Thread by @SethAMandel

SIGH. I hate to do this to Robert Kagan, but this essay on Israel's supposed illiberalism in foreign policy is a master class in straw men, undefined terms, nut-picking, poor sourcing, and historical ignorance.

Let's begin. washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/…

Starts off with weasel-word language, fretting that "Israeli foreign policy has been trending in a decidedly anti-liberal direction." What does this mean, exactly? Apparently, it's that Israel has improved relations with authoritarian or illiberal governments:

But in most cases those are allies of the US and UK and others as well! Is Israel really deserving of blame for carefully tending to a peace agreement with its neighbor? And what about the two decades of attempted US 'resets' with Russia, which is now on Israel's border too?

Indeed, he comes right out and says working with Russia on border issues, necessarily involving tradeoffs, is part of this illiberal trend:

But why are they dealing with Russia on their border? Because under the Obama admin, the US pulled away from its Mideast commitments and handed some of the cleanup to... Russia! Obama admin, btw, led the way in selling out Ukraine. But Israel's the Putinist for it, apparently.

"Some conservative Israelis have even encouraged the United States to downgrade or sideline the transatlantic alliance," Kagan writes. Really? Who? Bibi? Military brass? Ah, he names and links... Caroline Glick writing at Breitbart! breitbart.com/middle-east/20…

Next, to stretch the definition of "right wing nationalist," Kagan lumps together Putin and Bolsonaro with... UK PM Boris Johnson and Indian PM Narendra Modi! So the antidemocratic turn in Israel's foreign policy is actually strengthening relations with crucial democracies.

Then the nuclear Take: "For most of their existence, Israelis have struggled to embed their nation ever more firmly within the liberal economic, political and strategic order — believing it was their shared values more than anything else that would help protect Israel."

How does a foreign policy expert not know that in its early decades Israel's security policy was premised on the "Periphery triangle" of relations with Iran, Turkey, and Imperial Ethiopia?

Now, it's true those countries were allied with the West. But that doesn't make them liberal! Ethiopia of that era repressed and even, arguably, ethnic cleansed its Muslim minority population. And does Kagan think the Shah of Iran was a model of liberal democracy? What?

This is basic Israeli History 101.

Moving on. There's a whole section about how Israel flourished thanks to the US and the global order it led. True! But then, without realizing it, he stumbles upon how the European security umbrella stoked European antipathy toward Israel:

Kagan asks how Israel resolved to remain both Jewish and democratic. His answer:

"For decades, the hope of an eventual peace deal with the Arabs embodying a so-called two-state solution kept alive hope that the 'point of balance and reconciliation' could be preserved."

Who are "the Arabs" here? Israel has *formal peace* with Egypt and Jordan. What Kagan falls prey to here is the "linkage fallacy," in which Israeli-Palestinian peace must come first. But in the same essay, Kagan is knocking Israel for having good relations w/Egypt & Saudi!

Peace with the Palestinians, meanwhile, is harmed "both by the failure of the peace process and by successive waves of Palestinian resistance."

Ahem. 1) These are the same things, yet he separates them. 2) Please fire your euphemisms for "blood-drenched terrorism" into the sun.

Then he goes after Israel's nation-state law, which isn't foreign policy but which he wants to swerve off the road just sideswipe. It "represented a deliberate tilt in the balance away from liberalism."

Utter horsekaka, of course: forward.com/opinion/406355… Just more ignorance.

Next, dismissal of Israel's value: "it is difficult to argue that the relationship was ever a net advantage to the United States," he writes. And: "its contribution is less than that of the European allies that some Israeli commentators would have the United States abandon."

There are three major problems with this. 1) no one in power in Israel is actually arguing that the US should 'abandon' France, Germany and Britain. 2) So what if Israel's 'contribution' isn't at UK level? 3) Woefully misunderstands the US security umbrella at issue here.

What do I mean by No. 3 above? As Jamie Kirchick explains, "U.S. assistance to Israel demands far less—in both blood and treasure—than many other American defense relationships around the world." theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

Additionally, Kagan paints Israel as a welfare case: "It is literally the case that the United States is paying a substantial portion of Israel’s defense bill."

But in fact, most of it must be spent on the *US defense industry* and the rest is at risk of being phased out.

Casting Israel as an albatross requires dismissing the threat from the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism: "One of the reasons Americans regard Iran as a threat is because it poses a threat to Israel. Iran poses little direct threat to the United States, for the moment."

I can't believe this has to be explained to Kagan, but long ago the US gov't was quite clear: Hezbollah--the Iranian proxy--was considered more dangerous than al-Qaeda because of its reach and operational value to other terror groups: cbsnews.com/news/hezbollah…

To Kagan, support for Israel at its founding was "the humane spirit of liberalism." Then, he says, "Nor did the founders of Israel make their case to the United States on grounds of interest. Chaim Weizmann’s closing argument to Truman was about morality and ideology."

Sigh.

This completely ignores that Zionism's success was in large part because of its demonstrated value *to the British Empire* which ruled over the land. Moshavniks made this case to Churchill, and Jabotinsky harped on this--eventually proving it with the Jewish Legion in WWI.

Zionist leaders said repeatedly we can't be seen as a welfare case, the British have to see us as a capable ally. And what was Weizmann doing during WWI? Demonstrating strategic value, by discovering new ways the Brits could produce acetone for the war: chemistryworld.com/opinion/the-we…

Then he attacks Israel's friends, smearing Evangelicals: "They don’t judge Israel by liberal standards. They support Israel because it fights Muslims, because it stands up to liberals and because it plays a critical role in biblical prophecies about the coming of the End of Days"

Instead of his dimestore assumptions about evangelical faith, he should just read David French's explanation for why evangelicals actually support Israel: nationalreview.com/2019/03/the-re…

In the end, the US supported Israel because "Americans, and not just American Jews, didn’t want to live in the kind of world where victims of genocide had no refuge and where a liberal democratic nation such as Israel could be destroyed."

Sure, that's why the Kurds are stateless, why the US watched genocides in Rwanda, Syria, Burma, etc etc etc. In truth, the US has demonstrated that no one is coming to save religious minorities throughout the world. Certainly not America.

Then there's Kagan's suggestion that American misbehavior is Israel's fault: "Insofar as Israelis throw their weight on the scales of nationalism and illiberalism, it makes it that much more difficult for Americans to be their best selves."

Finally, Kagan closes with a swipe at the new world of Israel and its Trumpian allies working with Russia. So I will close with this passionate essay on how Trump isn't doing anything different with Russia. It is by a fellow named Robert Kagan beta.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-w…

Robert Kagan does not really seem to agree with Robert Kagan. And that's because Robert Kagan is wrong.

Class dismissed.