Time To Talk Tough With Israel

 

President Dwight D. Eisenhower responded swiftly, forcing an immediate cease-fire. Within a week, he also compelled the British and French—under threat of financial sanctions—to withdraw their troops. The Israelis, however, were not so easy. Eisenhower later confided in The New York Times’ Kennett Love, “We not only had a little difficulty in getting Britain and France to come out, but later we had much more difficulty in getting the Israelis to come out. Finally, we had to be very tough with them, really, but they finally agreed.”  Continue Reading Click here

Deconstruction

Kai Bird writes a pseudo history lesson that wraps itself into today’s reality vis a vis Israeli and U.S. hardening relations. This "history" is more personal than anything else, interspersing his father’s negative feelings on Israeli diplomacy with Eisenhower’s diplomatic heavy handedness.

He begins by discussing a childhood traumatic experience when his father was “forced” to relocate his family due to the crisis between the two governments in the fallout of the Sinai War in 1956. Like his father, he believes threats of sanction and isolation is the best way to relate to a supposed ally. His central thesis is that President Eisenhower was the only U.S. chief executive who was ever able to exert real influence on Israeli decision making. Further, he asserts that Eisenhower’s policy concerning the Sinai Campaign was not only correct but should be emulated by the current Obama administration's handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The belief that the Eisenhower appeasement of Nasser's regime post ’56 was anything but a verifiable failure, requires a massive distortion of the facts to advocate such a repeat performance today. To believe that the Eisenhower styled diplomacy has been the only effective diplomatic engagement with Israel is terribly inaccurate. Just a scant look over the history of this relationship contradicts Bird's belief such as Bush Sr. and his Madrid conference, or Carter’s peace initiative or Clinton’s Oslo process. All these movements were done with direct American intervention without resorting to threats, diplomatic standoffs and political over-reach.

By the early 1960’s Nasser had become an integral part of the soviets sphere of influence in the Middle East, American clout in the country was nil, and Eisenhower’s show of Egyptian support in ’56 had no effect. This of course led to a much stronger Soviet armed Egyptian dictatorship that constantly threatened Israel with war furthering the rational behind Israel's Sinai campaign. A belief ratified when Nasser amassed his armies in the very territory that Israel had hoped would be the buffer between the two if war was to come again. Nasser then took the decisive step in closing a major shipping lane to Israel (Straights of Tehran), an act of war, which Israel correctly acted upon, the rest is commentary. Kai Bird’s whitewash of the Sinai fallout and his refusal to acknowledge that Eisenhower instead of furthering American interests in Egypt and the overall region, managed only to weaken an ally and help precipitate another regional conflict, is at the very heart of this vapid over wrought editorial.

Bird would like to duplicate this clumsy approach when it comes to the Palestinian conflict, which in simple terms, is to force Israel to decide between indefensible borders with an overtly hostile Palestinian society, or to sever itself from American support. This sort of over-simplified policy and usage of voodoo history to reinforce such diplomatic adventurism puts this piece into its proper perspective; a political prejudice that hijacks the historical record in order to further a one sided approach to multi-faceted issues.

Finally, it must be remembered that Israel was 8 years old at the time Eisenhower decided to flex his muscle and risk U.S. relations with Israel. Much has changed in Israel and in America since then. For one, the balance of forces in the world is no longer the cold war but militant Islam, and Israel is America’s greatest cultural and physical ally in this fight. Also, the Sinai Peninsula and the city of Jerusalem are not even in the remotest sense closely related issues; one was supposed to serve as a buffer to a dangerously small state and the other is the very heart and soul of this small state. for the U.S. to prejudice its friendship with Israel on the basis of Israel simply retreating from its spiritual-historical-national capital is to set such a friendship up for a fall. To base a deep and fruitful relationship between these two democracies narrowly on a peace process, and subjecting only Israel to such immense pressure is a betrayal to a conflict narrative that shows continuous Israeli efforts for peace and a consistent Palestinian implacability.

In the end, Bird would rather trample a sovereign democracies elected government, then face down the intransient Palestinian kleptocracy. Bird’s false historical analogy mixed with his complete whitewash of Palestinian accountability makes for a nice sounding, but grossly erroneous opinion, that if one were to follow, would only serve to make peace further off and conflict nearer, as was the case when Eisenhower, at israel's expense, appeased Nasser in 1956.