Complex Situation and Unintended Consequences

Submitted by Robert (United States), Nov 17, 2022 at 21:19

Dear Dr. Daniel Pipes,

Your article shows that your extremely well informed, and your analysis certainly make sense and are persuasive.

I just wish to argue here how much more complex the situation in Israel is than that in Iran or Ukraine.

(1) Iran. It is clear that the current revolution in Iran is leaderless; but what's new is that it comes from all walks of life ans classes, except for the clergy. We also know that it is a modern police state with more effective tools than the Gestapo had under Hitler. And it looks like the most significant cohorts, the youth, college students, steel workers, bazaar shop keepers, want the collapse of the regime. So it seems that for the ruling clergy things will only get worse and the regime has not exit, so it must collapse eventually; things will only get worse for the aging Octogenarian Ayatollah who also will have no one to replace him. The only possibility left is an armed rebellion among ruling clerics, which should only further discredit the regime.

2) Ukraine. Here, unlike Iran, we do not have a Civil War ("Special Military Operation" as Putin fantasizes it), but a single outside Invader supported by far away Iran, an even further North Korea, and autocratic Belarus whose population is not anti-Ukraine. But Russia is also a Modern Autocratic state whose population is like a heard of sheep brain-washed by Big-Brother Putin. Ukrainians have dreamed of a state of their own since 1648, and they will not relinquish any of their sovereign (temporarily) conquered territories. And with the economic and military (weapons) support of the West (EU, NATO, USA, UK, Canada, etc.) the war will continue with no end in sight. And all the other countries, India, China, Brazil, even Israel, etc., being neutral, that further makes Putin's Plan for a greater Russian World looks highly unlikely. He may even not survive in office.

(3) Israel. Its situation is completely different. Not only are there adversaries within its jurisdictional and military domain, the Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, but Israel is in a confrontation with an overwhelming majority of the member states of the United Nations and its opinionated body, the General Assembly. Against these nearby Arabs, the issue is simply policing, preventing suicide killings and other murders, and preventing missiles from Gaza, Lebanon and Syria (under Hezbollah), and the Iranian infiltration into Syria. But the real Front of Israel's Cold War is with the rest of the word, including the Democratic Party administration of President Biden. But now we have the most Right Wing government in Israel's history under the most experience PM re-elected, Bibi! At the same time, former President Trump has just this week announced that he's running for re-election. So, I see that Israel's goal of achieving Victory closer at hand, but there are far more known parameters at play. There has also been a rise in Antisemitism worldwide; I take that as playing the Victim too long - reminding the world of the Holocaust. Jews need to reward Philistinism, acknowledge not only the Righteous Among Nations who helped them escape Hitlers Third Reich. Jews and Israelis need to announce their Exceptionalism, just as Americans need to do with theirs - Trump's wonderful slogan, "Make America Great (Again)" which even Ye, aka Kanye West, took a liking to; it appears both are megalomaniacs, but mostly (until recently at least) in a positive way. Hey, Trump was the USA President for 4 years (in spite of 2 impeachments), and Ye was a Billionaire until very recently. In partial defense of Ye, Jews CREATED Hollywood, so why shouldn't they be all over the place? Unfortunately, Ye's mother was unsuccessful in forcing him to get a higher education; ironically he made an extraordinary hit with his album, "College Dropout." I can argue that our liberal Jewish cohort accepted Equity instead of Equality, so that an illiterate and uneducated Ye could become a Role Model for the world, as well as for this Black brothers. What does this have to do with Israel? Not much directly, but the Jews in the USA now have to deal with the consequential rise of Antisemitism today, with less resources for Israel. In that regard, the American Jewish cohort even has a hard time equating Antisemitism with hatred of Zionist Jews and Israeli Jews. Apartheid and Occupation is the new exploitative and intersectional paradigm being imposed on Jews as "Whites" in the USA, and Palestinians are supposedly "non-Whites" in this "Critical Race Theory" narrative.

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