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Jewish World Review Sept. 11, 2009 / 22 Elul 5769 Having one's enemy and eating it too By Caroline B. Glick
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
There has been much talk in recent months about the prospect of Syria
bolting the Iranian axis and becoming magically transformed into an ally of
the West. Although Syria's President-for-life Bashar Assad's daily
demonstrations of fealty to his murderous friends has exposed this talk as
nothing more than fantasy, it continues to dominate the international
discourse on Syria.
In the meantime, Syria's ongoing real transformation from a more or less
functioning state into an impoverished wasteland has been ignored.
Today Syria faces the greatest economic catastrophe in its history. The
crisis is causing massive malnutrition and displacement for hundreds of
thousands of Syrians. These Syrians - some 250,000 mainly Kurdish farmers -
have been forced off their farms over the past two years because their lands
were reclaimed by the desert.
Today shantytowns have sprung up around major cities like Damascus. They are
filled with internally displaced refugees. Due to a cataclysmic combination
of irrational agricultural policies embraced by the Baa'thist Assad dynasty
for the past 45 years which have eroded the soil, and massive digging of
some 420 thousand unauthorized wells which have dried out the ground water
aquifiers, Syria's regime has done everything in its power to dry up the
country. The effects of these demented policies have been exacerbated in
recent years by Turkey's diversion of Syria's main water source, the
Euphrates River, through the construction of dams upstream, and by two years
of unrelenting drought. Today, much of Syria's previously fertile farmland
has become wasteland. Former farmers are now destitute day laborers with few
prospects for economic recovery.
Imagine if in his country's moment of peril, instead of clinging to his
alliance with Iran, Hizbullah, al Qaida, and Hamas, Assad were to turn to
Israel to help him out of this crisis?
Israel is a world leader in water desalination and recycling. The largest
desalination plant in the world is located in Ashkelon. Israeli technology
and engineers could help Syria rebuild its water supply.
Israel could also help Syria use whatever water it still has, or is able to
produce through desalination and recycling more wisely through drip
irrigation - which was invented in Israel. Israel today supplies fifty
percent of the international market for drip irrigation. In places like
Syria and southern Iraq which are now being dried out by the Turkish dams,
irrigation is primitive — often involving nothing more than water trucks
pumping water out of the Euphrates and driving it over to fields that are
often less than a kilometer away.
Then there are Syria's dwindling oil reserves. No doubt, Israeli engineers
and seismologists would be able to increase the efficiency and productivity
of existing wells and so increase their output. It is certainly not beyond
the realm of possibility that Israeli scientists and engineers could even
discover new untapped oil reserves.
But of course, Syria isn't interested in Israel's help. Syria wants to have
its enemy and eat it too. As Assad has made clear repeatedly, what he wants
is to receive the Golan Heights - and through it Israel's fresh water supply
- for nothing. He wants Israel to surrender the Golan Heights, plus some
Israeli land Syria illegally occupied between 1948 and1967, in exchange for
a meaningless piece of paper. In this demand, Assad is supported by none
other than Turkish Prime Minister Recip Erdogan whose country is drying
Syria out. It is Erdogan after all, who mediated talks aimed at convincing
then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to give up the Golan Heights for nothing and
it is Erdogan today who is encouraging the Obama administration to pressure
Israel to surrender its water to Syria for nothing.
Beyond demanding that Israel give him the Golan Heights, Assad is happy
associating with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hassan Nasrallah, Khaled Mashal and
various and sundry al Qaida leaders who move freely through his territory.
Hanging out with these murderers affords him the opportunity to feel like a
real man - a master of the universe who can kill Israelis, Iraqis and
Americans and terrorize the Lebanese into submission.
As for his problems at home — Assad imprisons any Syrian engineer with the
temerity to point out that by exporting cotton Syria is effectively
exporting water. Assad doesn't fear that his regime will collapse under the
weight of five decades of Ba'athist economic imbecility. He is banking on
the US and Europe saving him from the consequences of his own incompetence
through economic handouts; by turning a blind eye to his continued economic
exploitation of Lebanon; and perhaps by coercing Israel into surrendering
the Golan Heights.
The same of course can be said of the Palestinians. Actually, the case of
the Palestinians is even more extraordinary. From 1967 through 1987 — when
through their violent uprising they decided to cut their economy off from
Israel's — Palestinian economic growth in Gaza, Judea and Samaria rose by
double digits every year. Indeed, while linked to Israel's, the Palestinian
economy was the fourth fastest growing economy in the world. But since 1994
when the PLO took over, although the Palestinians have become the largest
per capita foreign aid recipients in recorded history, the Palestinian
economy has contracted on a per capita basis.
