Martin Sherman, Author at Israel Rising

April 20, 2017April 20, 2017

Gaza: Let their people go!

Instead of pouring millions into inoperative desalination plants & rusting sewage treatment works, humanitarian aid should be generous relocation grants to help Gazans find safer, more secure lives elsewhere

“If the borders opened for one hour, 100,000 young people would leave Gaza” – Rashid al-Najja, vice dean, Gaza’s Al-Azhar University; “…I’d go to Somalia, Sudan — anywhere but here” – Salim Marifi, student, Gaza’s Al-Azhar University, in Al Jazeera, May 6 2015.

“96 percent of water in the Gaza Strip is now undrinkable” – i24 News April 9, 2017.

“Each day, millions of gallons of raw sewage pour into the Gaza Strip’s Mediterranean beachfront … turning miles of once-scenic coastline into a stagnant dead zone” – Associated Press , May 3, 2016.

“Gaza’s sole power plant runs out of fuel” – Times of Israel, April 16, 2017.

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The endeavor, spanning almost a quarter century, to transform the coastal enclave of the Gaza Strip into a self-governing Arab entity (or even part of such an entity) has failed.

It has failed resoundingly and irretrievably.

After two-and-half decades of futile effort, the time has come to accept this—and to acknowledge that further pursuit of this ill-conceived objective will only compound the current tragedy—for both Jew and Arab alike.

Incapable and uninterested

Indeed, with the passage of time, it is becoming increasingly clear, that as a collective the Palestinian-Arabs, in general, and the Gazan-Arabs, in particular, are totally incapable of, and largely uninterested in, creating and sustaining an independent political entity for themselves, by themselves.

Underscoring this dour assessment is the increasingly frequent —and increasingly ominous—flow of reports warning of imminent collapse of virtually all the basic infrastructure in Gaza—electric power, water, sewage and sanitation systems—and the impending catastrophe this is likely to precipitate.

This raises a trenchant question and one which advocates of Palestinian statehood must be forced to confront: Why has a Palestinian state failed to materialize up to now?

This is not a trivial question that can be avoided or circumvented.

After all, it is difficult to identify any other “national liberation movement” that has enjoyed circumstances more benign for their cause than that of the Palestinians-Arabs.

Since the early ’90s, the Palestinians have had:

Virtually wall-to-wall international endorsement of their claims;
Almost unanimously supportive coverage in the global mainstream media;
Generous financial aid – reportedly among the highest per capita in the world; and
Successive willingly compliant Israeli administrations that not only accepted their claims, but built much of their political credo on that acceptance…and gambled much of their political capital on it.

Yet, despite these bountiful benefits, the Palestinian leadership have produced the most meager and miserable results.

Corrupt kleptocracy or tyrannical theocracy

Other national freedom movements, with far less funding, far less armaments and far less political support, have cast off mighty empires. By contrast, the Palestinian-Arabs have, after decades of “resistance”, not only proved unable to assert their political independence from a tiny mini-state, beleaguered in the region and berated by all and sundry in the international community; but they have failed abysmally to create anything remotely approaching a stable, and productive civil society.

Under Fatah in Judea-Samaria, they have spawned a corrupt kleptocracy.

Under Hamas in Gaza, they have imposed a tyrannical theocracy.

Under neither is there any horizon of hope for a better, more peaceful, more prosperous life for the general public, nor is there any prospect of such hope dawning in the foreseeable future. Both are critically dependent on the (ill-advised) largesse of its alleged “oppressor”, from whom they purportedly strive to liberate themselves.

The magnitude of this failure can be gauged from a recent report by the Congressional Research Service entitled, “U.S. Foreign Aid to the Palestinians:”: “Since the establishment of limited Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the mid-1990s, the U.S. government has committed more than $5 billion in bilateral economic and non-lethal security assistance to the Palestinians, who are among the world’s largest per capita recipients of international foreign aid.”

The futility of international aid

The report goes on to stipulate the intended objectives of this generous aid: “Successive Administrations have requested aid for the Palestinians in apparent support of at least three major U.S. policy priorities of interest to Congress:

Promoting the prevention or mitigation of terrorism against Israel from Hamas and other militant organizations;
Fostering stability, prosperity, and self-governance …that may incline Palestinians toward peaceful coexistence with Israel and a “two-state solution.”
Meeting humanitarian needs…”

Seen against the grim realities today, this aid has failed miserably in achieving any, and all, of its declared goals!

The motivation for terror attacks against Israel by Hamas and other Palestinian-Arab terror organization have been neither prevented nor mitigated. Indeed, with Hamas still actively engaged in enhancing its offensive capacities—both underground tunnel networks and overhead missile capabilites—there are few illusions in Israel that a fourth round of fighting is merely a question of “when”, not “if”

Neither stability, nor prosperity, nor effective self-government have been in any way significantly fostered. Indeed, quite the reverse seems to be the case. Thus, despite decades of generous international goodwill, all the Palestinian-Arab leadership has managed to create is an untenable, divided entity, crippled by corruption and cronyism, with a dysfunctional polity, incapable of holding even municipal elections; and a feeble economy that, with its minuscule private sector and bloated public one, is utterly dependent on external support.

Moreover, humanitarian needs have not been met in any meaningful manner. If anything, the opposite seems true with the entire civilian infrastructure system teetering on the cusp of collapse.

Powers outages, undrinkable water, untreated sewage

With perennial power outages, undrinkable water supplies, failing sanitation services, and awash in uncontrolled and untreated flows of raw sewage, life for many in Gaza is becoming unbearable.

Earlier this month, the media abounded with dire warnings of an impending shut down of power supplies in Gaza. One headline proclaimed Gaza Electricity Crisis Deepens as Sole Power Plant Shuts Down; while another declared Gaza’s Sole Power Plant Runs Out of Fuel

The shutdown would leave many with barely four hours of electricity a day and would impact virtually all walks of life.

One member of Gaza’s Chamber of Commerce warned that factories will be forced to shut down, because the owners cannot afford to run generators as an alternative source of electricity: “The continuing stoppage of the Gaza power plant for 20 hours a day foreshadows a real catastrophe that might affect the basic food security of the people as well as the health and education sectors,” he lamented.

The power shortages have also crippled the operation of a new desalination plant and sewage treatment plant and undermines the regular operation of sanitation services.

Significantly, the reasons for the shutdowns are not related to Israel’s security quarantine of Gaza, but rather to intra-Palestinian quarrels between the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority and Hamas in Gaza; and to Hamas’s own priorities in the use of electrical power .

