The US-Israel relationship: is in trouble

The feast of love

Is the romance saga between US and Israel finally over?

If life never ceases to surprise, then geo-politics would go a step further. Going by past trend of US-Israel romance, no prophecies would have predicted a fissure to appear between them. But then, this six-decade old relationship is all set to get sour, especially after the recent remarks from Israel’s end. Recently, Binyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu’s brother-in-law, Hagai Ben-Artzi, in a radio interview called Barack Obama an anti-Semite. This remark of Hagai Ben-Artzi has its roots in the near past. During the US Vice President Joe Biden’s recent visit to Israel, Israel had announced their proposal to built 1600 Jewish houses in Ramat Shlomo in east Jerusalem (as approved by Israel’s interior ministry). This announcement offended many top officials of the US to an extent wherein Hillary Clinton expressed this act as an ‘insult’.

On hindsight, it seems that Israel is getting stronger both economically and politically. The Israeli economy is improving and is now neck to neck with economies like Singapore, Hong Kong and a few other fast developing nations. And of course, there seems to be no match to Israeli nuclear and defence development initiatives and technology. Israel today can boast about their high tech research and advance defence system. On the political front, of late, the Hizbullah and Hamas activities also have gone down to a large extent.

But the grimness of the whole issue gets highlighted when seen in context to the Israel-Iran conflict. Netanyahu has had fantastic support from the Republican regime, with consecutive US Republican Presidents looking the other way to Israel’s excesses, sometimes correctly too, given Israel’s extremely sensitive geo-location. George Bush had taken this support to a new level with his straightforward attacks on Iraq and threats to Iran. The anti-Israel open-rhetoric of Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and his intentions (later denied) to “wipe Israel off the map” only helped increase tensions between Israel and Iran. As recent as February 7, 2010, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the destruction of Israel was assured.

But the Democrat camp, led by Obama and Hillary, is another walk altogether. It may be noted that last year’s Israeli bombing of Gaza was stopped just a handful of days before Obama assumed office – clearly due to a straightjacketed warning from the Democrat quarters. Not only do Democrats not appreciate Israel’s belligerent claim to territory, they also are forcing it to reach a settlement with Palestine. However, this is not for the first time that Obama is upset with Israel’s act. Last year too, Obama came down hard on Israel’s settlement activities in the region. (Despite this, pro-Israeli representatives still played a noteworthy role in the passage of Obama’s health care bill; many US politicians are members of the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee or the so-called Israeli lobby). Obama is getting tough on Israel because if another Israel-Palestine live conflict flares up, Obama’s attempts to stabilize the situation in both Afghanistan and Iraq would get magnanimously disturbed. A newly confident (and nuclear ambition loaded) Iran would necessarily step up the verbal onslaught, leading to sure-shot military manoeuvres. And as Iraq and Afghanistan share borders with Iran, the issue would have a domino effect in these countries.

On a bigger front, Obama’s posturing also has an intended positive effect – of mollycoddling the slighted Muslim groups and of reassuring them that US is not the enemy. So is the Israel-US infatuation over? To say that would be a figment of one’s imagination. Israel is a key fixture in American foreign policy – and people from that nation have supported America in its various exploits without questions. To that past, present, and future allegiance, America is indebted. Obama knows that too. And he won’t allow current posturing to destroy decades of committed resource building for the US by Israel. And you don’t need to be an Einstein to know that...

Israel-Russia war of words: spawns generations...literally

A piece on Israeli grandmothers!

And on why mothers and grandmothers of this great nation play a critical role in the Israeli-Russia spar

Since August 28, 2008, almost all western media in some or the other form, are criticising Russia’s decision of recognising the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia [once considered part of Georgian influence] by considering it Russian-occupied territories. Not only have both Fortune and Economist featured Russia’s growing influence on their cover stories in the last few weeks, even global leaders have suddenly started recognising that Russia still exists. In sarcastic criticism, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expectably showed her support to Georgia and warned Russia, “In contrast to Georgia’s position, Russia’s international standing is worse now than at any time since 1991...” How interesting dear Ms.Rice that you use that year as an example, for we believe that for the first time since 1991, Russia is finally regaining its rightful position on the world platform. And please Ms.Rice, neither you nor your favourite ‘Kiss Army’, of whom you are a self-confessed die-hard fan, are even an iota interested in what happens in Georgia, are you ma’am?

But what we wish to impetuously implicate out here, and what has been missed out by a majority of media in the process has been the emergence of a strange spar between Israel and Russia over the Georgian war! Analysts and experts in both Israel and Russia are bombarding each other with anti-Russian and anti-Israel statements respectively. Even in the media, while on one hand, Israeli press is accusing Russia of increasing its arm trade with the Middle East, on the other hand, the Russian media is leaving no stone unturned to prove the presence of arms and Israeli training hubs in Georgian land. And now, gravely serious political leaders allege that Russia’s nuclear fuel supply to Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant  is an initiative against Israel and Georgia. The question is, why is Israel suddenly getting into the benign act of protecting Georgia?

Is it religious proximity? That doesn’t seem to be the case as Georgia is a certified orthodox Christian state compared to the predominantly Jewish Israel. While one can easily trace deep relations between Israel and Georgia – be their arms trade or the presence of Georgian Jews in Israel – what slips under the carpet magnanimously is the fact that important political leaders of Israel and Georgia are actually blood relatives. For information, the chairman of the Georgian parliament’s Foreign Relations Committee Lasha Zhvania has an Israeli Jewish mother. God rest her soul, the grandmother of scam-fam Israeli Ariel Sharon is buried in Georgia. The ubiquitously sweet Georgian defence minister Davit Kezerashvili, holds the citizenship of, god rest our souls, Israel!!!

Strangely, despite its Pravda-driven spiel [Pravda skims close to being certified a lunatic bandwagon, with the past month’s chief story, for example, being Condoleezza Rice’s Sexual Worries], the Russian political powerhouse actually is still a big supporter of Israel. It’s not just about the recent acceptance of a visa free regime between Israel and Russia, even Russia’s nuclear fuel supply to Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant – despite US rhetoric – is in fact an extremely clever move to dissuade Teheran from enriching its own fuel.

But as they say, there’s only this much that Putin can take, and there’s only that much that Israel can flirt with. Till the time Israel looks beyond US influence – and dare we say, even their mothers and grandmothers – and realises that Russia is actually on their side, this great nation might actually end up in creating their biggest foe in history! For hell hath no fury as Putin scorned, and it doesn’t require Einstein to know that!