Erratic, irrational and unconstrained: What a second Trump term would mean for America’s foreign policy

August 02, 2023
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This article was first published in The Hill on August 2, 2023.  Click Here to read the original article.

The Republican Party could well nominate a convicted felon for president in 2024, given the interplay between Donald Trump’s burgeoning criminal-trial docket and the party’s presidential-selection schedule. Still worse for the country, the felon might actually be elected, despite his prior Oval Office record proving him unfit to set national security policy.

That unappealing prospect warrants intense scrutiny of Trump’s foreign-affairs proclivities, whatever their role in the campaign. If he wins, the implications are enormous. What would a second Trump term hold?

The critical point, one America’s political class still has trouble grasping, is that Trump has neither philosophy nor policies. As president and candidate, his decisions and statements constitute what I’ve called an archipelago of dots, unconnected by chords of logic, salience or results. Trump knew little about international geopolitics upon taking office in 2017, and learned little during his term or thereafter.

Trump’s approach to decision making verges on incoherence. Systematic consideration of the pros and cons of various policy options is rarely his chosen approach. Some issues he considers only glancingly. Others, like international trade, where he believes himself expert, he considers ad nauseum, in endless, repetitive meetings, sometimes reaffirming his earlier conclusions, other times not.

Moreover, Trump presents a classic example of susceptibility to listening to the last person in the door, which itself encourages presidential advisors, members of Congress, political allies and outside interest groups to disrupt orderly decision making lest they be outmaneuvered.

Indeed, Trump disdains knowledge, seeing relations between the United States and foreign lands, especially our adversaries, predominantly as matters of personality: How is his relationship with Vladimir Putin or Kim Jung Un or others? If personal relations are good, Trump believes that country-to-country relations are good. In a recent interview, for instance, Trump said of Xi Jinping: “Central casting. Brilliant guy. You know, when I say he’s brilliant, everyone says, ‘oh, that’s terrible’ … Well, he runs 1.4 billion people with an iron fist. Smart, brilliant, everything perfect. There’s nobody in Hollywood like this guy.”

Trump’s regard for authoritarian rulers has been widely noted but remains inexplicable in a U.S. president. Perhaps Trump admires the powers dictators possess, which he lacks, but the admiration is not reciprocal. He may have fallen in love with Kim Jung Un, for example, but Kim, as cold-blooded as they come, has almost certainly not fallen for him. Foreign leaders, friend or foe, are far more likely see him as ignorant, inexperienced, braggadocious, longing to be one of the big boys and eminently susceptible to flattery. These characteristics were a constant source of risk in Trump’s first term, and would be again in a second term.

Anxious to justify Trump’s erratic behavior, supporters argue a version of the “madman” theory, where seemingly irrational actions strengthen Trump’s hand. In both game theory and reality, choosing seemingly weak options can sometimes, ironically, be advantageous. Take the game of “chicken.” One player can rip out his car’s steering wheel, proving clearly he cannot swerve away from a road’s center line, and thereby signal not just an unwillingness but an inability to turn “chicken.” Think of Richard Nixon telling Henry Kissinger to advise North Vietnam it should accept a U.S. position because otherwise “crazy Nixon” might react belligerently.

“Crazy Nixon’s” credibility, however, rested on his long history of anti-communism. Trump has no history of any principled behavior, so he is simply threatening unpredictably. Unpredictability operationally may surprise an enemy, but unpredictable policy moves only convince the enemy Trump doesn’t know what he’s doing. Moreover, policy shocks confound and dismay our allies, which rely on steady, consistent American leadership, even if they are loathe to admit it. Strategizing can be complicated, but Trump and his supporters reduce it to bumper-sticker-level thinking, reflecting that, yet again, that Trump is in over his head.

Beyond acting on inadequate information, reflection or discussion, Trump is also feckless even after making decisions. When things go wrong, or when he simply changes his mind subsequently (a common occurrence), he invariably tries to distance himself from his own decision, fearing negative media coverage or political criticism. Former Joint Chiefs Chairman Joe Dunford once said cogently: “I just want the president to own it.”

Taking responsibility for mistakes, which all executives make, is central to effective leadership. The willingness to acknowledge error distinguishes great leaders from failures and cowards. It is no accident Dwight Eisenhower prepared a statement for release had the D-Day landings failed, reading in part: “If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone.” It is inconceivable Trump would ever utter such words.

Finally, for constitutional reasons, no one can accurately predict a second Trump term, on national-security or otherwise. The Twenty-Second Amendment bars a third term, freeing him from any reelection worries or constraints. From Inauguration Day on, Trump would be in legacy-building territory, always treacherous ground. Given his preternatural concern with his personal image (leaving other politicians, or even movie stars, far behind), Trump’s potential to make stunning policy reversals, at times not even realizing it, is boundless.

It is not merely possible but likely that hard-core supporters will be appalled, and hard-core opponents breathless, at Trump’s new second-term directions. Thus, despite increasing defense spending in his first term, Trump could freeze or slash military budgets next time. He thought he could negotiate lower prices than Pentagon officials, such as reducing Boeing’s price for replacement Air Force Ones. He would have preferred to spend more building his Mexico-border wall or civilian infrastructure projects. There is thus no guarantee defense spending in a second Trump term would be anywhere near adequate. Unburdened even by wisps of philosophy or consistency, varying day-by-day on how he sees his legacy, Trump will be something to watch.

Substantive philosophy and policy have been largely ignored in this analysis, because they are largely ignored by Trump. Beyond any doubt, that void remains the most important point to understand about a second Trump term. As before, it will be all about himself.

Biden hurt America AND Israel in bashing Bibi’s judicial reforms

July 30, 2023
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This article was first published in The NY Post on July 30, 2023.  Click Here to read the original article.

For both America and Israel, President Joe Biden was wrong to intervene in the contentious debate over Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s proposed judicial reforms.
Biden’s spokeswoman criticized Netanyahu, saying it was “unfortunate” he pushed change through Israel’s Knesset “with the slimmest possible majority.”
Biden was mistaken for several reasons.

First, his opinions will have no effect inside Israel, except perhaps hardening already deeply divided viewpoints even further, thereby impeding formation of the “consensus” he says he wants.

This is nothing but virtue signaling, aimed more at Biden’s own domestic constituency than anything else.

And if he had bothered to consider American history, he would know that many historically significant US statutes passed with narrow majorities.
Second, facts matter. Not to be picky, but the Knesset vote was not the “slimmest possible majority.”

Netanyahu’s government has 64 seats of 120, so 61 votes is the thinnest majority, assuming all members vote. Biden’s spokesperson claimed that Israel’s reforms were being pushed through by a government “with the slimmest possible majority.”

Given Israel’s incredibly divided electorate, reflected in multiple recent elections, a 64-vote majority is quite comfortable. Government must go on.

Third, if Biden were truly interested in the security of Israel’s democracy, he should have critiqued the tactics of reform opponents.

