Right? Wrong. Just look at Iran as a prime example of how wrong that platitude is.
Cameron said he was in close contact with Jalil. A few weeks later, Jalil declared that new Libyan law would be based on Sharia.
As an Israeli I had no empathy for the mad dictator Qaddafi. However, they should have listened to him when he warned them, as NATO bombed his country, that, “Now you people in NATO, listen to me. You are bombing the walls that stopped African immigration” into Europe.
Part of the Western diplomatic shortcomings was that they were fine dealing with dictators and their corrupt henchmen, particularly those who sat on oil wells and dirty contracts with European and American conglomerates and corporations. For here was the potential for future lucrative careers after they shuffed off their governmental roles and entered private life with interesting and well placed people.
While in their overseas governmental positions their main task was schmoozing the decision makers, those who could sign hefty contracts. The concerns of the population were none of their concern. Sympathizing with the down-trodden got in the way of carrying out what they had been promoted to achieve, the trade that kept wheels of power, and private palms, well-greased.
And when these Middle Eastern potentates added a condition to support them in their condemnation of Israel in international forums it was easy to give the nod.
They misread the tea leaves as millions took to Arab streets. They watched, expressing sympathy for the rioters only when the toppling of their favored dictator looked certain. They called it “the Arab Spring,” though those close to the action, like Israeli national security and intelligence experts, warned it was closer to becoming a stormy Islamic Winter than an Arab Spring.
Events in the Middle East and North Africa proved the cynical Israel realists were closer to the truth than blundering Western politicians and their totally unprepared national security heads. Just look at the Obama-praised Muslim Brotherhood Morsi who usurped power from Mubarak, or Libya and the murder of Ambassador Stephens and his security team as the president, the NSA, CIA chiefs and Secretary of State Clinton waffled, blaming it on an amateur video, and did nothing to rescue the trapped but fighting crew at the US compound in Benghazi.
Look at the failure of Obama red lines in Syria, the mocking of ISIS as a “JV team,” the sucking up to the Islamic Republic of Iran at any costs to get the awful nuclear deal done, and the all too slow realization that parts of Europe have become cultural and social nightmares for the indigenous population.
We now allow into our country the people we want in our country, those with a commitment to the betterment of our land. Those that come because they want to belong here as part of our people.
And yet Israelis are among the happiest and confident people in the world.