• Yesterday we hosted a great Blogger's Call with Caroline Glick. Play the streaming audio.
• In addition, you can read the full transcript below.
• Let us know if you like this format, as we are trying it out. Leave your Comment below.

Allen Roth, Host:
We are really fortunate today to have with us Caroline Glick, who is a very influential as well as a much-read, commentator. She writes for several newspapers, including the Jerusalem Post.  Caroline was born in Chicago. She served for five-and-a-half years as an officer in the Israeli army. She also has a Master’s in public policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School which, she survived,  with her principles intact. I congratulate, you, Caroline. She was a foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
 
And Caroline lives in Jerusalem. In our first invitation that we sent out for this blogger’s call, we wrote in there that, one of the things that strikes me about Caroline is, is that she’s not just an armchair commentator. Caroline clearly spends a lot of time and a lot of effort, doing the legwork, making the phone calls, getting the information. So, she has some of the most informative analysis of what’s going on in the Middle East and, the larger issues that flow from that. So, Caroline, I will not start with a question but I will ask you simply to, give us some thoughts on your perspective of what is going on in Israel today.

Caroline B. Glick, Author, Shackled Warrior: Israel and the Global Jihad:
Thanks so much Allen, for inviting me to do this call-in. Thanks to all the bloggers for actually taking time out of your busy day to come, listen and participate in this conversation. You know, first of all, just a word about my book Shackled Warrior: Israel and the Global Jihad is a compilation of my columns that I’ve written in the Jerusalem Post over the past five years or so.

And what I tried to do is to use my columns as a way of giving a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree analysis of Israel’s role in the global jihad, and why it is that it’s so hard for Israel to understand its role, for the world to understand the fact that Israel is perceived by the jihadists as being the frontline state in their war to dominate the world in the name of Islam, and also what it is about Israeli society that makes it so difficult for Israel to fight.

So, what I did was, as I said, I separated into themes, and there are about, I think I’ve made ten chapters in the book. And just looking through the table of contents now, and so I started with “Israel Alone,” which—I mean, the war against Israel which is basically a collection of columns that explain what the war against Israel looks like in terms of the toll of terrorism, in terms of how Israel fights, what’s wrong with what Israel is doing.

The second chapter is called “The War Against the Free World,” which is about general understanding of how jihad manifests itself, not only in Israel but throughout the world, from Malaysia to the Philippines to Africa, of course to the United States and Europe, and what it is that the jihadists are doing, how their doctrine works.

The third chapter is called “Israel Alone,” and it’s essentially about, how Israel is alone in this. That even though Israel is the proverbial canary in the mineshaft everybody is ignoring the bird; and why everybody seems to be hell-bent on preventing Israel from achieving victory, either military or, or political, against its enemies.

The fourth chapter is called “The Threat of Destruction,” and it’s about Iran’s nuclear weapons program and why Iran is making nuclear weapons; why the West is so unwilling to do anything to prevent that from happening; and what Israel’s role in Iran’s nuclear weapons program is, specifically to be its first victim.

Then chapter five is called “Israel’s Suicide Attempt,” and it’s about all of the political distortions and corruption inside of Israel that makes public debate in Israel generally seem completely incoherent or a dialogue between two opposing radical leftist camps where the majority of Israelis who are neither radical nor leftist are simply left out, and that also goes into the withdrawal from Gaza; it goes into the problem with Israel’s judiciary and with Israel’s media as well as with Israel’s political system, which I’ll be talking about in my remarks.

“The Battle for Hearts and Minds,” which is chapter six, talks about psychological warfare particularly how the enemy uses psychological warfare against free societies, and makes it difficult for us to understand the war that’s being waged against us, and what happens to people who try to explain the nature of war, particularly in Europe.
 
And that actually goes into chapter seven more, how people are treated for trying to speak out against jihad in the West, because chapter seven is called “Contemporary Thought Police,” and it talks about the problems in the academia in the West and Israel and the United States and Europe, as well as, European attempts to prevent Is—, counter-jihadists from having a role in policymaking and in the policy discussions in Europe.

Chapter eight, then, is about Europe; it’s called “The European Betrayal.” It’s about how postwar Europe has really fetishized the Holocaust to the point where they seem to be constantly mourning dead Jews but refuse to have anything but antipathy towards the Jewish state and live Jews who are trying to defend themselves against another Holocaust. And it goes also to the wider, jihadists threat to Europe with the burgeoning Muslim minority threat—most of Western Europe—and the challenge that that presents to European culture and European politics.

Chapter nine is actually a departure from the issues of the day. It is a collection of the columns and articles that I wrote when I was embedded with the U.S. Third Infantry Division on the front lines of the U.S. invasion in Iraq. And I think it’s an interesting departure and also obviously connected, which is that rather than sitting in my home in Jerusalem and writing about things that are going on right outside my door, what I did was I went to Iraq with the U.S. military and watched as they took down a terror-supporting, dictatorship and then were struggling with the initial problems of what it means to actually have invaded an Arab country; the whole notion of being occupiers and having to deal with an enemy who used his war-fighting doctrine as diffused with terrorism and ecological warfare.

