Sheldon: Iran’s Best Friend
APRIL 5, 2014
Commentary on this article by William O. Beeman
Tom Friedman's characterization of Iran's current
attitude toward Israel is both crude and inaccurate. Iran has never threatened
to "destroy Israel." This is a piece of cant that has been repeated
so often that it constitutes "truth by repetition." Mr. Friedman's
piece uses a cheap rhetorical ploy to make his point. It is indeed
"cute" to juxtapose Adelson and Iran and thus play to mistaken
cultural stereotypes.
Iran has championed the Palestinians and their mistreatment by Israel. It has also defended the Shi'a population in Southern Lebanon that has been attacked in over-the-border raids by Israel in violation of international law. If Israel would resolve the Palestinian issue, Iran would gladly resume diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv, since Iran has no quarrel with the Israeli people, or indeed with Jews. It may be that Sheldon Adelson may destroy Israel by promoting crude right-wing politics directed at the Palestinians, but Iran would applaud the granting of equal rights and independence for Palestinians, and this would effectively end Iran's objections to Israel.
A final point: Iran conducts considerable sub rosa trade with Israel through third parties, and Iranian Jews (and indeed others) can travel to Israel via third countries. The large Iranian Jewish population in Israel are still Iranian identifying with Iranian culture and civilization. There is far more that unites Iranian and Israeli society, but the Palestinian issue is a continual obstacle.
Iran has championed the Palestinians and their mistreatment by Israel. It has also defended the Shi'a population in Southern Lebanon that has been attacked in over-the-border raids by Israel in violation of international law. If Israel would resolve the Palestinian issue, Iran would gladly resume diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv, since Iran has no quarrel with the Israeli people, or indeed with Jews. It may be that Sheldon Adelson may destroy Israel by promoting crude right-wing politics directed at the Palestinians, but Iran would applaud the granting of equal rights and independence for Palestinians, and this would effectively end Iran's objections to Israel.
A final point: Iran conducts considerable sub rosa trade with Israel through third parties, and Iranian Jews (and indeed others) can travel to Israel via third countries. The large Iranian Jewish population in Israel are still Iranian identifying with Iranian culture and civilization. There is far more that unites Iranian and Israeli society, but the Palestinian issue is a continual obstacle.
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IT occurred to me the other day that
the zealously pro-Israel billionaire Sheldon Adelson and Iran’s supreme leader,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, actually have one big thing in common. They are both
trying to destroy Israel. Adelson is doing it by loving Israel to death and Khamenei
by hating Israel to death. And now even Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey
inadvertently got drawn into this craziness.
What’s the logic? Very simple.
Iran’s leaders want Israel destroyed but have no desire, in my view, to use a
nuclear bomb to do it. That would expose them to retaliation and sure death.
Their real strategy is more subtle: Do everything possible to ensure that
Israel remains in the “occupied territory,” as the U.S. State Department refers
to the West Bank, won by Israel in the 1967 war. By supporting Palestinian
militants dedicated to destroying any peace process, Tehran hopes to keep
Israel permanently mired in the West Bank and occupying 2.7 million
Palestinians, denying them any statehood and preventing the emergence of a
Palestinian state that might recognize Israel and live in peace alongside it.
The more Israel is stuck there, the more Palestinians and the world will demand
a “one-state solution,” with Palestinians given the right to vote.
The more
Israel resists that, the more isolated it becomes.
Iran and its ally Hamas have plenty
of evidence that this strategy is working: Israel’s 47-year-old occupation of
the West Bank has led it to build more settlements there and in doing so make
itself look like the most active colonial power on the planet today. The
350,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank reinforce that view by claiming their
presence in the West Bank is not about security but a divinely inspired project
to reunite the Jewish people with their biblical homeland.
The result is a growing movement on
college campuses and in international organizations to isolate and delegitimize
the Jewish state because of this occupation. This “B.D.S. movement” — to
boycott, divest from and sanction Israel — is gaining adherents not only among
non-Jews on American campuses but even within some Hillels, campus Jewish
centers.
Iran could not be happier. The more
Israel sinks into the West Bank, the more it is delegitimized and isolated, the
more the world focuses on Israel’s colonialism rather than Iran’s nuclear
enrichment, the more people call for a single democratic state in all of
historic Palestine.
And now Iran has an ally: Sheldon
Adelson — the foolhardy Las Vegas casino magnate and crude right-wing,
pro-Israel extremist. Adelson gave away some $100 million in the last
presidential campaign to fund Republican candidates, with several priorities in
mind: that they delegitimize the Palestinians and that they avoid any reference
to the West Bank as “occupied territories” and any notion that the U.S. should
pressure Israel to trade land for peace there. Both Newt Gingrich and Mitt
Romney took the money and played by Sheldon’s rules.
In case you missed it, the R.J.C.,
the Republican Jewish Coalition, held a retreat last weekend at an Adelson casino
in Las Vegas. It was dubbed “the Sheldon Primary.” Republicans lined up to
compete for Adelson’s blessing and money, or as Politico put it: “Adelson
summoned [Jeb] Bush and Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey, John Kasich of Ohio
and Scott Walker of Wisconsin to Las Vegas. ... The new big-money political
landscape — in which a handful of donors can dramatically alter a campaign with
just a check or two — explains both the eagerness of busy governors to make
pilgrimages to Las Vegas, and the obsession with divining Adelson’s 2016
leanings.”
Adelson personifies everything that
is poisoning our democracy and Israel’s today — swaggering oligarchs, using
huge sums of money to try to bend each system to their will.
Christie, in his speech, referred to
the West Bank as “occupied territories” — as any knowledgeable American leader
would. This, Politico said, “set off murmurs in the crowd.” Some Republican
Jews explained to Christie after he finished that he had made a terrible faux
pas. (He called something by its true name and in the way the U.S. government
always has!) The West Bank should be called “disputed territories” or “Judea
and Samaria,” the way hard-line Jews prefer. So, Politico reported, Christie
hastily arranged a meeting with Adelson to explain that he misspoke and that he
was a true friend of Israel. “The New Jersey governor apologized in a private
meeting in the casino mogul’s Venetian office shortly afterward,” Politico
reported. It said Adelson “accepted” Christie’s “explanation” and “quick apology.”
Read that sentence over and
contemplate it.
I don’t know if Israel has a
Palestinian partner for a secure withdrawal from the West Bank, or ever will.
But I know this: If Israel wants to remain a Jewish, democratic state, it
should be doing everything it can to nurture such a partner or acting
unilaterally to get out. Because, I’m certain that when reports about the
“Adelson primary” reached the desk of Supreme Leader Khamenei in Tehran, a big
smile crossed his face and he said to his aides: “May Allah grant Sheldon a
long life. Everything is going according to plan.”
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