Thursday, January 22, 2015

Correctly identifying the enemy

Even taking US House Speaker John Boehner's invitation to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress next month at face value (as opposed to a geopolitical stunt), it's preposterous --

I am asking the Prime Minister to address Congress on the grave threats radical Islam and Iran pose to our security and way of life. 

One issue being: what expertise does Netanyahu have on radical Islam? Whatever threat is coming from Gaza and the West Bank, it's as much to do with Palestinian nationalism as Islam. Hezbollah emerged as a response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and al Qaeda-linked terrorism has afflicted Arab countries orders of magnitude more than it has Israel. Even the al Qaeda terrorists on Israel's doorstep in the Golan Heights have conspicuously avoided attacking Israel. Since all these facts reflect long-standing features of Israel's position in the Middle East, it's not clear what PM Netanyahu can add to a discussion of them.