With Friends Like These…

Yaalon

 

I keep hearing that Israel is America’s closest ally in the Middle East, but if the Israelis are among the best friends Uncle Sam has, he is in deep trouble. The Israelis are currently heaping derision on the heads of US Secretary of State John Kerry and President Obama for one thing.

Criticizing Kerry’s efforts to broker a peace agreement between Israel and the neighboring Palestinians, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon (above) declared:

American Secretary of State John Kerry, who turned up here determined and acting out of misplaced obsession and messianic fervor, cannot teach me anything about the conflict with the Palestinians.

And former Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon went on CNN to call Kerry’s peace proposal “an insult.”

Meanwhile, the Israeli media are stoking the fire. Articles in Haaretz and Yediot Ahronot described Kerry as either a fool or “an ally of Hamas and other radical forces in the Middle East.”

And several publications recently ran a fictional transcript of a confrontational phone call that supposedly took place between the President and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

I wonder if it’s time to review America’s “close alliance” with Israel.

It’s obviously a one-way relationship. America sends money and provides military support; Israel responds with scorn and derision, while wreaking havoc on its neighbors.

Yes, I know, America is home to many Israeli supporters who wield enormous political power. But is it right for any one group to exert so much influence on a country that it becomes a liability to the country as a whole?

For supporting Israel’s ongoing rampage in Gaza would irreparably damage America’s international standing.

The world is aghast at the savagery in Gaza. Israel is beginning to look like a rogue nation.

Hamas may be terrorists but it is the Israeli army that is committing terrorism today. America cannot condone the wholesale massacre of innocent women and children, whatever the provocation might be.

But Israel is obviously not going to be deterred. It is ratcheting up its military offensive in Gaza, intent on wiping out Hamas even if it means decimating the civilian population.

Israel has been provoked. No question. Hamas is a blight. Again no question.

But it is not acceptable to butcher untold numbers of innocent civilians in response to the Palestinian provocation.

The butchery must stop. Or America must openly disavow the policies of Israel’s current leadership.