Over the past few years I have had the
privilege of writing regularly for What
Where When. I appreciate the fact that I have had a lot of latitude in
expressing my opinions – which, sometimes, some readers find objectionable. In
this month’s letters to the editor, Ken Saks wrote a very reasonable rebuttal
to some things I said in last month’s article, contrasting the Reagan
administration with the Obama/Biden years.
Ken’s letter [see Letters to the Editor] was carefully crafted and
well written. Therefore, I felt that I needed to respond in a similar manner,
appreciating the fact that he and I may not agree, but we can engage each other
respectfully.
Regarding Ken’s first point that Reagan’s decision to bomb Libya
in 1986 “was a message that didn’t take” because two years later Gaddafi was
behind the terrorist bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie Scotland, I
strongly disagree with his conclusion.
Yes, it is true that Gaddafi was behind Lockerbie, but Reagan’s
decision to respond to Libya with overwhelming force in 1986 when U.S.
interests were threatened did, in my view, send a message to Gaddafi and other
bad actors that, if directly threatened, the U.S. would respond with tremendous
firepower. Neither Ken nor I know the reason Gaddafi was subdued for two years
and eight months (April 1986 to December 1988) after the U.S. attack, but I do
believe that the reason for that period of relative calm was because an
important message was sent to, and received by, the nations of the world –
including Libya – regarding U.S. resolve. It is impossible to calculate what
evil Gaddafi intentions might have been thwarted by Reagan’s decision in the 32
months prior to Lockerbie.
The problem when dealing with terrorism is that it is a cancer
that can never be fully eradicated. When one tumor is removed, another forms.
Sadly, that is the current reality with the Gaza war. The cancer has
metastasized, so that, even if we can subdue Hamas, the Islamofacists are
constantly creating new cancer cells. As a result, our only option is to
regularly target the symptoms in the hope that we can neutralize the immediate
tumor while preparing for the next one. Tragically, most of the Western World,
including the U.S., is blissfully unaware or cognitively dissonant about the
Islamofacist malignancies which are now rapidly growing and spreading
throughout their societies. New “tumors” have developed and have metastasized
on university campuses. Due to the tepid response to the Islamofacist-inspired
campus takeovers, the cancer will continue to spread unchecked well beyond the
universities.
Rather than me responding to Ken’s other points, I decided to
reprint two editorials from the Wall
Street Journal which address his concerns. The first editorial (from May
10) was written by Michael Singh, who is the managing director of the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The second piece (from April 17) is
by Daniel Henninger, one of the editors of the Journal.
* *
*
On Israel, Biden Is No Reagan
The Current President’s Arms
Embargo Is a Betrayal and Puts the Jewish State in Much Greater Danger
by Michael Singh
Defenders of President Biden’s
decision to halt weapons shipments to Israel amid its war against Hamas have
invoked a Washington “gotcha” – Mr. Biden is simply doing what Ronald Reagan
did on more than one occasion. The comparison doesn’t hold up.
Superficially, the parallels
between the U.S.-Israel relationship in the early 1980s and today may appear
compelling. Reagan and Prime Minister Menachem Begin got along no better than
Mr. Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu. Then, as now, the deeper U.S.-Israeli
differences were strategic. The Reagan administration fumed at Israeli actions,
often taken with little advance notice to Washington, that it felt put U.S.
interests in jeopardy by risking war and the revival of Soviet influence in the
Arab world. Reagan suspended the delivery of F-16s twice in 1981 and again in
early 1983, the last in response to Israel’s intervention in Lebanon, siege of
Beirut, and rejection of the “Reagan plan” for Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Mr. Biden seeks to stymie
Israel’s plan to attack Rafah, Hamas’s last bastion and also the refuge for
upward of one million displaced Palestinians. The president worries about the
humanitarian consequences and no doubt is concerned that backlash in the Arab
world would wreck any remaining chances for Saudi-Israeli normalization and
play into China’s hands.
Yet the profound differences
between the early 1980s and now outweigh the similarities. Israel’s
justification for intervening in Lebanon was an attempt on the life of the
Israeli ambassador to the U.K. The intervention was the culmination of years of
tension between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, Syria, and
their various Lebanese allies. The present-day conflict in Gaza, in contrast,
was triggered by the worst terrorist attack on Israel in its history – one that
was unprovoked and utterly depraved, and that followed a period of
U.S.-Israeli-Arab coordination on Gaza.
