Israel at 60: reasons to celebrate
Israel is about to mark its sixtieth anniversary.
Some friends say they're in no mood to celebrate. The timing isn't right, they complain. The country's political circuitry is overloaded. Danger lurks on the Gaza and Lebanon borders. Iran's nuclear ambitions - and annihilationist threats - loom large. Disputes over the current peace talks with the Palestinian Authority are daily fare. Israel continues to take a beating in UN forums. The drumbeat of anti-Zionism grows louder. A fractious social climate creates long-term and seemingly insoluble fissures between Arab and Jew, not to mention Jew and Jew. And global market volatility spells trouble for the Israeli economy.
All true, perhaps. But the story mustn't end there. Milestone anniversaries offer the chance to step back, however briefly, from the news of the moment and take stock of the larger picture.
Comments (14)A Tale of Two Leaders
What a week!
Two European leaders made headlines. As it happened, both were women, born in the postwar era. Both led pathbreaking visits to the Middle East. But they couldn't have struck a greater contrast.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel traveled to Israel. It was not her first visit, but it was surely her most historic. She was accompanied by eight Cabinet ministers, an unprecedented number. She planned the visit in connection with the celebration of Israel's sixtieth anniversary. And she left no doubt that Germany was committed to elevating its special relationship with Israel to a still higher level.
Top ten good news stories of 2007
Amidst all the Sturm und Drang, some positive things did happen in the past 12 months. They're worth recalling, if only to remind ourselves that the landscape is not unremittingly bleak.
Here's my top ten list:
First, at long last, the United States Congress passed, and President George Bush signed, a comprehensive energy bill. In this case, better late than never. The bill may not be perfect, but it's a big step in the right direction. America's dependence on imported oil from hostile countries is the nation's Achilles' heel. It undermines national security big time, because our addiction inevitably leads us to kowtow to someone and send massive sums of petrodollars into the wrong hands. This bill alone won't solve the problem, but it serves as a wake-up call for a nation that slept far too long. Its provisions for increasing fuel economy standards and other measures are designed to help wean us from that addiction.
'Intelligence? Or lack thereof?'
When the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran was released earlier this month, I was in Israel. Without exaggeration, it caused an earthquake there that registered a nine on the political Richter scale.
The questions were many: How could US intelligence have come up with such an implausible assessment, reversing years of confident assertions that Iran was hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons? Were President George W. Bush;s hands being tied by those who feared a US confrontation with Iran, just weeks after he referred to the possibility of "World War III" if Teheran didn;t heed the will of the international community? Why the emphasis on the reported end of weaponization, and not on the more critical findings of continued uranium enrichment and missile development? And why wasn;t there a more prominent acknowledgment that it is impossible to know everything going on in a country as large and closed as Iran?
Israelis felt abandoned, their own intelligence findings rejected. Many concluded that they would be left to face the Iranian threat alone, having earlier allowed themselves to believe that the world, led by Washington, embraced its own assessment that Iran was a global, not just an Israeli, challenge.
About this blog In the Trenches
American Jewish Committee (AJC) Executive Director David Harris assesses challenges to Jewish security worldwide.
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