'Master of its Fate'

‘We've waited for diplomacy to work, we've waited for sanctions to work, none of us can afford to wait much longer. As prime minister of Israel, I will never let my people live in the shadow of annihilation,’ Benjamin Netanyahu

ONCE AGAIN AN emerging confrontation with Iran is making the headlines. Speaking to the  American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), at the weekend, President Obama made it clear that he would continue America’s historical support for the state of Israel; even to the point of supporting military action against Iran if it went ahead with completing the manufacturing of nuclear weapons.

            Since becoming president, Obama has deliberately taken a tough stand against Israel while cuddling up, not only to Palestinian leaders, but the Muslim world generally. He has said he would like to see a two-state solution based upon the pre-1967 boarders, and demanded that Israel stops building settlements.  He has deliberately sought to criticise and make impossible demands of Israel, in order to convince the Palestinians and the Muslim world that he is a true friend.

            Even when Mahmoud Abbas sought to reunite the Palestinian world by seeking an alliance with the Hamas terrorists, President Obama stayed silent. When the Mavi Mamara set sail, laden with useful idiots from the West, as well as a group of Turkish terrorists set to challenge Israel’s blockade of  Gaza: and when, after Israel warned the vessel that she was entering Israeli waters, and was asked to sail to an Israeli port were the ‘supplies’ she was carrying would be unloaded; and, providing there was nothing on board that would prove useful to Hamas, Israel promised they would allow the cargo entry into Gaza.

            There followed what we once called an international incident, when Israel was forced (through the ships non-compliance) to board the Mavi Mamara. Once on board the Israeli forces were set upon and heavily beaten by the Turkish contingent while the useful idiots stood about and bemoaned.

            One Israeli soldier was thrown overboard: the ships railings had been removed and made into weapons long before the Israelis boarded. Later, guns and knives were uncovered once the Mavi Mamara was brought into port.

            Israel was condemned by Europe, the United Nations, and, behind the scenes no doubt, by Obama. For it had been his anti-Israeli stance since being elected that no doubt encouraged Israel’s enemies to believe that they had cart-blanche in the way they could react to Israel. At last, they believed, we Muslims have a genuine friend in an American President.

            Such was Obama’s love affair with the Muslim world, that his enemies at home began to delve into his past to see if he himself had any kind of a Muslim heritage. He had to have, so they reasoned, because why would an American president take the side of Israel’s enemies.

            After all, was not his first act as president, to deliver a speech to the Muslim world? If we go through Obama’s record since becoming president, then it has been a policy of warmth to the Muslim world and coldness toward Israel. Do we not remember when he and President Sarkozy were overheard by the media telling us what they both thought about Benjamin Netanyahu?

NOW OBAMA WANTS to win a second term, and suddenly the icy waters that  Benjamin Netanyahu was left to swim in during Obama’s first term, have suddenly become tropical.

            Obama would like the Jewish vote of course, but it is not needed. What is needed is for Benjamin Netanyahu, not to launch an attack on Iran before the November presidential election. He has asked the Israeli prime minister to give the economic sanctions a chance to work – until, let us say…after November?

            Netanyahu’s response is quoted at the top of this piece. He also points out that the economic sanctions may be hitting hard, but Iran still continues with her determination to complete her nuclear ambitions.

            As the Israeli prime minister has said, Israel must be the ‘master of its fate’. It cannot wait upon the political ambitions of Obama to effect its judgement as to when an attack has to take place. For it is Israel’s survival at stake; a survival many in the West consider of elementary significance to the wider region. So ultimately, Israel has only herself to rely upon.

            Benjamin Netanyahu is not, as many Western leaders believe, a fanatic. He knows in detail  the Jewish experience over centuries of surviving the Diaspora, leading ultimately to the Holocaust. Centuries of persecution preceded that ultimate conflagration of the Jewish people, and every Israeli leader has  learnt, either through experience, or through just being Jewish, the lesson of the Diaspora.

            No leader of Israel can in any way compromise his or her people. Because of their history, there can be only one consideration for any leader of Israel – the continued survival of the Jewish race: and this, as history proves, is best served within the Jewish state of Israel

            Benjamin Netanyahu has to act, and will act, in accordance with the continued survival of  the Jewish state. This is not a radical or extremist position to hold, and the Israeli prime minister rightly brushes such comparisons to one side. He is doing for his nation that which any leader is required to do – defend it!.

            The Israeli nation is not a counterfeit body, but has the same legitimacy to exist as does America or the United Kingdom. European nations may be prepared to throw their sovereignty into the litter bin for the sake of a federalist diminution of their sovereignty, but there are still nations that are prepared to stand fast and do all within their power to remain sovereign nations; and Israel is such a nation… and for such a display of independence, its prime minister is seen as an extremist among many of the liberal political elites in Europe and America.

            In Britain, the state of Israel has been wished away since its very beginning. Our Foreign Office has, over many decades, passed down through its corridors an Arabist culture that they continue to hold on to too this day. Ever since T E Lawrence caught the imagination of our foreign civil service; and ever since petroleum royalty emerged in the region, our Foreign Office has been at the Arabist beck and call in kow-towence.

            Their have been only two British statesman that have been unconditionally supportive of the Jewish people and their state; one was Winston Churchill, and the other was Margaret Thatcher. They, between them, understood what a Jewish state meant to the way the Jewish people had been treated throughout history: and let us remember, Churchill was an historian whose mapping of this island’s history was rewarded by a Nobel Laureate.

           

IF AT SOME TIME in the near future (before November) Benjamin Netanyahu decides to take action against (based solely upon intelligence reports), Iran’s nuclear ambitions before they reach fruition, then, in the interests of the Jewish state, and not the American presidential elections, Israel must act.

            If Iran achieves her ambition, it will unleash similar such ambitions throughout the region. Saudi Arabia has already decreed her intention to follow Iran’s example if she is allowed to fulfil her nuclear ambition. So Israel is not the only nation that lives in fear of Iran’s ambitions. No doubt Turkey, the other major Islamic nation would also start seeking the technology to compete with Iran.

            The truth is, that there are many Muslim nations within the region who would gladly see Iran’s nuclear ambitions brought to an end: and if such an end involves the state of Israel; then so be it.

            Benjamin Netanyahu is prepared to silence Iranian nuclear ambitions before it is too late. A nuclear armed Iran is like putting a Rottweiler among poodles, as far as other Muslim nations in the region are concerned. Iran seeks the throne of America hegemony within the Muslim world. She sees herself as the military power within the Muslim world with the potential to destroy the Jewish state and in so doing elevate herself to supremacy among, at least, the Middle Eastern Muslim nations.

            But sadly, president Obama sees only his own return to office as his one major concern before November. He wants to serve a second term and his appeal to Benjamin Netanyahu and his concessions to the state of Israel are based purely upon personal political ambition. American politics cannot intervene to try and strangle Israel’s survival for the sake of a president’s second term.

            The Iranians must be dealt with. Both diplomacy and sanctions have been introduced. While the diplomacy has been nothing more than an attempt by Iran to buy time for itself while building a nuclear capability; the sanctions are starting to bite. But they have not prevented Iran from completing its nuclear mission… and they never will. The West realises this, but does not know what else to do, short of just crossing their fingers and hoping that something will turn up.