Update: Salon made my letter an Editor’s Pick.
The Article: In today’s edition of Salon, Gregory Levey evaluates in Israel’s Surge of Despair Israeli politics following the war against Hezbollah and Israeli diplomacy as the United States sinks further and further into Iraq. The article can be summed with the authors own anecdote:
To many in or involved with the Israeli government, George W. Bush’s presence in the Oval Office was once reassuring. Now, it is increasingly worrying. Back in early 2004, when I started working in the Israeli Mission to the U.N. — during the first year of the U.S. occupation of Iraq — one of the senior diplomats there had an autographed photograph of Bush hanging behind his desk. But by the summer of 2005, as Iraq spiraled into chaos, I noticed that he had replaced it, without explanation, with a photo of U2′s Bono.
Analysis: Available as a letter on Salon and below.
The war was certainly lost, but not in traditional measures of goals accomplished or battles lost. I think we can compare Israel’s recent efforts in Lebanon to the United States involvement in Iraq. While we may equate both the physical battles as a standstill, both conflicts have been complete diplomatic fiascos. Public opinion and international trust have mitigated any positive effect military action may have created.
Israel, in many ways like its diplomatic big brother America, has suffered a debilitating setback in its international standing. Israel is far from the victim of anti-Semitic persecution or the biblical David of the Middle East, as many geriatric Zionists or muddled neo-Conservatives would want you to believe. It is perceived to be a purveyor of violence, intolerance, occupation, nationalism, and religious and cultural ethnocentricism. This is not a perception limited to the Arab world: Europe and the American left, once firm supporters of the ‘Jewish’ state are coming to the realization that unwavering and uncritical support for a belligerent state is hypocritical and against long term strategic interests. This may have been in the cards though, as what serious, well-thought liberal would openly support a state that’s based on the values one should isolate and condemn (religion, societal divisions, fierce and violent nationalism).
In the short term, we have witnessed a complete diplomatic isolation of both states. America is impotent and enfeebled on this front, failing to stop the bloodshed in Lebanon this summer, to bring about peaceful resolution to ongoing Hamas and Fatah strife, or serious change to the Israeli Palestinian situation. America’s allies are quickly distancing itself as it continues to stumble over itself in the region: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan have all splintered from American methods on Iran, Israel/Palestine, and Iraq. Further, only America could turn an issue that most in the international community agree on — the desire to limit the nuclear capabilities of Iran — into a political conflict that may result in war. This has manifested itself by proxy in Israel’s diplomacy as well. As Israel sinks itself farther into the talons of Bush’s zero-sum game, the farther it is incapable of pursuing normalized relations with other countries.
I personally hope that for many this realization emerged this summer. These are not wars we are bound to be civility, these are not countries people are bound to because of identity. These are political conquests carried out by the agents of the right under the pretense of fear and safety.
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