Ambassador (Retired) Yoram Ettinger is an insider on US-Israel relations, Mideast politics and overseas investments in Israel's high tech. He is a consultant to members of the Israeli Cabinet and Knesset, and regularly briefs US legislators and their staff. A graduate of UCLA and undergraduate at UTEP, he served amongst other things, as Minister for Congressional Affairs at Israel's Embassy in Washington. He is the editor of "Straight from the Jerusalem Cloakroom and Boardroom" newsletters on issues of national security and overseas investments in Israel's high-tech.
Western policy makers and public opinion molders tend to oversimplify Middle East reality and subordinate the 1,400 year old unpredictable, violent and shifty intra-Arab and intra-Muslim non-Western environment to their own Western state-of-mind and well-intentioned wishful-thinking.
General Omar Bradley, the first Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs-of-Staff, said in July, 1950, in the aftermath of Israel’s War of Independence: “The Israeli army would be the most effective force south of Turkey, which could be utilized for delaying action [extending the strategic hand of the USA]….” General Bradley’s assessment was rejected by the State Department and the Pentagon, which opposed the 1948 establishment of the Jewish State, contending that it would be decimated by the Arabs, a burden upon the US and probably an ally of the USSR.
The Palestinian Authority's school curriculum, dogmatic education system and controlled-media reflect its worldview and core values, as is the case in all non-democratic regimes.
According to the UN 2018 World Happiness Report (based on Gallup World Poll survey), Israel ranks 11th, as it was ranked in 2017, trailing Finland, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden and Australia.
The recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish State, and the site of the US Embassy, reflects a realistic assessment of Middle East/Arab priorities, notwithstanding official Arab statements.
In 1948, conventional wisdom considered the newly-reestablished Jewish State insolvent economically, indefensible militarily, a basket case, totally dependent upon handouts.
In 2018, Forbes Magazine quoted Warren Buffett (February 26, 2018): "I'm not Jewish, but Israel reminds me of the USA after its birth. The determination, motivation, intelligence and initiative of its people are remarkable and extraordinary.
In contrast to conventional demographic wisdom, the Jewish State is not facing a potential Arab demographic time bomb. In fact, Israel benefits from a robust Jewish demographic tailwind.
The US decision to comply with the law of the land - the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act – recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and relocating the US Embassy there, enhances the US posture of deterrence, in defiance of threats and pressure, while walking against the grain.
President Trump’s Palestinian policy aims to avoid the critical errors of his predecessors, who joined the 1993 Oslo Process, which relocated 100,000 PLO members – headed by Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas –- from their terrorist headquarters and bases in Tunisia, Libya, Sudan, Yemen and Lebanon to Gaza, and the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria.
President Trump should cut/suspend/terminate foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA, since they have undermined US values and national security interests, by abusing US foreign aid to promote hate-education and terrorism.
The claim that the perpetrator of the November 1, 2017 NYC bicycle-path-terror is a "lone wolf" ignores the wider context of Islamic terrorism, oversimplifies and underestimates the threat, alleviates the pressure off anti-US Islamic rogue regimes, and derails counter-terrorism.