Indeed, senior figures in Hamas put the blame squarely on Mahmoud Abbas and the Fatah for imposing exorbitant taxes on fuel imports into Gaza – see here and here .

Moreover, several reports indicate that Hamas has deprived Gaza’s desalination and sewage plants of electricity, opting to use the available power for other purposes—such as Gaza’s luxury hotels, which cater for the enclave’s wafer thin affluent class.

Calamitous consequences

The grave results of this dysfunctional governance are not difficult to discern.

iTV News reported that both international and Israeli bodies “estimated that some 96 percent of water in the Gaza Strip is now undrinkable after the collapse of the enclave’s main aquifer.”

Al Jazeera carried an account of the appalling conditions that inadequate sewage treatment has brought, from a local farmer in Wadi Gaza, a valley in the central Gaza Strip: “Farming is ruined. The plants are diseased. There are flies, worms, and it is spreading.” The report added: “Animals and birds were soon replaced by swamps of sewage, swarming flies and thriving bacteria. Residents began to suffer from an increase in allergies, inflammation, fevers and weakened immunity. Disease-ridden mosquitoes feasted on the community at night. The stench was overpowering.”

Thus, with much of the sewage conveyance pipes in a state of disrepair, leaking into the coastal aquifer, Gaza’s sole source of natural water; with the aquifer itself being depleted at three times its recharge rate from rainfall; with massive flows of untreated sewage flowing directly into the sea, making the beaches and swimming a distinct health hazard, future prospects for the average Gazan look bleak indeed—with little hope for improvement on the horizon.

Accordingly, it is hardly surprising to learn that polls conducted by Palestinian institutes consistently show that almost half (and occasionally more than half) of the Gazans would like to emigrate—even without there being a tangible economic incentive offered.

The only real “reconstruction” in town

Of course, many of Israel’s detractors will attempt to lay the blame for this dismal situation on the “Occupation” and the “Siege”. But, this is merely a flimsy pretext that is sounding increasingly hollow. After all, as we have seen previously, virtually the entire crisis is a result of intra-Palestinian decisions regarding resource allocation and taxation.

Indeed, the validity of this contention is bolstered by examining just how the Palestinian-Arabs in Gaza have chosen to invest their energies and divert their resources.

Last year, high level Israeli sources revealed that Hamas was seizing over 90% of cement supplies entering into Gaza for its own purposes, such as construction of terror tunnels.

But Hamas’s efforts were not confined to underground terror installations. The organization invested considerable effort in replenishing and enhancing its overhead weaponry.

Thus, last December, Hamas Political Bureau Member, Fathi Hammad, proudly informed Al Aksa TV : “..our Jihadi, ‘Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam units have become an army, Allah be praised…This army has its own industry. Incidentally, we are now ready to sell our missiles to Arab countries. These are advanced missiles. If you look into the missile or weapon industries of developed countries, you will find that Gaza has become the leading manufacturer of missiles among Arab countries…”

Showing commendable commercial enterprise, he went onto propose a new export industry for the beleaguered enclave “We are prepared to sell them (to Arab countries) – so that they will launch them against the Jews…”

Significantly, according the Guardian, IDF assessment shows that by the beginning of this year, Hamas’s “military capabilities had been restored to their pre-2014 war strength”—which is, of course, an impressive feat of “reconstruction”

So, despite Israeli restrictions, it appears that, where mobilizing against the hated “Zionist entity” is concerned, Gazans seem able to find the ingenuity and productive energies that evidently elude them in other fields of endeavor.

The need to restructure humanitarian aid

The current situation in Gaza, and the accompanying misery, are the direct result of the misguided attempt to foist statehood on the Palestinian-Arabs.

It was Albert Einstein who famously said that one could not solve a problem with the level of thinking that created it.

The problem of Gaza was, irrefutably, created by the belief that land could be transferred to the Palestinian-Arabs to provide them a viable opportunity for self-governance.

Accordingly, the problem of Gaza cannot be solved by persisting with ideas that created it – i.e. persisting with a plan to provide the Palestinian-Arabs with land for self-governance. This concept must, therefore, be abandoned for any lasting solution to be possible.

Clearly then, persisting with humanitarian aid, as in the past, will yield essentially similar results to those of the past. Any improvements in the humanitarian conditions will be at best marginal, probably imperceptible.

The only real way to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is to offer the Gazans what they really want – a better life elsewhere, out of harm’s way, free from the clutches of the cruel, corrupt cliques, who have lead them from disaster to disaster for decades.

Thus, rather than pouring millions into inoperative desalination plants and rusting sewage treatment works, the aid should be in the form of generous individual relocation grants to allow non-belligerent Gazans to seek a safer, more secure future elsewhere, outside the “circle of violence” that inevitably awaits them if they stay.

This should be the real humanitarian effort to effectively eliminate the suffering in Gaza. This should be the call to the international community: Let their people go!

April 13, 2017April 13, 2017

Middle East Meltdown

With the Mid-East on the cusp of melt-down, imagine what Isaiah (5:20) would say of proponents of ‘regional integration’: “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness…”

Worst Chemical Attack in Years; US blames Assad – New York Times, April 4, 2017.

Death toll climbs in clashes at Palestinian camp in Lebanon – Reuters, April 9, 2017.

Deadly blasts hit Coptic churches in Tanta, Alexandria – Al Jazeera, April 10, 2017.

Five Sudanese soldiers killed in Yemen conflict – Reuters, April 12, 2017.

These four recent headlines, spanning barely a week, bear chilling testimony to the grim and grisly realities of the Arab world.

Barbaric business as usual

After all, had the several score killed in the April 4th chemical attack in Northern Syria been beheaded, or lynched, or burnt alive or slaughtered by any one of the other gruesome methods by which hundreds of thousands of civilians have lost their lives in the Syrian Civil War over the last five years, it is more than likely that their deaths would have gone largely unnoticed and unreported.

Indeed, it would have been nothing more than brutal, barbaric business as usual for the region.

Across virtually the entire Arab world , from the Atlantic Ocean in the West to the Persian Gulf in the East; from the Sahara desert in the South to the upper reaches of the Euphrates in the North, naked violence engulfs entire countries – Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya. Others – like Lebanon and Egypt—are perennially on the cusp of its eruption; and in others (like Bahrain and Saudi Arabia), it lurks, simmering just below the surface, constrained only by the iron grip of police-state tyranny.

