Are Hamas Attacks a Catalyst For Acceptance of Israel?

For the first time in almost 70 years, Israel has the active backing of nearly all Arab states in its battle against Palestinian extremists.  One long time CNN reporter called the support "unprecedented" and speculated that it could represent a new era in Middle Eastern relations.  Moderate governments fear extremism more than they wish to nurture historical hatreds.

The process of breaking down the walls of anti-Semitic diplomacy is nothing new, however.

In the beginning, Israel faced enemies on every side.  The British evacuated the old Roman named territory of Palestine in 1948.  The United States, followed quickly by the Soviet Union, recognized the new state almost immediately.  President Harry Truman later recalled that he had resolved that "the United States would do all that it could to help the Jews set up a homeland."  In this, he went against the "striped pants boys" advice at the State Department.  Truman believed that Israel had very strong potential for development.

All bordering states, however, pledged themselves to Israel's destruction.  Since then, both time and the ago old maxim of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" have started to soften the old hate filled viewpoints.

Despite repeated wars between Israel and its Arab neighbors in the 1960s and 70s, Israel had one friend in the Middle East.  Iran under the Shah.

Iran's monarch served as a pole of power within the Middle East, navigating between the Arab states, the United States, and Iran's neighbor the Soviet Union.  Repeated Soviet and Czarist Russian attempts to absorb some or all Iranian territory meant Iran would support US interests through much of the Cold War.

Many Americans mistrusted professions of friendship. Shah adviser Asadollah Alam remembered columnist Joseph Kraft coming to Iran in 1976 at the request of several senators.  "Apparently the senators who were here recently disbelieved the US ambassador's stories about close relations between Iran and Israel," Alam noted.  Under the Shah, Iran pursued its self-interests of building national strength and wealth alongside American priorities.  Productive relations with Israel enhanced those bonds and gave Iran some leverage when it did disagree with the US over issues such as oil production.

In the 1970s, nationalist authoritarians and monarchs led most Arab states.  At the time, the nationalists seemed radical.  They linked American influence to the real and imagined sins of the old British Empire. Israel, an oil free haven of liberty and prosperity, had to remain a whipping boy to corrupt regimes with little freedom and much economic misery.

But that decade also brought revolutionary violence.  The formerly nationalist radicals now saw Islamic revolutionaries and Palestinian terrorists disrupting order in the region.  Another pillar of the anti-Israel gang fell away.  President Jimmy Carter brought Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachim Begin to the United States to hammer out normal relations.

Sadat helped to open the conference by saying "I hope the spirit of King David will prevail at Camp David."  In a sense it did.  David's reign over Israel was often contentious and occasionally messy, but overall succeeded tremendously.  Similarly, Begin and Sadat bickered for 13 days, but found common ground in the end.

For the next 40 years, however, the anti-Israel front remained almost in stasis.  It neither overtly threatened nor worked to reconcile with Israel, regardless of whether or not negotiations with Palestinian groups went well or poorly.  Anti-Semitism remained unofficially and sometimes officially endorsed. The Anti Defamation League notes that "Anti-Semitism often serves as a political device intended to undermine normalization with Israel."  Even Egyptian media joins other Middle Eastern states in promoting points from the Russian secret police forgery Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. 

 The Hamas attacks on Israel this summer come in a different context.  With ISIS/ISIL expanding its murderous control over parts of Iraq and Syria, with Turkey moving in a direction closer to its medieval Ottoman past rather than secular democracy, with Muslim Brotherhood and associated terrorist groups threatening moderate national governments, many governments now shy away from indiscriminate support of Palestinians against Israel.  Eric Trager of the Washington Institute For Near East Policy told CNN "The Arab Spring showed the region that uprisings can lead to the Brotherhood gaining power.  So it's a threat to the governments it opposes"

Also, no one expects Hamas to stay quietly within the boundaries agreed to.  The Washington Free Beacon's Adam Kredo reported on the contents of a Hamas terror handbook that included television shrapnel bombs and how to use donkeys as mobile device carriers.

Kredo also notes the war for public opinion, which dupes outlets such as BBC and others into sympathetic coverage. "Anyone killed is to be called a civilian of Gaza or Palestine" regardless of their military rank or "role in the jihad."  It also encourages the tactic of talking about martyrs in the Middle East, about wounded or dead to Westerners.

Although the public relations strategy has swayed some in the Western media, it has not blinded many in the Middle East to the fact that the new Islamic radicalism has the potential to overrun many countries and impose its terrifying brand of totalitarianism.

And also that Israel is a capable ally, or at least the enemy of their enemy, against that fate.

Death Comes to Syria and Egypt

Someone attacked a suburb of Damascus, Syria this week with all the quiet fury of a Biblical plague.  No marks of sacrificial blood could save the innocent or chosen.  This work of man killed all indiscriminately.

Nerve gas wafted through the streets and homes.  By the time it dissipated, it killed 1,300 just as effectively as the Japanese at Nanking or the Romans at Carthage in the Third Punic War.

The Daily Mail referred to the incident as "the town that never woke up."

The Syrian belligerents can be divided into three categories.  First is the Syrian government itself, no stranger to atrocities.  Rebelling against it is one group with an equal potential for evil, the Islamicists.  Kurdish forces in the northeast have seized important points.  Kurds have a quasi-sovereign state in northern Iraq, but also live in Syria, Turkey, and Iran.  Possibly the weakest faction is the Syrian nationalist rebels, tied by outrageous fortune to the Islamicists.

Government forces showed signs of desperation earlier this week when they attacked the Israeli held Golan Heights.  Provoking a war with Israel would throw the region into chaos.  Israel, so far, has remained somewhat restrained.

