Wednesday, June 23, 2010
[The following is a guest post by Alexander Maistrovoy.]
Showing weakness and stupidity, the West encourages the Middle East predators, promotes the collapse of moderate Arab regimes and throws Israel into a dilemma: the Holocaust or the "Samson option"
"When people speak about human rights, everyone has in mind his own ones", German scientist and publicist Wilhelm Schwebel wrote. His words perfectly reflect the issue of "breaking" the Gaza blockade. These actions are as related to human rights as Josef Stalin's "fight for peace". Till now not a single person has died of hunger in Gaza . They die in another part of the world, in Kirghizia, but nobody cares about it. The rights of Palestinians are above the rights of the Uzbek people. As well as the Sudanese Christians, Iraqi Kurds, Boers in Southern Africa, "Ahmadyya" in Pakistan and Baha'is in Iran. Palestinians are the high caste of mankind because fortunately they are up against Israel , and the international community has its own rights and interests in this conflict.
What are they? The interests of all the players are very clear except for the West.
The goal of Iran is to strengthen its base on the Mediterranean Sea coast to escalate the confrontation with Israel and with moderate Sunni Arab regimes, and at the same time to distract the world's attention from its nuclear program.
The goal of Turkish Justice and Development Party led by Erdogan is to get points before the elections, make Turkey the leader of the Sunni world and to revive the national ambitions lost with the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
Russia is supporting Iran and Turkey in an attempt to restore previous Soviet influence, push the US out of the region, and recover lost imperial greatness.
The aims of these powers are completely contrary to the aims of the other two leading players in the region: Israel and the moderate Arab regimes.
The goal of Israel is to provide for its safety by weakening HAMAS and depriving it of its life support: weaponry, rockets and building materials to fortify smuggling and transportation tunnels and defensive bunkers.
The goal of the moderate Arab regimes coincides with that of Israel. Arabs fear the Iranian Shiites. Nor do they want Turkey, which they dislike and fear too, to raise its role in the Middle East . Least of all they are interested in strengthening the Palestinian enclave where the Iranians and Turks will rule. First of all it concerns the Mubarak regime that fears the Muslim Brotherhood's (of which Palestinian HAMAS is an offshoot) popularity.
Theoretically both Israel and the Arab regimes are allies of the West. So it would be right to assume that the West will protect them from regional predators. Alas! Common sense and political expediency do not work. Why? There are two reasons: irreparable losses of spiritual and cultural values by once the greatest world civilization and banal political cowardice.
The radical left and liberal part of the Western elite has voluntary deprived itself of its own heritage, values and ideals. It has refused itself the right to exist, reconciled itself to a secondary role and even recognized its own uselessness.
The supposed "Alliance of Civilizations " of Zapatero and Obama is nothing else but accepting the voluntary the status of dhimmitude -- the invitation of an alien strong, dominant, and aggressive civilization to take the place of their own bankrupt and degrading one. Obama's bows to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, a mosque in the place of the WTC, kūfīyä on Zapatero's neck, the Libyan terrorist who had blown up the plane over Lockerby released "for health reasons" - all are the displays of this outlook. As Israel is the main irritant to Muslims, it loses its right to exist.
Zapatero recognizes the idea almost openly, Obama does it less obviously, but the essence does not change. His recent demands of Israel to open its nuclear program for IAEA oversight and to remove Gaza's blockade are more eloquent than any other words.
The other part of the Western political elite, European right and social-democrats, don't accept this attitude. However, they don't have any outlook at all. Their only goal is to keep their power up to the following elections and not to "rock the boat".
The ideology of surviving at all costs leads to the policy of appeasement. Sarkozy ("Disproportionate application of force" by Israel ) and Kouchner ("Recognize Palestinian state before the agreement between Israel and the PA is signed"); Brown ("Labourites have a lot in common with Muslims") and Miliband ("More respect" to Muslims), Baroness Ashton (The blockade is "unacceptable and politically counterproductive") and Berlusconi kissing the hands of Muammar Kaddafi are certainly not anti-Semitic. Some of them are even Jews. They have nothing against Israel, as it is. They have little concern for the simple fact that the Muslim "sea" floods their own house washing away its foundations. So what use to speak about Israel , Mubarak and the Hashemite dynasty? Why speak at all, if it is so comfortable to be silent? Especially, if there are big business, EU officials, "Greens" and anti-globalists, "Human Rights Watch" and their own cultural elite to resist? So they meekly follow the "Alliance of Civilizations".
The more timorous is the policy of the West, the more aggressive Ahmadinejad and Erdogan become. The USA and Western Europe encourage these hysterical politicians, and their wild behavior can lead to uncontrollable consequences.
If the situation does not change (that is extremely probable), we will witness a two-act drama. The first act will be the fall of moderate Arab regimes in Egypt , Jordan and the Persian Gulf states. If it happens, the second act will follow. Israel will be backed into its corner, surrounded by uncontrollable mad regimes. It will face total Islamic hysteria. It will see how the circle of its enemies such as Turkey, Syria, Iran and their puppets in Lebanon and Gaza unite with "revolutionary" Muslim brothers in Egypt and Jordan .
It will see the silent indifference of the West at best and shouts of triumph and jeering at worst. The next Holocaust will cease to be an abstraction and become a reality.
Israel will be left with only two options: to die without a fight or to be lost, having destroyed its enemies -- the option of falling victim to genocide or the "Option of Samson". Zapatero and Obama believe that Israel will choose the first one. Considering the tragic and painful history of Jews, from Maccabeus and Jerusalem's zealots to the Warsaw ghetto and the Six-day war, I would not hurry up with conclusions. And in this case there will be no outside observers...
what I don't get is why Israel take the blame on itself for this:
Israeli spokespeople make no mention of a well-known fact in the Arab world: Gaza is the world’s largest prison, but not because of Israel – but rather, because of the Egyptian government’s refusal to allow free exit via the Rafah Crossing. The crossing indeed opens for the sick and for students, yet the Egyptians continue to impose limits on the general Gaza population for fear that the border will be breached again.
any idea why ?