Although the surprise victory of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the polls has captured the attention of the political world, it is not a concern of foreigners, expect in regards to how Israel’s domestic affairs impact the outside world. American foreign aid to Israel and Netanyahu’s recent speech to a joint-session of Congress has forced Israeli politics into the US, yet the impact of Netanyahu’s leadership on the Palestinian People and the rest of the Middle East is far more important than the political impact on the United States.
With that in mind, it is important to understand the dynamics of Israeli politics. Smaller, more vulnerable nations must be far more focused on foreign affairs and national security than larger, more secure nations, which are far more likely to focus heavily on domestic matters. Israel is a small, non-Muslim country fighting a decades-old war against Muslims in the middle of the Muslim world, thus it has long been a particularly insecure country that must be highly focused on foreign affairs and national security concerns instead of domestic issues. In many respects, polls predicting the end of Benjamin Netanyahu’s rule were far more surprising than the Prime Minister’s actual win. The defining issues in the Israeli elections were domestic concerns like rising house prices, which would normally be second to national security and foreign relations. Clearly, Israel’s poor relations with its Muslim neighbors means national security, which ultimately drove Right-wing voters to the polls, takes precedence over foreign policy, but national security concerns only came into play in the Eleventh Hour after Netanyahu adopted some rather extreme campaign stances.
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For those who had the good sense to homebrew a batch of Irish Stout a few months ago, as this writer and his brother did, Saint Patrick’s Day is the perfect time to break out a couple of bottles. For others, traditions of drinking Genesis, green beer, and Irish whiskey at a local pub will just have to do.
For those who do not, or cannot, drink, having a McDonald’s Shamrock Shake is a recent tradition that also offers a means for people to indulge during the mid-Lent Christian holiday that offers practitioners a reprieve from their fasting. Saint Patrick’s Day 2015 takes place on a Tuesday, which is the same day of the week as Election Day for Americans while it is this year’s actual Election Day in Israel, where religion plays a significant role in contentious politics. To boot, 2015 will be the first year since the mid-1990’s Irish politicians stay at home instead of meeting with the US President. Unfortunately, political dysfunction and division throughout the world is creating a global situation where governments are creating problems instead of solving them. Consistent polling that shows Russian President Vladimir Putin’s popularity strong in the wake of the Ukraine Crisis and the ensuing sanctions, which helped cripple Russia’s economy, suggest Western sanctions have been thoroughly ineffective. In fact, this phenomenon suggests Western sanctions have galvanized support for Putin’s aggression toward Ukraine and revitalized anti-Western sentiment while undermining the European economy.
Although Europeans recently agreed to extend their sanctions against influential Russians by another six months, the apparent ineffectiveness of sanctions bolsters arguments favoring an end to sanctions despite the ongoing Ukraine Crisis. Looking at the ability of the Islamic State to attract foreigners, young ones in particular, to their cause, the unusually strong support for Vladimir Putin can be explained in such a way that helps us engineer more effective solutions to Russian aggression as well as terrorist threats. Messages, which give people a sense of control and make them feel valued, strongly resonate when they feel vulnerable, stifled, and powerless. Just as exciting, angry, and/or depressing music can honestly reflect the feelings of listeners, as well as intensify those feelings, causes like those of the Islamic State can do the same. Cementing the notion that Benjamin Netanyahu’s early March speech to a joint-session of Congress was thoroughly political in nature, 47 Senate Republicans circumvented the Executive Branch by directly penning an open letter to Iran’s leaders. At the same time, the Obama Administration has escalated its use of targeted sanctions and declared Venezuela a threat to American national security over human rights violations. Unfortunately, these kinds of developments demonstrate the self-destructive dysfunction in Washington, which is hurting the Country, is also infecting the area of government where politics has had the least impact, i.e. diplomacy.
As for the Republican letter to Iran, the GOP essential said to the International Community the American government is so broken that it cannot even manage to voice a coherent message to the world, which undermines US global leadership, the credibility of democracy in a era when dictators need convinced democracy is in their interests, and the American President cannot be trusted to deliver on the simplest of promises. What makes the letter to Iran particularly damaging is that Republicans are not opposing a particular agreement that has been presented to them. Republicans are essential condemning the negotiations for a potential nuclear deal with Iran directly to one of America’s long-time adversaries instead of writing the letter to the President, the American People, and, perhaps, our allies involved in the process. Where Republicans could have lobbied for negotiations that were more honest in terms of what kind of a deal Republicans would allow, they chose to disrespect President Obama and embarrass our Country in front of the entire world. Given diplomacy is fairly bipartisan in nature and largely isolated from the partisan politics of the campaign trail, the continued abuse of the diplomatic process by Republicans demonstrates a new level of toxicity in our political system. |
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April 2020
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