Armed-forces reservists, openly proclaiming they were acting as reservists, threatened not to report for their military duty if ordered should the legislation be enacted.

Israel’s judicial reform of its courts’ unchecked power is not as radical as activists would have you believe. This is explicitly undemocratic.

Certainly, in free societies, reservists in their civilian capacity can hold whatever opinions they like and speak, demonstrate and petition the government to advance those views.
Invoking their reserve military status to do so, however, is deeply illegitimate. The phrase “military coup” comes to mind.

While force of arms was not present here, Israel’s precarious place in a dangerous neighborhood means that threatening to withhold military force to defend the country is just as dangerous.

It is fatuous to say, as did some reservists, that they were not advancing political views, just concerns about the future of Israel’s democracy.

The mechanisms of government are the most important political questions of all, and the reservists, acting qua reservists, behaved undemocratically.

Fourth, Biden was disingenuous. While criticizing Netanyahu on a procedural issue, the president’s real focus was the proposed legislation’s substance.

The measure prohibits Israel’s courts from deploying the “reasonableness doctrine” to invalidate government decisions.

“Reasonableness” is a long-standing common-law standard for judging fault or liability in civil or criminal cases, but it is a far different proposition when judges purport to consider invalidating government actions.

At a government-policy level, whether considering executive actions or acts of legislation, “reasonableness” is an inherently nonjudicial standard, a matter of personal political opinion.

Executive officials and legislators are held accountable to their fellow citizens through elections because they necessarily assess the “reasonableness” of possible courses of action.

It is entirely inappropriate for unaccountable judges to make such decisions.
If judges think their personal views are superior, they should leave the courts and run for elective office.

Fifth, it is no answer to say that Knesset majorities need a check because Israel’s parliamentary system does not split legislative from executive power and does not have a written constitution.

Significant, only in recent decades have its courts wielded the “reasonableness doctrine” extensively, giving rise to the inference that when founded in 1948 and for years thereafter, no one anticipated the Supreme Court would assume its current role.

Netanyahu snubs Biden, limits power of Israeli courts despite protests
The real problem, another target of Netanyahu’s reforms, is the self-perpetuating nature of Israel’s Supreme Court.

How would Biden’s US supporters feel if, starting immediately, our Supreme Court picked its own successors?

That would be undemocratic, as Israel’s judicial-selection process is.

Jerusalem’s democratic deficit can be fixed in many ways, and it turns the definition of democracy upside down to argue that affording elected legislators a greater role is undemocratic.

Besides, Israel does have a constitution, an unwritten one, much like the United Kingdom.

Today, written constitutions around the world contain flowery language about citizens’ “rights” that mean absolutely nothing.

A written constitution would not inevitably be a panacea for Israeli divisions.

Clearly, the role of Israel’s judiciary in its vibrant democracy is contentious.
US officials who are real friends of Israel should contribute their thoughts quietly, behind the scenes.

Otherwise, Israeli officials may start commenting publicly on Hunter Biden’s plea deal.

NATO summit must focus on Moldova’s frozen conflict

July 11, 2023
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This article was first published in The Washington Examiner on July 11, 2023.  Click Here to read the original article.

NATO leaders meeting in Vilnius, Lithuania, this week have a full agenda of issues critical to the alliance’s future, notably Russia’s continuing war in Ukraine. That war’s outcome, however, affects all now-independent states of the former Soviet Union, perhaps none more directly than Moldova.

Moldova’s geography alone should have made it a far higher NATO priority, particularly after the Kremlin’s unprovoked aggression against Kyiv. Straddling the Dniester River and surrounded by Romania and Ukraine, Moldova embodies one of the still-unresolved “frozen conflicts” that emerged in 1991 upon the USSR’s collapse. Soviet troops on the Dniester’s eastern bank tried to prevent Moldovan independence, engineering the pretend country of “Transnistria,” comprising the sliver of land between Moldova proper and southwestern Ukraine.

The continuing presence of Russian forces in Transnistria, and Moscow’s ill-concealed political and economic support to Communists and Russian sympathizers have been cancers on Moldova ever since. Worse, although remaining Russian forces in Transnistria are modest in numbers, the potential exists to substantially increase those forces, augmented with weapons, delivery systems, and surveillance capabilities endangering both Moldova and Ukraine.

Other frozen conflicts exist across the former Soviet Union, but the Ukraine war means that today none are more potentially dangerous to NATO members, current and prospective. Simply glancing at a map shows the risk of Russia outflanking hard-pressed Ukrainian troops from the West. And bomber forces, drones, or long-range artillery deployed in Moldova would enormously complicate NATO efforts to aid Kyiv resist Moscow’s hegemonic aspirations.

Bluntly put, Moldova has had difficulty getting Washington’s full attention for over thirty years.

For decades after the USSR’s breakup, internal Moldovan politics, compounded by persistent Kremlin interference, made it impossible for its citizens to make clear their desire to unify the country under a constitutional, representative government, free from Moscow’s meddling. Russian machinations continue today, along with the seemingly endemic corruption plaguing many post-Communist states.

Pro-Western Moldovans have focused their attention internationally on joining the European Union, relying on Romania and other Eastern Europeans for support. NATO has not featured in internal political debates, undoubtedly because of Russia’s presence in Transnistria and the Kremlin’s active measure in domestic politics. However, Maia Sandu, Moldova’s current President, is now better positioned to campaign for its politico-military security due to the ongoing hostilities next door. What Sandu and her supporters need are clear indications that NATO, especially Washington, is prepared to be active in ending the country’s frozen conflict.

Moldova’s problems might have been resolved earlier if NATO had seized George W. Bush’s April 2008, proposal to bring Ukraine and Georgia quickly into the Alliance. When Germany and France stymied Bush’s initiative, NATO implicitly confirmed the existence of several grey zones between NATO’s eastern border and Russia. These grey zones in eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia allowed Russia to sustain existing frozen conflicts and create new ones (Georgia in 2008; Ukraine in 2014).

Had Ukraine joined NATO shortly after Bush’s proposal, there might never have been Russian aggression against it, in either 2014 or 2022. Finland’s and Sweden’s 2022 decisions to apply for NATO membership confirmed their realization that the only effective defense against Russia lay with joining the Alliance. Shielded behind Ukraine in NATO, Moldova might have resisted Russian political interference and escaped its frozen-conflict status.

That opportunity botched, today’s circumstances nonetheless provide a compelling reason for NATO itself to launch efforts to expel remaining Russian forces from Moldova and reduce Moscow’s political machinations, voluntarily or otherwise. As part of overall efforts to impose political and economic costs on Russia for invading Ukraine, reducing Russian influence elsewhere in the former Soviet Union should also be an objective. While Moscow’s remaining deployments in Transnistria and Transnistria’s own “military” are now small, the risk of those forces being augmented is considerable. The geostrategic reality for Moldova of Russian troops “behind” Ukrainian soldiers now engaged to the east adds compelling urgency to the West’s deliberations.

