The Jewish State in the Levant is a burden we shouldn’t have to bear
by Justin Raimondo, November 24, 2014
Today [November 24, 2014] is the deadline for the closing of a deal with Iran regarding their nuclear program. No one should be surprised that Israel is marking this deadline with a threat to attack Iran regardless of the outcome of the negotiations. As the Jerusalem Post is reporting on its front page:
"Israel has issued a stark, public warning to its allies with a clear argument: Current proposals guarantee the perpetuation of a crisis, backing Israel into a corner from which military force against Iran provides the only logical exit."
This is a lie, and is widely recognized as such: the Israelis don’t have the military capacity to take out all the Iranian nuclear sites without American assistance. Aside from that, however, they never attack those capable of hitting back in any significant way, so we can write off this latest threat as just so much kvetching. Yet one has to wonder: is this the way an ally is supposed to act – never mind one that we enjoy a purported "special relationship" with?
The reality is that Israel is our biggest frenemy.
For decades the Israelis have lived off our largesse without having to offer anything of value in return – unless Israeli interference in American politics is considered of value. We’ve handed them over $3 billion a year in tribute, stood by while they subjected their Palestinian helots to conditions not seen since South Africa’s apartheid, and smiled tolerantly, as one would at an obstreperous child, while they noisily spat in our faces at every opportunity. And what have we gotten in return? Insults, interference, and outright threats – not to mention one of the most effective (and obnoxious) spying operations conducted on our soil by a foreign power.
For years, the War Party has been accusing Tehran of running a secret nuclear weapons program, although no convincing evidence of this has ever been produced. The Israelis and their international assets – notably the MEK terrorist group – have done their best to doctor up convincing forgeries, albeit to no avail. They’ve run all kinds of interference in order to prevent the normalization of US-Iranian relations. Their goal: to ensure that Israel’s regional monopoly on nuclear weapons remains intact.
Aside from North Korea, Israel is the only nuclear power that has managed to get away with thumbing its nose at the international community over this issue. The Iranians submitting themselves to a strict inspections regime will doubtless turn the world’s attention to the weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Israel’s leadership – a political class increasingly seen as extremist by outsiders. Steadfastly refusing to sign the Nonproliferation Treaty, along with North Korea, the Israelis have managed to maintain what is referred to as "nuclear ambiguity," but there is absolutely nothing ambiguous about the destructive power of their arsenal.
"Ambiguity" is not a concept that applies to Israel these days. There’s no doubt about where they stand – or what they are becoming. Their latest shtick: taking out the part about being a democracy in their Basic Law, and putting in "no Arabs need apply." Or, as The Age puts it: "
"The proposal would mean Israel would no longer be defined in its Basic Laws as ‘Jewish and democratic’ but instead as ‘the national homeland of the Jewish people.’"
What the great Israeli classical liberal Yeshayahu Leibowitz rightly called the "Judeo-Nazi" trend in that country’s political life has now come to the forefront: they aren’t pretending to be the Gallant Little Democracy of the Middle East any more. Nope, they’re coming out of the closet as ethno-religious fanatics, just like their opposite numbers a few kilometers away in the Islamic State. In tandem with the new law, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the introduction of legislation stripping "anti-Israel" Arab activists of their Israeli citizenship, along with their entire families. And so the Jewish State of Israel in the Levant – JSIL – is born…
