Political Observer comments.

MAY 24, 2023

As preface to Mr. Stephens singing the praises of Israel, let me present this from Unites States Department of State:

SECURITY ASSISTANCE AND COOPERATION 

The abiding U.S. commitment to Israel’s security is buttressed by robust security assistance to Israel – including the 10-year, $38 billion MOU that was concluded in 2016.  Consistent with the MOU, the United States provides $3.3 billion annually in Foreign Military Financing and an additional $500 million in missile defense funding. Missile defense funding supports several cooperative missile defense programs, including David’s Sling and Iron Dome, as well as Arrow, Arrow II, and Arrow III, whose life-saving capabilities have proved vital to Israel’s security.  In 2022, the United States provided $1 billion in supplemental funding to replenish Israel’s stock of missile interceptors for the Iron Dome.

The United States and Israel also participate in a variety of security-related exchanges, including joint military exercises, research, and weapons development. Through the annual Joint Counterterrorism Group and other regular strategic dialogues, the United States and Israel are able to collaborate closely to address a range of regional threats.

U.S. Relations with Israel

In sum, the state of Israel is the protectorate of The American National Security State. A reality that Mr. Stephens, in his long apologetic fails to address. Should The Reader be surprised? As Mr. Stephens presents the ‘current mood’ of This State:

The Jewish state turned 75 on Sunday, mostly in a sour mood.

The country is governed by a coalition that includes political extremists, proud homophobes, ideological monomaniacs, and the merely corrupt. A proposed judicial reform that would have gutted the principal institutional check on rank majoritarianism has been paused, but not quite stopped, by some of the largest protests in Israeli history. Secular Israelis fear the country’s demographic balance is tilting to the religious extreme. Benjamin Netanyahu can’t get an invitation to the White House. It doesn’t seem to bother most American Jews, who struggle to understand, much less justify, the prime minister’s characteristically self-serving, but uncharacteristically inept, leadership.

…

The Framing of ‘most American Jews, who struggle to understand’ – on twitter daily, The World views the wonton oppression, land stealing, and murder of Palestinians enacted, by Israeli Soldiers and Settlers. The Eternal Victimhood self-presentation of Stephens doesn’t even qualify as … the cry of victimhood, from the son of absolute privilege, is now the first and last resort of the Crusaders Against Anti-Semitism: from a position of dominance founded upon a myth.

To top it off, Israelis just endured five days of rocket fire from the Gaza-based, Iranian-backed terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad. It’s a reminder that, notwithstanding Israel’s recent successes in normalizing diplomatic relations with parts of the Arab world, many of its neighbors still want it wiped off the map.

And for all this, Israel is doing remarkably well.

Next to appear are other states that share a common political fate like Israel?

It helps to remember the circumstances in which the country was born. Israel is a post-colonial state. It started its national life dirt-poor. Its peer group of countries includes Syria, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and North and South Korea. These states came into being with many of the same core problems: hostile neighbors, unsettled borders, deep poverty, restive ethnic and religious minorities and other unresolved dilemmas from their independence struggles.

As with Israel, many of those problems still dog most of those states. The Koreas don’t have a settled border. India and Pakistan have painful memories of forced population transfers. Those who think the Palestinian issue is unique should consider the situation of Kashmiris in India, Tamils in Sri Lanka, or Kurds in Syria.

Should The Reader look at Stephens collection of States, as in large part, the former Colonies of The British Empire: might that reader look to the political toxin of Sikes-Picot and The Belfour Declaration? – Stephens writes a History Made To Measure , with Israel… to engage in hyperbole, Israel is the central axis in Stephens’ Ptolemaic Political Universe?

In his political desperation to find scapegoat’s he resorts to Sweden:

As for Israel’s disreputable political figures, to whom shall they be compared? The ruling coalition in Sweden governs “in cooperation” with the far-right, xenophobic Sweden Democrats party; nobody thinks of Sweden or most other democracies with unsavory figures like this as exemplars of political extremism. Elsewhere, when would-be despots come to power, they ban public protests, imprison or assassinate their political opponents, impose a reign of terror.

Mr. Stephens last sentence of this paragraph is:

‘Elsewhere, when would-be despots come to power, they ban public protests, imprison or assassinate their political opponents, impose a reign of terror.’

I’ll just quote this sentence of mine:

The World views the wonton oppression, land stealing, and murder of Palestinians enacted, by Israeli Soldiers and Settlers.

Mr. Stephens is an incompetent, indeed a mendacious apologist for Israel!

Political Observer