RUTHFULLY YOURS

“The fiercest arguments we have in parliament are over Israel.” These words, spoken by the chairman of the Dutch Foreign Affairs Committee, startled me. But they failed to faze the other committee members from the both the left and right. On the contrary, they all readily agreed. In the end, only I displayed surprise.

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “Your country is in economic crisis, tens of thousands of refugees are massing on your borders, and the EU may be unraveling, and yet the issue that most occupies you is…Israel?”

My hosts unanimously nodded. However shocking, the conversation was by no means unusual. As chairman of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee in Israel’s Knesset, I frequently meet with European legislators.

Whether Dutch or Belgian or German, they all report the same phenomenon. Israel—more than security, more than refugees, and the economy—sparks their bitterest debates. And each time I hear this, I find myself astonished. At stake, I realize, is not Israel’s identity but the Europeans’. For them, the Jewish State is exactly that, a state of Jews against whom the West is once again defining itself.

So it has been for more than two thousand years. The ancient Hellenic and Roman worlds, challenged theologically by a Judaism that rejected their polytheism and the divinity of kings, and threatened demographically by burgeoning Jewish populations, designated the Jews as the ultimate Other.

The first large-scale pogroms and expulsions took place in Rome and Alexandria well before the birth of Christianity. “How could one consider admitting such a people to citizenship or allowing them political rights?” Apion, a first century anti-Semite, wrote. “The Alexandrians were right in detesting the Jews.” By the early second century, Alexandria’s Jewish community, once a million-members strong, had all but vanished.

It is hard to expel junior members for crimes no worse than those committed by the leader of their party.

That two anti-Semitic incidents had occurred at the launch of this whitewash — one from Corbyn himself in which he seemed to compare Israel with ISIS, and another in which a Jewish Labour MP felt bullied into leaving — apparently was just the tip of the problem.

It is finished. The last attempt to instil a portion of decency into the party of the British left is over. The party of the UK left — the Labour party — has now returned to precisely the position it was in before its recent racism row. It has investigated itself, found itself innocent and now reappointed the figure who kicked the whole row off.

Gatestone readers have been able to follow this from the start. After Jeremy Corbyn’s shock election as Labour party leader last year, in November we covered the “new racism” that came — and would increasingly come — from a party that had just elected a man who has called Hamas and Hezbollah ‘friends’ and who has spent a lifetime palling up with the worst anti-Semites and anti-Western bigots on the planet. The election of such a man, we predicted, would have consequences.

Then in February of this year, when the Labour Club at Oxford University turned out to be overrun by barely disguised and largely open anti-Semitism, we suggested that the rot of this party had surely started “from the top.” It is hard to expel junior members for crimes no worse than those committed by the leader of their party.

In March we covered the growing tolerance within the party for the spread of anti-Semitic tropes and the dominance of anti-Semitic types. Parliamentary candidate Vicky Kirby had previously been suspended from the Labour party for tweeting about Jews having “big noses” and about Adolf Hitler being the “Zionist god” and similar less-than-attractive outpourings. Under Mr Corbyn’s leadership, Ms Kirby was reinstated and became the vice-chair of her party’s local chapter.

Then in May came the beginning of the big scandal — the one that looked finally, perhaps, even likely to move Jeremy Corbyn from his position. At the end of April, a string of scandals had occurred all in precisely the same area. Naz Shah — an MP for Bradford — was found to have spread anti-Israel and anti-Semitic messages on Facebook and other social media. These included a suggestion that the Jews of Israel all be forcibly deported and sent to America. At the same time, Labour MP Rupa Huq appeared to try to justify, and then swiftly step back, from endorsing such sentiments and a set of Muslim Labour councillors were suspended for anti-Semitic outbursts.

The Obama Era opened with his Cairo speech, in which he embraced Muslims in general and the Muslim Brotherhood in particular. He planned to depose the secular dictators and replace them with the Muslim Brotherhood. Thus Gadhafi, Mubarak and Assad were marked for removal in that order. The EU was on board.

After supporting the takeover of Egypt by the Muslim Brotherhood headed by Mohamed Morsi, he backed the takeover of Syria by the Muslim Brotherhood in collaboration with the newly Islamist Turkey, headed by Recep Tayyid Erdogan, extolling him as his best friend.

Simultaneously, beginning in 2009, he reached out to Iran. He wanted to embrace it as an ally rather than to designate it as an enemy. His efforts culminated in the disastrous Iran Deal, which provided a tail wind to Iran’s hegemonic ambitions. He overlooked the fact that Iran was a long standing ally of Assad’s and was fighting to resist his removal, which was Obama’s stated goal.

Obama’s reach exceeded his grasp.

Libya, sans Gadhafi, is in chaos. The Egyptian military under Gen al Sisi is in power. He indicted Morsi for treason and banned Muslim Brotherhood again. Obama called his takeover of power a coup thus preventing the US from supporting him. Russia and Saudi Arabia have moved in to take up some of the slack.

Even though Turkey, the Gulf States and the Muslim Brotherhood shared his goal of removing Assad, they have not succeeded due entirely to Obama’s lack of leadership and unwillingness to fight. His removal of the last of the US military forces in Iraq and his willingness to have Iran manage Iraq gave rise to ISIS. Turkey and the Gulf states in different ways supported ISIS, which was Sunni and was seen as a proxy to stop Iran expansionism and topple Assad. The US over time began to see ISIS as a bigger threat than Assad and began to support the Kurds, who they originally shunned, so that they would fight ISIS. They did this even though Turkey was adamantly opposed.

Obama announced that if Assad used chemical weapons, that he would be crossing America’s red line. Rather than enforce that red line, he seized on a lifeline that Russia offered, namely, to work to remove the chemical weapons with the cooperation of Assad. This was a major turning point in the war, as Russia proceeded to take on a greater role in the fighting with America’s blessing, thereby enabling Syria to stabilize and go on the offensive. Russia was not so much interested in defeating ISIS as they were in stabilizing Assad and taking back some territory.

Meanwhile Obama’s plan to have the Muslim Brotherhood with the backing of Turkey replace Assad is no longer operative. The Muslim Brotherhood as a player in Syria is no longer discussed, let alone active. Turkey, who started out with grandiose ambitions to recreating the Ottoman Empire and assuming the mantel of Sunni leadership, has abandoned such ambitions and is working to contain the self-inflicted damage its policies have caused.

Erdogan’s embrace of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood has strained relations with Egypt, who has banned them and is actively fighting them. Egypt is also partnering with Israel to neutralize and contain Hamas in Gaza and all insurgents in Sinai.

Obama’s bellicose statements and actions regarding Cyprus have resulted in new alliance between it and Israel based on their mutual interest in defending and developing their new found gas reserves. Greece too has joined that alliance.

Erdogan has enraged the Russian bear by shooting down one of its fighter planes. As a result, Russia has imposed sanctions on Turkey and is supporting the Kurds who are an anathema to Turkey.

Erdogan started out trying to reconcile with Turkey’s Kurdish population but ended up fighting them instead, in addition to fighting the Syrian Kurds that the US was supporting. Along the way they alienated ISIS, who they were supporting. Now both ISIS and the Turkish Kurds are committing terrorist atrocities against them.

All this has given rise to a new Middle East.