By F. Andrew Wolf, Jr. ——Bio and Archives--July 4, 2024
OK. This is the headline from euro news in Brussels; it is but five days since the atrocities committed by Hamas were perpetrated against the people of and guests within the Jewish state:
I have often considered most of the meetings of the EU to be “extraordinary,” given the vacuous comments and inane promulgations often forthcoming from such august colloquia. But that is an issue for another essay.
You will no doubt already have heard the above familiar (and safe) refrain a multitude of times unless you have been incommunicado somewhere north of the arctic circle and your short wave hasn't been working for 9 months.
The news is full of political pontificates on both sides of the political divide trying to be the first and most vocal (perhaps persistent) to have their “two cents” worth of support for Israel and the Jewish people reported by the mainstream, modern liberal media.
But give it a few months and my, how things change, especially the views of people, including those “clinched fisted” Israel supporters. The mantra is no longer Israel’s “right to defend itself.” The rhetoric becomes: Israel's “right to defend itself, BUT” only with back-handed caveats, to which Israel must subscribe or there will be consequences—political and economic consequences from the “international community.” In other words Israel's “close allies” (Britain, US, and the EU a la France) do not want there to be political fallout in the Middle East, because they do not want a similar backlash at home from Israel's response, especially since these “close allies,” provided overtly or covertly economic, political and/or military support to Israel in its response to the slaughter of innocent people at the hands of Hamas. But let us be clear about that support—it comes with “strings” attached. In the case of the US-Israeli foreign policy arrangement that tether has a 10-year $40 billion political "carrot” at the end of it. And that means Israel will respond to the political winds gusting from Washington not Jerusalem during times of concern in the Middle East.
Thus according to DC, Israel has the right to defend itself as long as it acts in compliance with what is in the best interest of Washington and Israel's other “close allies,” Britain and the EU through France. It seems as though the ghost of Sykes-Picot is still manifest. (I have written about political dependency relationships before in the American Spectator under the title, “Master of our own Consciousness or Slave to Another's.”)
If Israel's aim, today, is to no longer merely exercise her right to defend herself (in perpetuity which has been the case for 76 years), but to defend herself, her lands and her people such that from this point forward she may live in peace, the Jewish state is pursuing a just goal in its military efforts in Gaza and Lebanon.
The pursuit of a just peace, rather than interim periods of non hostility, must continue to be the goal of Israel and the Jewish people, and it may take time to achieve. But if Israel accepts the wisdom of the text of Habakkuk in the Hebrew Scriptures to trust in the faith of God's sovereign purpose for her, the Jewish state can live in peace and stop doing what the West expects of her—merely continue to defend herself against those that seek her demise and those who seek only what is in their own best interest, not Israel's. If the right to live in peace is what Israel is currently pursuing with respect to Gaza, Lebanon and Iran this will, for the first time in 76 years, be perhaps the first time a real chance for a just peace is actually upon her. Perhaps, Israel will become…
…master of her own consciousness and slave to no other's.
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F. Andrew Wolf, Jr. is retired from the USAF (Lt. Col.) and university teaching (Western Humanities and the Arts, Philosophy and Political Philosophy). His education includes (PhD-Philosophy Univ. of Wales), (MTh-Texas Christian Univ.), (MA-Univ. South Africa), (BA-Texas Lutheran Univ.) and conversations with his wonderful wife. He has an abiding interest in and passion for what is in the best interest of a multipolar world.
F. Andrew Wolf, Jr. is published through both US (American Spectator, The Thinking Conservative, The Daily Philosophy, Academic Questions: National Association of Scholars) and international media (International Policy Digest, Eurasia Review, Cairo Review of Global Affairs, Middle East Monitor, Times of Israel).