In Moldova, Moscow’s forces could be cut off from supplies fairly readily, given their separation from Russia, and other pressures could be brought to bear on Transnistria’s separatist authorities to accept a peaceful dissolution of their illegitimate government. Specific formulations to unwind Transnistria and transition to Moldova’s legitimate government may well prove complicated, but NATO need not now focus on the precise steps subsequently necessary. What we need from the Vilnius Summit is a determination to begin the process of closing out Moldova’s frozen conflict, removing Russian military forces, eliminating Russian political interference, and longer term, aiming for Moldovan NATO membership.

The key point is to act now before Moldova becomes a flashpoint, thereby also undermining Ukraine’s self-defense. Successfully pulling Moldova into the West would be a clear setback for Moscow, encouraging other former Soviet states that they, too, will not be left behind.

John Bolton served as national security adviser to President Donald Trump between 2018 and 2019. Between 2005 and 2006, he served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

America can’t permit Chinese military expansion in Cuba

July 01, 2023
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This article was first published in The Hill on July 1, 2023.  Click Here to read the original article.

Important historical events often get lost in the daily shuffle. Only last week, news of China building a “military training” facility in Cuba came just a day after Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s brief June 19 meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, which was touted as having stabilized Washington-Beijing relations.

Then President Biden weighed in, opining that Xi had been unaware of Beijing’s spy balloon over the United States, which reflected “a great embarrassment for dictators: when they didn’t know what happened.”

China answered angrily that Biden’s remarks were “extremely absurd and irresponsible”; sent in its Washington ambassador to protest; and read America’s ambassador in Beijing the riot act. Biden himself then said, modestly, that his comments hadn’t had “any real consequence.” Just another episode of Biden inadvertently speaking the truth (although what Xi really knew about the balloon remains unclear).

Of course, an attempted paramilitary coup against Russian President Vladimir Putin is an attention-grabber on any day, but when it comes to China, planning a military facility on Cuba’s north coast is far more important than rhetorical exchanges and uneventful diplomatic visits.

Even before Russia’s drama erupted, coverage of China’s “training” base all but disappeared, lost beneath the most recent example of Biden musings contradicting declared U.S. policy. Originally published by the Wall Street Journal, the “military training” story followed its reporting on China opening a new espionage center in Cuba.

The Biden administration initially denied that story, but then reversed itself, saying the spying base emerged under Donald Trump, likely supported by Huawei and ZTE.

The potential of significant Chinese facilities in Cuba is a red-flag threat to America. After the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, Washington relied on an “implicit understanding” (in Henry Kissinger’s words) with Moscow to reduce threats emanating from Cuba. Under this understanding, the USSR agreed not to place new offensive weapons or delivery systems in Cuba, and the U.S. agreed not to invade Cuba. Although severely tested by Soviet efforts to build a submarine base at Cienfuegos in 1970, the understanding has held. Moreover, in 2002, Russia closed its Lourdes intelligence base, greatly restricting its Cuban collection capabilities.

Between China and America, however, no such modus operandi has ever existed. Beijing made no commitment comparable to Moscow. Moreover, “military training” could well camouflage offensive weapons, delivery systems or other threatening capabilities.

For example, hypersonic cruise missiles, already harder to detect, track, and destroy than ballistic missiles, are natural candidates for installation in Cuba, a prospect we cannot tolerate, along with many other risks, like a Chinese submarine base. Beijing’s interests in Venezuela’s oil-and-gas assets, its support for Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s dictatorship, and its extensive mineral and other investments throughout Latin America could help make Cuba the center for China’s activities across the Hemisphere.

Beijing plainly deals with Havana as though it has no inhibitions. Neither should we. America should move immediately to thwart China’s intrusive ambitions. Revoking diplomatic relations with Cuba; increased economic sanctions against both China and Cuba; and far stricter implementation of existing sanctions, are required now. Although these steps have previously failed to overthrow Castro or his successors, prior measures were never backed, post-1962, by the possibility of using American force against the regime, assuming Moscow adhered to the “implicit understanding.” Moreover, the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion spooked U.S. officials, thereby ending significant planning for Cuban exile participation in regime-change efforts.

That was then. China’s intrusion into Cuba reflects a significant escalation in its hegemonic aspirations, equal to or graver than the 1960s Soviet presence. One thing is certain: We should not stand idly by. Had Presidents Eisenhower or Kennedy acted more forcefully and effectively against Castro, we might have avoided many perilous Cold War crises, sparing us decades of strategic concern, not to mention the repression of Cuba’s people.

As evidence grows that China is prepared to take full advantage of Cuba’s geographic proximity to America, we need to think again about whether and how to overthrow Havana’s post-Castro regime. With Beijing’s threat rising, we should not miss today’s moment without seriously reconsidering how to return this geographically critical island to its own people’s friendlier hands.

Both Havana and Beijing need to understand, without qualification, that they have no license to engage in behavior threatening the United States. We are bound by no commitment limiting our use of force. Just as Nixon properly blocked the Soviets at Cienfuegos, we should examine how to block construction of Chinese military facilities. Guantanamo Bay, for example, was never prepared as a staging ground for anti-Castro activities but remains fully available to us today.

Verbal sparring between Beijing and Washington, or even ominous developments in Russia, should not distract us from critical opportunities to preclude a rising Chinese threat centered in Cuba. If Biden won’t act, Republican candidates in 2024 should make China’s looming Cuba presence a major campaign issue.

Biden’s foolish rush to rejoin UNESCO has nothing to do with China

June 20, 2023
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This article was first published in The New York Post on June 20, 2023.  Click Here to read the original article.

Demonstrating yet again that it’s little more than Barack Obama’s third term, the Biden White House is once more pressing to rejoin the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

This ill-advised gambit will cost about $600 million, apparently just a rounding error for the administration’s budgeteers.

Ronald Reagan rightly withdrew the United States in 1983, citing UNESCO’s highly politicized hostility to freedom of the press and general anti-Americanism; pervasive antisemitism and anti-Israel biases; and utter lack of program and budget discipline.

UNESCO’s US supporters, almost all on the political left, launched a series of unsuccessful efforts to rejoin, repeatedly seeking a new pretext to end the horror of being outside a multilateral organization, no matter how failed and irreparable.

Unfortunately, they persuaded President George W. Bush to return, ostensibly to mitigate the bad press he received for conducting a “unilateralist” foreign policy. Of course, nothing of the sort happened.

With the unwitting Americans seduced back in, UNESCO’s true political agenda emerged under the Obama administration’s welcoming gaze.

In 2011, continuing its decades-long campaign to demonstrate international “statehood” by obtaining membership in UN bodies, the Palestinian Authority, heir to the Palestine Liberation Organization, applied to join UNESCO.

Obama’s support for Palestinian causes so weakened the US position that the PA/PLO’s illegitimate campaign succeeded.

