Israel could be forgiven for having a siege mentality \u2014 given that at any moment, old frontline enemies Syria and Egypt might spill their violence over common borders.![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/2694124784_9314ff7113.jpg?resize=300%2C210&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\n
The Arab Spring has thrown Israel\u2019s once-predictable adversaries into the chaotic state of a Sudan or Somalia. The old understandings between Jerusalem and the Assad and Mubarak kleptocracies seem in limbo.<\/p>\n
Yet these tragic Arab revolutions swirling around Israel are paradoxically aiding it, both strategically and politically \u2014 well beyond just the erosion of conventional Arab military strength.<\/p>\n
In terms of realpolitik, anti-Israeli authoritarians are fighting to the death against anti-Israeli insurgents and terrorists. Each is doing more damage to the other than Israel ever could \u2014 and in an unprecedented, grotesque fashion. Who now is gassing Arab innocents? Shooting Arab civilians in the streets? Rounding up and executing Arab civilians? Blowing up Arab houses? Answer: either Arab dictators or radical Islamists.<\/p>\n
The old nexus of radical Islamic terror of the last three decades is unraveling. With a wink and a nod, Arab dictatorships routinely subsidized Islamic terrorists to divert popular anger away from their own failures to the West or Israel. In the deal, terrorists got money and sanctuary. The Arab Street blamed others for their own government-inflicted miseries. And thieving authoritarians posed as Islam\u2019s popular champions.<\/p>\n
But now, terrorists have turned on their dictator sponsors. And even the most ardent Middle East conspiracy theorists are having troubling blaming the United States and Israel.<\/p>\n
Secretary of State John Kerry is still beating last century\u2019s dead horse of a \u201ccomprehensive Middle East peace.\u201d But does Kerry\u2019s calcified diplomacy really assume that a peace agreement involving Israel would stop the ethnic cleansing of Egypt\u2019s Coptic Christians? Does Israel have anything to do with Assad\u2019s alleged gassing of his own people?<\/p>\n
There are other losers as well. Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan wanted to turn a once-secular Turkish democracy into a neo-Ottoman Islamist sultanate, with grand dreams of eastern-Mediterranean hegemony. His selling point to former Ottoman Arab subjects was often a virulent anti-Semitism. Suddenly, Turkey became one of Israel\u2019s worst enemies and the Obama administration\u2019s best friends.<\/p>\n
Yet if Erdogan has charmed President Obama, he has alienated almost everyone in the Middle East. Islamists such as former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi felt that Erdogan was a fickle and opportunistic conniver. The Gulf monarchies believed that he was a troublemaker who wanted to supplant their influence. Neither the Europeans nor the Russians trust him. The result is that Erdogan\u2019s loud anti-Israeli foreign policy is increasingly irrelevant.<\/p>\n
The oil-rich sheikhdoms of the Persian Gulf once funded terrorists on the West Bank, but they are now fueling the secular military in Egypt. In Syria they are searching to find some third alternative to Assad\u2019s Alawite regime and its al-Qaeda enemies. For the moment, oddly, the Middle East foreign policy of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the other oil monarchies dovetails with Israel\u2019s: Predictable Sunni-Arab nationalism is preferable to one-vote, one-time Islamist radicals.<\/p>\n
Israel no doubt prefers that the Arab world liberalize and embrace constitutional government. Yet the current bloodletting lends credence to Israel\u2019s ancient complaints that it never had a constitutional or lawful partner in peace negotiations.<\/p>\n
In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak\u2019s corrupt dictatorship is gone. His radical Muslim Brotherhood successors were worse and are also gone. The military dictatorship that followed both is no more legitimate than either. In these cycles of revolution, the one common denominator is an absence of constitutional government.<\/p>\n
In Syria, there never was a moderate middle. Take your pick between the murderous Shiite-backed Assad dictatorship or radical Sunni Islamists. In Libya, the choice degenerated to Moammar Qaddafi\u2019s unhinged dictatorship or the tribal militias that overthrew it. Let us hope that one day westernized moderate democracy might prevail. But that moment seems a long way off.<\/p>\n
What do the Egyptian military, the French in Mali, Americans at home, the Russians, the Gulf monarchies, persecuted Middle Eastern Christians, and the reformers of the Arab Spring all have in common? Like Israel, they are all fighting Islamic-inspired fanaticism. And most of them, like Israel, are opposed to the idea of a nuclear Iran.<\/p>\n
In comparison with the ruined economies of the Arab Spring \u2014 tourism shattered, exports nonexistent, and billions of dollars in infrastructure lost through unending violence \u2014 Israel is an atoll of prosperity and stability. Factor in its recent huge gas and oil finds in the eastern Mediterranean, and it may soon become another Kuwait or Qatar, but with a real economy beyond its booming petroleum exports.<\/p>\n
Israel had nothing to do with either the Arab Spring or its failure. The irony is that surviving embarrassed Arab regimes now share the same concerns with\u00a0the Israelis. In short, the more violent and chaotic the Middle East becomes, the more secure and exceptional Israel appears.<\/p>\n
