b********n
发帖数: 38600 | 1 http://buchanan.org/blog/israel-at-70-bibis-troubled-hour-of-power-129322
By Patrick J. Buchanan
For Bibi Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister save only
founding father David Ben-Gurion, it has been a week of triumph.
Last Tuesday, President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the
Iran nuclear deal as Bibi had demanded. Thursday, after Iran launched 20
missiles at the Golan Heights, Bibi answered with a 70-missile attack on
Iran in Syria.
“If it rains on us, it will storm on them. I hope we have finished the
episode,” Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said, boasting that Israel’s
raids hit “nearly all Iranian infrastructure in Syria.”
The day before, Bibi was in Moscow, persuading Vladimir Putin to cancel the
sale of Russia’s S-300 air defense system to Damascus.
Yesterday, in an event televised worldwide, the U.S. embassy was transferred
to Jerusalem, with Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner
doing the honors in what Bibi called a “glorious day.” Few can recall a
time when Israel seemed in so favorable a position.
The White House and the Republican Party that controls Congress are solidly
behind Israel. Egypt is cooperating to battle terrorists in Sinai.
Israel has a de facto alliance with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf royals. And
the Palestinians have never been more divided, isolated and alone.
Yet, there is another side to this story, also visible this last week.
Have something to say about this column?
Visit Pat's FaceBook page and post your comments….
As the transfer ceremony of the Jerusalem embassy was taking place, TV split
screens showed pictures of protesting Palestinians, 52 of whom were shot
dead Monday, with thousands wounded by snipers. Some 40,000 had rallied
against the U.S. embassy move.
Even before Monday’s body count, the Gaza Health Ministry said that, over
the previous six Fridays of “March of Return” protests, 49 Palestinians
had been killed and 2,240 hit by live fire from Israeli troops.
Those dead and wounded Palestinians are not likely to be forgotten in Gaza.
And while Israel has never had so many Arab regimes willing to work with her
in pushing back against Iran, Arab League Chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit called
the U.S. embassy move to Jerusalem, a “clear violation of international law
.”
Gheit added: “The fall of Palestinian martyrs by the bullets of the Israeli
occupation must ring an alarm … bell to any state that does not find
anything wrong with the immoral and illegal stance that we are watching.”
Last week, Hezbollah, which arose in resistance to the 1982 Israeli
occupation of Lebanon, and expelled the Israeli army 18 years later, won
Lebanon’s elections. A Hezbollah-backed coalition will likely form the new
government in Beirut.
Michael Oren, Israel’s former ambassador to the U.S. and Bibi ally, said
that any attack by Hezbollah, which fought Israel to a standstill in 2006,
should bring an Israeli declaration of war — on Lebanon.
While Israel launched some 100 strikes on Syria in recent years, Syrian
President Bashar Assad has survived and, with the aid of Hezbollah, Iran and
Russia, won his civil war.
Assad and his army and allies are far stronger now, while President Trump,
Israel’s indispensable ally, speaks of bringing U.S. troops home from Syria
. In polls, a majority of Americans lines up behind Israel in its clashes,
but a majority also wants no more U.S. wars in the Middle East.
Also, Sunday, the U.S. sustained another major political defeat.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi lost his re-election bid. Based on
early results, the winning coalition was that of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-
Sadr, against whose forces U.S. troops fought a decade ago.
Running second was a ticket led by a Shiite militia general close to Iran.
When a new government is formed in Baghdad, the orientation of Iraq seems
certain to shift away from the United States.
While the Israelis are the most powerful nation in the region, how long can
they keep 2 million Palestinian Arabs confined in the penal colony that is
the Gaza Strip? How long can they keep the 2 million Palestinians of the
West Bank living in conditions even Israeli leaders have begun to compare to
apartheid?
Across the West, especially in universities, a BDS movement to have students
, companies and consumers boycott, divest and sanction Israeli-produced
products has been gaining ground.
The Palestinians may have been abandoned by Arab rulers and the wider world.
Yet, history teaches that people forced to survive in such conditions
eventually rise in rebellion and revolution, take revenge, and exact
retribution for what was done to them and their own.
Republican leaders often say that we cannot permit “any daylight” between
the U.S. position and that of Israel.
But can the country that decried for decades the panicked reaction of an
Ohio National Guard that shot and killed four students at Kent State
University sit silent as scores of unarmed protesters are shot to death and
thousands are wounded by Israeli troops in Gaza?
Bibi and Israel appear to be on a winning streak. It is difficult to see how
, over the long run, it can be sustained. |
|
