President Ruby Rivlin’s recent comment about Israeli isolation shows the neurotic hypersensitivity of many Israelis.
Israeli president warns of isolation over row with US on Iran: “I am very worried by the battlefront (that has opened up) between Obama and Netanyahu and by relations between the United States and Israel,” Rivlin told the Maariv daily.
“The prime minister is leading a campaign against the United States as if we were equals, and that is liable to hurt Israel,” he said.
“We are to a large extent isolated in the world at the moment… I’m not a pessimist but for the first time I see that we are alone.” (News-yahoo-AFP)
Remember that Labor Party head Isaac Herzog’s big campaign promise was that he could get along better with Obama than Netanyahu.
Unlike Rivlin and Herzog, I was born and raised in the United States. And PM Bibi Netanyahu actually spent some very crucial years growing up there, too. I’d say that we know the USA a lot better than Rivlin and Herzog. There’s actually something very troubling in what Rivlin said.
“…as if we were equals…”
It sounds very much like he has a serious inferiority complex when it comes to the United States. And like many/most Israelis, he seems to have an inflated and distorted idea of the reliability of the Americans as trusted allies and supporters of Israel.
During most of the sixty-seven years since the establishment of the State of Israel, the attitude of the American State Department was ambivalent at best. In November, 1947, it recommended voting against the United Nations resolution supporting a Jewish State. After much personal debate then President Harry Truman instructed the American delegation to the UN to vote in favor. And over the next twenty years or so, until after the 1967 Six Days War, the USA did not offer any aid to Israel.
Remember that we defeated the Egyptians, Syrians and Jordanians in 1967 without the help of any foreign country. We had no allies, and that was good! Yes, you read it correctly. I have no doubt that foreign allies would only have slowed down the Israeli victory if not preventing it completely. The so called “help” we got from the Americans during the 1973 Yom Kippur War actually made it more difficult for us to fight.
Even the greatest military experts of the second half of the twentieth century agree with me on this. There is no logical explanation for Israel’s victory in 1967. The numbers just don’t add up. Our Arab enemies had more military arm, power and fighters than we had. Also tactically and geographically they were much stronger. They also had allies, and the United Nations cooperated with their plans to destroy Israel by withdrawing peacekeeping forces when Egypt’s Nasser demanded they do so.
All that the State of Israel had was the prayers of the Jewish People and the Help of Gd.
Since I remember that time so clearly, I do not fear “isolation.” I also remember too well how contrary to our great victory in 1967, we were almost destroyed during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. And during those frightening days, instead of praying, fighting and praying, the Israeli Government kept on consulting with Nixon and Kissinger, who were planning a stalemate. They had hopes that America would be invited in to “keep the peace.”
Considering the difficult history Israel has had with the USA, I just can’t understand why most Israelis, including some of our highest ranking political and government officials, can still worship the myth of American friendship and superiority.