If nothing else comes of it, the West's response to the rape of Georgia should end that delusion. Georgia did almost everything right. And for its actions Georgia was celebrated in the West with platitudes of enduring friendship and empty promises of alliances that were discarded the moment Russia invaded.
Georgia only made one mistake, and for that mistake it will pay an enormous price. As it steadily built alliances, it forgot to build an army. Israel has an army. It has just forgotten why its survival depends on our willingness to use it.
If we are unwilling to use our military to defeat our enemies, we will lose everything. This is the basic, enduring truth of international affairs that we have ignored at our peril. No matter what we do, it will always be the case. For this is the nature of world affairs, and the nature of man.
Israel
The New Anti-Semitism
The modern anti-Semite looks entirely different. He does not have a shaved head. He has good manners and often an academic title as well…The modern anti-Semite does not believe in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. But instead he fantasizes about an “Israel lobby” that is supposed to control American foreign policy like a tail that wags the dog. For the modern anti-Semite, it goes without saying that every year on January 27 he will commemorate the liberation of Auschwitz. But at the same time he militates for the right of Iran to have atomic weapons.
—Henryk Broder, in a speech to the German Bundestag.
Quote of the Day
THESE OBAMA skeptics recall a similar time, 1973, when Israel also faced extermination. Prime minister Golda Meir had miscalculated Anwar Sadat’s willingness to go to war and decided against a first strike against Egypt. The Arab nations attacked in October 1973, and within days Israel was facing defeat.
The Israelis went to president Richard Nixon with a request for a massive infusion of arms. The Defense and State Departments squabbled. Our European allies, who feared an oil embargo (and would refuse us bases to refuel our planes), inveighed against it, and the Soviets blustered. Many on Nixon’s staff wanted to deny the request, or offer only token assistance. Don’t antagonize the Arab states, they counseled.
Nixon persisted and, according to some accounts, doubled the amount of aid Israel had requested. Riding herd on the bureaucrats, Nixon repeatedly intervened to push the transports along. Informed about a dispute regarding the type of air transportation, Nixon at one point exclaimed in frustration: “Tell them to send everything that can fly.” Over the course of a month US airplanes conducted 815 sorties with over 27,900 tons of materiel.
Israel was saved due to this massive infusion of military aid. Meir referred to Nixon with enormous affection for the rest of her life. Nixon, despised by many in the US, was hailed as a hero in Israel. And Nixon (who had garnered a minority of the Jewish vote in 1972) received little or no political benefit at home for his trouble, leaving office the following year.
-Jennifer Rubin, “Why more Jews won’t be voting Democrat this year”
The Anti-Brian Lambs
At WSJ we see what a free market of ideas is – and what it isn’t. There, too, Strassel describes an elitist (sentimental, self-righteous) press which quickly bought the argument of yet another politician that he (and he alone) is “for the people” (“for the children” and “for the poor” are of course versions of this); that this populist argument leads inexorably to power-grabbing hubris should be clear by now. Self-righteousness is a dangerous drug because it so easily quiets not just others’ doubts but our own. Spitzer is an argument, of course, for checks and balances applied by a free press. But we might also remember that any call to our baser instinct to covet another’s success should be suspect.
Update: Gay Patriot suggests three offices often obviously motivated by something other than justice: Spitzer, Nifong and Ronnie Earle, who began earliest and remains in office. That may say something about Austin and I’m not sure it is good.