Fareed Zakaria, "Will Israel miss its moment?": There Are Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

"There are lies, damned lies and statistics."

- Mark Twain

In a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Will Israel miss its moment?," Fareed Zakaria would have us know that "Israel faces an extraordinary strategic opportunity," inasmuch as "reality" has "changed dramatically in Israel’s favor." Zakaria's evidence of this transformation:

"First, there is the disappearance of the Arab threat. From its first day in existence, Israel has faced the danger of extinction by Arab armies. This is the threat against which the Jewish state has planned, armed and trained for most of its national life. Today, it’s gone."

This is pure nonsense. As reported by Marissa Newman in a September 2014 Times of Israel article entitled "Hezbollah could advance into Israel in next war, official warns":

"A senior IDF official warned Sunday that while Hezbollah has no immediate plan to attack Israel, a minor security incident could erupt into a full-fledged war on Israel’s northern front during which the terror organization would likely try to capture swaths of the Galilee.

. . . .

According to the assessment, Hezbollah could capture the Rosh Hanikra area, including a small Israeli town near the border with Lebanon, for several hours, if Israel does not strike the group preemptively.

He said the army was working on a plan to evacuate the northern residents if need be, but warned there would be casualties on the Israeli side."

And as reported by Stuart Winer in a Times of Israel article entitled "In future war, Hezbollah will fire 1,000 rockets a day, IDF predicts":

"Outgoing Home Front Command chief Maj. Gen. Eyal Eisenberg said that a future war between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah group will include hundreds or even thousands of rockets raining down on the country every day.

. . . .

The citizens of Israel, he said, should be prepared for significant challenges. According to estimates by the Home Front Command conducted during Eisenberg’s tenure, Israel must be prepared for a 'blitz of attacks,' including 1,000-1,500 rockets falling on Israel’s home front every day."

Any such war will necessarily involve deep penetration by Israeli ground forces into Lebanon in order to stanch the firing of missiles at Israeli civilian targets. Hezbollah has received from Iran some 100,000 missiles, which can hit anywhere in Israel. Bottom line: Israel is facing a combined threat from Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria and Iran that is every bit as dire as that faced by Israel prior to the 1967 Six Day War.

Continuing to explain Israel's "extraordinary strategic opportunity," Zakaria writes:

"Second, Israel’s major enemies are under greater pressure than ever before. Iran and Hezbollah are committed to defending the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria — a daunting challenge, given that Assad represents the Alawites, who account for less than 15 percent of the country. Reports vary on how costly this support has been for Tehran — the Economist has cited a $15 billion figure, which would be the equivalent of about one year’s total defense budget for Iran. Hezbollah has become bogged down in Syria, with hundreds of its fighters having died there. The Syrian conflict will likely continue to occupy and drain Iran and Hezbollah for years, a crippling problem with the price of oil having fallen, and with it, Iran’s revenue."

Fascinating. The January 3, 2015 Economist article entitled "Death of a general," cited by Zakaria, tells us:

"Without Iranian aid Mr Assad might well have fallen; more than a thousand Shia militiamen have been killed in his defence since 2012. Iran has also lost at least three generals in Syria. Syrian opposition sources claim that Iran has also spent as much as $15 billion in aid, much of it in the form of fuel, to prop up the Syrian regime."

Indeed, Assad's survival hinges upon continued support from Iran, whose finances are stretched by sanctions and a significant decline in the price of oil. Or stated otherwise, Assad's fate depends upon whether or not Obama frees up some $50 billion of frozen Iranian bank accounts as a signing bonus to Khamenei for reaching a nuclear agreement with the P5+1 by the June 30 deadline.

Once Obama declared that use of chemical weapons by Assad was a "red line." Today, it seems increasing likely that Obama will become Assad's savior, notwithstanding Assad's past use of sarin and ongoing use of chlorine against civilians.

Zakaria goes on to say:

"Of course, there is Iran’s nuclear program, though it has significantly slowed for now. Whatever the outcome of nuclear negotiations, it is worth remembering that Israel has a powerful deterrent, by some accounts as many as 200 nuclear warheads, many of them on submarines. Similarly, it has built a wall that reduced terrorist attacks against Israel to virtually zero, and its Iron Dome defense system has blunted the threat from Hamas and Hezbollah rockets."

