proxy war continues (response)

Submitted by David (United States), Apr 13, 2022 at 23:15

Thanks Dr. Pipes for the response to my comment. It is gracious and much appreciated.

Respectfully, any revision to the UNSC veto structure has obvious implications for Israel given the fact that Israel has frequently been protected from dangerous resolutions by that veto threat, oftentimes including resolutions aimed at prematurely ending wars. The situation just last May comes to mind, with the incessant efforts of the PRC to force a ceasefire and the US issuing vetoes, but that is one of so many examples. Arguably one of the most important facets of the American contributions to Israel's defense is in the UNSC. It is impossible not to be aware that any change to this structure has implications for Israel, the only question is if it is intentional.

One might imagine that the negative consequences for Israel of diluting the power of a permanent member's veto, is only incidentally significant to the administration or that they hadn't thought of it. But it certainly is a consequence. Given the obsessive nature of the administration's hostility to Israel it is hard to imagine that this is anything but a feature, and not a bug, from their perspective. But that is conjectural. What is not conjectural is that the impact, at least on a symbolic level, of submitting each veto to a subsequent UNGA vote, is profound and very negative for Israel, as the UNGA is exceptionally hostile territory.

As for language skills, it is certainly an asset and indeed an absolute requirement, for any Mideast scholar to read Arabic. I do not possess this language skill, to my regret, and am not a Mideast scholar. The author's possession of this knowledge grants some authority to his knowledge of the Arabic speaking world, undoubtedly.

That being said, not possessing facility in Hebrew is a limitation toward truly understanding Israel or even Judaism, notwithstanding the level of English fluency in the country. It has been my experience that no English-language perusal of Israeli media properly compensates for consumption of the media in the native language.

In my personal own opinion, all Israelis should aspire to learn Arabic, and not the literary Arabic taught in schools but the colloquial Arabic of the region. And all Jews should equally aspire to learn the language of their forebears. It is part of a shared heritage, for Jews in Israel and those in the Diaspora alike, and arguably of even more importance toward the preservation of Jewish culture in the Diaspora, where other aspects of Jewish culture and identity are increasingly fleeting. This is admittedly far removed now from the subject of the Ukrainian war. But just as the preservation of Ukrainian culture much requires not only the maintenance of territory but also the language, increasingly so for the refugees, so too for the culture of the Jewish people.

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