Fort Israel on the Global Frontier

Michael Anbar Ph.D.

  One does not have to be an ultra-keen political observer to realize the overwhelming influence of the special relationship between Israel and the US on the Arab - Israeli conflict. There are different opinions regarding the Israeli-American alliance, the reasons for its existence and its objectives.

Certain Israelis believe that Israel does not need US support because Israeli Jews are strong enough to defend their country without external help.  While this level of self-confidence is admirable, it would be unwise for Israel, with its 5 million Jews and limited material resources, to stand up alone to the 350 million Arabs, not to speak of 1200 million Muslims. Israel needs the active support of the only superpower in this planet, the USA. To make my point, let us look at the history of the State of Israel:

In 1948 President Truman did not assist the fledgling Jewish state and even imposed an arms embargo on it while it was fighting for its very existence. The US State Department concluded at that time that it would be in the best interests of the US to abandon the tiny Jewish state.  Israel would have been defeated and destroyed by the Arabs if not for the help it received from the USSR.  Today there is, however, only one superpower.

In 1956, when Israel Joined the UK and France in the Suez campaign, following extensive Egyptian terrorist attacks on Israeli towns and villages, President Eisenhower stepped and used US tremendous prestige to save the Egyptian regime. His State Department, which recommended this approach in order to dissuade Egypt from joining the USSR block, failed miserably in its policy. Ungrateful Egypt disregarded US help and did join the Russian block. Russian realpolitik dictated abandonment of socialist Israel, gaining the favors of the theocratic-autocratic Arab regimes (this much for ideological solidarity of the Left). Only then did the US start to support Israel politically and militarily as a partner in the anti-Communist block.

During the Six Days War of 1967 and especially during the Arab treacherous surprise assault in 1973 (the Yom Kippur War), Israel enjoyed massive American military assistance. The 1973 war might have had an utterly different outcome if not for President Nixon’s substantial help; a historical fact forgotten by most American Jews.  This brings us to President George W. Bush who maintains US staunch support of Israel, providing it with arms and protecting it from potentially devastating International sanctions.

In brief, to ensure its survival, Israel must maintain its close relationship with the US. However, this relationship is more symbiotic than it may appear.  Presidents Johnson, Nixon, Reagan and George W. Bush have supported the state of Israel because this was and still is in the best interest of the United States.

Both Israel and America are now confronted by an aggressive adversary that despises our way of life and is trying to deny the validity of our religion and its value system, as well as the Greco-Judaic historical foundations of our civilization. . Unlike Western culture, supremacist Islamism does not recognize any culture or history other than its own.

The Islamistic denial of the historical existence of the ancient Jewish temple in Jerusalem, articulated by the leadership of the PLO, is symptomatic of this anti-Western cultural assault.

To defend Western culture and its value system, we must learn and know its history, just as we must know the topography of a battlefield before going into battle. We cannot permit Islamistic propagandists to successfully use a smoke screen of “historical” falsehoods to confuse and defeat us, and thus destroy Western civilization. In brief, Americans must learn basic world history, including Jewish and classic history, in order to survive in this cultural conflict.

Israeli and American extreme leftists claim that America is intrinsically materialistic and greedy and should not care about a little Jewish state in the Middle East, which provides them with far less material benefits than gained by supporting oil rich Arabs.  Strangely, however, they do not protest against this perceived “fault” in American policy but join the Arab lobby that claims that creation and supporting the Jewish state has been a mistake.  Those extreme leftists are joined by American right wing separatists who advocate essentially the same anti-Israeli policy.  Both groups seem to miss the motivation of the American government in maintaining the alliance with Israel.

For one, America has made many costly political and military moves that were not motivated by greed (whether oil or markets for American products). Consider American interventions in Ethiopia, Somalia, Haiti, Liberia, Bosnia, Kosovo, and South Africa; none of these were motivated by greed; all of these were driven by public opinion that was occasionally manipulated by propaganda.

Also the notorious Viet Nam war was not motivated by greed but by global political considerations, just like the current Afghani and Iraqi wars. The US is going to invest in these two countries many more dollars than it might recover even in the long run.  However, all these military or political moves must be in concert with American public opinion, less we end up with a Viet Nam like debacle.

