Syria has Christian-majority provinces, has Christian festivals as public holidays, and is the latest beneficiary of President Obama’s restoration of a conservative foreign policy that recalls Eisenhower’s even-handedness between Israel and the Palestinians, and Nixon’s ending of the Vietnam War while pursuing détente with China.
First Iran, against which there will certainly not now be a war unless Israel has her own, on her own. Then Russia, clutched to the bosom as the Western country that she is. Then China, no attempt to secede from which now stands a hope in hell, which fact is a direct challenge to China to make herself fit to reincorporate Taiwan. And now Syria.
After all, what is the alternative? Who wants to back Netanyahu, never mind Lieberman? Certainly no one in Middle America, where they flocked to the first electorally realistic candidate in heaven knows how long to offer no blank cheque to the Israelis no matter whom they elected or how those elected then behaved.
As Israel becomes ever more Levantine, making this latest cry of Ashkenazi secular nationalism look like the last gasp of Ashkenazi secular nationalism, the pivotal role of Syria becomes even more apparent than it always was. Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip may or may not ever end up as a single country. Probably, they will not. But they are already well on the way to reverting to their historical norm as a single entity, community, or what you will, of Muslims, Christians, Jews (concentrated, as ever, in what is now Israel) and others, with Arabic as its lingua franca.
And with its de facto capital at Damascus.
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And, the evidence for your views?
ReplyDeleteThe outcome of the election, the conduct of the administration, and the demographic reality in the Levant.
ReplyDeleteEven Hillary Clinton gave an interview to the BBC today in which she went on and on about how important good relations with Iran and Syria (and Russia) were. She didn't even mention Israel.