At that point, however, Congress rigorously adhered to a statute (originating as an appropriations rider from then-Sen. Bob Kasten in 1990) prohibiting contributions to UN bodies that admit or increase the status of the PA/PLO, meaning that US “arrearages” began to accrue immediately.

Biden’s excuse for rejoining UNESCO is to counter rising Chinese influence.

The State Department argues, for example, that “we can’t afford to be absent any longer from one of the key fora in which standards around education for science and technology are set.”
This claim is entirely specious. There is little to no need for America to rejoin UNESCO to prevent harmful Chinese influence.

UNESCO “standards” for any sort of education are irrelevant, if not harmful to real education, as we’ve learned over many painful decades.

Even on accords in which UNESCO acts as depositary or assists in administrating a treaty, like the 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, America is typically a party to the agreement. So Washington can’t be excluded from any aspect of treaty affairs, whether or not America is inside UNESCO.

The broader issue of Chinese influence in the UN system turns on just how valuable that system is.

Chinese and Russian vetoes block effective action by the Security Council, as during the Cold War.

The UN General Assembly and Human Rights Council have also become essentially irrelevant, leaving only the question of which UN specialized and technical agencies are still worth protecting.

Some certainly are, such as the World Intellectual Property Organization and the International Maritime Organization.

But UNESCO, which never had a clearly defined mission, fails under any sensible cost-benefit analysis.

Biden is making precisely the same mistake as Obama, and, if Biden proceeds further, Congress should firmly block any UNESCO funding, as it has consistently done.
Although the administration obtained authority to waive the Kasten amendment in December 2022 (probably in the dark of night), appropriators can correct the mistake in the coming months.

House Appropriations Committee Republicans should lead the effort to defend taxpayer dollars by repealing this waiver. After all, it was passed in Nancy Pelosi’s waning days as speaker.

Not only that, House appropriators should make clear they will be scrutinizing Biden administration dealings with UNESCO and the UN system more broadly.

With the 2024 presidential campaign underway, moreover, none of the declared Republican candidates appears to support rejoining UNESCO.
Biden’s obsession with returning conveniently highlights several of his vulnerabilities, since basically only liberal Democratic elites care about rejoining. The overwhelming majority of Americans do not.

Make no mistake, UNESCO sees Washington as a spigot from which assessed contributions would flow regularly into its coffers and which Biden’s White House would turn to fully open.

Arguing that it’s trying to counter rising Chinese influence reveals the administration’s double standard on Beijing, given its craven efforts to “improve” relations with Beijing on climate-change issues and many others.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s recent meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping only underlines the need for real, not illusory, measures to counter Beijing.

Returning to UNESCO is a waste of time and money, not an effective riposte to China.

America’s one-nation military

June 19, 2023
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This article was first published in The Washington Examiner on June 19, 2023.  Click Here to read the original article.

On June 15, 1775, at the insistence of both John and Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, the Continental Congress approved George Washington to command the still-inchoate American military. Washington was well-prepared for the job, but the worrying lack of qualified competitors emphasized the enormous challenges facing the incipient Continental Army.

Beyond ability, Washington’s elevation rested on hard political logic. Arduously and carefully, New Englanders had been striving to forge a unified, national consciousness for independence. They recognized that many who shared their grievances against London were not yet ready for independence, and that time was not necessarily on their side.

Accordingly, to prepare to confront Great Britain’s world-class military, independence advocates wanted to ensure support throughout the colonies. With the Declaration then still a year away, they saw correctly that fashioning a “one nation” army (to paraphrase Benjamin Disraeli) was critical. Virginia’s Washington took command of New England troops surrounding Boston and spent the entire Revolution fashioning a national military. One profound success was ordering the inoculation of all soldiers who had never had smallpox, without exception.

The Constitution’s Framers, many having served in the Continental Army, well remembered the Revolution’s travails, with a barely working Continental Congress and recalcitrant state governors and militias. They cemented the concept of a national military, vesting commander in chief authority in the president, the first of whom they fully expected to be Washington. His 1796 Farewell Address summarized his strong dedication to a common identity: “The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations.”

Building a “one nation” military was a significant piece of the larger effort to keep the United States united, hopefully immunizing it from persistent foreign efforts to weaken and split it. Riven, however, by the intractable dispute over slavery, the project failed spectacularly, and the Civil War resulted. Almost all senior Confederate officers were formerly in the U.S. military, a disheartening, nearly fatal collapse in the national-unity effort. To see so many violate their oath of allegiance to the Constitution was searing proof of how badly divided the country was.

Since the Civil War, the United States has faced no political question so existential as slavery. The military has, with notable exceptions, tried to remain nonpolitical, so much so, for example, that General George C. Marshall never registered to vote. Today, however, the Pentagon is a battlefield in the ongoing cultural wars, every minute of which is detrimental not just to our military capabilities, but to the national unity that we have sought since the outset to embed in the uniformed services. Our contemporary concerns have little to do with explicit regional divisions, but with other differences equally dangerous to a “one nation” military.

“Wokeness” covers a broad category of bad ideas, but the most pernicious, in my view, is the deindividuation of America’s citizenry, identifying them not as themselves but as members of groups based on race, ethnicity, and gender. This self-described “identity politics” is fundamentally contrary to the concept of individual liberty, which rests on the proposition that every American citizen is unique.

Critically, however, the proper refutation to racial or other classifications should not itself increase the pressures toward more disunity. It is stunning that a Republican House member, who took an oath of office to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States,” could say, “We need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states.” Of course, one could easily imagine a similar statement from an equally unlettered counterpart on the other side of the aisle.

As profoundly discordant as wokeness is in civil society, it is far worse in the military, spreading dysfunction and disharmony among servicemembers whose duty is to defend the country, not to be laboratory specimens for social experimentation. To be sure, the military reflects society’s flaws in discrimination based on race and sex, but it had made enormous progress not by exacerbating differences, but by treating them as irrelevant and, indeed, potentially dangerous to its mission if mishandled.

Fortunately, we do not have to look far for a summary of what should comprise a “one nation” military. In a military recruiting pitch some years ago, President Joe Biden’s nominee as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, said:

“When I’m flying, I put my helmet on, my visor down, my mask up. You don’t know who I am — whether I’m African American, Asian American, Hispanic, White, male, or female. You just know I’m an American Airman, kicking your butt.”

If Brown is confirmed as chairman and adheres to that unmistakably “one nation” message, we may be on the road to recovery. If not, our adversaries will simply see a more-distracted and potentially divisible U.S. military.

Iran Exploits Biden’s Fecklessness

June 06, 2023
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Neglecting Gulf allies while trying to revive the nuclear deal is a recipe for regional instability.

This article was first published in The Wall Street Journal on June 6, 2023.  Click Here to read the original article.