Unlike Reagan, Mr. Biden is
reversing policy and betraying a pledge of support. Reagan made his opposition
clear before Israel’s intervention in Lebanon. Secretary of State Alexander
Haig told Begin, “If you move, you move alone.” Mr. Biden expressed strong
support for Israel’s aims in Gaza until the going got tough for him,
domestically as well as internationally.
Reagan’s suspension of F-16
deliveries was largely symbolic. It didn’t hamper the Jewish state’s ability to
prosecute its war, as the Pentagon continued delivering missiles for Israel’s
existing fighters. Mr. Biden’s action could prevent Israel from taking Rafah or
even applying meaningful military pressure on Hamas in hopes of securing a
hostage deal – which may prolong the war further.
Reagan faced more international
pressure than Mr. Biden does to keep his distance from Israel. In the 1980s,
the Arab world (and much of Washington’s national-security establishment) was
deeply anti-Israel. Today, the Abraham Accords have survived the fighting in
Gaza, and Saudi Arabia remains interested in normalization with Israel despite
the conflict.
Yet the greatest difference may
lie in the nature of the U.S.-Israel relationship. In the early 1980s, it had
long been described as “special” but was seen as rooted in history and morality
rather than truly strategic. Reagan is remembered as having been among America’s
most pro-Israel presidents because he institutionalized the U.S.-Israel
relationship. It was on his watch that regular military and economic aid to
Israel began, that the first U.S.-Israel strategic memorandum of understanding
was signed, and that the close coordination we now take for granted was set in
motion.
Under Reagan, the U.S. learned
that these mechanisms of partnership – rather than threats and punishments – were
our most effective tools for shaping Israeli policies. This is the lesson and
the legacy that Mr. Biden ignores, to America’s peril as well as Israel’s.
* * *
Ronald Reagan Just Saved Israel from Iran’s Attack
In 1986, Sen. Joe Biden mocked
as “reckless” the idea of defending against ballistic missiles
by Daniel Henninger
Allow me to identify who saved
the people of Israel last weekend from Iran’s missile barrage: Ronald Reagan.
In 1983, President Reagan, in a
televised speech, proposed what he called the Strategic Defense Initiative
(SDI). Its core idea was that the U.S. would build defense systems that could
shoot down nuclear-armed ballistic missiles, then expected to be fired by the
Soviet Union at the U.S. mainland.
Democrats and much of the
defense establishment mocked the idea, with Sen. Ted Kennedy naming it “Star
Wars.” Sen. Joe Biden summed up the opposition in a 1986 speech to the National
Press Club: “Star Wars represents a fundamental assault on the concepts,
alliances, and arms-control agreements that have buttressed American security
for several decades, and the president’s continued adherence to it constitutes
one of the most reckless and irresponsible acts in the history of modern
statecraft.”
By universal acclamation, the
hero of last weekend was Israel’s missile-defense systems. The world watched in
real time Saturday night as Reagan’s commitment to shooting down missiles
protected Israel’s population from the more than 300 drones and ballistic and
cruise missiles fired by Iran and its proxies at cities across Israel.
No nation more quickly
recognized the necessity of missile defenses than Israel, a small,
population-packed country that couldn’t afford the conceit of some U.S.
politicians, then and today, that the American landmass is somehow safe from
missile attacks. Within two years of Reagan’s announcement, Israel signed a
memorandum of understanding with the U.S. to develop missile defenses. The
fruits of that four-decade partnership couldn’t be clearer.
Though the U.S. didn’t develop
a space-based system, the technology has enabled an arsenal of ground-, air-
and sea-based interceptors. Israel – with a capable scientific establishment
dedicated to the country’s survival – developed a multilayered missile-defense
system. Iron Dome protects from short-range missiles of the sort fired from
Lebanon by Hezbollah, which reportedly possesses more than 100,000 missiles and
rockets of Iranian, Russian, and Chinese origin. David’s Sling protects from
short-to-medium-range missiles, while the Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 systems hit
missiles at high altitudes.
Reagan’s experience with the Strategic Defense Initiative has
lessons for the U.S. today, with the unmissable irony that ardent SDI foe Joe
Biden is pocketing its political benefit this week.
