Something
has happened in Israel. People cannot take the nonsense of foreign "Middle
East experts" any more. Last week it was Moshe Ya'alon with his interview
in Ha'aretz ( see previous blog post), this week it is Martin Sherman with his article worthy of George
Orwell. But how is this related to MAD? It's not, except to show that
Israelis have had enough, and that will determine how they will react to the
death of MAD.
Here is an excerpt from Martin Sherman's piece:
Dummy or dhimmi?
But Ross’s counsel on Turkey is if anything even more outrageous. Ross said that it was in Jerusalem’s long-term strategic interest to try to patch up the relationship, even at the cost of issuing an apology over the Mavi Marmara incident, as Ankara has demanded.
Quite apart from the fact that if any apology is forthcoming it should be from Ankara to Jerusalem, for allowing its citizens to create the violent confrontation with Israeli forces; quite apart from the fact that it is more than a little offensive to suggest that Israel should have to apologize for its soldiers’ use of deadly force to prevent themselves being disemboweled, the logic behind his suggestion is as impaired as the morality behind it.
Ross waxes delusional, stating: “Turkey and Israel have an enormous common stake in Syria. Is it difficult to make an apology? Yes, I don’t dismiss that. But how does that weigh against wider strategic interests you have in Syria and a region undergoing tremendous upheaval?” He goes on to claim that restoration of the relationship would have an impact on the whole region, and suggests imagining what a sobering affect this type of rapprochement would have on ascendant players such as the Muslim Brotherhood.
What planet does this guy inhabit? Can he really be unaware that Turkey has undergone a fundamental transformation, that it is no longer a Western-oriented secular state but a Islamic-oriented theocratic one, that its relations with Israel are a far more a function of what it has become, than of what Israel does – or doesn’t do.
Of might well wonder: If there are so many strategic interests in common between Turkey and Israel, why doesn’t Ross suggest that Ankara forgo its childish demand for an apology? Is that his “soft racism” of low expectations showing? Or is it the dhimmi in him that feels the need for submission to the Muslim demands? Or perhaps just the dummy?
But Ross’s counsel on Turkey is if anything even more outrageous. Ross said that it was in Jerusalem’s long-term strategic interest to try to patch up the relationship, even at the cost of issuing an apology over the Mavi Marmara incident, as Ankara has demanded.
Quite apart from the fact that if any apology is forthcoming it should be from Ankara to Jerusalem, for allowing its citizens to create the violent confrontation with Israeli forces; quite apart from the fact that it is more than a little offensive to suggest that Israel should have to apologize for its soldiers’ use of deadly force to prevent themselves being disemboweled, the logic behind his suggestion is as impaired as the morality behind it.
Ross waxes delusional, stating: “Turkey and Israel have an enormous common stake in Syria. Is it difficult to make an apology? Yes, I don’t dismiss that. But how does that weigh against wider strategic interests you have in Syria and a region undergoing tremendous upheaval?” He goes on to claim that restoration of the relationship would have an impact on the whole region, and suggests imagining what a sobering affect this type of rapprochement would have on ascendant players such as the Muslim Brotherhood.
What planet does this guy inhabit? Can he really be unaware that Turkey has undergone a fundamental transformation, that it is no longer a Western-oriented secular state but a Islamic-oriented theocratic one, that its relations with Israel are a far more a function of what it has become, than of what Israel does – or doesn’t do.
Of might well wonder: If there are so many strategic interests in common between Turkey and Israel, why doesn’t Ross suggest that Ankara forgo its childish demand for an apology? Is that his “soft racism” of low expectations showing? Or is it the dhimmi in him that feels the need for submission to the Muslim demands? Or perhaps just the dummy?
Why
now? Why
did it take so long? Why had it not happened at any time in the past during the series of previous blunders - Oslo I, Oslo II, Taba, Wye, Tenet, Mitchell, Zinni,
Sharm El-Sheikh, Roadmap, Annapolis?
This
time it is different. The threat of nuclear annihilation clears the mind.
Israel cannot afford an error with regards to Iran. It will not follow absurd
advice, be
it from Dennis Ross, Secretary Clinton or President Obama. Americans will decide the future of the US this
coming November. We are
deciding ours now, by ourselves.
