PrintApril 17, 2009
Ahmedinejad and the perpetual motion machine
With Obama being chosen as Dhimwit of the Month, and with Caroline Glick's brilliant analysis in last week's Jerusalem Post, I was beginning to seriously worry about how will all this end. Israel vs. Iran with the US more of an obstacle than help.
In essence, we have two governments which have a different approach primarily because the leaders of one (Israel) had through mostly empirical evidence finally understood what the problem is, while the other one (US) had not.
Not that Israeli leaders have suddenly become scholars of Islam and jihad. It took years, but they have finally, through numerous previous failures, been pushed toward insight, and the difference is crucial.
Just as someone who with a grasp the Second Law of Thermodynamics would not attempt to create a perpetual motion machine because it contradicts the laws of physics, so Israeli leaders have finally realized that the approach they had been trying for years would not work, because the other side was governed by their jihadist tenets which were against everything Israel was trying to achieve. On the other hand, someone ignorant of the laws of physics and/or the jihadi mentality would continue to hope for a perpetual motion machine (or a peace deal) and would keep sending Sisyphus Mitchell over and over again. The result would, of course, be always the same: failure.
The terminology the political leaders use in their articles and speeches says it all. Moshe Ya'alon: "The central conflict of the Middle East is not territorial but ideological; not about borders but about Islamic Jihadism and Western liberty." The Obama administration has replaced the word terrorism with "man-caused" disasters.
It takes time for reality to sink in and the US to revert to its senses. But this may take too long and damage may have already been done. So what can Israeli leaders do?
1) Educate their American counterparts? Hardly feasible in this short time-span. As Melanie Phillips wrote " A vital part of leftist thinking is the assumption that to be on the left is the only sensible/decent/principled position to hold and therefore cannot ever be wrong; and that is because to differ from the left is to be of 'the right', and the right is irredeemably evil."
2) Educate the American public? Explain the enormous consequences US procrastination may result in for Israel and the US? Not enough time.
3) Consider that Israel is under existential threat and proceed accordingly. Consider the US as someone trying to invent the perpetuum mobile.
What ‘proceed accordingly' would exactly entail I do not know. But Israel has no other choice.