With painfully few—and dubious—exceptions (such as Iraq, teetering on the brink of failed state status and Tunisia, once the poster-child of the “Arab Spring”, now increasingly threatened by Jihadi Salafi insurgents—see here and here), the Arab regimes are a noxious brew of theocratic tyrannies, military dictatorships and/or nepotistic monarchies. The violent exchanges that rage throughout the region occur between a wide range of protagonists and across a myriad of schisms: Sunni vs Shia, radicals vs. monarchs, rebel insurgents vs incumbent rulers, Islamist extremists vs traditional regimes.

Death, depravity and despotism

It is against this doleful and daunting backdrop that the fatal follies of the past and of the emerging prescriptions for the future course of what has been perversely dubbed “the peace process”, must be assessed.

For as growing numbers of erstwhile advocates of the two-state paradigm are becoming increasingly skeptical—indeed, even despairing—of its viability within any foreseeable future, rather than admit the enormity of their error, they are now turning to a new false deity, no less preposterous or perilous than the tarnished chimera of two-statism.

This is the new cult of “regionalism”, which attempts to invert the twisted logic of two- statism—but leaves it just as twisted.

At the core, regionalism is the idea that, rather than strive for an agreement with the Palestinians as a necessary precursor to its acceptance by the states of the region, Israel can, and should, establish a pan-regional alliance with allegedly “moderate” states, driven by a recognition of common threats (the menace of Jihadi cohorts and the specter of nuclear Iran)—thereby paving its way to a resolution of the Palestinian issue.

Central to this new cult is the bizarre belief that Israel’s “integration” into region—which, as we have seen, is little more than a cesspool of death, depravity and despotism –is a goal both necessary and worthy—and one that the nation ought to strive to achieve.

Risible regionalism

Significantly, there are several glaring logical inconsistencies, non sequiturs and factual inaccuracies that plague the regional-integration doctrine.

First of all, as commonly presented, it almost inevitably entails circular reasoning – i.e. Israel should pursue relations with the moderate Arab states as a means of arriving at a resolution of the Palestinian problem; but the only way to arrive at such relations with the Arab world is to reach an agreement with the Palestinians. So, resolving the Palestinian issue becomes both the objective of the regional-integration and the means to achieve it!

Thus, for instance in an article, Regional integration only way for Israel to achieve security, Atlantic Council senior fellow H.A. Hellyer writes: “…the only realistic way for Israelis to thrive in the long term is for them to be integrated into the wider region, beginning with a comprehensive and just peace settlement…”

This statement is not only of dubious veracity—since Israel seems to be thriving rather well for almost two decades without (thankfully) being “integrated into the wider region—but seems to collide with a later contention by Hellyer, who writes elsewhere: “A sustainable peace for Israelis is predicated on their eventual integration into the wider region.”

So there you have it: “Integration into the wider region” must be preceded by “peace”; but “peace” must be predicated on (i.e. preceded by) “integration into the region”. Thus, resolving the Palestinian issue (a.k.a. “peace”) is presented both as the cause and effect of integration –having to precede it on the one hand, while being predicated on it, on the other.

Confusing, isn’t it??

Puzzling Pardo

But perhaps one of the most puzzling and perturbing endorsements of the regional-integration paradigm came in a speech delivered by Tamir Pardo the former Head of Israel’s Secret Intelligence Service, Mossad.

In it, Pardo identified the emergence of “a rare confluence of interests between Israel and the moderate Arab states.”

Pointing to the drawbacks of relations that are entirely covert, he remarked: “Secret relations that take place “under the radar” are by their nature transitory.” Accordingly, he advocated Israel’s overt integration into the region: “The key to regional integration is to build economic and social bridges between countries, facilitating trade and tourism…. The deeper, the more open and above board relations are, the better suited they will be to survive the inevitable shocks and disruptions that take place from time to time…. Israel’s regional integration is a key to its very survival.”

But he warned “None of this will happen without a resolution of the Palestinian problem.”

There are several disturbing defects—both conceptual and empirical–in this portrayal by Pardo, which seem to indicate that his undoubted ability in covert operations is not matched by a commensurate acumen for political analysis.

So, while Pardo may well be correct in his doubts as to the durability of secret relations, his faith in more overt one seems wildly at odds with Israel’s experience in past decades, causing one to puzzle over what could possibly be the basis for his unfounded contention, and his reasons for making it.

Puzzling (cont)

Indeed, the examples of Iran and Turkey clearly indicate that robust overt “economic and social bridges” as well as “trade and tourism” are of little value if the regime should change. After all, the relations with pre-revolutionary Iran and pre-Islamist Turkey could hardly have been closer or more cordial.

Yet, with the ascent to power of Khomeini in Iran and Erdogan in Turkey these ties proved, indeed, “transitory”. Of course, the metamorphosis was particularly dramatic and rapid in Iran, where Israel was transformed from being a trusted ally to a hated enemy almost immediately. In Turkey, the process was more gradual and less drastic, but there can be little comparison between the tight strategic ties of yesteryear and the hostile attitude that prevails today.

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This volatility in relations between nations is one of the most profound flaws in the regional-integration proposal—especially when it is predicated on a resolution of the Palestinian issue. For while it is true that countries like Jordan, under the Hashemite dynasty, Egypt under Sisi, and the incumbent regimes in the Gulf may face common threats, it would be more than a stretch to characterize this as sharing long-term mutual interests with Israel.

Indeed, a yawning gulf separates between the seminal values that define the differing societies – with regard to individual liberties, gender equality, social diversity, religious pluralism—which clearly portends ample room for renewed adversarial relations once the common threat has been eliminated.

Palmerston…on perpetual allies

Israel would do well to heed the words of British Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston (1784-1865) on the fickleness of nations and their international ties “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow”.

This caveat is particularly pertinent in the case of the regional-integration paradigm. For in essence the deal to be struck is as follows: Israel is called upon to make perilous permanent concessions (to resolve the Palestinian issue) in exchange for a temporary alliance, based on the (ephemeral) word of rulers, who head not only some of the most decadent and despotic regimes on the planet, but also some of the most threatened.

Accordingly, there is little guarantee that the Arab entity that makes commitments toward Israel will be the entity called upon to honor them when need be. After all, what would be the value of any understanding on integration entered into in 2010 with say Syria, or Iraq or Libya…

Moreover, Israel was unable to prevent an Islamist takeover of Gaza. It is, therefore, highly unlikely that it could prevent an Islamist takeover by a resurgent Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, or an Islamist coup in Jordan.

Thus, given the fact that the concessions Israel is called upon to make to resolve the Palestinian issue, are largely irrevocable, while the pledges given it are largely retractable, any regime change in Cairo and even more so in Amman would have potentially disastrous ramifications.