Iran is steadily eviscerating the political and economic constraints the U.S. has marshalled against it. Tehran’s unprecedented coordination with the Beijing-Moscow axis has converged with President Biden’s apparent disdain for key Middle East allies, his obsession with reviving the 2015 nuclear deal and his lax sanctions enforcement. We now face geostrategic realignment and instability in the region as well as more terrorism and nuclear proliferation around the world.

Absent visible American resolve against Tehran’s nuclear program, the odds are increasing that, as Benjamin Netanyahu has always reserved as a last resort, Israel will act on its own. The White House response—suggesting closer U.S.-Israeli military cooperation—induces the queasy feeling that Mr. Biden is simply trying to get inside Israel’s decision-making loop to prevent an attack on Iran, not to aid it.

The alternative to force remains overthrowing the ayatollahs. Since Mahsa Amini’s murder in September 2022, opposition protests and renewed economic discontent have risen to potentially regime-threatening levels. Mr. Biden’s administration, however, has supported the dissidents with little but rhetoric. At a minimum, Washington must focus on the internal instability likely to unfold in Iran when Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is 84, dies. The moment could arrive unexpectedly, providing Iran’s citizens an opportunity to topple the regime and end its international barbarity.

During Mr. Biden’s term, America’s resistance to Iran’s proliferation and terrorism has become ineffective. The president couldn’t have more thoroughly alarmed and alienated the Gulf Arab states and Israel if he had planned it. The White House convinced regional allies that Mr. Biden was effectively abandoning them and empowering their enemies by ignoring concerns about the failed nuclear deal and the effect of ending sanctions. He also crusaded against hydrocarbon fuels—the heart of Gulf Arab economies—and denounced Saudi Arabia as a pariah for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

Continue reading on WSJ.com.

The G-7 Shows It Still Doesn’t Understand The China Threat

May 25, 2023
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The global West’s disarray only encourages Xi Jinping’s belligerent tendencies.

This article was first published in 1945 on May 25, 2023. Click Here to read the original article.

By John Bolton

Last Saturday, leaders of the G-7 nations meeting in Hiroshima issued a 40-page communique addressing, most importantly, their relations with China.

The communique was touted as demonstrating G-7 unity and strength against Beijing’s economic warfare, but the China language instead reflects disarray and incoherence.

Embarrassingly weak, for example, is the Taiwan passage.

It is essentially unchanged from recent G-7 statements, ignoring China’s rapidly rising menace during the same period. Similarly, the G-7 urged China to speak directly to Ukraine, but referred only to a peace “based on territorial integrity,” not on the full restoration of Ukraine’s sovereignty as well as its territorial integrity — a restoration all NATO members profess to support.

By resorting to bromides regarding both Taiwan and Ukraine, the leaders of the global West do precisely the opposite of what they intend: They reveal weakness rather than unity and strength. 

An Empty Slogan

The communique is weakest and least coherent on the G-7’s economic relationship with China, the very front where current Chinese efforts at regional and global hegemony are playing out. Instead of forthrightly confronting Beijing’s economic aggression, the Hiroshima document relies on a slogan, a sure signal of inadequate strategic substance. The communique adopts the mantra first unfurled by the European Union and quickly adopted by the Biden White House.

The slogan holds that the G-7 nations favor “derisking, not decoupling” their economies from China. This is a bumper sticker in search of a meaning, masking both the European Union’s flat unwillingness to acknowledge the Chinese threat, and significant policy disagreements and inadequacies within the G-7. It reflects not so much a failure of leadership in bringing along the lagging Europeans, but a collapse of U.S. resolve at the very outset.

The G-7 communique is quick to say, “we are not decoupling or turning inwards.” In fact, the concept of “decoupling” was always a straw man, an exaggeration implying near-cessation of business between China and the West. Deployed in America by those who overprize economic relations with Beijing — placing their importance above American national security — the term aimed to panic businesses and policymakers who were beginning to awaken to the re-emergence of significant international political risk. This “project fear” meaning of decoupling was never accurate.

Nor was “decoupling” ever seriously suggested in the sense of a government-mandated, latter-day industrial policy. Such an approach was no more likely to succeed than other industrial policies, which all rest on the assumption that politicians and government bureaucrats are better at making economic choices than markets. Existing levels of trade and investment between the global West and China are, for well or ill, too complex to believe that top-down government decision-making would lead to anything other than confusion and disorder.

Where government-directed decoupling is necessary, and should be expedited, is where it can eliminate dependency on goods and services that significantly impact U.S. national security. Both the Trump and Biden administrations have imposed significant sanctions on China in the high-tech field.

Europe trails far behind. France and Germany still see China almost exclusively through an economic prism, as repeatedly confirmed by statements from German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Even the United Kingdom is torn, with significant debate between the hawkish Conservative parliamentary party and a China-friendly Ten Downing Street.

China Decouples

The hollowness of the “derisking, not decoupling” mantra is most evident at the level of individual firms, which have no practical way to derisk without decoupling. They must either reduce capital investment, or at least not increase it; withhold intellectual property (at risk from decades of Chinese piracy); reduce supply-chain reliance; find other markets; or take other defensive measures, depending on the circumstances of the particular firm. Many companies are already deeply engaged in reducing or hedging their risks, but others are not. These latter may ultimately pay the greatest economic price for their lack of diligence.

In due time, the sum of national security prudence and businesses’ political-risk decisions will determine the extent of decoupling, not the G-7’s false dichotomy. 

Tellingly, China is already far along in decoupling from the West, preparing for future military conflict by reducing its dependence. In what should have been required reading for G-7 leaders at Hiroshima, Ross Babbage’s The Next Major War demonstrates what Beijing was doing while we slept. Babbage explains four decades of China’s policy of so-called dual circulation, or “two markets, two resources.” Beijing’s “domestic market [was] a resource to protect and insulate, while foreign markets were to be penetrated and exploited.” He quotes McKinsey’s conclusion that “‘China has been reducing its exposure to the world, while the world’s exposure to China has risen.’”

Poor Signals From the G-7

However, China was far from successful in insulating itself. Its dependence on massive energy imports and other raw materials remains a critical weakness — one very difficult for China to correct in the foreseeable future, given its lack of domestic mineral and hydrocarbon resources.

The global West is only belatedly grasping the extent of China’s theft of intellectual property, massive protectionism, and governmental subsidies. As the gauzy era of globalization dissipates, political risk has re-emerged as a central factor in international business, especially with China. Political risk is not and never was confined to the world’s economic fringes. Under Deng Xiaoping’s policy of “hide your capabilities and bide your time,” Beijing convinced too many Western politicians and businesses of the fantasy that China was little more than a pure economic play. This holiday from history is over, and China’s misdeeds and threats, politically, economically, and militarily, are increasingly evident.

G-7 meetings come and go, and their leaders’ statements fade quickly. The impression that will not fade after the Hiroshima summit, certainly not from the minds of policymakers in Beijing, is that the great industrial democracies are still divided and unsure about how to oppose China’s economic warfare against them. The global West’s disarray only encourages Xi Jinping’s belligerent tendencies.