Among the arguments against Reagan’s missile-defense plan was that
it would “provoke a response” from the Soviets. SDI’s development got bogged
down in the politics of arms-control negotiations between the U.S. and USSR.
Reagan’s critics, including a virtual media consensus, said SDI would make our
own nuclear-missile arsenal less vulnerable, increasing the Soviet Union’s
incentive to launch a pre-emptive first strike. Reagan insisted he wasn’t
trying to protect missiles but the U.S. population.
If we have learned anything the past three years, it is that Mr.
Biden is saturated in the don’t-provoke-a-response school of foreign policy. He
says Israel should “take the win” because retaliation risks provoking a wider
war.
Shortly after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Mr. Biden allowed
the expiration of a 2015 United Nations Security Council resolution prohibiting
Iran from exporting missile and drone technology. However symbolic the
resolution, the mullahs couldn’t have missed Mr. Biden’s stand-back approach.
From the day Russia invaded Ukraine, Mr. Biden has slow-walked
sending military technology to Kyiv – long-range missiles, Patriot air-defense
systems, tanks, fighter jets – for fear it would provoke Vladimir Putin.
Mr. Biden said he’d provide Ukraine with “whatever it takes, as
long as it takes.” If he’d done that sooner than later, the technology-savvy
Ukrainians could have avoided a frozen conflict, and their support likely
wouldn’t be stalled by Republican opposition in the House.
The Ukraine trench-war conflict, with Mr. Putin sacrificing
Russian men on a massive scale, is likely an anomaly. More relevant to the
future of war is the calculation by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
that missiles will be the great equalizer, as Yemen’s ragtag Houthis have
proved in the Red Sea.
By happenstance, the House Armed Services Committee held a hearing
on U.S. missile defense Friday, hours before Iran launched its attack. The
committee members, both Republicans and Democrats, had a prescient complaint,
asking Pentagon officials about America’s underinvestment in its defense
industrial base and why the Biden defense budget would cut some $400 million
from the Missile Defense Agency. “I just don’t understand the rationale behind
many of these cuts,” Rep. Seth Moulton (D., Mass.) said. It’s harder to
understand this week.
Reagan’s missile-defense legacy does have an important advocate:
Donald Trump. As president in 2019, Mr. Trump revived the U.S. missile-defense
program, and he restated that commitment, citing Reagan, during this year’s New
Hampshire primary.
Mr. Biden deserves credit for helping Israel repel Iran’s missiles
and drones. It’s clear, though, that the world has entered a new era of
state-sponsored missile attacks – first Russia into Ukraine and now Iran’s
swarmed assault on Israel. To meet that threat, Mr. Biden would have to admit
Reagan was right. That isn’t going to happen.
Once again, I appreciate Ken’s comments, and I hope that we can
agree to disagree.
* * *
I Go to London
I just returned from London, where I was speaking for JLE (The
Jewish Learning Exchange), which has its main building on Golders Green Road.
For those of you who have not been to London, the Northern Suburbs of Hendon,
Temple Fortune, Golders Green, and Stamford Hill are very accommodating to
religious Jews. Golders Green features every kind of kosher cuisine and
numerous kosher markets, bakeries, and stores. On this trip I was very
impressed by a large sign on the window of a bakery/sandwich shop. It said “NHS
(National Health Service) workers, police officers, Hatzalah members, and firefighters
ALL receive 30% off in this shop.”
London still has Bobbies who walk foot patrols in pairs throughout
the city. Two, clearly non-Jewish Bobbies, were in front of me in the sandwich
shop. When their order was handed to them, the clerk added an extra bag of
pastries with a note attached to it. The note said, “Our community appreciates
you.” The cops smiled and said, “Thank you so much; we appreciate you, too.”
Often the little things are the big things. I’m glad I witnessed that feel-good
moment.
Nowadays, when I’m in London, I appreciate certain things that I
used to take for granted. For instance, I often patronize Boots Chemists (the
equivalent of Walgreens or CVS in the U.S.). There is a Boots on Golders Green
Road. When I entered the store last week, it hit me. The shelves were stocked,
and neither my deodorant nor my shampoo were locked up. That’s because, even
though London is basically a Liberal city, they haven’t legalized shoplifting.