With an Islamist state abutting the envisaged Palestinian state from the East, dispatching irredentist insurgents to destabilize any purportedly peaceable Palestinian regime in the territory evacuated by Israel; with a regime in Cairo no longer interested in, or capable of, countering the Jihadi warlords in Sinai, pressing against Israel’s 200 km frontier and the land route to Eilat, Israel is likely to rue any credence it placed in regional integration.

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The most troubling of questions

But of course the most troubling of questions regarding the regional integration question is this: If the allegedly moderate regimes really desire Israel’s help in confronting formidable common threats (the menace of Jihadi cohorts and the specter of nuclear Iran), why would they predicate that help on precisely the same concessions from Israel that they demanded prior to those threats arising? And were Israel to refuse those concessions would these “moderates” deny themselves the aid Israel could provide them—for the sake of the Palestinian-Arabs, for whom they have shown consistent disdain and contempt over decades?

Furthermore, if the “moderate” states see Israel’s strength as a determining factor in making it an attractive ally in combatting the common threat of radical Islamism, why would they insist on concessions that weaken it, and expose it to greater perils as a precondition to accepting its aid? Why would they press for concessions that are likely to fall—as they did in Gaza—to the very Jihadi elements that both they, and Israel, see as a common enemy?

Indeed one might ask: Why should Israel have to make any concessions so that the Arab states would deign to accept its aid in their battle against a grave common menace?

As Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland once sighed “It would be so nice if something made sense for a change.” It sure would!

Regional integration: What Isaiah would say?

Of course one can only puzzle over what merit proponents of regional integration see in its implementation. Do they really want Israel to be absorbed into the morass of cruelty, corruption and cronyism that is the Middle East? What values that pervade their Arab neighbors, would they urge it to adopt in order to “integrate”?

Misogynistic gender bias? Homophobic persecution of gays? Intolerance of social diversity? Repression of minority religious faiths? Suppression political dissidence?

For were Israel to resist adopting these and other regional values, how on earth could it integrate into the region?

So, with the Mid-East on the cusp of melt-down, one can only imagine what Isaiah (5:20) would say of the proponents of regional integration: Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.

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April 9, 2017April 9, 2017

The Horrors at Hand

“The action of discouraging an action or event through instilling doubt or fear of the consequences.”

–The Oxford English Dictionary entry on the word “Deterrence.”

“…the Arab states can permit themselves a series of military defeats while Israel cannot afford to lose a single war…a military defeat of Israel would mean the physical extinction of a large part of its population and the political elimination of the Jewish state…To lose a single war is to lose everything…”

–Yigal Allon, “Israel: The Case For Defensible Borders,” Foreign Affairs, October 1976.

“…the lack of minimal territorial expanse places a country in a position of an absolute lack of deterrence. This in itself constitutes almost compulsive temptation to attack Israel from all directions. Without a border which affords security, a country is doomed to destruction in war.”

–Shimon Peres, Tomorrow is Now, 1977.

For anyone who needed it, this week’s horrific chemical airstrike on civilians in Northern Syria provided a jarring reminder of the merciless realities that prevail throughout the Arab world — and of the fate Israel and her citizens would be subject to, were it not for the military might of the IDF.

Brutal bestiality of Hobbesian anarchy

Of course, apart from the means used to perpetrate the latest atrocity, there was nothing really exceptional about it. According to the latest estimates, only a few dozen people (100-150) were killed, a mere fraction of one percent of the fatalities incurred in the ongoing Syrian civil war, in which hundreds of thousands have been slaughtered with unspeakable brutality (beheadings, immolations, disembowelments, dismemberments…).

But, of course, such barbarism is not confined to the Syrian theater. Across virtually all the Arab world, bloodcurdling waves of indiscriminate killings have repeatedly ravaged entire countries. As the perversely named “Arab Spring” dramatically underscored, nowhere else is the brutal bestiality of Hobbesian anarchy — as the natural state of the human condition — more vividly demonstrated than in the Arab world.

In stark contrast to Eastern Europe (with the exception of the former Yugoslavia), where the downfall of despotism led fairly rapidly to a relatively orderly transition to democracy, wherever the restraining “cork” of Leviathan tyranny was removed in the Arab world, violence and bloodshed have swept away any semblance of civil order.

Invariably, whenever vent was given to vox populi, the result was mob rule. In Egypt, the election of the Muslim Brotherhood brought a noxious mixture of domestic repression, the breakdown of law and order and economic meltdown, only halted — albeit tenuously — by the re-instatement of strict authoritarianism.

Tightening the iron grip of tyranny

In other places, such as the allegedly “moderate” medieval monarchy of Saudi Arabia — author of the much-vaunted “Arab Peace Initiative” — the rule of law is only maintained by the tightening of the iron grip of tyranny. As written in a New York Times editorial, titled “Saudi Arabia’s Barbaric Executions“: “The regime has become only more repressive in the years since the Arab Spring.”

This recrimination followed an earlier editorial, “Saudi Arabia’s Execution Spree,” in which — with slightly greater hyperbole — the “paper of record” reported with alarm: “Saudi Arabia’s justice system has gone into murderous overdrive…” The Times warned that many of those “scheduled for imminent execution on terrorist charges…are citizens whose only crime was protesting against the government,” adding ominously that “[t]his wave of killing has prompted some to compare Saudi Arabia to the Islamic State.”

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Reminding its readers of the real nature of the desert kingdom, the Times charged: “the executions were not out of character for Saudi Arabia. The country has a dismal human rights record with its application of stern Islamic law and its repression of women and practitioners of religious traditions other than Sunni Islam…the mass execution this weekend followed a year in which 158 people were executed, the most in recent history, largely based on vague laws and dubious trials.”

This, then, is the briefest tour d’horizon of the pervasive savagery that permeates large swathes of the Arab world, whether perpetrated by incumbent regimes against its populace or perpetrated against incumbent regimes by its populace.

But for the grace of God…

It is a savagery that is amply reflected in the Palestinian-administered areas, both in Gaza under Hamas and in the “West Bank” under Fatah.

Curiously, this is somehow never realistically factored into the chronically short-sighted policy proposals Israel is pressured to accept in the typically ill-conceived efforts to end the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The horrendous potential inherent in this endemic myopia is perhaps most starkly illustrated by the Syrian example.

Up until the outbreak of the 2011 civil war, many — including then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — were still referring to the internet-savvy, British-educated eye doctor, Bashar Assad as a moderate “reformer” who could be a credible peace partner for Israel. A veritable chorus of enlightened, erudite voices urged an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights in a land-for-peace deal with Damascus.

