August 27, 2007

Not-So-Sweet Caroline

I've written before about Jerusalem Post writer Caroline Glick.

Glick effectively skewers the folly of the Israeli leaders who gave back tranches of occupied territory in Lebanon and Gaza without negotiating and without getting much in return except a brief respite. She's ruthless and incisive in this regard.

Glick regularly beats the war drums for an attack on Iran, preferably by the United States.

There are many questions, however, that Glick never answers. Here are some:
  • She assumes a unity of interest between the U.S. and Israel. Apparently post-1967, cold warriors in Washington viewed Israel as a useful proxy to take Soviet allies in the Middle East down a peg or two. Pre-1967 and in the post-Soviet world, Glick, American-born and educated, still simply assumes a community of interest between Israel and the U.S. I just don't get it. Nowadays the alliance seems one-sided, with the U.S. having little or nothing to gain from it. War with Iran? Fuggedabadit.

  • Glick opposes Israeli territorial concessions on the West Bank. Given the weakness and unreliability of the Palestinian organizations (brought about in part by past Israeli tactics, to be sure), she has a point. But what then? Does she favor expulsion, perhaps at some opportune moment of crisis? Or incorporation of the territories into Israel? If so, would she offer citizenship to the Palestinian residents? Even if the demographics aren't as favorable to the Arabs and some say, what then? Is she still a for a democratic Israel?

  • What's Glick's rationale for her Zionism? She appears not to be religious. Why does a Jewess from Chicago have more right to live in Palestine than an Arab from Jaffa? And if she chose to leave Chicago for the Holy Land, why does she make such insistent demands on the United States.

  • What's so all-fired great about Israeli democracy? It leads to corrupt leaders, divorced from constituencies, except to distribute state money, for example, to ultra-orthodox who will neither work nor join the Army. Time, it seems to me, for an Israeli DeGaulle, Putin, or Pinochet.
Hey, I'm just askin'.

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