Israel is also Fighting America’s Battles

The rising threat of Islamic terrorism on the U.S. mainland, in pro-U.S. Arab regimes and in Western countries has reaffirmed Israel’s role as the U.S.’s moral and ‎military outpost in the Middle East.‎

Israel’s strategic role has gained importance against the backdrop of the U.S. ‎withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, the drastic cuts in the U.S. defense budget, the ‎resulting erosion of the U.S. posture of deterrence, the collapse of Europe’s ‎power projection, the raging Arab tsunami, growing anti-U.S. ‎sentiments on the Arab street and the unprecedented Islamic threats to vital U.S. ‎economic and national security interests. ‎

In 2014, Israel is facing terrorism from both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. The ‎latter is a subsidiary of the transnational Muslim Brotherhood, which has terrorized ‎pro-U.S. Arab regimes in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Jordan and ‎Egypt, upholding the five-pillar banner: “Allah is our objective; the Quran is the constitution; the prophet is our leader; jihad is our way; death for the sake of Allah is ‎our wish.” ‎

These Arab countries realized that Israel was fighting their battle for them during the ‎recent war in Gaza, so they overtly criticized Hamas and subtly supported Israel. According ‎to The Yemen Times: “The Saudi king, Abdullah, attacked unnamed ‘traitor terrorists,’ ‎who sully the name of Islam … implying that he viewed Hamas as much of a terrorist ‎group as the Islamic State. … The so-called ‘Arab moderates’ have become even more ‎blatant in their U.S.-Israel alignment … with a vulgar anti-Palestinian position.” ‎

According to Dr. Mira Tzoreff of the Dayan Center for Middle East Studies, “The ‎sympathetic opinions voiced in Egypt’s state-run media regarding Israel’s posture ‎towards Hamas — even before the 2014 war in Gaza — were unprecedented. … ‎[Egyptian] President [Abdel-Fattah el-] Sissi believes that Hamas was responsible for attacks on Egyptian military ‎and security personnel in the Sinai Peninsula.”

The Saudi daily Al Arabiya ‎reported that hundreds of Egyptian soldiers have been killed in Sinai by Ansar Beit al-Maqdis’ jihadist terrorists — associated with ISIS, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood ‎‎– since June 2014. CNN claims that Israel is fighting a proxy war against Hamas, ‎advancing the homeland security interests of Jordan and the Gulf States.‎

In 2014, the eyes of the pro-U.S. Arab regimes are upon Israel and its war on Islamic ‎terrorism.

In 2014, Israel is facing Hamas, one of the numerous offshoots of the Muslim ‎Brotherhood, which has been the most productive incubator of Islamic terror ‎organizations, such as al-Qaida, Islamic Jihad, the Nusra Front, ‎Ahrar ash-‎Sham, Abdullah ‎Azzam Brigades, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, Ansar al-Shariah, Taliban, Nigeria’s Boko ‎Haram, etc. These terror organizations strive to establish an Islamic Middle East ‎empire, as a prelude to global domination, bringing the U.S. and the Western world to ‎social, political and military submission, governed by the laws of Islam. ‎

Irrespective of the Palestinian issue, Israel (the “Little Satan”) has been a major ‎obstacle standing in the way of megalomaniacal Islamic imperialism, clipping the wings of terrorism and thereby ‎enhancing the homeland security of pro-U.S. Arab regimes. Meanwhile, according the U.S. (the ‎‎”Big Satan”), Israel is also a reliable beachhead in the economically and militarily critical Middle ‎East.‎

In 2014, U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq benefit from Israel’s battle experience in general, and its counter-terrorism and urban warfare experience in particular. In 2007, ‎Israel demolished a Syrian-Iranian-North Korean nuclear reactor. In 1982, Israel ‎destroyed 20 advanced Syrian-operated Soviet surface-to-air missile batteries, deployed throughout the world and deemed impregnable by the U.S. ‎

Israel’s unique battle tactics were promptly shared with the U.S. Air Force, enhancing ‎the U.S.’s military edge over Moscow. In 1981, Israel devastated Iraq’s nuclear reactor, ‎sparing the U.S. a nuclear confrontation with Iraq in 1991. On July 4, 1976, Israel’s ‎Entebbe hostage rescue operation was a turning point in the battle against Islamic ‎terrorism, inspiring Western democracies and dealing a blow to America’s enemies.

In 1973, in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War against Soviet-‎aligned Egypt and Syria, Israel shared with the U.S. its battle experience, as well as ‎captured Soviet military systems, which provided the U.S. military command and ‎defense industries with a global competitive edge. In 1970, Israel’s military forced ‎pro-Soviet Syria to roll back its invasion of pro-U.S. Jordan in efforts to topple ‎the Hashemite regime. They surged into Saudi Arabia, affording the USSR a dramatic ‎triumph and dealing the U.S. an unprecedented economic and national security blow.

‎In 1967, Israel obliterated the military forces of Syria and Egypt, aborting an attempt ‎by the pro-Soviet Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, to bring down pro-U.S. Persian Gulf ‎regimes, control the supply and price of oil, dominate the Arab world and provide ‎Moscow with a historical victory. In November 1952, following Israel’s ‎performance during the 1948-49 War of Independence, General Omar Bradley, the ‎U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, proposed to expand strategic cooperation ‎with Israel, only to be rebuffed by the State Department, which was Arab-‎oriented, denying the U.S. a more effective outpost in the Middle East. ‎

In 2014, the U.S. faces a most vicious Islamic terrorist threat, which benefits from ‎hundreds of sleeper cells on the U.S. mainland, is not amenable to peaceful ‎coexistence and is not driven by the Palestinian issue, but by a 14-century-old ‎intolerant violent Islamic ideology. It behooves the U.S. to learn from history by ‎avoiding, rather than repeating, past mistakes; enhancing — rather than eroding — the ‎mutually beneficial ties with its most stable, reliable, effective, experienced, ‎democratic and unconditional ally, Israel.‎

By: Yoram Ettinger