Posted on 06/15/2010 4:50:59 PM PDT by HearMe
Time for another reassessment By Arye Eldad
In light of the recent NPT Review Conference results, Israel should rethink the value of all US promises, regardless of how or where they were made.
The term “reassessment” entered the diplomatic discourse between Israel and the United States in 1975. Secretary of state Henry Kissinger sought to pressure prime minister Yitzhak Rabin into an “interim agreement” with Egypt, by which IDF forces would withdraw from the Yom Kippur War cease-fire lines to the Mitla and Gidi passes in Sinai. Kissinger froze US arms shipments and hinted that more drastic measures would follow. Rabin was unfazed and took his case to the Senate. President Gerald Ford and Kissinger relented.
Even at the height of that crisis, the US did not dare to endanger the heart of its strategic understanding with Israel: its ambiguous nuclear policy. President Lyndon Johnson and prime minister Golda Meir set the policy in 1969 that has been followed by all the presidents and prime ministers since. This policy has often been articulated in written agreements between them, but occasionally simply by mutual understanding.
“Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East,” said prime ministers Levi Eshkol and Shimon Peres, Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin, and all who followed. US presidents have come and gone; sometimes they had questions, sometimes they asked for clarifications, but ultimately they all accepted the formula and agreed to abide by it. Until Barack Obama.
After his election, Obama promised Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to maintain the ambiguity. Two weeks ago he betrayed that promise.
On May 28, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, which meets once every five years, called unanimously – with America’s support – for Israel to sign the treaty and open its nuclear installations to external supervision. Israel is not a signatory to the treaty; Iran is a signatory, yet Iran is rushing toward production of nuclear weapons. Syria and Libya are signatories, but their signatures have not prevented them from building uranium enrichment plants for military purposes.
North Korea built a bomb and tests nuclear weapons, mocking the entire world supposedly opposed to it. Pakistani scientists, led by the “father of the Pakistan’s nuclear bomb” Abdul Qadeer Khan, sold nuclear secrets and technology necessary for the building of nuclear weapons to Iran, Syria, Libya and possibly North Korea. In the face of this burgeoning industry, the US gave in to an Egyptian initiative and agreed to single out Israel as the country the world should be worried about. Israel alone was mentioned in the NPT Review Committee’s report. Apparently only its installations need to be examined.
THE TIME has come for a reassessment of US-Israeli relations. Israel may want the billions of dollars it receives in military aid from the US, and in the event of a long war, it may need the US munitions reserves currently stored here and resupply lines for the IDF; the US market is also of great importance for the economy; and US intervention often limits our international isolation. But the fact is, we can no longer rely on US support.
We must reassess the value of all American promises, whether they be in writing, made ceremoniously at public festivities or whispered privately in a room of the White House. He who, without batting an eyelash, betrayed us on the nuclear issue, a matter whose existential importance to the Jewish state is obvious given the Iranian dash for a bomb, will not hesitate to deny other commitments.
Obama is currently pressuring Israel to accept dictates that would lead to a Palestinian state in the heart of its country. In return, he offers to guarantee our security, preserve our technological advantage and ensure the Palestinian state will be demilitarized. Why would anyone be willing to take existential risks while relying on the commitment of an American president who has betrayed and denied the commitments of his predecessors and forgotten even his own?
One might think that as our military and political situation worsens, our ability to maneuver opposite the US decreases. But with our back to the wall and knowing full well that we have no one to rely on, we can turn this lack of maneuverability into resoluteness and the dearth of options into strength. When doubts are resolved, fortitude may emerge. The knowledge that American promises are without value is of itself quite valuable. Even a pauper will not agree to give the little he has in exchange for a guarantee openly declared to be worthless.
Obama is no more frightening than Ford. Hillary Clinton dislikes us no more than Kissinger did. The sea we are threatened with being thrown into is the same sea. The Arabs are the same Arabs. But the wall our backs are up against is much closer and more dangerous. The depth of Obama’s betrayal must be made known to the American public today. As the November elections approach in the United States, Netanyahu has the opportunity to replicate Rabin’s achievement of 1975.
The writer is a National Union MK.
One of many.
who was the first person Obambi called after inauguration? wasn’t it some islamic terrorist country?
The American people are “reassessing” too, believe me. He lies to us constantly.
Israel should rethink the value of all US promises, regardless of how or where they were made.
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An understatement considering the total lack of verasity we have in the Oval Office.
Israel can’t trust Obama. Israel can join the club.
I can't add anything to that.
Israel do what you have to do.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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LIPS MOVING = WASTED USELESS LYING WORDS.
As I read in an article not too long ago, after meeting with the Israelies, an Obama official, came out of the meetying and said in amazement: “I think they’re holding out for President Palin!”.
>Bo)
“I think they’re holding out for President Palin!”.
I know I AM!
That written comment -by a Leftist- was meant as an insult against Israeli officials, ie, that they are divorced from reality.
I found it delightfully amusing, and have decided to use the moniker to refer to our next President, and the idiot savant nature of the Obamamite that said it!
;oD
Certainly losing the US the cooperation of our best allies, isn’t he?
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