The one sure-fire path to economic growth and prosperity is for the
Palestinians to reintegrate their economy with Israel's. But to do this,
they must first end their involvement in terrorism and open their economy to
free market forces and the transparency and rule of law and protection for
property rights that form the foundations of those forces. The very notion
of doing so however, is considered so radical that supposedly moderate,
pro-peace and free market friendly Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayad
rejected the economic peace plan put forward by Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu out of hand. After all how can the Palestinians accept free market
forces when it means that - horror of horrors - Jews might buy and sell land
and other resources?
The Palestinians and the Syrians are not alone. From Egypt to Saudi Arabia
to Pakistan and Indonesia, the Arab and Muslim world has preferred poverty
and economic backwardness to the prosperity that would come from engaging
Israel. They prefer their staunch rejection of Israel and hatred of Jews and
the economic stagnation this involves to the prosperity and political
freedom and stability that would come from an acceptance of Israel.
As American economic and technology guru George Gilder puts it in his new
Book, "The Israel Test"
, "The test of a culture is what it accomplishes in
advancing the human cause - what it creates rather than what it claims."
Gilder's book is a unique and necessary contribution to the current
international debate about the Middle East. Rather than concentrate solely
on Arab claims from Israel as most writers do, Gilder turns his attention to
what the nations of the region create. Specifically, he shows that only
Israel creates wealth through creativity and innovation and that today
Israel is contributing more to the human cause through its scientific,
technological and financial advances than any other country in the world
except the US.
The Israel Test describes in riveting detail both the massive
contributions of mainly Diaspora Jews to the US victories in World War II
and the Cold War and to the scientific revolutions of the 20th century that
set the foundations for the computer age, and the massive contributions of
Israeli Jews to the digital revolution that defines and shapes our economic
realities today.
But before Gilder begins to describe these great Jewish contributions to the
global economy and the general wellbeing of people around the world, he
asserts that the future of the world will be determined by its treatment of
Israel. As he puts it, "The central issue in international politics,
dividing the world into two fractious armies, is the tiny state of Israel."
In his view, "Israel defines a line of demarcation," between those who pass
and those who fail what he refers to as "the Israel test."
Gilder poses the test to his readers by asking them a few questions: "What
is your attitude toward people who excel you in the creation of wealth or in
other accomplishment? Do you aspire to their excellence, or do you seethe at
it? Do you admire and celebrate exceptional achievement or do you impugn it
and seek to tear it down?"
By his telling, the future of civilization will be determined by how the
nations of the world - and particularly, how the American people - answer
these questions.
Gilder's book is valuable on its own accord. I personally learned an
enormous amount about Israel's pioneering role in the information economy.
Beyond that, it provides a stunning rebuttal to the central arguments of the
other major book that has been written about Israel and the Arabs in the US
in recent years.
Steve Walt and John Mearshimer's The Israel Lobby has two central
arguments. First they argue that Israel has little value as an ally to the
US. Second, they assert that given Israel's worthlessness to the US, the
only reasonable explanation of why Americans overwhelmingly support Israel
is that they have been manipulated by a conspiracy of Jewish organizations
and Jewish-owned and controlled media and financial outlets. In their view,
the nefarious Jewish-controlled forces have bamboozled the American people
into believing that Israel is important to them and even a kindred nation to
the US.
Gilder blows both arguments out of the water without even directly engaging
them or noting Israel's singular contributions to US intelligence and
military prowess. Instead, he demonstrates that Israel is an indispensable
motor for the US economy, which in turn is the principal driver of US power
globally. Much of Silicon Valley's economic prowess is founded on
technologies made in Israel. Everything from the microchip to the cellphone
has either been made in Israel or by Israelis in Silicon Valley.
It is Gilder's own admiration for Israel's exceptional achievements that
puts paid Walt and Mearshimer's second argument. There is something
distinctively American in his enthusiasm for Israel's innovative genius.
From America's earliest beginnings, the American character has been imbued
with an admiration for achievement. As a nation, Americans have always
passed Gilder's "Israel test".
Taken together with the other reasons for American support for Israel —
particularly religious affinity for the people of the Bible — Gilder's book
shows that the American and Israeli people are indeed natural friends and
allies bound together by their exceptionalism which motivates them to strive
for excellence and progress to the benefit of all mankind.
Today Americans commemorate the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Those attacks were the greatest confrontation to date between American
exceptionalism and Islamist nihilism. On this day, Gilder's book serves as a
reminder of what makes the US and its exceptional ally Israel worth
defending at all costs. "The Israel Test" also teaches us that so long as we
keep faith with ourselves, we will not be alone in our fight against
barbarism and hatred, and inevitably, we will emerge the victors in this
bitter fight.
Interested in a private Judaic studies instructor — for free? Let us know by clicking here.
JWR contributor Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. Comment by clicking here.
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