Those who bless Israel will be blessed. Those who curse Israel will be cursed. If only it was always that simple as it was in Turkey. A man gets up to lambast Israel, and poof, he’s struck down immediately. But that is simply not the way of the world. We must work, struggle, and persist in order to fight against the forces of evil that threaten the world.
It used to be a cliche to say that Israel is surrounded by a whole host of hostile countries. This mantra was the main reason that was given for the enormous support that America provided Israel over the 70’s and 80’s. Many thought that with Israel’s emergence as an economic powerhouse, it was no longer relevant to focus on how much support Israel needed. Today, we now see that it always has been true to recognize that Israel is indeed surrounded by vicious enemies.
But in truth, US support of Israel was always more about Israel being the main stopgap to the spread of Communist influence in the region. Plain and simple, the Soviet Union supplied Egypt, Syria, and other Arab countries with state of the art weaponry in order to destroy Israel. America did not want the Soviet Union to control the Middle East and therefore propped up Israel. However, Kissinger made sure Israel had only a slight advantage over it’s foes. When Israel started to win the Yom Kippur War in 1973, he immediately shuttled between Israel and it’s neigbors to work out a forced compromise in order to promote what he saw as a recipe for stability. Israel was forced to retreat. By 1979, the Carter brokered peace treaty between Egypt and Israel was at least partially due to Kissinger’s heartless yet effective negotiations. It has been a cold peace, but that is far better than the alternative.
Today, more than 40 years since that peace treaty, Israel has not fought a war against Egypt. But Israel is indeed still surrounded by terrorist foes. Iran and Egypt may not love each other. But they both, to this day, pose major threats to Israel. Iran’s proxies in Gaza and Lebanon, each have succeeded in causing major casualties against Israel over the last two decades.
There is simply no option that Israel has today other than to fight and fight more. But, hopefully at the end of this war, Israel will be able to restart the major accomplishments of the Trump administration’s Abraham Accords. If the trend of Arab countries deciding to toss their swords aside in order to promote economic success continues, then Israel will have a bright future with at least part of the Arab world. Otherwise, it will have to keep on defending itself again and again against attacks.