Today, in view of the gruesome events that have transpired since then — with Assad morphing from reformer to war criminal — it is chillingly clear what a huge error that would have been.

If, on the one hand, the anti-Assad forces prevail, Israel would almost certainly face the unpalatable prospect of Jihadi forces — associates of ISIS or Al Qaeda (or both) — deployed on the Golan Heights, overlooking the city of Tiberias and commanding the Galilee. If, on the other hand, the pro-Assad forces prevail, Israel would, with similar certainty, face the no more palatable prospect of pro-Iranian Hezbollah forces — or even detachments of Tehran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) itself — deployed there.

This is the grim reality that, but for the grace of God, Israel would be forced to confront today had the proponents of land-for-peace carried the day…

Failure to internalize lessons of past

Yet despite the inescapable lesson that the Syrian episode provides regarding the enormous perils entailed in relinquishing territory, it seems that inexplicably, nothing — literally nothing — of what should be learned from it has percolated into the consciousness of the decision makers-dealing with the “peace process.”

Had the land-for-peace advocates prevailed on the Palestinian front, it is more than likely that Israel would be facing a prospect similarly perilous to the one it would be facing had it withdrawn from the Golan in pursuit of a forlorn hope of peace.

As past experience has repeatedly shown, every time territory has been relinquished or abandoned to Arab control, that territory has – usually sooner rather than later – become a platform from which to launch lethal attacks against Israel. It occurred almost immediately in Gaza, within months in Judea and Samaria, within years in south Lebanon and after several decades in Sinai, a region now descending into the depths of depravity and unspeakable brutality, with no good options on the horizon.

Moreover, every time territory was relinquished or abandoned by Israel, the security situation that developed was far more menacing than that which preceded it. Significantly the only areas from which Israel is not gravely threatened are those which Israel has not yet relinquished in its quest to attain peace, namely the Golan, Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley.

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Baffling conundrum for future historians…

Despite the accumulating mountain of evidence refuting its feasibility, despite the repeated failures of attempts at its implementation, despite the glaring flaws in its conceptual rationale, the land-for-peace doctrine (or dogma), and its equally unfounded corollary of two-states-for-two-people, still dominates the discourse on the Middle East conflict.

Clearly, this is a situation that will baffle historians of the future. They will struggle to understand why such a fatally flawed and failed formula could endure for so long as the dominant paradigm for the resolution of the conflict. They will grapple with the conundrum of why, despite its minuscule chance for success and huge cost of failure, it was a formula that was widely designated “realistic” and “rational”; why despite the daunting perils it entailed, it was considered “prudent” and “pragmatic.” They will fail to comprehend why so many who professed to be “pro-Israel” obdurately insisted that Israel demonstrate its good faith by exposing itself, time and time again, to absurd risks, and subjecting its citizens to appalling dangers by adopting a policy that has been repeatedly disproven, but somehow never discredited and certainly never discarded.

But perhaps what future historians will find the most baffling of all, is why successive Israeli governments — clearly aware of the grave hazards this formula entailed for their country and their people — never managed to remove it from the discourse and replace it with an alternative Zionist-compliant prescription for a more secure and stable future.

Indeed, there is little doubt that hisorians will deem the fact that such an alternative paradigm did not emerge to replace the two-state proposal to be a catastrophic failure of the Israeli leadership and a tragic testimony to its intellectual impotence and incompetence.

Again, but for the grace of God…

Just as Israel might have been facing a formidable array of hostile Islamist forces deployed on the terrain commanding the north of the country had it withdrawn from the Golan, and transferred control to a purportedly credible Syrian “peace partner,” so Israel may equally face a formidable array of hostile Islamist forces deployed on the terrain commanding the coastal megalopolis if it withdrew from the highlands of Judea and Samaria, and transferred control to a purportedly credible Palestinian “peace partner.”

Once control is relinquished, there is little to ensure that its allegedly peaceable Palestinian partner will not be replaced by some less amicable successor – or even if he remains in power, that he continues to honor his commitments in exchange for which Israel relinquished the territory. After all, such violation of commitments may not be the result of bad faith on the part of Israel’s “peace partner,” but due to pressures of influential domestic rivals.

For just as Hezbollah and/or ISIS/Al Qaeda affiliates may well have taken up positions in the Golan, so too, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and/or Salafist elements may take up positions on the highlands of Judea and Samaria — whether in compliance with, or in defiance of, Israel’s “peace partner.”

There will, however, be important differences!

The horrors at hand

Whereas, in the north, the post-withdrawal border would have been about 70 km long, abutting a largely rural and relatively sparsely populated region, in the east the post-withdrawal frontier could be anything upward of 500 km, abutting a largely urban and relatively densely populated area.

Even with primitive weapons, presently available in abundance to the terror organizations in “demilitarized” Gaza, all of the following would be within striking range: virtually all Israel’s air fields – military and civilian – including its only international airport, Ben Gurion; its major sea ports of Haifa and Ashdod, and naval bases; its centers of civilian government and military command; vital infrastructure installations/systems, including power generation and transmission; desalination plants and water conveyance, communication hubs, major transportation axes (rail and road); and 80% of the nation’s civilian population and its commercial activity.

Given the combination of tempting vulnerability and the blatant disregard of Israel’s adversaries for human life so graphically demonstrated in recent years, the horrors, for both Jew and Arab, that are likely to result from any further Israeli withdrawals are not difficult to foresee.

With its hospitals, schools and kindergartens hopelessly exposed to the callous whims of heartless terrorists, Israel would be forced to take massive military action to defend its vulnerable civilian population, whether by preemptive strikes to forestall aggression, or retaliatory operations to deter future attacks. Given the length of the frontier, the nature of the topography and presence of numerous civilian centers together with the robustness of the response required, widespread collateral damage would be inevitable…

Arab attacks, Israeli response, international recriminations, Arab reprisals, Israeli retaliation…

This would be the unavoidable chain of events that would certainly emerge from continued pursuit of the land-for-peace dogma.

These are the horrors at hand it would undoubtedly precipitate…

January 27, 2017

Now that Trump is President Can Israel Seize the Moment?

There is a tide in the affairs of men,

Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.

Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.

On such a full sea are we now afloat.

And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.

– William Shakespeare, in Julius Caesar, Act IV, Scene 3.

If I am not for myself, who is for me?…And if not now, when?

– Hillel the Elder, Ethics of the Fathers, Ch. 1:14.

In his first few days of his presidency, Donald Trump has acted with remarkable resolve to promote a number of his more strident campaign pledges, and to dismantle much of the edifice his predecessor had hoped to leave as his “legacy”.