Germany must step up to help Ukraine

May 22, 2023
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This article was first published in The Washington Examiner on May 22, 2023. Click Here to read the original article.

By John Bolton

Germany’s very public agonizing over whether to provide its Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, or allow other states that had purchased Leopard 2s to send theirs, graphically exposed Berlin’s continued confusion about its status as a NATO member. While there is momentary relief that, at last, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government committed to providing the armor Ukraine requested, it did so only after President Joe Biden also agreed to send roughly a battalion of America’s Abrams tanks. While Biden’s decision was correct on its own merits, it was hardly a matter of strategy and more a matter of horse-trading to persuade Berlin’s decidedly reluctant leadership.

Amid the illusory self-congratulation following the tank decision, a pattern that has characterized much of NATO’s response to Russia’s second invasion of Ukraine, a much larger problem lurks, one that only Germany’s citizens can resolve. Their reluctance to support a military capability appropriate to their country’s economic weight is uniformly expressed through the prism of the Nazi horror and the death and destruction wreaked upon Europe and the world until Adolf Hitler’s monstrous tyranny was crushed in 1945.

Shame and penance are appropriate and necessary reactions for any country electing leaders as Germany did. But there also comes a time when outsiders can legitimately ask that Germany behave as a responsible military ally while continuing to carry those burdens. The real question is whether Germany wants to be a full NATO ally or a doughnut hole in an otherwise strong alliance. Ukraine is as good an issue as any to leverage this decision.

Germany’s general unhelpfulness on Ukraine, often allied with France, which lacks Germany’s excuse, surfaced almost 15 years ago with Germany’s rejection of former President George W. Bush’s suggestion at the April 2008 NATO summit to put Ukraine and Georgia on a fast track to join the alliance. Unfortunately, Bush’s key insight — NATO membership was the most effective deterrent to Russia — was ignored, even derided.

By torpedoing Bush’s proposal, Berlin and Paris almost certainly contributed to Moscow’s decision to invade Georgia four months later and proclaim two provinces as “independent” countries, a classic manifestation of Moscow’s stratagem of creating “frozen conflicts” in former Soviet republics. When Russia then committed aggression against Ukraine in February 2014, annexing Crimea and seizing the Donbas, NATO collectively responded with pathetic weakness, undoubtedly contributing to the Kremlin’s assessment that a second invasion in 2022 would evoke an equally limp NATO response.

The importance of NATO membership as a deterrent has now been graphically proven by the Swedish and Finnish decisions to join the alliance after Russia’s second Ukraine invasion. Abandoning the foundational neutrality premise of their post-1945 foreign policies, Stockholm and Helsinki concluded that the only guarantee of impunity against Kremlin aggression was to put a sheltering NATO border around their countries. Undoubtedly, what was happening in Ukraine reminded them of the consequences of NATO rejecting Bush’s 2008 initiative.

Since Russia’s Feb. 24, 2022, invasion, there has been one disagreement after another within NATO on what weapons systems to provide Ukraine, with Germany almost always on the reluctant side, fearful of provoking a larger war, so its officials said. So doing, however, demonstrated that the Kremlin was effectively deterring NATO and underlined NATO’s failure to deter Russia’s initial aggression. Germany’s first assistance to Ukraine was 5,000 military helmets. Then-Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said, “The German government is agreed that we do not send lethal weapons to crisis areas because we don’t want to fuel the situation. We want to contribute in other ways.” Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko called the offer a “joke,” and it remains a paradigm of the doughnut hole approach. Moreover, Germany’s 2022 defense spending was 1.44% of GDP, still well below NATO’s target.

Berlin has a new defense minister, and Leopard 2 tanks are a step up. But Germany needs to make a broader conceptual decision. Japan shows a way forward. From the 1990s, there was a quiet but profound debate among the Japanese on the question, “Is Japan a normal nation?” That debate’s outcome was reflected in now-deceased Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s effort to amend Japan’s post-1945 pacifist constitution, imposed by Washington, and his successor Fumio Kishida’s recent announcement that Tokyo would double defense spending from 1% to 2% of GDP over five years, giving Japan the world’s third-largest military, after America and China. Japan has clearly decided it is, indeed, a normal nation.

Germany should have the same debate. In 1961, Ronald Reagan said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream.” Totalitarianism isn’t transmitted through the bloodstream any more than freedom. Nobody should forget Germany’s past, certainly not its own citizens, but neither is it ruled by that past. Germany must decide whether it is “a normal nation” and, if so, act like one.

How Lies became Facts: The Tantura “Massacre” is back in the Spotlight 

May 16, 2023
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By Meyrav Wurmser, Ph.D.

In the democratic West, dates have become cultural battlegrounds.  The debate over whether the true founding of the United States was in 1776, as we have been taught for centuries, or 1619, as is the current revisionist vogue, betrays a deeper political message.  The date sets the purpose of the United States either as the beginning of the modern free world (1776) or as a system which’s very essence was the hidden perpetuation of slavery and oppression (1619). The advocates of focusing on the latter date have one purpose in mind: the delegitimization of the United States and its system of free enterprise. A similar debate has also emerged over Israel’s creation and is symbolized best by the current controversy surrounding the “massacre of Tantura” in1948 by Israeli forces. 

Background

Legally, the historical attachment of the Jewish people to the land of Israel — a preexisting, indeed more ancient claim than any other modern nation — and their resurrection in that land as a modern nation is the foundation for Israel’s legitimacy as enshrined in the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the 1920 San Remo Conference and the 1922 League of nations Mandate for Palestine. The Jewish right to the land was thus not granted by the nations in the Mandate for Palestine – which still governs all legal aspects of the disposition of the land — but recognized as never having been broken for thousands of years.  The focus of this series of events, and the larger effort surrounding them, thus manifests the Zionist enterprise as an act of liberation and freedom. As such, nothing that transpired during Israel’s creation in 1948-9 during its War of Independence negates those legal aspects and changes Israel’s status from ancient nation resurrected to artificial nation built through colonialism.

And yet, there is a revisionist attempt to define Israel’s resurrection not as the return of an ancient nation, but a deliberate European colonial effort to disempower Arabs to establish a European bridgehead in the Middle East. The events of 1948 thus define a narrative of Israel’s illegitimacy. Revisionists provide an alternative recollection of events of 1948-9 – replete with such a level of mass expulsions, massacres, that they rise incontrovertibly to the level of a deliberate, ethnic cleansing campaign launched one-sidedly by European invaders (Jews). These vents, they argue, are in fact the more genuine expression of the character of the Zionist enterprise. The essence of Zionism is not liberation, but rather a genocidal and illegitimate effort focused on oppressing a native population. The original sins of Israel’s creation, thus, are not an aberration, but an inherent necessity in order to establish the primacy and victory of the colonial presence. This, 1948, not 1922, become the final word on its legitimacy and belie the modest and defensive claim of Zionism that it is just the return of a battered, massacred, and harassed indigenous people returning home to their only small corner on earth to live under their own sovereignty. 

