Former US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates: Israel an ungrateful ally

Christians United for Israel ^ | September 6, 2011

[ilovesarah2012]

Former US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates blasted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying that his policies were ungrateful towards the US and were isolating Israel on a global level.

Gates’ harsh words were said during a meeting of the National Security Council Principals Committee, Bloomberg’s Jeffrey Goldber reported Tuesday.

Gates believes Netanyahu’s government has offered the Obama administration “nothing in return” for its generous security aid, which includes access to top-quality weapons, assistance in developing missile-defense systems and high-level intelligence sharing.

The former defense secretary said that not only is Netanyahu ungrateful, but his polices were “endangering his country by refusing to grapple with Israel’s growing isolation and with the demographic challenges it faces if it keeps control of the West Bank.”

Bloomberg added that Gates’s analysis met with no resistance from other committee members.

[Rytas]

As an American Jew, I can sincerely say I am very ungrateful to this administration which considers most Americans “the enemy” too, so STFU, Gates.

[proud American in Canada]

bttt! Great picture of the Prime Minister! Yes, he is an ally of Israel.

[NonValueAdded]

Is this “If Israel wasn’t there, all our problems would go away” thinking? Sounds like it to me.

[nathanbedford]

I have never been supportive of our relationship with Israel, believing that we have arrayed one billion Arabs with most of the world's best oil against us in return for an obligation to support and even defend 3 million people with no oil. I believe we do this not in response to any perceived national interest but to appease the 1st or 2nd most important, richest, and most influential lobby in America.

I was too young to remember the 1948 war but I remember the wars since. These wars demonstrated that under the conditions as they existed for the last half of the 20th century, the Israelis were fully capable of defending themselves against a pathetic, corrupt, and disunited array of Arab and Muslim enemies. Moreover, for decades the Israelis were the sole possessors of the atomic bomb until Pakistan became a player in the nuclear game.

Since 9/11 the equation has changed. New powers have emerged and re-emerged who are hostile to Israel as well is to the United States. Iran is notably among those which have emerged and poses an existential threat to Israel as soon as it acquires an atomic weapon. Egypt is reemerging as an enemy of Israel as result of the dithering of the Obama administration during the Arab spring in Egypt and elsewhere. These 2 countries represent the most powerful Arab countries and they bracket Israel. Syria can be added to the list shortly as the Muslim brotherhood gains power there when the present regime is swept away. One would expect Syria to continue to act as a puppet of Iran.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the invasion of Iraq set in train a series of events which have been inimical to the interests of the United States and to Israel. The emergence of Iran has already been noted and it is regretfully to be admitted that it is Iran who has benefited most from the American invasion of Iraq. We have lost prestige, allies, lives, treasure and set in motion the "Arab spring" which is turning into the Arab nightmare.

Worse, the invasion of Iraq and the reaction against it domestically and abroad meant that the Bush administration was shut down from any possibility of military intervention to prevent Iran from getting the bomb. Evidently, that unfortunate reaction also applied to Israel. As a result, it is now virtually inevitable that Iran will get the atomic weapon it covets and the balance of power in the Middle East will be radically altered to our detriment and the delivery of oil will become much more tenuous and expensive as a result. We will be lucky if that is the worst effect of Iran getting the bomb. Their possession of atomic weapon makes almost certain an arms race in the Persian Gulf and makes very much more likely that there will be a nuclear war involving a strike against Israel and perhaps against the American homeland.

America will become measurably poorer and dramatically less safe.

America has virtually no interest in preserving the state of Israel. America has an existential interest in preventing the Iranians from getting the bomb, passing it off to a terrorist group, smuggling it into the Homeland, and destroying one or more American cities. Our policies described above have made all of this more, not less, likely.