Zakaria fails to ask whether a fanatical Iran might be willing to accept Israeli atomic retaliation, which will not destroy the whole of Iran, if it can hit Israel with one or two nuclear-tipped missiles, which will snuff out Israel's existence. Israel has "built a wall that reduced terrorist attacks"? Actually, the barrier is some 90 percent "fence." Of more importance, however, is the fact that Israel's limited number of Iron Dome batteries will be seriously challenged by a combined attack from Hamas and Hezbollah, particularly if Hezbollah begins by firing at Israel some 1,500 missiles per day.

Another outrageous claim in Zakaria's opinion piece? Zakaria states:

"So while it faces real dangers, Israel has policies to fight them with force and effectiveness. The danger for which it has no defense is that it continues to have control over Gaza and the West Bank, lands with 4.5 million people who have neither a country nor a vote."

Rubbish! In an August 14, 2014 WaPo opinion piece entitled "The fantasy of Middle Eastern moderates," Fareed Zakaria wrote (my emphasis in red):

"In the Palestinian territories, Mahmoud Abbas, who heads the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, is indeed a moderate. But notice that the Israeli government and the West have happily postponed elections in the West Bank year after year — because they know full well who would win. Moderates don’t do well in an atmosphere of despair and war."

I immediately sent an email to WaPo's managing editor, Martin Baron, explaining that the Palestinian Authority had been responsible for postponing the elections. Within minutes, I had a reply from Mr. Baron, informing me that he had forwarded my email to his op-ed editor, Michael Larabee.

Michael Larabee subsequently sent me two responses. First, he told me that the matter was being checked. Later, he wrote to say that there would be a correction. Shortly thereafter, the following text appeared under the title of Zakaria's opinion piece:

An earlier version of this column erred in stating that “the Israeli government and the West have happily postponed elections in the West Bank.” The elections have been postponed by the Palestinian Authority.

Well, it now appears that Zakaria is suggesting that Israel is preventing elections in both the West Bank and Gaza. Gaza was evacuated by Israel in 2005 and is controlled by Hamas, which is entirely responsible for preventing elections there. In short, Zakaria is now attempting an end-run to again blame Israel for the absence of Palestinian elections.

Shameful! But then Zakaria knows no shame.

Etgar Keret, "Sometimes ‘Nazi’ Is the Right Word": Sometimes Democracy Is Messy

Problems with Israel's fledgling democracy? You bet!

Where I live, there were recently elections for the regional council. There were three leading candidates for the position of head of the regional council (akin to county supervisor), and when I went to cast my ballot during the first round of voting, the incumbent candidate came into the room where my voting booth was situated and began to give a speech. No one stopped him. "You are forbidden from being here!" I shouted at the candidate, whereupon one of his aides, who had also accompanied him into the room, screamed at me that the candidate was within his rights.

I called my local newspaper and described this incident. They never got back to me.

The incumbent ultimately only received some 39% of the vote, necessitating a run-off election with the opponent who received the second highest number of votes. No fool, the incumbent decided to offer the candidate who had received the third highest total of votes to become his deputy, together with an existing deputy, during a future third term in office. I called the incumbent's staff to ask about the cost to the community of a second deputy, but they wouldn't give an amount.

One day before the second round of voting, an e-mail was sent from my local synagogue, exhorting members of the congregation to vote for the incumbent. Calling upon the congregants to vote for the incumbent, the e-mail stated (emphasis in the original):

"The willingness of the Council, and especially its head, to lend a sympathetic ear, is unquestionable. We owe it to ourselves to do all we can to ensure the continued cooperation and assistance from the Council during the next 5 years."

To which "continued cooperation and assistance" did this e-mail refer? I didn't know.

During the second round of voting, I again learned that the incumbent had been present in my town in the rooms where the voting booths were located. One of the proctors informed me that he had been instructed by the Voting Committee that the incumbent was permitted to do so, inasmuch as this constituted a "governmental visit."

I complained about all of the above to Israel's Interior Ministry, and they ultimately acknowledged that it was forbidden for candidates to be present in the polling places, but I was also told not to expect much in the way of redress.

I also submitted the details of these incidents to Israel's left wing newspaper Haaretz, but they never got back to me.

This coming week, I will complain to the State Ombudsman's Office and the police.

Yes, I am furious, and yes, I am something of a Don Quixote tilting at windmills, but I continually need to remind myself that Israel only came into existence in 1948, and its population includes many immigrants who, until they arrived in this country, lived in totalitarian states. Indeed, several people with whom I spoke didn't see anything wrong with candidates making their presence felt in polling stations.

