WHAT HAPPENED TO ISRAEL
WHAT HAPPENED TO ISRAEL? THE
SAME THING THAT APPEARS TO BE
HAPPENING TO AMERICA
by
Ken Eliasberg
After the recent bit of unpleasantness in the Middle East, friends have frequently asked me what happened to Israel “where was their indomitable spirit, their military invincibility, their strategic brilliance, etc., etc.? My answer is simple—the same thing that is happening to us; a corrosive left-wing that drains their spirit, eliminates their pride in their country, saps their morale, and, in short, dramatically diminishes their will to fight—even for their own survival. Lincoln said it—A house divided cannot stand. And I have never seen America more polarized. Indeed, if the right was as viciously destructive in WWII as the left is today, we here in California would be speaking Japanese (those East of the Mississippi would be talking to each other in German). We had the will to fight then; we were united in a common cause, and our morale was high. When America is in that state, she cannot be beaten. Unfortunately, we are nowhere near that state today. It is true that we are at war, but we have very different enemies—the country is fighting radical Islam; the Democrats are fighting George Bush. Their hatred for this man is merely a reflection of their moral and philosophical bankruptcy; it has rendered them impotent insofar as their ability to spring to the defense of their own country. However, it has rendered them a powerful force on behalf of the country’s enemies. If we lose this struggle, for their sake I hope their Islamic benefactors will look with favor upon their disservice to their own country and how helpful they have been in facilitating an Islamic takeover of America.
But, again, I get ahead of myself—back to what went wrong with Israel? Quite simply, the war was a disaster—from beginning to end. In the beginning, you found yourself waiting for the beginning to actually begin; Israel seemed tentative, listless, and, what for Israel seemed strange, indecisive. Here they were in a battle that was waged to suppress a bellicose and predatory force, Hezbollah, that had violated their borders in 2 serious and substantial regards; they had kidnapped 2 Israeli soldiers, after killing 6 others, and were raining rockets down on Northern Israeli population centers—either was an act of war, and more than sufficient grounds for retaliation. Okay, so retaliate, don’t pussy foot around. But Israel seemed almost sluggish in its response, and one could sense that there appeared to be some tension in what was going on behind the scenes, i.e. you got the impression that there might be a difference of opinion—between the government and the military—as to how the war should be waged.
Then they jumped in with their air force, trying to dismantle Hezbollah’s infrastructure with smart bombs. On reflection—and even at the time—this did not seem too smart. There is just so much damage you can do from the air. As I have previously pointed out, the mission clearly called for a demonstration of overwhelming ground involvement—but that was a very long time in coming, and, by the time it did, Israel had lost the public relations battle - not that Israel is ever going to win a public relations battle, but the sluggish and haphazard manner in which the war was being waged only aggravated things. And that is the point—one I made a couple of weeks ago—if you’ve got no chance of winning the public relations battle, at least win the battle that counts—the one for your survival.
But again, they seemed lethargic—some speculated that Bush may have advised them against all out war. I don’t think that this was the case (although, I was not behind the scenes, so I really don’t know). In all events, they never seemed to get their military in gear, and their paltry effort only seemed to embolden these terrorist thugs—a consequence that Israel may pay dearly for down the road.
Why such a lackluster effort? Many (both in and out of Israel) feel that it was leadership, i.e. Olmert. But Olmert is only the head on a festering pimple of discontent. There was apparently a malaise abroad in the country, engendered by a very divisive internal struggle. You see, Israel too has a radical left wing that has done serious damage to its immune system, weakening its capacity to respond to external challenges. Leading up to this war, Israel—again, like the U.S.—has been very much a house divided. Although, interestingly enough, during this period, polls indicate that the populace was very much in agreement about the need to crush Hezbollah—upwards of 80 to 85% of Israelis favored the war. So the immediate cause for the poor effort must be laid at the door of leadership—governmental leadership. As I previously, noted, I would be very surprised if Olmert survived this blow for any appreciable period of time.
However, that was the immediate cause of the fiasco; the long range cause of Israel’s depleted effort was the internal war that had been going on for some time before Hezbollah struck“ the war between right and left. So let’s look at that because I assure you, it may prove wonderfully instructive in our own situation, i.e. you can’t win and external war with a powerful enemy bent on your destruction with an internal enemy sniping at your back. The situation is succinctly, but precisely, described in a column by Ari Shavit of Haaretz.com. The column, entitled A Spirit of Absolute Folly can be found on the August 16th edition of FrontPageMag.com (a website that I have frequently called to your attention; it is an excellent website for those of you who want to be kept abreast of what’s happening in the world).
Early on in his column - a column well worth reading—Shavit asks
“What happened to us? What the hell happened to us?” And then he goes on to explain what happened. Again, pay careful attention (and do read the Shavit column) because, as noted, the same thing is happening here. Shavit continues—“A simple thing happened: We were drugged by political correctness. The political correctness that has come to dominate Israeli discourse and Israeli awareness in the past generation was totally divorced from the Israeli situation. - - - At the same time, political correctness assumed that Israeli strength is a given. That Israel is insanely strong. Therefore, political correctness disdained an attempt to build and maintain Israeli strength. - - - After all, in the spiritual world of political correctness, power and army have become dirty words.” Does any of this ring a bell? Do you recall the utter and complete disdain that the Clintons had for the military (and still have, no matter what nonsense Hillary tries to come up with to pad her very modest strong-on-defense credentials).
Shavit continues - “Another thing happened. We were poisoned with an illusion of normalcy.” By this Shavit is conveying the point that Israel allowed itself to believe that it was like any other European country and could live a tranquil existence, completely disregarding the incredibly dangerous geographical circumstances of the area in which it exists. In Israel paranoia should be a normal state of existence—THERE ARE PEOPLE CONSTANTLY TRYING TO KILL YOU—ergo, it is not paranoid to entertain a hyper cautious mentality.
Then we come to the interesting part. Shavit’s explanation of how this delusional state took hold in Israel. “Both political correctness and the illusion-of-normalcy spread first and foremost among Israeli elites.” Surprise, surprise. Continuing, Shavit observes that “The Israeli public in general has remained for the most part sober and strong. It did not err with illusions of a new Middle East. It did not turn its back on the existential imperative, the defense ethos and the IDF.” Then Shavit makes what I consider the most relevant and telling point: “On the other hand, the Israeli elites of the past 20 years have become totally divorced from reality. The capital, the media and the academic world of the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century, have blinded Israel and deprived it of its spirit. Their repeated illusions regarding the historical reality in which the Jewish state finds itself, caused Israel to make a navigational error to lose its way. Their unending attacks, both direct and indirect, on nationalism, on militarism and on the Zionist narrative have eaten away from the inside at the tree trunk of Israeli existence, and sucked away its life force. While the general public demonstrated sobriety, determination and energy, the elites were a disappointment.”
Take a good look at what this gentlemen is saying because the so-called “elites” are having the same disastrous effect here—eviscerating our strength, poo-pooing any demonstration or display of patriotism, and, all in all, doing everything that they can to diminish our capacity to defend ourselves. I’ll have a lot more to say about our academic “effetes” in future columns; for present purposes suffice it to say that any degree of reliance on the blather of the academy would be misplaced