Robust resolve

Thus, Trump moved to withdraw the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, which the New York Times dubbed “Obama’s signature trade achievement”.

Similarly, he instigated measures to begin rolling back “Obamacare”, the centerpiece of Obama’s domestic policy; approved the construction of two large oil pipelines (Keystone pipeline between the US and Canada, and Dakota Access Pipeline), which Obama had vetoed; cut funding of charities providing abortion services abroad, reinstating a 1984 Bill, which Obama had rescinded; and ordered a freeze on hiring federal government workers (apart from the military) in an “effort to reduce government debts and decrease the size of the federal workforce.”

Then, later this week Trump “signed directives to begin building a wall along [the] US border with Mexico and crack down on US cities that shield undocumented immigrants ….”

Likewise, he is reported to be drafting directives to be implemented “in the coming days [that] would…suspend the entry of any immigrants from Muslim-majority Middle Eastern and African countries Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Yemen while permanent rules are studied”

So, regardless of whether one commends or condemns these policy decisions, they certainly reflect a firm—indeed, a seemingly unswerving—commitment to his campaign pledges no matter how controversial or contentious—with one notable exception.

Rare reticence

Indeed, to date, there seems to be only one central pre-election commitment, on which the new administration appears uncharacteristically hesitant in embracing: the promise to transfer the US embassy to Jerusalem.

Readers will recall that in October 1995, the US Congress passed a law (The Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995) with broad bi-partisan support—including from Obama’s vice president Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry—that, in effect, recognized Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel, under Israeli sovereignty and explicitly called for the relocation of the US Embassy to the city by May 1999. The bill, however, included a proviso, permitting the president to issue a waiver holding up the relocation of the embassy should he deem it in the US national interest. The waiver is renewable every six months and since the legislation of the bill, every president—both Democrat and Republican, since Bill Clinton—has exercised the waiver option. Indeed, 36 such waivers have been issued in the past, eight by Obama, the last of which was in December 2016, and is due to expire in June 2017.

Accordingly, all Trump really needs to do to fulfill his pledge to relocate the US embassy to Israel’s capital is, well…nothing. Indeed, he need take no proactive measures at all! He does not need to build a wall, lay a pipeline, pass new legislation, or sign a contentious executive order. All he need do is let the current waiver lapse, and allow the existing 1995 legislation to take effect.

Yet for some reason, it is precisely on this issue that the new administration is displaying rare reticence in moving briskly forward to deliver on its clear commitments.

Disturbing lack of enthusiasm…from Israel

Of course, not all this regrettable reluctance can be blamed on the Trump administration. After all, the Israeli government itself has not been overly enthusiastic in promoting the embassy relocation.

Indeed, reflective of Israel’s lack of fervor in applauding Trump’s pledge was Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman’s offhand apathy in addressing the prospect at the recent Saban Forum in Washington last month. When asked by the moderator, CNN’s Jake Tapper, what he thought of Trump’s declaration that he would move the US Embassy in very short order to Jerusalem, Liberman was distinctly dismissive, indicating that he was skeptical as to the prospect: “you know, [what] we see before in every election is the same promise to remove the Embassy to Jerusalem. But I think that we will wait and we will see…”

Then, virtually providing the administration with the justification to renege on its commitment, or at least significantly postpone it, he stated: “… we have many other issues…. We have enough challenges all around Israel. I think that it will be a mistake…to take the Embassy as the focal point…we have many items on our common agenda. I think that maybe the Embassy will be one of the points…”

With such lethargic endorsement from the Israeli government, there would be little room for surprise if the new commander-in-chief does not push his proffered relocation vigorously forward.

Plethora of invalid arguments
A plethora of bad reasons have been advanced for not moving the US embassy to Jerusalem. Typical of such baseless arguments was the one articulated by an Op-Ed piece in Haaretz, in which the writer warned: “Relocating its embassy to Jerusalem would mean the U.S. taking a partisan stance on a central and sensitive issue, a source of controversy between Israel and the Palestinians, and between Israel and the international community.”

But of course, quite the opposite is true. By not relocating the embassy even to the western portion of Jerusalem, the US is, in fact, taking a partisan stance against Israel! For, in effect, this endorses the Palestinian/Arab position disputing Israeli sovereignty over any part of the city, including the portion that was under Israeli control prior to the 1967 War. After all, if the US does not dispute Israeli sovereignty of the city within the pre-1967 lines, surely there should be no reason to refrain from establishing the embassy there. Or am I missing something here?

After all, the western portion of Jerusalem is, undisputedly, the functioning capital of Israel, in which the national parliament, the prime minister’s office, all the government ministries (apart from agriculture), and the Supreme Court are located. Thus, any demand that the Palestinians have a legitimate claim to any part of it, would immediately torpedo the chances of an agreement. Accordingly, by implicitly sustaining grounds for such a claim, abstaining from relocating the embassy in western Jerusalem, in effect, constitutes a partisan pro-Palestinian stance.

By contrast relocating the embassy would send a strong even-handed message that the US will not tolerate exorbitant and unreasonable Palestinian territorial demands.

Invalid arguments (cont)

But perhaps the most common argument advanced for not relocating the embassy is because the Arabs and Muslims will get really mad! The threat of uncontrollable rage due to grievous insult (which would not provoke any other segment of humanity to similar conduct) has frequently been raised as reason to avoid offending Muslim sensibilities. It has already almost completely curtailed free speech in much of Western Europe and Scandinavia, where Muslim thugs are free to ravage the domestic population in the name of moral relativism and cultural diversity.

Clearly, giving into to Arab/Muslim extortion because of threats of violence is a slippery slope. Once you capitulate on one issue, there is little reason not to capitulate on another.

Indeed, if the menace of Muslim mayhem can coerce nations to forgo free choice, what is to prevent further far-reaching demands—such as universal application of Shariah law, the discrimination against females and the persecution of gays?

Accordingly, rather than constituting a reason for refraining from establishing the US embassy in Israel’s capital, the threat of violence is precisely the reason to do so—and to convey to the Arab/Muslim world that brandishing “uncontrollable rage” is an unacceptable—and counter-productive—mode of conducting international relations.

Respite not redemption

The election of Trump was a huge stroke of good fortune for Israel. Indeed, just how dire its position might have been, had Hillary Clinton been elected to continue the Obama legacy is vividly conveyed by two recent incidents.

The first is the surreptitious transfer of almost a quarter billion dollars to the Palestinian Authority by the outgoing president in the final hours of his incumbency, in defiance of a congressional hold on the funds.

