Herbert Zweibon

In War Footing, The Center for Security Policy’s Frank Gaffney and a group of expert contributors offer, as the subtitle says, “Ten Steps America Must Take to Prevail in the War for the Free World.” The book makes clear that despite the overwhelming power of the United States, two militarily exemplary wars in the last five years and the avowed determination of the President to prevail in what he calls “the War on Terror,” we are falling short in key areas.

To take only a few, we have failed to take basic measures to reduce our dependence on oil. Then there is funding for terror organizations. While the President boasts that the new Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence has deprived terror groups of $144 million, the funds going to terror groups have nonetheless grown substantially, because these outfits have access to money from state sponsors of terror who continue to profit from business dealings with publicly traded companies. Yet another key area is homeland security: we not only fail to secure our borders and engage in adequate emergency planning but are woefully unprepared for what Gaffney calls such plausible threats as a catastrophic electromagnetic pulse attack (EMP) that could cripple our economy.

If the world’s most powerful country is failing to address the dangers facing it, what of Israel, a tiny land facing the most naked existential threat? Its competing leaders, far from confronting the challenges facing the state, are falling over one another in their haste to surrender. As Martin Sherman details in this issue, the reality is “just about word-for-word what disengagement opponents predicted with regard to the dangers and proves wrong just about every promise made by supporters of that plan just six months ago.” The reaction of Israel’s leaders? The Kadima government has already brutally uprooted the Jews of Amona. Its chief election plank is its promise to uproot many more Jewish communities, i.e. to make the heart of the Land of Israel a terror base against Israel’s population centers. The supposedly “hawkish” Likud is equally prepared to surrender: it distinguishes itself from Kadima merely in asserting it wants “a partner” with which to “negotiate” its retreat.

Even the Hamas victory has had no real impact. The first response of the Kadima government was to turn over 250 million shekels to the Palestinian Authority. Olmert offered the Orwellian declaration: “We will not play into the hands of extremists who want to create an unending war here.” Hamas is dedicated to unending war with Israel. How can funding it do anything but play into the hands of extremists? In typical stop-and-go fashion, the cabinet has now voted (temporarily) to hold tax monies after Hamas has been sworn in but refuses to implement the most important recommendations of the defense establishment, including banning entry of workers from Gaza. It asks foreign governments to prevent funds from going to Hamas “military organizations” but wants “humanitarian aid” (obviously fungible) to continue. In short, the sanctions Israel promised are toothless.

Yet another worrying development: it has been little noted that at Egypt’s insistence (and with EU support) the language by which the International Atomic Energy Commission referred the issue of Iran’s nuclear preparations to the UN joined the issue of Israel’s nuclear deterrent with the Iran issue. As David Twersky has noted in The New York Sun “Iran will now have a new fig leaf…Tehran can argue that it will not discuss its nuclear progress until and unless the world first deals with Israel, which already has one.” Her nuclear arsenal is the major card Israel retains: once the “world community” brings its pressures to bear, will Israel’s feeble leaders leave the country totally bare to its destroyers?

A war footing? Israel has lost all footing. As the ground slips beneath it, the state drifts towards unconditional surrender.