Simply put, the battle of narratives over 1922 versus 1948 was symbolic of the larger debate over whether Israel’s creation is about oppressing Palestinians or liberating Jews.

Such an alternative narrative, of course, will need a historical narrative based exclusively on the sins of Israel’s creation in 1948 as a deliberate colonial venture focused on oppression rather than a narrative based on the foundations of Jewish history and the Zionist effort at nation building which culminating in the international decisions regulating the dissolution of the Ottoman empire which had controlled the area for a half-millennium and the liberation of the Jewish people. In the new narrative, 1948 was primarily, if not exclusively, about displacing and ethnically cleansing Arabs.

It is in this context – namely the effort to establish that the evils associated with Israel’s birth are so extensive that it proves the primary aim of Israel’s creation was primarily a colonial effort to disempower and displace Arabs, and not an act of resurrecting an ancient indigenous nation (Jews) — that the story of the “massacre of Tantura” emerges.

The “massacre of Tantura”

In 2022 the movie Tantura participated in the Utah Sundance Film Festival where it received high praises from both critics and audiences. The movie told the story of the battle of Tantura (today the area of Kibbutz Nachsholim and the ascended Dor beach) during Israel’s 1948 war of independence. According to the film, after conquering the village, the IDF’s Alexandroni Brigade soldiers massacred at least 40 (some argue 250) unarmed Arab civilians residing in Tantura.[1] Moreover, since this massacre was covered up, it invites suspicion that other similar incidents had also occurred in various other locations.  Indeed, these allegations darken Israel’s very creation and cover it a shroud of original sin.

The movie was produced by Adam Raz, a researcher at Akevot. According to NGO Monitor, Akevot, which is largely funded by the Swiss government, is dedicated to “breaking Israel’s founding narrative.”[2]  Fulfilling his institute’s mission, Raz described the film in an article by stating that “under the parking lot of one of the most familiar and beloved Israeli resort sites on the Mediterranean, lie the remains of the victims of one of the glaring massacres of the War of Independence.”[3]

Reviews of the movie praised it for unmasking the truth behind Israel’s so-called policy of “ethnic cleansing” at the time of its creation.[4]  These reviewers believed that this policy followed direct orders from Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion, who developed in 1948 a plan for the ethnic cleansing of the Arab population from Israel known in Hebrew as “Tochnit Dalet” (plan D). In other words, it is all part of a colonial master plan whose primary aim was oppression and displacement of the Arabs.

It is an intriguing story, and makes dramatic film, but was there, in fact, such a massacre?  Apart from staying true to historical accuracy and setting the record straight, such a question also has a larger policy aim: if Israel is covering up this massacre, how many others did it cover up?

Critics of the film argue that no massacre at all took place in Tantura. A leading voice among those was historian Benny Morris who wrote about it in an article published in Ha’aretz.[5]  Morris was himself identified as a leader of the school of history that tried to write more critically of Israel’s founding, a pioneer among the revisionist “new historians.” And yet, in this article Morris called the Tantura massacre a “fraudulent myth.” He argued that it was a fabrication created by Palestinian and pro-Palestinian historians in order to tarnish Israel’s image both internally and internationally. It made no sense, he wrote, that no Palestinian villager ever mentioned the massacre or reported rape. He compared the Tantura movie to nother modern movie, Mohammed Bakri’s film “Jenin, Jenin.” Bakri’s film was about the city of Jenin in northern Samaria (West Bank), in which an ostensible massacre of hundreds of Palestinians in Jenin during the Operation Defensive Shield in 2002 was executed by the Israeli army as it entered the Palestinian Authority in major anti-terror operation after the Park Hotel massacre in Netanya by Palestinian terrorists. The problem with the Jenin, Jenin story was that the massacre of Jenin, in which ostensibly over 200 hundred Palestinians were killed, was spun of whole cloth; there was no massacre. The movie about the alleged Tantura massacre was likewise no more than a sophisticated act of “historical distortion,” claimed Morris.

In a lengthy interview with the Times of Israel the film’s director, Alon Schwartz, insisted that the criticism of his film resulted not from the evidence that it was based on a historic fabrication, but rather because it unmasked the ugly truth behind the creation of the state of Israel. The Israeli people, he argued, were taught to believe in a lie: that the establishment of their country was not at the expense of the Arab population. They were told that the territory of present-day Israel was almost completely desolate. That it was a land without a people that was suitable for a people without land. According to Schwarz, “it is time to bring the difficult history relating to Israel’s creation to light; to bust the country’s founding myths, as painful as it might be.”[6]

The origins of the Tantura story

To get to the bottom of the matter, one must journey back in time to the origin of the story — to the first study or report that supposedly established dispassionately and precisely examined the existence of the hitherto unknown massacre. Although the events (not always the backstory or reasons, but certainly the actual facts) in the 1948-9 War of Independence was well documented, including the massacre of Deir Yassin, there is no reference to a massacre in Tantura, the later reported magnitude of which surpasses even the most famous “massacre” of Deir Yassin – which has never been denied by the Israelis. There were no contemporary reports – Israeli or Arab or third party – about any such a massacre in Tantura in 1948. 

The story of Tantura first gained prominence in 2000, after a Masters’ degree candidate at the University of Haifa, Teddy (Theodore) Katz, whose research was awarded the high grade of 97, told a reporter about his main findings. Katz’s thesis asserted that on May 22-23, during the 1948 war of independence, the Israeli Defense Forces had killed between 200-250 unarmed inhabitants of the Arab fishing village of Tantura. According to the thesis, this killing was in cold blood and occurred after the village surrendered. The findings were astonishing. No massacre had previously been recorded in Tantura; indeed, no massacre of such magnitude had been recorded in all of Israel’s history. 

The reporter published an account of the Tantura massacre in the leading Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv on January 21, 2000. Appalled veterans of the Alexandroni Brigade, the unit that had taken the village, sued Katz for libel, denying his account and asserting he had fabricated evidence. In contrast, leading figures in the Israeli peace camp made Katz’s defense their fund-raising cause du jour. The trial took place in Tel Aviv in December 2000. After two days’ cross-examination in court, Katz admitted he had fabricated the evidence of his thesis, and that the interviews upon which he claimed to base his findings never in fact happened, He agreed to sign a statement that nullified his research. In the statement, Katz admitted that “after checking and re-checking the evidence it is clear to me now, beyond any doubt, that there is no basis whatsoever for the allegation that the Alexandroni Brigade, or any other fighting unit of the Jewish forces, committed killing of people in Tantura after the village surrendered.” 