The second was a jarring disclosure made last week by former director-general of Israel’s ministry of foreign affairs, Ambassador Dore Gold, of an astonishing admission by Obama’s National Security Adviser Susan Rice, that “even if Israel and the Palestinians reach an agreement, it is possible that the United States would oppose it” – because it might not do justice to the Palestinians.

These disturbing revelations starkly expose the blatant pro-Palestinian proclivities of the outgoing Obama administration and of the designated surrogate successor Clinton-administration. Accordingly, Israel can be excused for feeling a huge sense of relief at the outcome of the November elections. However, a word of caution is called for. For all the potential advantages entailed in the Trump victory, it is, for the moment merely a respite, and still far from redemption. To attain that, there is yet much work ahead.

Catalyst or constraint?

Indeed there can be little doubt that the Trump victory harbors the potential for great opportunity for Israel. For not only is the incoming administration free from innate malice and anti-Israel bias that characterized the manifestly Islamophilic propensities of the previous one, but much of Trump’s inner circle are unabashedly pro-Zionist, and together with the wider Republican Party, are unshackled to the failed “two-state” paradigm.

At last, after almost a quarter century, Israel has a real chance of being able to free itself of the deadly debilitating tentacles of this pernicious paradigm–and to choose a new path that will allow it to extricate itself from the perilous cul-de-sac into which it has been led—and allowed itself to be led.

The question now is whether the Israeli political class can rise to the occasion, and grasp the opportunity that destiny has provided it. Will the nation’s leaders display the intellectual daring and the ideological resolve that the hour calls for? Will they be able to cast off the prevailing constraints of political correctness and forge new and sustainable paradigms for the conduct of the nation’s affairs, taking advantage of the new benign winds in Washington? Or will they, as it seems, remain captive to old molds of thought—and thus prove to be a constraint, rather than a catalyst, impeding rather than inducing the chances that the Trump administration may well afford them—if they were to strike out in a bold new direction?

“There is a tide in the affairs of men…”

More than ever before, Israel’s destiny is in its own hands. The outcome of the US elections has given it a real chance to shape its destiny. The crucial question now is whether it will seize the moment or let it slip away?

Almost six months before the Trump inauguration, shortly after the Republican Party had removed its endorsement of a two-state model, I published a column entitled What if the GOP wins?, in which I called on the Israeli “Right” to prepare for the possibility of a Republican victory and formulate a credible alternative to the discredited two-state prescription.

However, I cautioned that haste to discard this failed two-state formula should not lead to the proposal/ promotion of alternatives that are no less inimical than the ideas they were designed to replace.

Accordingly, I urged that to reap the potential benefits that the Trump phenomenon entails, “Israel must prepare. It must formulate a cogent, comprehensive paradigm to replace the two-state folly, which addresses both its geographic and demographic imperatives for survival—lest it promote a proposal that threatens to make it untenable geographically or demographically—or both.

“It must be a proposal that ensures that Israel retains its vital geo-strategic assets in Judea-Samaria and at the same time drastically reduces the presence of the hostile Arab population resident there—preferably by non-coercive means such as economic inducements…which, of course, is what brought the bulk of the Arab population here in the first place.”

This is now becoming an urgent imperative, lest we miss the flood tide and find ourselves “bound in shallows and in miseries” that such a lapse will inevitably entail.

November 8, 2016

INTO THE FRAY:The Elections are for President—Not Pope

“You knooow…C’mon Who do you think is out of touch?” – Barack Obama, commenting derisively on Hillary Clinton, 2008

“Hillary Clinton, she’ll say anything and change nothing” – I am Barack Obama…and I approve this message – From a 2008 Obama election campaign ad.

“The fate of the republic rests on your shoulders. The fate of the world is teetering and you…are going to have to make sure that we push it in the right direction.” Barack Obama, urging voters to support Hillary Clinton, November 3, 2016

It would, indeed, be in no way an exaggeration to describe next week’s US elections as perhaps the most significant in recent history, a real “fork in the road” for the future of the over 200-hundred year Union.

Waning adherence to founding principles?

This Union proved to be a remarkable socio-political creation. Largely because of its founding values, as articulated in its founding documents and later amendment’s, it developed into the most influential, prosperous powerful country on the planet.

Indeed, in great measure, by holding fast to those values, it managed to maintain its position of primacy since the early decades of the last century.

But in the last decade this began to change perceptibly. Adherence to the underlying fundamentals–its Anglo-Saxon cultural roots and its Judeo-Christian (indeed Judeo-Protestant) ethical foundations—has begun to wane. Identification with, and belief in, what made America, America began to erode and fray—and with it, the coherence of the identity that made it exceptional.

Clearly, it was not America’s natural resources and mineral wealth that generated its unparalleled success. After all, numerous other countries have been endowed by nature with vast riches but none of them were able to harness the enormous creativity and productive energy of their population on a similar scale/intensity as America did.

What set America apart was the manner in which it managed to mobilize its human resources and facilitate opportunity for talent, ingenuity and industry to flower.

There is no way to decouple this remarkable accomplishment from the original organizing principles set out for the nation at its founding. Similarly, there is no way to decouple these organizing principles from the civilizational foundations from which they were drawn.

Clearly then, as America of today diverges increasingly from identification with those principles and civilizational foundations, and the spirit that they were imbued with, it will increasingly jeopardize the key to its own exceptionalism—and the exceptional achievement that accompanied it.

Diversity is strength, but diffusion is weakness

Of course I can already hear the howls of outraged indignation that this kind of talk borders on bigotry, and reflects gross ignorance as to sources of American strength and success. They will, no doubt, point to the enormous contributions made by immigrants, who hailed from civilizational backgrounds far removed from any traces of Judeo-Protestant influence—from East Asia to Latin America. They will of course recite the worn-out mantra that “diversity is strength” and underscore how Americans of Buddhist, Hindu, Catholic and other origins have all been part of the American success story.

This is all entirely true—and equally irrelevant to the point being made. For it was only in the environment created by the unique societal foundations of America, and the opportunities it afforded, that allowed the immigrants, drawn to its shores from other socio-cultural settings, to blossom. After all, if this was not the case, why would they leave their countries of origin?

So, as long as these foundations remained the dominant determinant of societal realities in America, the country could continue to absorb productive forces from other societal backgrounds, without jeopardizing the sustainability of its past success.

This, however, is not the case when large bodies of immigrants flow into the country and wish to establish communities which retain—indeed, actively sustain—much of what they left behind in their countries of origin, and which, presumably, comprised much of the motivation for them to leave. It is then that dynamic diversity begins its decline into dysfunctional diffusion.