Can you imagine?! That’s right, shoplifters get arrested. Wow! Isn’t that a
novel concept? (Maybe some day, the Liberal cities and counties in the U.S.
will catch on, but I’m not holding my breath!) In fact, many UK shops set out
their wares on the street, in front of their businesses, and people pick up
various items and bring them to the cashier in the store. I doubt that would
work out well in America’s woke-run cities, which embrace crime and criminals
at the expense of their victims.
One Golders Green shop, which puts items on ‘street display’ is a
wonderful little bookstore called The Book Warehouse. As I stroll along, I
always glance at their “used treasures.” I almost always find something
interesting. This time, for just two pounds, I picked up a copy of Churchill Speaks. It contains many of
his well-known, and lesser-known quips. The man was a genius. Listed below are
some of his lesser known, thought-provoking observations, which are as relevant
today as they were 80 years ago!
·
Victory at all costs, victory in spite of terror, victory however
long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.
·
Virtuous motives, trammeled by inertia and timidity, are no match
for armed and resolute wickedness.
·
The price of greatness is responsibility.
·
Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities – because
it is the quality that guarantees all others.
·
Sure I am of this: you must endure to conquer.
·
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile – hoping that it will eat
him last.
·
I thought he was a man of promise; but it appears he is a man of
promises.
·
He has, more than any other man, the gift of compressing the
largest number of words into the smallest amount of thought.
·
The only guide to a man is his conscience; his only shield is the
rectitude and sincerity of his actions.
·
It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.
·
Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without
result.
·
My most brilliant achievement was to persuade my wife to marry me.
·
So they go on, in strange paradox, deciding only to be undecided,
resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful
to be impotent.
·
If the present tries to sit in judgment of the past, it will lose
the future.
·
Attitude is the little thing that makes a big difference.
·
A nation that forgets its past has no future.
·
It is a fine thing to be honest, but it is also very important to
be right.
Shavuos Memories
I was in London during the Lag B’Omer weekend with a Shabbaton and
celebration. There is something about the counting of days and weeks leading up
to Shavuos that has become more meaningful to me as I have gotten older. I no
longer think that I have plenty of time. Time is a limited commodity. We either
use it or lose it. It is a blessing when we can count each day and make each
day count!
It doesn’t seem so long ago that I sat, in a smoke-filled Beis Hamedrush,
learning with my chaver Shlomo
Blickstein as Shavuos night passed quickly into day. As we commemorate Matan Torah (the gift of the Torah) on
Shavuos, I am so grateful to those special teachers and role models who
introduced me to Hashem’s Torah when I was a young teenager. In assessing the
days of my years, I cannot imagine how different my life would have been had I
not been privileged to become one of NCSY’s early successes.
Twenty-four years ago, just after Shavuos, I came to Baltimore
from Cape Town with my wife Arleeta to visit family. I called Rabbi Herman Neuberger,
zt”l, and he invited me to come to
his apartment on Yeshiva Lane at midnight. He said, “Things usually wind down
by then.” I revere Rabbi Neuberger and consider him to be one of the post-World
War II gedolim. His brilliant
insights and sage advice guided thousands of individuals and dozens of
important organizations, schools, and yeshivas over the years while he was
building Ner Yisroel. I asked Rabbi Neuberger if he minded if I came with my
son Doniel, a talmid of Rav Yaakov
Weinberg, zt”l. Doniel was at that
time on the faculty and part of the staff of Beth Tfiloh. Rabbi Neuberger’s
response was, “Of course.”
I don’t recall all of the details of our conversation that night,
but two points remain fresh in my memory. The first point referenced my efforts
in my shul in Cape Town and Doniel’s efforts at Beth Tfiloh. Rabbi Neuberger
said, “You can achieve a great deal if you don’t need to take the credit.” That
was Rabbi Neuberger’s hallmark. He accomplished great things but never needed
or sought credit for his efforts.
The second point was about wealth: specifically that some people
have physical wealth and others have spiritual wealth. A select few have both.
He said, “The greatest wealth comes from having children and grandchildren who
are committed to Torah and mitzvos. Over many years, I have met lots of people
with material wealth who are unsettled and unhappy and many others who have
little materially but possess the “greatest wealth” as defined by Rabbi
Neuberger. Shavuos is a good time to consider acquiring and building real
wealth.
May Hashem have mercy on His children and bless them with safety,
health, wellbeing – and peace. Chag same’ach!