The implication of these observations for the Arab-Israeli conflict is that American public opinion can become a decisive factor in shaping US foreign policy. This is what my essay “Israel’s Western Front” (Israel Insider, November 27, 2003) was all about. It is, therefore, the duty of Israeli and American Jewry, with the help of American Christian Judeophils, to fight the deceitful Arab and leftist anti-Jewish (and anti-American) propaganda. This false propaganda poses a danger to all of Western civilization. 

Some American rightists claim that Israel, which was a strategic asset during the Cold War, is now a liability, alienating the “moderate Muslims” (e.g. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan) in the war against terrorism. This argument is blatantly wrong. The alliance between the US and Israel is in the best interest of America, now more than ever.

Everyone will agree that President Nixon’s support of the State of Israel did not stem from his love of the Jewish people but was motivated by America’s global interests. Also President Reagan’s support of Israel was motivated, at least in great part, by Israel’s vital strategic position in the Cold War.

Today we are confronted with a new global war named by some “World War III.” It is a different kind of war. We do not face a single adversary nation, a Germany or Soviet Russia, but a conglomerate of Islamic nations who tolerate or even assist a religious political supremacist movement that wants to destroy the West. One must not consider Osama bin Laden as a single crazy fanatic, just as one should not have considered Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin as single paranoid fanatics. Each of these supremacists has been a token of a violent, global, ideology-driven policy, executed by millions. Elimination of bin Laden will not eliminate Islamism.

The current danger to the world is greater, however, because troops of the Islamistic political menace are scattered all over the world. They are incited and led by local religious fanatics of the like of the Ayatollahs in Iran, the Wahabi Imams and mullahs in Arabia, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the PLO’s Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, to mention a few.  In analogy to the Volkdeutsche and local communist cells, we now have militant Islamists, with their clergy and tacit supporters scattered throughout the Western world.

Unlike atheist Nazism and Communism, Islamism is a religious movement that evokes deep emotions and beliefs in its followers. The hundreds of suicide bombings that have murdered thousands of Americans and Israelis manifest this dangerous aspect of Islamism.  All of these fanatics, clergy and troopers alike, have one common denominator – hatred of the West that is symbolized for them by Christian America and Jewish Israel. In their religion-prejudiced eyes, the USA and the State of Israeli are the Great and the Little Satan, respectively. 

Jews are a relatively easy preliminary target of Islamist violence. We have seen this lately in France, Tunisia, Morocco and Turkey.  The vitriolic, government sponsored, anti-Semitic propaganda in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran are other indications of the pervasiveness of the Islamistic anti-Western ideology. The recent violent anti-Semitic outbreaks all over Europe, shown objectively to be perpetrated by local Islamists, are forerunners of violence against the host regimes. Except for the 9/11 atrocity, the US has been spared so far additional gross manifestation of anti-American (and anti-Jewish) outrages, partly because Muslims in the US constitute a small minority, and partly because of the vigilant and stringent law enforcement following the 9/11 carnage.  However, the continued training of hundreds of thousands of young fanatic potential terrorists by the “Palestinian Authority,” and by the Iranian and Saudi Arabian governments, indicates that the violent assault on the West is far from having reached its climax.

Israel has been considered by nationalistic Islamism to be a bridgehead of the West into the Islamic-Arab domain. As pointed out in  “Israel’s Western Front,” this has been the root cause of the Arab Israeli conflict, rather than territorial disputes. The destruction of Israel, which has been the short-term goal of Islamism, is just a stepping-stone before their desired overtake of Europe by subversion. That would be followed by a concentrated frontal attack on the USA. By then militant Islamists will surely possess a variety of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems.

Israel’s holdout is, therefore, a strategic key in preventing conquest of the West. As long as Israel survives, and even flourishes, the Arabs will remember their repeated humiliations by the minute Jewish state and be discouraged from major violent adventures. Erasing these humiliations by destruction of “Fort Israel” will embolden them to proceed with their global campaign. This is the main motivation for Iran to develop nuclear weapons, because total destruction of Israel is a major Islamistic objective.

In brief, the State of Israel has now a far greater strategic value for the US than it ever had during the Cold War. This is the true motivation for the US in maintaining the strength and integrity of the Jewish state. However, while strategists in the Pentagon and the National Security Council realize the strategic importance of Israel in the current global war, the American public, constantly bombarded by Arab and leftist anti-American propaganda, must be made aware of this geopolitical reality. Otherwise it might unknowingly stampede the US into a decisive national disaster.

December 1, 2003