As the world has changed since 9/11 so have the tactics of war in the Middle East. It is now clear that Israel is vulnerable in 2 respects which were not the case a decade or so ago: 1st, Israel is about to become vulnerable to nuclear attack, as noted; 2nd, Israel is now vulnerable to the kind of guerrilla warfare that we have seen in Iraq and in Afghanistan and increasingly in Gaza and on the West Bank. This is a war which Israel, vastly outnumbered as it is, ultimately must lose. Sole possession of nuclear weapons is of no avail against this strategy and Israel will soon lose its status as the sole possessor of the nuclear weapon. Unlike America, Israel has no real geographic possibility of isolating herself from her neighbors. She is simply vulnerable to low-grade missiles launched from only a few miles away and she already hosts a large 5th column population. The geography disadvantages Israel and the numbers are overwhelming.

With the reemergence of the Egypt as an enemy of Israel, the geography looks even more grim and we can expect Gaza to burn.

All of this is occurring at a time when America is staggering towards bankruptcy and must inevitably trim its military establishment. This is a wholly undesirable prospect but that does not make it less inevitable. As America weakens fiscally and militarily, we will find our attenuated commitments around the world more and more debilitating and ultimately threatening of our national security. Our commitment to Israel will be among the most problematic of them all.

Our national interests, indeed our prospects for survival as a democratic republic after Obama, require that we cease squandering our resources and rigorously focus our forces where they will actually preserve and protect the nation. The lesson of Rome should not be lost on us.

The United States has no interest in making Israel our proxy or in catching spears on Israel's behalf. The old saw is true, a country has no long-term allies, only long term national interests. There is nothing in Israel worthy of risking a nuclear strike in America. I believe that we should offer citizenship to every Israeli and withdraw from the alliance with our moral duty done. This is not an outcome to be desired but it is preferable to a very likely and very ugly alternative.

Secretary Gates has been churlish in his remarks. As posters have pointed out, nations do not expect gratitude from their allies but then we ought not to make national policy out of moral platitudes. I think Gates is frustrated and scared. He sees the realities on the ground described above and so he should alert the American people to the difficulties. Instead, he takes a cheap shot at Netanyahu it was a better friend to America than Gates' boss. I think he is flailing about trying to find a way out of our strategic and moral dilemma.

[GraceG]

[ Is this “If Israel wasn’t there, all our problems would go away” thinking? Sounds like it to me. ]

You know if we gave Germany the Sudatenland we could get a nice signed document from the German Chancellor assuring us that there could very well be piece in our time.....

Unilateral compromise by the righteous is a portent to war.....

[MarkL]

In other words, Gates is saying "Why won't those damned Jews in Israel just cooperate and step into the cattle cars in an orderly manner, to make Obama look better?"

Mark

[hosepipe]

Robert Gates moves around quite easily with democrats progressives marxists and globalists..

Makes you wonder if he is not one of them.. and a “made man” in several conspiracy’s..

[krb]

Oil?

[fishtank]

The Arab/Muslim countries need to REPENT of

their hatred of Israel.

Plain and simple.

[MarkL]

I have never been supportive of our relationship with Israel, believing that we have arrayed one billion Arabs with most of the world's best oil against us in return for an obligation to support and even defend 3 million people with no oil. I believe we do this not in response to any perceived national interest but to appease the 1st or 2nd most important, richest, and most influential lobby in America.

I was too young to remember the 1948 war but I remember the wars since. These wars demonstrated that under the conditions as they existed for the last half of the 20th century, the Israelis were fully capable of defending themselves against a pathetic, corrupt, and disunited array of Arab and Muslim enemies. Moreover, for decades the Israelis were the sole possessors of the atomic bomb until Pakistan became a player in the nuclear game.

The original reason for US support of Israel was quite simple. Israel was seen as a proxy for the US against Soviet expansion in the Middle East. Depending on who you talk you, the Soviet Union (or the US) was the first country to recognize the State of Israel, and in their case, it was simply to get Great Britain out of there. The Soviets supported the arab nations and hoped to keep the US out of the Middle East. Through the 1973 Yom Kippur war, the wars between Israel and the arab nations were proxy wars fought between the US and the USSR. If not for the US decision to rush military aid to Israel, Israel WOULD HAVE LOST THAT WAR. But once resupplied, Israel was able to counter-attack. In fact, when it appeared that Israel was about to crush both the Egyptian and Syrian armies (Israel was within 50 miles of Damascus), the USSR threatened to actively join the war against Israel if the US didn't halt Israel's military action.

