Hour of the Wolves

Numerous forecasts of political catastrophes have been proven false in the past, but there is absolutely no doubt that the current array of circumstances — both in the world and in the region — looks especially grave. Now, the connection between a black September, Lincoln’s address and Lag BaOmer:

This week, I recalled my trip of more than 20 years ago, when I accompanied then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir on a visit in Washington. Those days, around the end of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, were days of tension between the U.S. and Israel on account of differences of opinion regarding the Shultz Plan having in its focus the last-minute effort to save the “Jordanian option” from the first Palestinian intifada. Shamir — to the regret of most of us, I suppose, at least in retrospect — decided to dismiss the proposition.

I have recalled this trip because of the apocalyptic forecasts of the anticipated catastrophic confrontation between Shamir and the administration of Reagan — who “no longer needed Jewish votes”* — and the international crash to come afterward. The commentaries and estimates, including mine, predicted a set of disasters, involving a fracture, a split, an embargo, sanctions, the Security Council and whatnot.

I can remember the anxiety at the press conference in the White House, a moment when Reagan announced that “those who will say ‘no’ to the U.S. plan [worked out by Secretary of State Shultz]… need not answer to us. They’ll need to answer to themselves and their people as to why they turned down a realistic and sensible plan to achieve negotiations.” But then, instead of hitting Shamir down with an expected smashing blow, the president opted to emphasize the technical fact that the Israeli “prime minister has not used this word,” despite the fact that we all knew this had been exactly his intent. And so that no doubts would remain, Reagan stressed that taking punitive measures of any kind against Israel never crossed his mind.

In political analysis, as I’ve learned through the years, the prognoses for coming storms are usually worse than the storms themselves, and commentators, just like politicians, have a tendency, as well as a need, to take things to extremes in order to make life more interesting. I’ve also learned that in the saying “the whole world is against us,” there is sometimes a little exaggerated Zionist pretension, and that even when the state of affairs is really tough, in many cases a totally unpredictable event occurs that changes the laws of nature and mitigates the severity of the decree.

It was this way, for example, when Anwar Sadat came to Jerusalem in 1978 and removed the political and economical blockade threatening Israel and also diverted then-President Jimmy Carter from his will to force a solution. It was this way, too — though with vast differences — when, on Sept. 11, 2001, the terror attack on the Twin Towers turned an American president like George W. Bush, who before that did not have special sentiments toward Israel, into a sworn “lover of Zion”** who gave Israel a political hug — some believe it to have been a bear hug — for an entire two terms.

It’s therefore understandable that many are positive today, too, that the projections regarding the imminent political crisis are like the calling out of “the sky is falling” of Henny Penny and need not be taken seriously, and that others are trusting Divine Providence to interfere when it’s needed and alter the picture from end to end. And indeed, not even in this day and age can you discard the possibility that something is going to happen between now and September that would derail from its course the looming “political tsunami,” which is currently foreseen to near our shores. On this matter, at least, Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Obama have a common interest in their meeting in Washington today, for it’s clear to Americans that their vote on the side of Israel and opposing the world in the U.N. General Assembly in September will harshly sabotage Obama’s continued efforts to come closer to the Arab and Muslim world.

But let there be no misunderstandings: For a long time already the political skies haven’t looked more ominous; the regional developments have never raged more fiercely; the international situation report has only rarely been more gloomy; for ages, the chances for this political process have never seemed slimmer; and, above all else, there hovers a peril — a sample of which has been tasted this week at the border fences — of a mass and unarmed Palestinian onslaught that might serve an explosive trigger for worst case scenarios.

No wonder that behind closed doors, one can feel a certain helplessness of segments of the diplomatic, security, political and business elite with regard to a black September that is drawing nearer every day. The fact that, in the past, there were so many pessimistic auguries proven wrong and cries of “Wolf!”, which ended with nothing, cannot work as a guarantee for the future; we are also reminded of Aesop’s fable, where the hour when the wolf has finally come is the hardest and most dangerous of all.

Justice, justice shall you pursue!

On Feb. 27, 1860, when running to become the Republican Party candidate for president, Abraham Lincoln gave a speech that was eventually referred to as the Cooper Union Address, after the name of the building in South Manhattan where it was delivered. The speech, which dealt with the government’s authority to ban slavery on new federal territories, has been carved in the American consciousness primarily for its sweeping final sentence: “Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.”

The Civil War broke out within a year and, as it became clear that the North states had the upper hand, it imparted the prophetic dimension to the formula engraved by Lincoln that “right makes might,” which had been taken as complementary to the “manifest destiny” America believes in — or, at the very least, has believed until recently — concerning its historical role. It’s the same right-makes-might with which America overcame the Nazis and Japanese in World War II and the Soviets in the Cold War, and that’s the same sense of right — with the necessary changes — that inflamed the hearts at our side in the most of the wars of Israel.

The way we in Israel perceive our sense of right amounts to quite a few divisions for us, if one can paraphrase the sarcastic question Stalin, in 1935, asked French Prime Minister Pierre Laval regarding the pope: “And how many divisions does he have?” Also, recognition from the world that right should be done for the Jewish people after the Holocaust would be worth many more divisions and brigades with respect to the establishment of Israel’s position and legitimacy in the international political arena and, as a result, the reinforcement of its security and economy.

The problem is that after over almost 70 years, due to the passage of time and things slowly becoming forgotten, the credit the world has given us has been steadily exhausted, and its place has been occupied by the desire to correct the wrong allegedly done to the Palestinians, even if we don’t really acknowledge it. The huge gap between our perception of our right and the realization that the world keeps turning its back on us creates a dissonance which we haven’t found a way to handle yet — except for the permanent ritual of somewhat ridiculous search for a strong publicity maneuver that would miraculously bring the world back to normal.

But in statecraft, wisdom is still a more important quality than the sense of right, and wherever right ceases to be convincing, one ought to be so much smarter than that. Clearly, concerning the question of where wisdom lies, we’re going to have an animated argument, too. So perhaps there’s no better timing to think about it than on Lag BaOmer,*** when we commemorate, among other things, the Bar Kokhba revolt,**** the obvious righteousness of which did not prevent, as everybody knows, its bitter finale.

Notes:

*This quote, while accurately translated, could not be verified.

**Translator’s Note: This is the literal translation of a very special concept in Hebrew: “hovev Zion”

***Translator’s Note: Lag BaOmer is a Jewish holiday.

****Translator’s Note: This revolt was the third major rebellion by the Jews of Judaea Province against the Roman Empire and the last during the Jewish-Roman wars.