Posted by
Andrews on Monday, September 28, 2009 9:49:15 AM
I have been thinking about our policies in the middle east, and I think I have a solution for Israel.
You see, despite all the talk of "cycle of violence", and our attempts to pretend Israel and the Arabs we call Palestinians behave in identical ways, we do not treat them the same. Now, I deny that Israelis and Palestinians are equally culpable, or are participating in some morally neutral "cycle". Palestinians abandoned Israel to see the Jews driven into the sea in 1948, and since have been engaging in terrorist acts. Jews, on the other hand, have attacked only military or terrorist targets, have given in to western demands for concessions and have been remarkably restrained.
But, let us pretend Jews and Palestinians have been equally culpable, then why do we treat them differently? We expect Israel to make concessions, and if Israel does not, we hold the state accountable. However, when Arafat walked out on talks, or failed to abide by Oslo, we just granted the Palestinians more concessions.
So I think I figured it out. It is kind of like high school. The girl who would talk to you, no matter how pretty or sweet, just was not as interesting as the girl who ignored you, who agreed to go out on a date and stood you up, and otherwise treated you badly. In other words, our politicians have an unrequited crush on the Palestinians.
And the solution for Israel is obvious. They need to behave worse than the Palestinians.
So, how do you behave worse than the single greatest source of terrorism for the past few decades?
Nuclear terrorism.
No one has managed to put a mushroom cloud over a major city yet (outside of war time), so let the Jews be the first ones. It will be the terrorism trump card -- like the girl who completely refuses to talk to you, steals your money, sleeps with your friends, and generally makes your life a living hell -- a nuclear blast will be the sort of snub the Arabs just can't top. Politicians will be enamored of Israel for decades.
After that, they just need to take the phone off the hook and wait for the western powers to line up to appease them.
POSTSCRIPT
Someone is going to think I am serious, probably someone from the USS Liberty crowd. No, I do not advocate Israel setting off nuclear devices in civilian areas. For that matter I don't advocate Israel setting off nuclear devices over Iranian targets... well, not that strongly, anyway. I am making a joke, trying to highlight the fact that Arabs commit countless acts of terrorism, negotiate in bad faith, and generally act like barbarians, and for some reason we treat them better than we treat a consistent ally who has behaved in a civilized way. (And please, no "rebuttals" involving the words "USS Liberty" or "Twin Towers". Yes, this means you, Mr. Brzezinski!)