When Discernment Dies

Shimon Peres suffered a stroke this week. The 93-year-old Israeli political icon is the last of the state’s founders and influencers. As of now, Peres is still alive, and doctors will determine soon if he can recover. The old lion has seen it all.

As prime minister, defense minister, foreign minister, transportation minister, finance minister, and president was born in Poland, a few years after World War I. Just before the Nazis came to power, he emigrated to Palestine.

He did not have the distinguished military career that many Israeli PMs have had, but did join the Haganah (the forerunner of the modern IDF) in 1947.

In 1976, as defense minister, Peres was largely responsible for the government approving the rescue operation to Entebbe. He was a member of the Labor Party (roughly the equivalent of America’s Democrat Party) for 37 years, but joined Ariel Sharon’s new Kadima movement in the wake of the pullout from Gaza.

The role that defines Peres—despite his glittering resume—is as one of the architects of the Oslo Accords, which officially began in 1991 and resulted in the last quarter-century of Palestinian terrorism in Israel. Peres, along with others, apparently believes in the good of man, and assumed Yasser Arafat and the PLO could be reasoned with. This was a catastrophic error, and plagues Israel to the this day. I would argue that it has also led indirectly to the emboldening of jihadists the world over.

When international media broadcast images of Bill Clinton with Yitzhak Rabin and Arafat on the White House lawn in September, 1993 (the same year the World Trade Center was first targeted by Muslim terrorists), the Muslim world saw it as weakness on the part of the West.

Peres had a large part in perpetuating the myth that the Palestinians would choose to join civilization. His dogged insistence on continuing “negotiations” is an ongoing tragedy.

Peres, then, has been an odd mixture of “doing good” and doing bad. He no doubt has always believed in the rightness of his views. He and Leah Rabin convinced Yitzhak Rabin to follow the siren song of Oslo. That has led to thousands of deaths at the hands of Palestinian terrorists.

I have always remembered the quote from a political commentator, who said that Peres believed that a “Maginot Line of five-star hotels” would convince the Palestinians that free markets and open society were the way to go. The Maginot Line, of course, was the fixed fortifications of the French, which the Nazis bypassed on their way to occupying France. It is an apt description of the idealism of Peres.

We do wish Shimon Peres the very best in his recovery.

Jim1fletcher@yahoo.com

Where are We?

I noticed this week that as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was visiting foreign dignitaries in Europe, one in the receiving line put his hands behind his back as Netanyahu made his way down the line, shaking hands. Bibi simply gave a slight shrug and moved on.

This same week, Australia’s foreign minister warmly invited Netanyahu to be the first Israeli premier to visit her country. The visit is scheduled for early next year.

Only a couple years ago, Israel seemed dangerously close to being totally isolated internationally. Many, including myself, felt that the famous prophecies describing this very reality were very close.

That is a lesson that we shouldn’t look too far out, but “let the prophecies come to us.”

Still, there are other interesting developments taking place.

It is now being reported that Moscow has invited both the Israelis and Palestinians to sit down for talks. No date is set, but it would present a fascinating turn of history if this plays out. Remember, one of the clever aspects of Jimmy Carter’s Camp David talks with Egypt and Israel involved prying the Arab world away from its client-state status with the Soviet Union. The Russians had worked for decades to oppose the West in the Middle East, and two disastrous wars paved the way for the Arabs to look elsewhere.

We were the elsewhere.

Now, however, with the deliberate strategy of Barack Obama to bolster his Muslim friends, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, the Russians have seen an opportunity once again. They are back to their old role as an opponent of the U.S. in the Middle East. We have Obama to thank for that.

It is here I should say that it is my view he is himself a totalitarian in the Marxist tradition. Whether he is actually a Muslim is debatable, but the stone cold fact is, he helps jihadists and hinders freedom. He is doing it on purpose.

This has created a very dangerous vacuum in the Middle East, and look for the Russians to exploit it far more than their current involvement in Syria.

Just today, there is an amazing interview in the Times of Israel with neocon Norman Podhoretz, who has raised the possibility that Iran and Israel will engage each other in a nuclear war in the future.

This of course is not based on his view of eschatology, but geopolitics and the catastrophe Obama has brought on all of us.

However, I think it’s interesting to note that the Zechariah prophecies are tinged with reality in light of such stories in the media.

Keep in mind, too, the Russians are working closely with Iran, particularly in their missile defense systems and anti-aircraft systems. This is designed specifically to blunt any Israeli attack.

John Kerry has just met with his Russian counterpart in Geneva, to discuss each country’s operations in Syria, but no breakthroughs in cooperation occurred.

Too, there are reports of closer cooperation between Turkey and Russia, leading some to speculate that Gog-Magog is about to break out. We must remember, though, that Turkey’s Erdogan in notoriously difficult to deal with, and follows his own drumbeat. It is a mistake to assume that what exists today will exist tomorrow. Tomorrow might see a deep freeze in Russian-Turkish relations.

All in all, current geopolitics is volatile and astonishing to watch. Let us resolve to “let the prophecies come to us,” without too much speculation on our part.

Jim1fletcher@yahoo.com