Tolerance vs self-abnegation

To illustrate the point somewhat simplistically: It is one thing if a Mexican immigrant arrives in the US, integrates into American society and becomes a productive American. It is quite another, if waves of Mexican immigrants arrive in America and transform significant parts of it into Mexico.

Thus, when immigrants from diverse socio-ethnic backgrounds blend into the dominant culture, the result might well be a synergetic outcome beneficial to both. But this is unlikely when largely discordant immigrant cultures begin to impose themselves on the dominant host culture, which begins to forego important parts of its identity for fear of “offending” new comers, who were attracted to it precisely because of what that dominant culture offered them.

Accordingly, while tolerance of diverse minorities is clearly enlightened self-interest, self-abnegation to accommodate discordant minority predilections is, no less clearly, a detrimental denial of self-worth. What has all this to do with the upcoming elections on Tuesday?

Well, a great deal! Indeed, in many ways it lies at the heart of the decision for whom to cast one’s ballot. It not only separates out sharply between the two candidates’ declared platforms and campaign pronouncements, but more profoundly–-far more profoundly—it separates out between their prospective constituencies and the long-term vested interests of the respective political Establishments that support them.

Real “fork in the road”

Accordingly, one does not require advanced degrees in political science to grasp just how the relevant political landscape lies as the crucial ballot approaches.

It is beyond dispute that, because of the demographic composition of its support base, any Democratic Party candidate, Hillary Clinton included, will be exceedingly loath to curtail significant influxes of largely unregulated and un-vetted immigrants from the Mid-East, Latin America and elsewhere. For this reluctance will clearly find favor with many of her current constituents and prospective new ones – particularly in light of the astounding electoral practice in the US which requires no photo ID to allow one to choose who will have access to the nation’s nuclear codes—while such identification is obligatory for a myriad of other far less significant purposes.

By contrast, whether or not one lends credence to Donald Trump’s strident declarations on severe restrictions he plans to impose on immigration across the county’s southern border and from Muslim countries, it is clearly very much in his political interest to act along such lines—since this will deny his adversaries the potential expansion of their political base.

So those, then, are the real stakes in these elections – the real “fork in the road”: A choice between a candidate, whose vested political interests induce her to permit changes that will permanently alter the character and composition of America, or one whose political interests compel him to resist this.

The elections as “damage control”

In many ways—most of them, regrettable—these are elections that are significantly different from virtually all previous ones.

Indeed, there is unprecedented dissatisfaction with—even, disapproval of—both candidates.

Thus, Clinton is hardly an ideal candidate—even for Clinton supporters; and Trump far from an ideal candidate—even for Clinton opponents.

Accordingly, far more than a choice of whom to vote for, these elections will be dominantly a choice of whom not to vote for. They will be far less a process that determines whom the voters want to ensconce in the White House, and far more about whom they want prevented from being ensconced in it.

Thus, rather than what they hope their preferred candidate can do for the country, their ballot will be determined by what they fear the other candidate will do to the country.

In this sense, these elections are largely an exercise in damage control.

Or at least that is what it should be: A choice, foisted on a largely dismayed electorate, to install the candidate least likely to be able to inflict irreparable damage on the Republic, until American democracy can somehow recover and offer the voter a more appealing selection of candidates in the future.

A relatively simple choice

In this respect, the choice ought to be relatively simple. For regardless of what one might believe as to what either candidate has in his/ her heart, it is clearly Trump who has a greater interest in keeping America American; while Clinton has a vested interest in endorsing the burgeoning inflow of immigrants, who, rather than embrace the founding values of America, are liable to exploit them to change the face of US society beyond recognition.

Indeed, one should be bear in mind that there is nothing “universal” about the noble values on which America was founded and evolved. Quite the opposite. After all, the spirit of liberty and tolerance they reflect are not the hallmarks of many—perhaps even most—of the countries around the globe. So, unless these values are diligently preserved, they could well be mortally undermined. It is difficult to think of anything that could undermine the values of a society more fundamentally than the massive influx of largely unregulated un-vetted newcomers, for whom those values are not only foreign, but often antithetical, to those of the countries of origin—something countries like Sweden and Germany have sadly discovered to their great detriment.

But that, of course, is precisely what should be expected if Clinton wins. It would require hefty doses of unbounded, and largely unfounded, optimism to expect any outcome other than increasingly severe erosion of societal values that have defined America in the past.

Specter of irretrievable change

But it is not only the structural bias of Clinton’s political interests that makes her potentially the more permanently damaging incumbent to the character of the American Republic, but also her ability to do so. For, as a seasoned politician, well-versed in the corridors of governmental power and machinations of the political Establishment, she has far greater capacity and reach to ensure that her ill-conceived and detrimental policies are implemented and durably entrenched, than the inexperienced maverick novice Trump. After all, he would undoubtedly require many months “learning the ropes”, before he manages to implement and entrench any allegedly injurious policies that perturb his detractors.

As I wrote in last week’s column, the 2009 Obama administration set a course for America substantially different from those set by his predecessors, and in important ways highly discordant with them. Obama’s 2012 reelection helped solidify the anomalous (the less charitable might say “perverse”) change in direction along which he took the nation.

The election next week of Clinton, who is firmly committed, indeed virtually compelled, to continue with Obama policies is more than likely to make that course irretrievable, and the US—much like several luckless EU countries—will be set on an inevitable downward spiral toward third-world status…from which a growing portion of its population hoped to extricate itself

Obama is right—but Obama is wrong

So President Obama was right when he declared at a North Carolina rally (November 3, 2016): “The fate of the republic rests on your [the voters] shoulders…The fate of the world is teetering…” For these elections will indeed have momentous consequences both for the US and across the world. He is, however entirely mistaken as to the direction in which he urges them “to make sure…we push it” (See introductory excerpt)

Sadly, however, despite the fact that these are likely to be the most consequential elections in modern history, it appears (if the conduct of the campaign is to be any guideline) that they may well be decided because of the most inconsequential reasons. For it seems, it will not be the strategic direction in which the country will be taken that will determine the outcome, but rumors and innuendo as to the character defects of Trump and his alleged crude indiscretions with women. Given the stakes, this seems almost inconceivable. Trump should be elected not because of what may occur if he is, but because of what will almost certainly occur if he is not. He should not be judged on what his incumbency might achieve, but what his incumbency must prevent.

So in weighing the grim alternatives, the US electorate would do well to bear in mind that these elections are for the Presidency not the Papacy. They must choose who is best suited (or the least unsuited) to be President – not the Pope.

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