Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Israel: 360-Degree Hostility


Investors.com

Foreign Policy: With Israel’s two most important allies in the Muslim world now conspiring against her, we must act to help our strategic friend and avert a costly Mideast war.

The White House has to do more than just make phone calls and statements of concern. Yet that’s all it did when Egypt’s police and army last week let a mob sack Israel’s embassy in Cairo following a flare-up on the Egyptian border.Terrorists trekked across Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and sneaked into Israel, killing eight Israelis. In response to the attack, Israel killed five Egyptian police and soldiers along with the insurgents.

The next “serious incident,” as Israel leader Benjamin Netanyahu described it, could be a flash point for war, spiking world oil prices.

For decades Israel could count on peace on its southern border, as former Egyptian premier Hosni Mubarak demilitarized the Sinai and held back the fanatics in the Muslim street. He also helped in the Israeli blockade of Iranian weapons shipped to the Gaza Strip.

Then President Obama threw Mubarak to the wolves. And now Israel must radically rethink its defense strategy. It faces growing hostility not just from Egypt, but even once-secular Turkey. Ankara has recalled its Israeli envoy to protest last year’s raid on a Hamas-bound flotilla in which nine Turks were killed.

Turkey’s belligerent Islamist prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, warned that his navy would in the future protect Gaza-bound ships, thus risking military conflict with Israel. Erdogan met Monday with Cairo’s new regime and may pay a visit to Hamas-controlled Gaza — a move sure to infuriate Tel Aviv.

Mideast “peace is being challenged,” Netanyahu warned. “And those who challenge it are challenging not only the policy, but also the state known as Israel.”
Paranoia? Hardly. It’s supported by recent polling data.

Israel’s Muslim neighbors overwhelmingly reject the notion that Palestinians’ rights and needs can be taken care of if Israel exists.

According to a recent Pew poll, fully 80% of Egyptians believe Israel’s existence is incompatible with a Palestinian state. They want to tear up the 30-year-old peace pact enforced by Mubarak and attack Israel.

“The entire Egyptian people are Hamas,” cried out Muslim Brotherhood activists who burned the Israeli Embassy flag in Cairo.

These are the fruits of the “Arab Spring.”

Virtually the same share of Jordanians support a Palestinian state over Israel. “Jordan and the future Palestine are stronger than Israel is today,” King Abdullah said. “It is the Israeli who is scared today.”

Meanwhile, Iran is fueling anti-Israeli hate in Egypt as well as Lebanon, where it controls a puppet regime run by Hezbollah. Iran egged on Cairo rioters, calling our own embassy there “the den of espionage.”

Israel will have to act as a porcupine to defend itself against 360-degree aggression. For starters, it must build a security fence to defend the long, open Sinai border. There is no force there, no security barriers. The U.S. can help. Time is of the essence. Al-Qaida terrorists in northeastern Libya are now armed with Gadhafi’s surface-to-air missiles.

If Cairo remilitarizes Sinai, Washington should threaten to cut off the $2 billion in aid we send it each year. Most of it goes to the Egyptian military running the country. It will miss it most.

If war breaks out in the Middle East, we all pay for it in higher oil prices.

Defusing tension won’t be easy. Let’s hope Hillary Clinton is up to the task.

No comments: