When a cyclone, or hurricane, swirls, the only safe spot is its eye. Rarely has a country looked more comfortably lodged in the eye of a storm that Israel does today.
Howard Epstein – IN THE HURRICANE’S EYE
When a cyclone, or hurricane, swirls, the only safe spot is its eye. Rarely has a country looked more comfortably lodged in the eye of a storm that Israel does today. Each of its neighbours is, or may well soon be, in turmoil, whilst in Israel normal civil, democratic, peaceful life continues, almost as though it were Switzerland in 1945.
The reader will think me wantonly complacent with that description, as though I am unaware of the mini–Intifada that began in September last and which may not yet be over. As of 7 January
2016, there had been 100 stabbings, 38 shootings and 22 car–rammings, resulting in 28 Israeli deaths, with 280 wounded, 25 seriously1, at a cost of some 70 attackers’ lives (a grizzly 2.5 to 1 “win” for us). Each attack is like a knife in the side of each of us and we pray that this nihilistic
and politically-ineffectual lashing out will soon end; yet compared to the surrounding cyclone, our normal civil, democratic, peaceful life does continue, unaffected by what goes on elsewhere. (Thanks to the way we use our roads, there are about seven highway fatalities each week, as compared with an average of two deaths per week in the mini–Intifada. In practical terms, use of the roads remains the single most dangerous activity in this country.)
Meanwhile, what goes on elsewhere is the stuff of nightmares. Syria is no more. Whatever emerges, probably several years from now, from the fighting and in–fighting on the territory that used to be Syria, it will bear little resemblance to what Hafez bequeathed to Bashir. The Assads’, père et fils, hold on power had one fundamental purpose – to prevent the massacre by the 85% Sunni majority of the 12% Alawite minority. So far, so good, said the man plunging from the 80th floor of the skyscraper as he passed the 13th floor, and in the final analysis the Russian warm-water port at Tartus, fortuitously located in Alawite territory, should protect the Alawites for some time to come. The cost in blood and treasury, however, to what was formerly Syria, to Iran and now to Russia, also, is incalculable. So, too, has been the cost to Hezbollah, who, together with their Iranian sponsors, have reportedly lost heavily in terms of both fighters and commanders. So ineffectual were they, both together, that Russia had to intervene.
There is a nice irony in a senior Russian officer remarking upon the ineffectiveness of the Iranian forces in what used to be Syria barely a month before Russia lost a fighter jet to Turkey. Russia is, as a result, stirring the Kurdish pot to Turkey’s detriment, and Putin’s desire for revenge is unlikely to be sated by that alone. This is a “watch this space” moment.
1 http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/Terrorism/Palestinian/Pages/Wave–of–terror–October–2015.aspx
No force fighting Da’esh in the Syria–Iraq theatre has made material gains. Only Da’esh looks remotely effective, in its own blood-curdling way: it remains an nascent statelet, whatever the UK may say about it in their sterile internal arguments about which moniker for Da’esh/ISIS/ISIL is the most appropriate. Meanwhile Da’esh “educates” the poor benighted children within its territory, pumps and sells oil, collects taxes and carries out military missions as though they mean to stay. The best hope that the USA, the UK, France and Russia harbour, without getting their boots dirty of course, is to launch sufficient drones and aircraft on bombing missions to degrade Da’esh meaningfully. It did not work in the Pacific in WWII, when the Americans bombarded each Japanese island they had to take for several weeks before troops were landed, who then found that they still had everything to do, as though their invasion were the opening shot; but hope springs eternal and most nations fight the last war instead of the current one.
Iraq, whose capital, Baghdad is said to be ringed with Da’esh bomb factories, as one of the few Shia nations, can anticipate an eventual Anschlüss with its larger and more powerful Shia neighbour, Iran. There, only a reign of terror, and a capital punishment record that makes the Saudis look almost benign, keeps the people, yearning to be free of the clerics, quiescent.
