Rapid Response
It’s astounding how much Israel has had to adapt to new threats over the last 75-odd years. Constant vigilance. Consistent analysis. Forward thinking. Fluid plans.
Thankfully, the country’s military and intelligence capabilities are far beyond what their neighbors can muster. Of course, there are concerns about America now willing to sell advanced fighter jets to Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Very disappointing from the Administration, but some of us are realizing we are going it alone. It will never make sense that Israel had Hamas on the gallows, along with Iran. And apparently President Trump made them stand down.
Israel though is really really good at adapting.
We know there are shifting alliances all the time. The shifts used to come every few decades. Now they are every few months. The Abraham Accords I don’t think are the panacea many believe them to be. Expecting economic booms to counter or even blunt jihad is, I think, naïve.
Saudi Arabia’s mild overtures to Israel a couple years ago were more about finding a killer to erase the Iranian threat. Now that Iran is degraded in terms of their nuclear threat, the urgency is no longer there. So the Saudis are demanding that in exchange for “normalization” Israel must submit to a “Palestinian” state.
America does great things for Israel—moving the embassy, recognizing Israeli sovereignty on the Golan, etc.—but later imperils them with cozy moves toward Gulf States, all of whom do not like Israel, but would be interested in Jewish help in the areas of economics and technology.
So Israel has a long reality watching friends turn into foes, and vice versa. It never ends.
A report from The Jerusalem Post sees a new alliance shaping up for Israel.
“Senior officials from Israel, Greece, and Cyprus are discussing the possibility of establishing a rapid-response force composed of units from the armed forces of the three countries, three people familiar with the matter told The Jerusalem Post.
“The initiative is part of a broader effort to deter Turkey’s military and strategic activities in the Eastern Mediterranean, they said.”
Wow. Historically, at least in the modern era, Israel has had difficult experiences with those countries.
During World War 2, Greece’s 80,000 Jews were mostly exterminated by the Nazis. As in other countries, there individuals that helped save Jews, but Greece’s modern relationship with Israel has been uneven at best.
“In Greece, population 10 million, the 5,000 Jews represent a small minority (3,000, mainly in Athens, and 1,000 in Thessaloniki). Despite denials on the part of most Greek opinion leaders and leaders of the Greek Jewish community, anti-Semitism does seem to exist in Greece, perhaps not so much in social behaviour, but rather as a latent structure. The Orthodox Church continues to include in the liturgy ritual of Good Friday anti-Jewish references and also the religious prejudices against ‘the Christ killers’ remain virulent. Anti-Semitic rhetoric in Greece usually takes the form of opposition to a conspiratorial conception of ‘Zionism,’ interpreted as a ‘Jewish plot for world domination.’”
As for Cyprus, there are currently only 100 Jews on the island of Cyprus, there is this growing bilateral relationship with Israel. Located south of Turkey and west of Lebanon and Syria, Cyprus is in the danger zone. Cyprus has only been independent since 1960. Believe it or not, in 1902 Theodor Herzl recommended that Cyprus become the new Jewish state!
While Cyprus is not big enough to threaten Israel, putting together the proposed strike force, to be a buffer with Turkey (a real villain in the area) is not a bad idea. We’ll see where all this goes with Israel/Greece/Cyprus, but it looks like we are in another period of fluid alliances for Israel.
The prophet Jeremiah of course told us long ago that Israel one day would wind up alone. We don’t know how close we are to that moment, but for now, Israel will leverage any help in the ongoing fight to stay alive.
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