A group allied with the Syrian government took down the Washington Post's website last week.

The Washington Free Beacon reported a day before the attack that a joint Russian-American plan to create a transitional government has not taken the first necessary steps.

Meanwhile in Egypt, as was reported yesterday by Kirby Wilbur on the Sean Hannity Show, Muslim Brotherhood thugs, ousted by the military, have taken their rage out on the Coptic Christian community.

American influence since World War II has not brought complete peace, but has kept the lid on conflicts that could have erupted without its presence.  US troops have occasionally played a role, as in Lebanon under Eisenhower and Reagan. This also, of course, includes the Iraq wars. But usually US aims are realized through  the dispensation of aid and realpolitik style maneuvering.

Some of these conflicts, such as the rise of the Islamofascist thug group, Muslim Brotherhood, have steadily percolated for years.  The Brotherhood aligned with the Nazis before and during World War II to try and destabilize British authority in the Middle East.  Ever since, they have worked to undermine secular rule in Egypt to establish an Iran or Taliban style state there.

The full realization of their plans would put a hostile power in control of the vital Suez Canal who also would attack Israel.

Part of the problem lies at the feet of Barack Obama.  Nearly every president since Harry Truman has based American Middle East policy on certain foundations.  First was support of Israel.  Second, America must protect, or support the protection of, strategic interests.  These include safe ocean passage through the Suez, Straits of Hormuz, etc., oil reserves, and important points.

The United States also worked to prevent the rise of malefactors in the Middle East, but also lived with anti-democratic forces willing to go along with the game plan.  For example, Qaddafi was an enemy when he sponsored terrorism.  When he renounced weapons of mass destruction, he became at least tolerable and a possible example of a "reformed" dictator.  Not the best case scenario, but an improvement.

Supporting "democracy" in the Middle East is problematic.  Islamofascists, like the German Nazis and Communists before, advocate "democracy" so that they can come to power and annihilate it.  The best case scenario for Germany in the mid 1930s would have been a military coup and purge of Hitler's followers and Communists, followed by a restoration of the Kaiser.  Those rebelling against authoritarianism today often only plan to establish bloody totalitarianism tomorrow.

Previous presidents understood this.  Obama does not.

American policy in the region has no chance of restoration under Obama.  His aimless diplomacy, coupled with two poorly performing secretaries of state, inspire no respect.  Middle Easterners did not always like Obama's predecessor, but they respected his strength and ability to act.  Obama has effectively destroyed that perception and replaced it with weakness.

Drifting away from Israel has also made war more likely, not less.

Even though energy self-sufficiency will de-emphasize the Middle East's importance somewhat, it still breeds hate and terror.  America must have a policy that starts with a perception of strength based on the reality of action.  Doing anything else increases the chance of war and/or terror attacks.

Military Dictatorship In Egypt?

Unrest in Egypt is getting worse and not better. What is unclear is which groups stand to gain if, or more likely when, Hosni Mubarek is forced to step aside. We would love to see true democracy, but should be concerned about the Moslem Brotherhood (backed by Obama, of course.) Egypt has tried to retain a secular government in the face of a tide of dangerous fundamentalism. Inviting a religious group to the table is a bad idea. Just because they came does not mean they should get to sit or speak.

History shows us that revolutions such as the one brewing in Cairo tend to turn out badly much of the time. Radicals shove aside moderates and spill blood when they consolidate power. Radicals want to control the people body, mind, and spirit. Radical Islamofacist terror will be bad for Egypt, Israel, Europe, and the United States.

In 1933, German democracy selected Communists and Nazis overwhelmingly in elections for the national legislature (Reichstag.) Its system required the President to choose a government from the dominant political parties. The President selected what he thought was the better of two evils, the Nazis. Of course the Communists had already killed thousands and wrecked Russia. The Nazis had not done as much yet, although they eventually would. The best case scenario for that desperate nation would have been a temporary seizure of power by the military.

Is that what is best for Egypt? If the Moslem Brotherhood or any other Islamic front group try to seize power, the military needs to step in and shove them aside. We need no more radical religious groups running nations in the Middle East. It is not a great result, but better than a lot of alternatives if true democracy cannot be established.

This all being said, that military government (as we have seen this morning actually take over the country) needs to put together a transition plan to democracy that reflects the secular nature of the country and respects all of its religious groups. It needs to promise to prevent terror as well. Hopefully, temporary military rule will result in real democracy and positive change for Egypt.

The Muslim Brotherhood Must Be Excluded

In recent days, Obama has been pushing Egypt to find a role in a new government for the Muslim Brotherhood. This is an international front for Islamofascism who tries to make fundamentalist Islam look acceptable, much like the Nazi moderation campaigns in the late 20s and early 30s.

Make no mistake, especially y'all on the liberal side of things. These are people who have no problem with the execution of gays and the mutilation of rape victims, especially if that rape destroyed their virginity. These are the Middle East version of the Westboro Baptist (non)Church in their basic beliefs. They should be allowed nowhere near any power structure anywhere.

Revolutions usually begin with democratic leaning moderates in control and radicals asking just for a place at the table. Over time the radicals use ruthless means to intimidate and shove their way into dictatorial control. The American Revolution was an example of the opposite. Radicals were weeded out or chose to drop out and the moderates too over. In Russia and France, radicals seized control with terrifying and bloody results.

To avoid bloodshed in the increasingly inevitable looking scenario of change in Egypt, we must push for the exclusion of the Muslim Brotherhood. They are terrorists who will kill and maim the weak and vulnerable if their sick interpretation of Islam is given any credibility or influence.

We want a moderate and secular democracy in Egypt that opens up the economic system to a more free market orientation. We do not need terrorists who have temporarily decided to look moderate.