Today, in a guest op-ed entitled "Sometimes ‘Nazi’ Is the Right Word" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/18/opinion/sometimes-nazi-is-the-right-word.html?hp&rref=opinion), Etgar Keret derides an Israeli parliamentary bill "that would criminalize saying 'Nazi' under inappropriate circumstances." Keret writes:

"Imagine a different state of Israel, one very much like our own: This other Israel would also be sunny, with golden beaches, roadblocks in the territories, targeted killings, and rockets hitting the southern towns. The only difference between this new Israel and the current one would be that in the new Hebrew language that would be spoken there, you could say anything except 'Nazi,' 'fascist' and 'anti-democratic.' Wouldn’t that be a better place to live than our current Israel?

And now that we’re exercising our imaginations, let’s picture yet another new Israel — one where the word 'Nazi' is permitted but the government genuinely wants a peace accord and its members do not treat the Palestinians like 'shrapnel in your butt' — as our economy minister, Naftali Bennett, recently put it — but rather as neighbors seeking freedom and self-determination.

Let’s go one step further: Imagine that in this second new Israel, the government gives serious consideration to African refugees’ appeals rather than locking them up in camps while Knesset members like Danny Danon and Miri Regev call them 'a cancer,' or 'infiltrators,' and use racial epithets not unlike those my parents were subjected to in that miserable war in which my grandparents were murdered by you-know-who."

Okay, I agree with Keret that enforcement of any such law could prove extremely problematic and that freedom of speech needs to weigh in the balance. I also object to the epithets cited by Keret.

But unlike Keret, I continue to think that there is a lot that is "right" about Israel that deserves attention: women's rights, gay rights, science and industry, successful absorption of hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union, and the list continues. An additional example that comes to mind: I remember how I was once riding in a crowded Chicago "L" train. Someone sprang a knife on me, and none of the other riders did a thing. This would not happen in Israel.

Keret, the child of Holocaust survivors, chose to express his objections in The New York Times. Perhaps Keret is unaware of Roger Cohen's New York Times op-ed "Obama in Netanyahu's Web" (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/opinion/28iht-edcohen.html), whose title was painfully in keeping with the anti-Semitic, i.e. Nazi, tradition of depicting Jews as voracious spiders. As Andrew Rosenthal, editorial page editor of the Times, later acknowledged to me, this "was not a good headline."

More about Cohen and The Times? In 2012, following my complaint by e-mail to Andrew Rosenthal concerning the title of Roger Cohen's op-ed, "The Dilemmas of Jewish Power," the title was quickly changed online to "The Dilemmas of Israeli Power" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/opinion/cohen-the-dilemmas-of-jewish-power.html). Rosenthal did not write back to me, and when I protested to Jill Abramson, executive editor of the Times, she also failed to reply (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2012/02/stench-of-anti-semitism-at-new-york.html).

And then there were also the anti-Semitic rants and double standards of Thomas Friedman (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/11/thomas-friedman-what-about-us-is-thomas.html) and Nicholas Kristof (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/01/nicholas-kristof-retweets-obama-told-2.html and http://www.jsantisemitism.org/essays/GrossmanJSA210(4).pdf.

Not enough? Perhaps Keret is also unaware of how The New York Times made a practice of tolerating anti-Semitic readers' comments in response to its op-eds that would make Goebbels proud (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2009/06/open-letter-no-2-to-clark-hoyt-public.html; http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2010/10/sanchez-dismissal-spawns-more-anti.html; http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2010/08/charles-blows-obama-and-jews-part-2.html; http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2010/08/vicious-anti-semitic-readers-comment-in.html; http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2010/06/if-you-were-revolted-by-helen-thomas.html).

(By the way, this blog came into being after The New York Times, that would-be beacon of free speech, made a practice of censoring many of my comments.)

In a nutshell, Keret's laundry list of grievances concerning Israel was grist for The New York Times's mill.

But more to the point, let's think for a moment about the Israeli bill, which I also oppose, banning the use of the word "Nazi." Not too long ago, there was much controversy concerning the appearance of a different n-word in Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn," found in school libraries across the United States. You see, thorny issues involving language are not peculiar to Israel. Yes, democracy, and freedom of speech in particular, can be messy. But whereas I agree with most of the message in Keret's opinion piece, I question his choice of messenger, i.e. a newspaper seeking opportunities to demean the only true democracy, albeit flawed, in the Middle East.