Damning Israel, filling a need, making a name and not infrequently a fortune, is rooted in the Old Testament. A pagan prophet by the name of Balaam was the blueprint. Paid to curse the nation he stood atop a hill and eyed the vast Israelite encampment in the Negev desert, and he uttered words about Jewish destiny. In the year 2026 in November Balaam’s eerie vision was fulfilled.
As I see them from the mountain tops,
Gaze on them from the heights,
Behold it is a people that dwells alone,
Not reckoned among the nations. (Num. 23:9)
Two political upheavals in one week elbowed Israel to the cusp of not being reckoned among the nations. Expulsion into the wilderness beckoned, perhaps for the Jews to “carry the tale of human fate" - how the historian Barbara Tuchman foresaw their ordained purpose.
Kicking off the week with a shocker, President Trump heralded the end to Israel acting the part of "America's unsinkable Aircraft Carrier in the Middle East". For half a century advocates of strategic ties with Israel have seen it that way. A US intelligence chief said of the alliance that, “America’s military defence capability owes more to Israeli intelligence input than to any other source of intelligence, and Israel’s Mossad value is worth more than five C.I.A.s".
The catchphrase about the “aircraft carrier" neatly underscored Israel as a powerful and reliable military ally saving America in terms of troops and military hardware stationed in the region.
The year 2026 saw Donald Trump’s war on Iran transform that metaphor into reality. The US deployed attack aircraft to Israel. THAAD batteries helped defend Israeli airspace. US aerial refuelling tankers operated from the country. It tracked Iranian launch sites and projectiles to alert Israeli defence systems. And after Iranian attacks exposed American bases in the Gulf, where did the Pentagon move military hardware to handle the problem? Why, to Israel of course.
But where is the “unsinkable aircraft carrier" now that Trump is in retreat? “Weighing anchor" most likely and focusing no more on MAGA but on Israel. Born in fury it survives in lightning.
A week ago Israelis awoke from a nightmare and understood it was real. Overnight the Democrats had demolished Trump’s MAGA reign. Foreign Secretary Marco Rubio glared at the Blue wave bloodbath and called it for what it was, “A GOP extinction level event."
Military aid and strategic co-ordination will be early casualties, and “What ifs" come into play.
What if the U S resumes the anti-Israel route taken by Obama and Biden, or even worse by Europe? Newly elected Senator Abdul Mohamed El-Sayed represents the unapologetic hatred of Israel now entrenched in Washington.
Aside from weapons delivery to Israel, who knows if there won’t be visa problems and sanctioning of Jewish residents of the so-called “West Bank" and trade bans on Israeli “occupied territories" and hate-driven punishment of all sorts.
Nothing can be ruled out. Truth to tell, the interests of Washington and Jerusalem always did have compatibility issues. These can only get worse now that radicals are ready to ride their hobby horses to the hilt. Because, as Michael Oren put it, “For Democrat and Republican alike the issue is not what Israel does but who we are-in their eyes, an illegitimate colonialist state guilty of apartheid and genocide."
Israelis will be in turmoil at the prospect of the superpower disengaging from their tinderbox region. What will be with the unfinished business on Iran? Can Israel on its own prevent a crazed regime from breaking out with The Bomb?
The rout of the GOP has immeasurably revived Iran whose regime hailed the Dems’ landslide victory with glee.
“Iranian Leaders Cheer Trump’s ‘Political Defeat’ as Republicans Blame War for Midterm Losses" crowed a Time headline. The report continued in that vein.
“The Iranian nation handed Trump a strategic defeat on the battlefield," Mohsen Rezaei, head of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council, posted on social media. The process of the US collapse has accelerated," wrote Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei."
Iran’s Foreign Ministry dressed down the US President for dragging his country into what it called,
“The unlawful and atrocious war against Iran. Your calculations failed, your assumptions collapsed, and your strategic misjudgements became painfully evident. The American people have now sent you a clear message. Yet, if you continue to disregard reality, dismiss the lessons of history, and persist in this dangerous course, the consequences of this grave miscalculation will extend far beyond what you have already witnessed."
All told, Operation Epic Fury and Operation Roaring Lion may as well have not happened when we look at the Mullahs crowing like roosters.
And what will be at world forums without the US veto on Israel’s behalf? And then there is Marco Rubio: will Rubio exit the plan to dismantle The Hague’s ICC, the brazen pro-Hamas court.
Not to mention Trump’s defeat pulling the rug from under the Likud bloc. What renewed domestic division might that stir? Already opposing blocs are digging their finger nails into Netanyahu. "The results of the US midterm elections reveal just how toxic Netanyahu has become, both among Democrats and Republicans".
Making him blameworthy for the Republican’s defeat rings the antisemitic bell that blames Jews for getting America into one more endless military escapade.
But what are the chances of Israel emerging better off? Perhaps a lame duck US President will be a blessing in disguise. Why not, considering how adroitly Israeli leaders have coped under conditions of radical uncertainty. Of what big story may the latest developments be a part?
Amy Chua’s book Political Tribes shows what happens when decision makers fail to understand the situation. She documents America’s military disasters from Vietnam to Iraq because policy makers failed to comprehend tribal societies. Iran fits the pattern. War cannot be used to run the murderous IRGC to ground and wait for a liberal democracy to fall into place.
Ignoring such a fundament of history and human nature was bound to prolong the war on Iran, wasting a trillion dollars, weakening respect for America, without reckoning Iranian civilians bearing the terrible brunt.
It is not the most comfortable fate to be “a people that dwells alone". Adaptable Israel however ought to have no problem meeting it head on.
A version of the article appeared in https://spectator.org/trumps-defeat-and-israels-dangerous-new-reality-does-israel-now-dwell-alone/