Category Archives: Foreign Policy

The President of the United States confronted a difficult decision concerning recognition in the volatile Middle East. He was personally sympathetic to the Israeli side.  Many of his closest friends and confidantes were Jews, including some with whom he had participated in business ventures. But now his Secretary of State argued forcefully against recognition. The Secretary’s opposition was shared by almost the entire foreign policy establishment, as well as by the New York Times and the Washington Post. He was warned that if he proceeded with recognition, violence would erupt throughout the Middle East, America’s position at the United Nations would be weakened, and he himself would be accused of pandering for the Jewish vote.

Bucking the advice of his Secretary of State, the President decided in favor of recognition. The Prime Minister of Israel thanked him, and told him that his decision would earn him an immortal place in Jewish history. 

These events, as recounted by Clark Clifford, occurred 70 years ago, when the President was Harry Truman, not Donald Trump; the Secretary of State was George Marshall, not Rex Tillerson; the Prime Minister was David Ben Gurion, not Benjamin Netanyahu; and the issue was recognition of the State of Israel, not recognition of its capital. With the benefit of hindsight, most would agree that Truman made the right decision in May of 1948. Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel — though almost universally condemned by the supposed experts on the region today — ultimately will also be seen as the right move. Continue reading →

Daniel Pearl.  Nicholas Berg.  James Foley.  Steven Sotloff.

Four American noncombatants have been beheaded by Islamic fanatics, and the videos of their murders brazenly circulated over the internet for the world to witness.  Another Westerner — David Cawthorne Haines, a security expert hired by international aid organizations – faces the same gruesome fate.

Why do they behead us?

The question goes to the method, not the motive, of the madness. Murderers’ motives don’t matter much in the Middle East.  In local eyes, there are so many causes to kill for, and so many victims deserving death.  But assuming one is inclined to butcher, why do so by the particularly peculiar method of beheading?  Why not butcher by shooting, or by hanging, or by detonation?

This is, to put it mildly, a grim inquiry.  But it is worth the trouble to explore.  For the answer may tell us something about the nature of the evil we face. Continue reading →

“Then the Philistines seized Samson, gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza.”   Judges 16:21.

Something about Gaza, and the way its Hamas bosses periodically goad  Israel into military action, turn otherwise sensible observers into sightless chumps — incapable of distinguishing between initiating and responding to force, and blind to the difference between attempted murder and self-defense.

We see that day after day after day in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, CNN, and other mainstream media outlets, which report on the crisis as if it were a contest between two antagonists competing on a morally level playing field.  It appears in the television graphics of careful neutrality: charts showing the number of Israeli air strikes compared to the number of Hamas missiles and mortars; comparisons of the number of casualties on both sides; and reports on the relative suffering of the noncombatants.

This is nonsense.  Three important principles underlie this crisis, which ought to be evident to anyone with eyes to see.   First, there is no equivalence between Israel and Hamas.  Second, inchoate crimes are still crimes, and in wartime, they are war crimes.  And third, “proportionality” has no proper role when thugs are trying to murder your children. Continue reading →

One year after the killing of Usama bin Laden, the U.S. Government has declassified some of the materials seized during the raid on his compound.  The media had earlier reported that the terrorist leader was concerned that his organization’s brand had become tarnished by its association with attacks on noncombatants.  CNN gave this account last April:

Bin Laden well understood that al Qaeda’s brand name was in deep trouble, in particular, because the group and its affiliates had killed so many civilians.  ….  So badly tarnished had the al Qaeda brand become that bin Laden noodled with changing the name of his group. In an internal memo, bin Laden pointed out that “[President] Obama [says] that our war is not on Islam or the Muslim people, but rather our war is on the al Qaeda organization. So if the word al Qaeda was derived from or had strong ties to the word ‘Islam’ or ‘Muslims,’ or if it had the name ‘Islamic party’ it would be difficult for Obama to say that.”

A recently declassified transcript of an audiotape seized during the raid documents bin Laden’s trademark concerns.  The following transcript was translated by the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, located in Monterey, California.  Continue reading →