and climbing–and despite that, things will likely be no better off there when we leave.
Similar life and limb have been extracted from America on behalf of Muslims in Iraq–and over one trillion dollars spent there as well.
Much is made of the 2.5 billion dollars in aid Israel receives each year. Do the math to find out how long it would take for Israel to receive the money that America has recently spent just in Iraq and Afghanistan (where Americans are killed by “friendly” forces, let alone others)–not to mention the rest of the “Arab”/Muslim world, and with no thank you either.
While it’s close to a truism that nations don’t have friends, just interests, we should nevertheless strive for something better.
Israel does not deserve to constantly be placed in danger by its so-called friends. Yet, those in key leadership roles in America–especially in the State Department–have indeed done just that for over a half century now. I won’t get into this issue here, but there is solid documentation supporting this claim. Let’s just say that recent “leaks” regarding potential Israeli plans involving flight paths, Azerbaijani bases, and so forth have many past precedents–along with many other types of unpleasantness as well.
Some like to claim that America pays the price and is despised in the Muslim world because of Israel. So, for example, all would allegedly be well and Iranian pistachios and caviar would flow freely to American markets if only Israel did not exist. The reality is quite different.
For the mullahs, America is indeed the Big Satan and Israel the little one. In Iran and elsewhere in the supremacist “Arab”/Muslim world, Israel is hated because it shares the values and exemplifies the best of the West–even though over half of its Jewish population originated in the Muslim East. They are the other side of the refugee story no one ever hears of.
Israel is hated because it is on the front lines of an age-old subjugating mindset which still dominates Islamic long-term thinking in the region…the conquest of the Dar ul-Islam over the Dar al-Harb. What’s worse, of all the dhimmis, the “kilab yahud”–Jew dogs–are despised the most. A proud, successful, independent state where such folks have control over their own destiny is simply too much to bear…
After fleeing in the 7th century C.E. from his Meccan enemies to the Jewish date palm oasis in Medina (founded centuries earlier by Judeans fleeing wars for independence from Rome), Muhammad expected the Jews there to become his followers. When the Jews did not accept Muhammad’s religio-political claims to leadership, he turned on them with a vengeance. He had already made the direction of prayer for his followers facing Jersualem to win the Jews’ support. Before long, with the exception of Yemen, Muhammed ensured the Arabian Peninsula would be made Judenrein.
So much for Arab claims that all was allegedly good between them and the Jews before the latter, in the modern era, dared to ask for the same thing – in one tiny, resurrected state – that Arabs demand for themselves in almost two dozen others (which they conquered and forcibly Arabized from mostly non-Arab peoples).
So back to Iran.
General Dempsey is an honorable and intelligent man.
But, on matters concerning the very existence of another, millennially-persecuted and still much targeted people, both he and the country he represents need to go beyond the all-too-common no friends, just interests model.
America has gotten involved in conflicts for reasons less pressing than what it faces with the potential of a nuclear Iran. If Washington chooses not to act decisively itself, the least it can do is not force Israel’s current six million Jews to face the prospects of what befell another six million not that long ago.
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