Katz had to sign this statement after the trial abundantly exposing the flimsiness or nonexistence of his evidence. To cite just a few examples, Katz quoted a surviving Arab villager, Abu Fahmi ‘Ali Daqnash, as saying that: “While this was happening soldiers with Bren machine guns walked on both sides and occasionally fired, therein killing and wounding [captured] adult males.” According to Katz, Abu Fahmi also said “they gathered all the inhabitants in the square, lined them up facing the wall and murdered them in cold blood. Some 95 persons were murdered. I wrote down their names.” But, as Benny Morris pointed out in his review of the case, none of this appears in the recording.[7]  Furthermore, even when Katz reportedly pressed the witness by saying in the recording, “clearly people were shot after they surrendered,” Abu Fahmi said “we did not see them killing after we raised our hands.”  Katz quoted another villager, Abu Riyaj Muhammad Hatzadiyah, as saying, “I know that they shot young people after the fighting and that there was a big slaughter in the village, even after everyone surrendered and stopped fighting.” No such statement appeared in either Katz’s recordings or his notes. Katz claimed that the witnesses made these statements after the batteries of his recording device ran out.

In the wake of this case, and after Katz’ admitted he had fabricated evidence, the University of Haifa suspended Katz’s degree, inviting him to revise his thesis.

Katz’s academic adviser was Dr. Ilan Pappé, one of the leading voices in a group of extreme far-left Israeli scholars who rose to prominence in the 1990’s and become known as post-Zionist. This group produced scholarly works that were critical of Israel and meant to delegitimize Zionism. The problem they faced was the lack of raw evidence from which to make the case that Zionism was an illegitimate political cause. For them Teddy Katz’s thesis provided the missing proof. 

Despite signing the statement in court, twelve hours later Katz formally retracted it and sought to continue the trial. When the judge refused, he appealed to the district’s high court, but the appeal was dismissed without a hearing. The prosecutor proceeded to urge Haifa University to strip Katz of his degree, whereupon the university set up two committees, one to check the accuracy of Katz’s research and the other to investigate whether his work had been properly supervised.

The first committee found that Katz had “gravely and severely” falsified testimony in 14 different places in his thesis. Nevertheless, Katz’s mentor and close associate, leading post-Zionist historian Ilan Pappe, continued to defend him. In an article in the Spring 2001 issue of the Journal of Palestine Studies, Pappe insisted that Katz’s conclusions were correct, even if his facts may not have been. Katz’s research was valuable regardless, Pappe wrote, since historical research need not be based on facts. In other words, the idea of “an approximate truth” of a narrative – a “truth” admittedly based not on facts but fiction – trumps the actual historical record based on facts. Katz, Pappe argued, had understood the “murkiness” of the memories of participants many years after traumatic events, but he “was not interested in fine details.” Pappe insisted that Katz simply wished to see the overall picture, “leaving behind, perhaps forever, certainties about exact chronology and names and precise numbers.” The real story, Pappe contended, was that Israeli forces had indeed massacred a large number of Arab civilians in Tantura—as was typical of the Israeli policy of “ethnic cleansing” in Palestine in 1948. Katz, according to Pappé, only wished to uncover the “pain and suffering” experienced by people in the midst of war. Pappe compared Katz’s work to the recording of the testimony of Jewish Holocaust survivors. Just as researchers used personal narratives to document the traumas of the Holocaust, so too Katz use testimony from Palestinians to reconstruct the “horrors” of the 1948 Nakba, or “disaster,” as Palestinians call it. The jist of the story was correct, even though the individual tales might not have been true. Pappe construes the uproar over the Tantura case as a byproduct of the failure of the peace process: hardening attitudes in Israel have silenced the nation’s conscience. Pappe maintains that “poor” Katz’s problem was simply his timing. Had his work been completed in the optimistic days of the Oslo process, public and academic reactions would have been entirely different. 

Far from being a mere accident of timing, the Tantura affair exposed a problem of genuine gravity in Israeli historiography: Post-Zionist historians willingly accepted admitted falsehoods as historical evidence. Not only in political discussion but even in scholarship, truth has become relative. Everyone has his own “narrative.” The line between subjective and objective, between fact and fiction, has been blurred, if not obliterated all together.

Overtime, the story of Tantura, which was once a matter of academic debate, has acquired a life of its own.  As it turned into an inseparable part of the Palestinian national story it’s murky – or even clearly fabricated — origins have been overlooked and turned into ironclad facts. A massacre that until recently the Palestinians were unaware of is now a core element of their national narrative. Israel has to face the “evidence” that challenges the morality of its cause. Being made into a movie could carry that basic falsification a step further into the consciousness of the world. 

 Conclusions: What is going on?

The battle over Israel’s legitimacy, of which this story of the great “massacre of Tantura” is a chapter, is part of the overall war in the West waged by the progressive camp to impugn the moral foundations of the west as a civilization advancing freedom.  

These revisionist arguments echo the ideas of the founder of the Italian Communist Party, Antonio Gramsci, and his concept of “cultural hegemony.” Progressive thought holds that Western narratives are deliberately constructed around so encompassing a body of myths and so pervasive a structure of institutions that they become the received wisdom and obscure an underlying condition of perpetuated oppression. Gramsci argued that codes of morality are constructed by dictatorial elites in order to create norms that uphold, validate and deepen the systemic oppression inherent to the capitalist system. Even the concepts of logic, truth and facts – the foundations of Western rational debate – are dismissed as forms of such hidden systems of oppression designed to contain debate into a repressive and misleading straitjacket. As such, the idea of “approximate truth” – where narratives trump factual records of history – become valid to legitimize a cause or perspective even when the facts would suggest otherwise because facts are themselves forms of repression.

The story of Tantura – or rather the myth of Tantura – is thus part of this larger assault on Western foundations. It is neither a historical work, a documentary, or even a docu-drama that took some license. It is the intentional obfuscation of fact and fiction in an attempt to use the device of the “approximate truth” – something factually wrong but nonetheless representing some sort of truth — to actually undermine truth and rewrite the historical narrative of Israel.  It is an attempt through fiction cropped as fact to paint Israel’s creation in such a dark palette that it is exposed as a historic evil born of colonial desire to suppress the Arab and Muslim people rather than as an attempt to correct the historical wrong of the exile of the Jewish people and instead to deliver them finally their liberation and sovereignty after two millennia.

[1] For the various estimates of the number of the victims see: the correspondence between Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi, John Kimchi and Erskine Barton Childers published in the Spectator between May and August 1961 and reprinted by the Journal of Palestine Studies  in 1988.

[2] Jewish News Syndicate, November 25, 2022.

[3] Ha’aretz, January 22, 2022

[4] See, for example, Los Angeles Times, December 1, 2022; Variety Magazine, January 31, 2022 and Jewish Currents, November 3, 2022.)

[5] Ha’aretz on October 7, 2022.

[6] “Tantura Director: Israelis have been lied to for years about alleged 1948 massacre,”Times of Israel, January 27, 2022.

[7] Benny Morris, “The Tantura ‘Massacre’ Affair, The Jerusalem Report, February 4, 2004.