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His new book,<\/em>\u00a0The Savior Generals<\/a>,<\/em><\/span>\u00a0is just out from Bloomsbury Books.<\/em>\u00a0You can reach him by e-mailing<\/em>\u00a0author@victorhanson.com<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n \u00a9 2013 Tribune Media Services, Inc<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Israel’s enemies are doing more damage to each other than Israel ever could. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online Israel could be forgiven for having a siege mentality \u2014 given that at any moment, old frontline enemies Syria and Egypt might spill their violence over common borders. The Arab Spring has thrown Israel\u2019s once-predictable […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[97],"tags":[366,119,255,1027,1062,162,1038],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1Fh","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2010,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/can-israel-survive\/","url_meta":{"origin":6403,"position":0},"title":"Can Israel Survive?","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 26, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Will Israel survive? That question hasn\u2019t really been asked since 1967. Then, a far weaker Israel was surrounded on all sides by Arab dictatorships that were equipped with sophisticated weapons from their nuclear patron, the Soviet Union. But now, things are far worse\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Israel"","block_context":{"text":"Israel","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/israel\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1681,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/whats-happening-with-israel\/","url_meta":{"origin":6403,"position":1},"title":"What’s Happening with Israel?","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 26, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Current American relations with our once-staunch ally Israel are at their lowest ebb in the last 50 years. The Obama administration seems as angry at the building of Jewish apartments in Jerusalem as it is intent on reaching out to Iran and Syria,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "April 2010"","block_context":{"text":"April 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/april-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9704,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-resilience-of-israel\/","url_meta":{"origin":6403,"position":2},"title":"The Resilience of Israel","author":"Megan Ring","date":"January 5, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review Despite the mess around it, Israel is in its best geostrategic position in decades. Israel would seem to be in a disastrous position, given the inevitable nuclear capabilities of Iran and the recent deterioration of its relationship with the United States, its former patron\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Russia"","block_context":{"text":"Russia","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/europe\/russia\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7637,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/moral-equivalence-moral-idiocy\/","url_meta":{"origin":6403,"position":3},"title":"Moral Equivalence, Moral Idiocy","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 8, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce Thornton \/\/ FrontPage Magazine Scenes all too familiar from the Arab conflict with Israel have followed the murder last Wednesday of a 16-year-old Palestinian, Mohammed Abu Khdeir. Mourners at his funeral\u00a0chanting the Muslim war-cry \u201cAllahu Akbar\u201d as they carry the boy\u2019s\u00a0open coffin, the crowd shouting slogans like \u201cIntifada\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Middle East"","block_context":{"text":"The Middle East","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/6b682571-56c4-4ad7-adc6-c762abf878af-620x372.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3734,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/israel-did-it\/","url_meta":{"origin":6403,"position":4},"title":"Israel Did it!","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 15, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"When in doubt, shout about Israel. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online These are strange times. Perennially beleaguered Israel, for instance, was hit all summer long with rockets from Lebanon and Gaza, as the world watched and kept score in an absurd new game of proportionality: Israel was to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "December 2006"","block_context":{"text":"December 2006","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2006\/december-2006\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5049,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/history-calling\/","url_meta":{"origin":6403,"position":5},"title":"History Calling","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 1, 2002","format":false,"excerpt":"A Review of\u00a0Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Michael B. Oren Oxford. 419 pp. $30.00 ISRAEL WON two conflicts with its\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Reviews","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6403"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6403"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6409,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6403\/revisions\/6409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}