Jan. 5, 2017

Kerry’s Attack on Israel – Prof. Hillel Frisch (Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies-Bar-Ilan University)

• In U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent speech, he sounded like the European leaders who reflexively condemn Israel. Kerry noted that the U.S. had concluded an “historic” $38 billion military aid agreement with Israel, but he neglected to mention that most of those funds will go to meet the dangers of an aggressive Iranian policy.
• Tehran has been emboldened by a $50-100 billion windfall resulting from the unfreezing of its assets in Western capitals. Israel knows that much of that windfall will be used to buy Russian state-of-the-art air defense systems that will make it much more difficult for Israel to attack Iran when it goes nuclear (which it inevitably will).
• In Syria, President Vladimir Putin, the leader of a country with less than half the population of the U.S. and one-tenth its GDP, has led a winning Russian-Iranian-Syrian coalition against an ineffectual U.S.
• In shedding tears over the Palestinians’ plight, Kerry cannot dispel the truth that life expectancy in Gaza is a respectable 75 years – far higher than that enjoyed by one-third of humanity. Fifteen thousand Gazans have received critical medical care in Israel’s hospitals, just as they receive Israeli electricity (for which they rarely pay).

  The writer is a senior research associate at the BESA Center and a professor of Middle East studies at Bar-Ilan University.