That's why the US originally allied with Israel. Remember the the leftists in the US State Department were completely against the US recognition of the State of Israel, let alone the US/Israel alliance (I believe due to Soviet influence), and in fact, Marshall threatened to resign over it. Truman overrode him, and the US recognized and supported Israel's independence.

Mark

[wildbill]

The point is that giving someone sophisticated weapons and then saying you can’t use them until the bastards over-run you or blast you from afar is hypocrisy.

I bet they would appreciate fewer weapons and more tough support against the Palistinians, Syrians, Egyptian Brotherhood newbies, and Iranians.

Letting things get to a war level and then telling the Israelis to back down or give in since a war would be catastrophic is not a policy of support.

[SaraJohnson]

Our Muslim dear reader has set into motion two disasters for Israel. The Arab spring was orchestrated by Obama and his pals to turn over the Arab countries surrounding Israel to jihadists who will attack Israel. Second, the September UN session will recognize a Palestanian State membership.

Gates is in the process of setting the narrative to blame Israel for what Soros, Google, Obama and Hillary have set into motion against it. As the Arab and Iranian aggression heats up after the UN vote, and Israel defends itself, they will pull the same demonization game on Bibi that they pulled on Gadaffi. They will demand that he step down and a far leftist Israeli take his place for “peace”.

Then Obammy’s peace agreement will be imposed on Israel. He will move in a “UN peace keeping” force to aid the Arabs in clearing out (slaughtering) the Jews who reside in Palestian territory.

Alinsky - Always blame someone else for what you do. If a Republican is elected, and Obama has all his ducks in a line (jihadists in power and the UN establishing a Palistanian state) I don’t see how a Republican can stop what happens.

[cake_crumb]

GW Bush was staunchly pro-Israel.

[cake_crumb]

Uh. Why would China buy our secrets when all they had to do was offer Clinton money, walk into any restricted area of the capital and pick up a laptop (and did just that)?

[robowombat]

You are correct. Gates is a hack of a bureaucratic cast. Nearly forty years ago after foolishly trying to implement changes to make a production system transparent which enraged a second tier manager i had a little colloquy with my boss. Who do you work for?, he asked visibly angry from getting chewed out. I work for the united States Air Force and the more generally the citizens of the United States. This produced a fit of real rage which could be summed up in a final remark. “You smart ass b-stard, you work for the person who signs your performance evaluation and you had better remember that” i really never put a lot of stock in that interpretation and it probably had something to do with my less than stellar career. Mr. Gates, however, learned that lesson early and well and has always had his antenna extended to intuit what his boss wants. For that reason as he is both very industrious and has a better than average inside the Beltway intellect he has steadily risen in the hierarchy of Washington suckups. He also never nurtured any political ambitions. Being rater satisfied to climb the bureaucratic pyramid.

As a person, Gates is a cold blooded reptile. He has no friendships only alliances that serve his interests for the moment. He is notorious for his lack of gratitude even by DC standards. He is also a notorious user of people and firmly believes that loyalty only flows up not down. A great example of a man who has based his life on telling those below him what he wanted them to believe and those above him what they wanted to hear.

Robert Gates in his cold calculating self interested way has as BO’s SecDef damaged the armed forces and the US in ways that won't be realized for a good while.

[SJackson]

Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume

If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.

..................

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks ilovesarah2012.

Gates believes Netanyahu's government has offered the Obama administration "nothing in return" for its generous security aid...

Unlike other jihad-cuddlers, Gates is not even a convincing liar -- aid to Israel doesn't come from, nor did it originate with, the Obama administration. Zero has persistently denied Israel access to vital weapons systems and upgrades, AND, is basically singlehandedly responsible for Israel's growing isolation.

[tutstar]

bump

[Slings and Arrows]

I very much doubt that the Muslims respect Zer0. They know a dhimmi when they see one.

[ZULU]

Gates, like Bernanke - ANOTHER LOSER appointed by Bush II and retained by his EVEN MORE INEPT successor.