When is tough effective? Source: Google Images.
Benjamin Netanyahu subscribes to the George W. Bush school of anti-diplomacy. It’s nice to blow off steam, especially when you are in the right. But does brandishing your sword make an effective foreign policy? Ask Kaiser Wilhelm II, the arch-villain of World War I, whose bluster and belligerence led to the encirclement of Germany, his gravest fear. Ask most Americans after W left office — did W’s shooting from the hip help America’s image in the world? Improve America’s security?
I had meetings with Netanyahu in my capacity as a sovereign analyst for Israel several years ago. He was then finance minister and a very effective one. I always came away with the belief that his Achilles’ heel was his hubris. His narcissism was always the elephant in the room, and more so than the average politician. I can’t help but believe that his leadership has had something to do with such recent diplomatic fiascoes as the Biden visit and the Gaza flotilla.
Netanyahu, though ineffective, may be right about Gaza. If you don’t understand why Israel is touchy about Hamas and Gaza, please read the Hamas Covenant in this link, as translated by the Yale University Avalon project, especially Art. 22. It reads like Der Stuermer. Here are a few snippets (out of order):
“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it…
The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying…
The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:
“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews)…”
In their Nazi treatment, the Jews made no exception for women or children…
With their money, they took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others. With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there. With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests. With their money they were able to control imperialistic countries and instigate them to colonize many countries in order to enable them to exploit their resources and spread corruption there.
They were behind World War I, when they were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate, making financial gains and controlling resources. They obtained the Balfour Declaration, formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the world. They were behind World War II, through which they made huge financial gains by trading in armaments, and paved the way for the establishment of their state. It was they who instigated the replacement of the League of Nations with the United Nations and the Security Council to enable them to rule the world through them. There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it…
There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad…
Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement…
Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Moslem people…
…the ferocity of the Zionist offensive and the Zionist influence in many countries exercised through financial and media control, as well as the consequences that all this lead to in the greater part of the world…”
There you have it. That’s who’s in power in Gaza. Hence, the blockade (to prevent the flow of weapons and to pressure Gazans to kick the genocidal extremists out). History has shown that civilized people should believe what extremists write in their books and manifestos.
As for Turkey, the AK Party did a nice job cleaning up its image in recent years in order to appear to the world as a sort of Islamic version of a European Christian Democratic party. This has kept Turkey’s secular generals from kicking them out, as they did to the Islamists not long ago. Now, ensconced in power, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan and his cronies are trying to reorient foreign policy in a more “Islamist” direction, putting ideologues in key foreign policy posts, taking on Israel, championing the oppressed Muslims of Gaza. Yet, he shows he either hasn’t read the Hamas Covenant or doesn’t care, when he says that Hamas is not a terrorist organization, but a resistance movement (see article). Sir, is the PKK terrorist or a resistance movement (the PKK is the Kurdish “liberation” movement on Turkish soil that the Turks believe is “terrorist”)? Were the Turks who murdered masses of Armenians in the early 1900s, which Hitler later said was his inspiration for the Final Solution, genocidal killers? C’mon, it’s not so hard to tell right from wrong in this world! Turks should have a re-think about how moderate the Islamism of the AK Party really is.
Israel’s blockade of Gaza could be counterproductive. It certainly has become a diplomatic liability. If there is a better way to staunch the flow of weapons to Gaza that Iran is ready to send, if there is a better way to empower those that would topple the would-be committers of genocide running Gaza today, then I say scrap the blockade. Israel certainly needs to scrap its bunker mentality and engage with the rest of the world, before, like Wilhelmine Germany, it becomes encircled. P.R. should be a top Israeli priority; and, in order to clean up the country’s global image, Israelis should perhaps start by voting Netanyahu out of office at the next opportunity. Read about his vehement defense of the Gaza flotilla raid. He may be right, but he certainly is not very diplomatic.