Lebanon constantly threatens to descend into internal warfare between the different elements rubbing along there with only enmity of Israel to keep them together. As for Egypt, it remains dependent for its solvency on Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, at a time when oil prices look set to plunge to some $100 per barrel below where they perhaps ought to be in more normal times (that being another story for another occasion). We here pray for the Al Sisi regime’s longevity, with Da’esh (really the Muslim Brotherhood in mufti (sorry), according to some observers) knocking on their door from Sinai in the east, and potentially, from what used to be Libya, to the west.
Mention of Saudi Arabia reminds us that its territory is within sight of Eilat, so must be regarded as a neighbour. The House of Saud, struggling to maintain its liquidity by reason of its continued pumping of oil to its own detriment in terms of the oil price, is now fighting proxy wars with Iran in Yemen as well as in the Syria-Iraq theatre. The “twin pillars” of US influence in the Mid- East are little short of open warfare with each other, Pax Americana having shriveled from a force to a farce.
Jordan. Did someone mention peaceful little Jordan? Heavily–indebted and dependent on foreign aid, Jordan annually hosts Eager Lion, a defence exercise involving more than twenty nations in support, and as the best hope for the continuation, of Hashemite minority rule. Compare that with Israel, defiantly determined to be exclusively responsible for its own defence. Fiscally, Israel is enjoying – or is burdened with – the world’s most stable currency over six years, and (notwithstanding its expensive currency) four years’ balance of payments surpluses (something the British have not seen in living memory, and which recedes further each year), with an all–time record surplus of NIS 3.8 billion in Q3/2015. Further, Israeli businesses have recently shown their agility, upon yellow–star style identification of Israeli goods from Judea and Samaria being introduced by the EU, in directing their trading energies to the east, where governments and people are not embarrassed or hampered (like the Europeans) with a long and unduly-fractious history.
Last year saw materially-increased aliyah, although it fell way short of the million immigrants that Germany welcomed. We shall have to manage with our more modest numbers, although they are unlikely to be quite as disruptive as those who have reached Germany. Quality rather than quantity, one concludes.
That is some cyclone swirling around us, and we should be proud of our way of life, our way of government and our institutions that keep the eye of the storm calm.
Yet things may not always be so. Mention of Abbas of Palestine (that is Abu Mazen PhD – dissertation in Holocaust denial), master of all he surveys – well of the Muqata’a and Al-Itha’a Street, Ramallah, at any rate – being ten years into his four year term has ceased to be funny. Although a third (proper) Intifada will not dislodge over 7 million Jewish Israelis, Hamas yearns for control of Judea and Samaria; and the Arab Street, convinced that the Oslo process protected Israel and did nothing for their people, will not mind if their children – well preferably some- one else’s children – are inspired by Hamas to become shahids in large numbers, just so long as they take a news-worthy number of Jews with them. A period of instability and suffering within the cyclone’s eye may be closer than we realise. Whilst we take pride in our current stability, we should be prepared for tougher times ahead.
—–
CODA: We can only sigh at what the Palestinians might have gained had Arafat returned from Camp David in 2000 and eschewed the Second Intifada in favour of the development with or by us of the economy and civil life of Judea and Samaria for the benefit of his followers. On second thoughts, aren’t the Palestinians, like Da’esh, Sunni Moslems? Perhaps it is better they kept their distance, whatever the cost to come. Distance and good fences make good neighbours. After all, there were some amongst us who would have relinquished the Golan Heights “for peace”, such that today Da’esh would be looking downhill upon us instead of the other way round. Given that we have been kept by our neighbours in a constant state of war, it is Interesting to note that there is nothing in Sun Tzu’s The Art of War about surrendering territory.
Howard Epstein, LLB, is an English commercial lawyer of some 45 years’ standing. He still practices international commercial litigation on several continents. As such, he is articulate and voluble.
Howard is also a staunch Zionist, having achieved aliyah in September 2005, after a lifetime as “an armchair Zionist”. His parents met at a Habonim function and he was raised with Zionism on a daily basis. He is well-read, knowledgeable and opinionated about Jewish and Israeli history and current affairs.
© 2015 HOWARD EPSTEIN
Howard Epstein – IN THE HURRICANE’S EYE
