Column One: Israel’s Policy Quacks, by Caroline Glick
Excerpts;
If a doctor treated a breast cancer patient by amputating her big toe, he would doubtlessly be kicked out of medicine. Medical quackery is punished today. Sadly, the same cannot necessarily be said of public policy malpractice.
So the events of September 11 made the US realize that its policies toward the Arabs and the UN had to be changed because far from advancing US interests, their old policies harmed them. Unfortunately, the new policies which replaced the old failed policies were incapable of solving the US’s problems and so they too have failed.
To confront the fact that its closest allies were actively supporting al-Qaida, Hamas and other forces warring against the US and its allies, the administration announced that supporting democracy was its central aim in the Arab and Islamic world. This was a just and wise policy. Freedom does indeed hold the promise of eventually becoming the antidote to jihad.
The problem is that the administration sought to implement this long term policy in a manner that would satisfy the 24-hour news cycle. And so, it conflated the conduct of open elections – which can be organized quickly – with democracy, which takes years to cultivate. By pretending that elections are democracy, the administration gave the impression that Western liberalism is not a necessary precursor that guarantees open and free elections will engender democracy.
But like the Americans, Kadima’s leaders – from Ariel Sharon and Shimon Peres to Ehud Olmert, Shaul Mofaz and Ruhama Avraham – chose a policy that bears little connection to the country’s problem and so has no chance of solving it. The politicians that now lead Kadima adopted a policy that says that in the absence of a Palestinian public interested in peaceful coexistence with Israel, Israel will create a Palestinian state without achieving peace with the Palestinians. That is, they ignored that the problem is war.
Since Kadima’s policy prescription does not address the basic reality of war, the implementation of that policy last summer in Gaza not only did not advance Israel’s position in the war, it weakened it. On the political level, the Palestinians reasonably saw Israel’s destruction of its own communities in Gaza and the withdrawal of IDF forces from the area as a victory for Hamas. And so they rewarded the jihadist group for their success by electing them to lead the PA. On a military level, the lands Israel vacated now serve as bases for Hamas and its friends from Iran, Hizbullah and al-Qaida.
Yet, for all the similarities in their quandaries, the Americans are still better off than the Israelis. The Bush administration’s decision to implement policies that have no chance of solving the problems the administration itself identified after September 11 has weakened public support for the administration. Today, the president’s support base has shrunk to just over a third of the American public. Fearing defeat at the polls in the elections this November, Bush’s fellow Republicans in Congress are pushing for tougher policies toward both the Palestinians and the Arab world in general.
In stark contrast, the fact that the implementation of Kadima’s policy has weakened Israel has not caused the public to abandon the party – to the contrary. Perhaps owing to the disunity of the nationalist camp and its refusal to rally around its leader; perhaps due to the massive mobilization of the Israeli media and the Bush administration in support of Kadima, the Israeli public is rewarding, not punishing Kadima for harming its security.
If the opinion polls are correct, then in a week and a half the Israeli public will elect Kadima to form the next government. If this happens, then Israel will compound the damage the withdrawal from Gaza wrought on the country’s security last summer as Kadima is pledged to continue implementing its dangerous and failed policy in Judea and Samaria.
So while America’s democratic system serves to check misguided policymaking and forces leaders to correct their mistakes or be voted out of office, Israel’s dysfunctional democracy rewards policy quacks and punishes those who point out that no matter how well one amputates a big toe, even the finest toe amputation can never cure breast cancer.
Hamas Leader Puts Resisting Israel Before Politics
Excerpts;
“We and the Zionists have a date with destiny. If they want a fight, we are ready for it. If they want a war, we are the sons of war. If they want a struggle, we are for it to the end,” the Damascus-based leader Meshaal declared.
“We have more stamina than Israel and we will defeat it, God willing,” he said.
Commentary;
If only Israeli Leaders put Jewish Survival and the Divine legacy of the Jews to the Land of Israel adamantly before political power and expediency in the same way as Hamas makes it’s bogus claims of the land as theirs. But, then again, there are Israelis and there are Jews as Shimon Peres noted after his 1996 loss to Benjamin Netanyahu. And the alienation resulting from msm and elitist brainwashing grows deeper. MB