And then finally, the last chapter is called “The Light Unto the Nations,” and it takes a step back again from the issues of the day. It talks about what sort of a country Israel actually is away from the headlines who the Jewish people are, why we’re worth defending; we must defend ourselves and why Israel is is the country that it is and has achieved what it has and why there are some things just worth dedicating your life to defending.

So, that’s the book in a nutshell. And I think that it really does—even though it’s a collection of columns and some people say, “Well, it’s already previously published material”—I’m, I’m really pleased with the way that I was able to put it together. I was pleased with the product. Actually, to my own surprise, I find it interesting to read.

And I think that the reason why it does make a unique contribution to the dialogue about Israel and about politics and the nature of the war is that all of my columns are about sixteen hundred words, so that you can read one and then go from one column about a subject to another, and my articles tend to be analyses of the issues of the day not from the perspective of somebody trying to just cram in all the details, but to show how what happened on a specific day relates—if that’s—if what we see is the daily headlines as the tip of the iceberg. I try to relate the issues of the day to the iceberg itself and explain what their larger significance is.

And so I think that this book the way that I organized it , makes that kind of contribution in being able to just look at a—at—to give, like I said, a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree analysis of the jihad and Israel’s central role in it. You know Allen wanted me to just give a very sort of brief explanation of what’s happening in Israel and so as I was saying, the chapter I devoted to “Israel’s Suicide Attempt,” I talk a lot about the difficulties that Israel experiences in its political system.
 
We have a proportional electoral system in Israel, which means that voters vote for party lists and not for individual candidates. And as a result, there’s no direct link between an elected official and his constituents, because we vote for parties and not for candidates. And so, that kind of a system which the U.S. and the UN insanely pushed upon the Iraqis after the fall of Saddam’s regime means that you end up encouraging crony politics where people are not encouraged to run when they are strong and patriotic, because they’re considered to be uncontrollable by party apparatuses and leaders. And so it’s a kind of, it’s a kind of system that discourages rather than encourages political courage and moral courage among leaders.

And, you know, this is something that Israel has been dealing with for the past sixty years, and whereas at the beginning, when we were in sort of a revolutionary climate after the state was founded, it didn’t matter because all of the people who were at the top echelons of Israeli politics really were people of character who had sacrificed their lives, dedicated their lives to establishing the Jewish state and to fighting against the Nazis and to fighting against the British colonial authorities in, in Israel. As time went on, you saw a transformation of the character of the people who were going into these parties, and who were going into the Knesset, to the point where today, it’s very difficult to point to people who have the pos—who have the power to inspire voters to do what needs to be done in Israel.
 
And so it’s a problem that we see. And, you know, a lot of people are saying, “Well, is Olmert going to be taken down now?—because of his latest bribery scandal. This is his fifth police investigation since he entered office two years ago. Is this the one that’s going to get him?”And unfortunately, I think there’s more of a possibility that it won’t than that it will. Already today you know, you see Balin from the far left and Zevulin Orlev from sort of a pro-Communist right—yes, in Israel, we have something like that have just banded together to put together a proposed law that would make it possible to just get Olmert out of power. Which would mean that it would leave the power structure of Kadima –which is his party list—, in charge with Labor, so that it would get rid of Olmert but it would re—it would retain, it would retain the entire regime that allows him to operate in ways that are so antithetical to Israel’s interests.

And to just name a few from the last week, Olmert and his colleagues are moving towards agreeing—towards a cease-fire agreement with Hamas regime in Gaza, which essentially would leave Hamas—which is an Iranian proxy—in charge of Gaza with their Iranian-trained and –financed and –armed military in place. It would give them control of the international border with Egypt so that they would be able to bring in even heavier weapons than they already have with very little problems.And he wants to do this in order to have a temporary lull in the murder of Israeli civilians, a half a million of whom are within rocket and missile range of Gaza with the armament Hamas fields today.

So this is the sort of thing that the kind of regime that we have in place right now and Israel enables. And even if Olmert leaves and the regime stays, we’ll have this kind of continued pathological policymaking in Israel, which is why we so desperately need elections.And finally if we look at this week, we see President Bush is coming to Israel today, and he’s going to be in Israel through Friday and then he goes on to Egypt and Saudi Arabia. And a lot of people are saying how wonderful that President Bush is coming and he’s visiting Masada and he’s going to be addressing the Knesset and it’s—and destroying traffic patterns in Jerusalem by closing at least half of the city down for three days. But, —which is why I’m happy that I’m in Washington right now and now home—but the problem is that if we look, for instance, at Hezbollah’s almost seamless coup d’état that they have conducted in Lebanon since last Tuesday.

If we look at the fact that Abu Mahmoud Abbas, the head of Fatah, who Bush has embraced as a peacemaker, has just ordered his Fata minions in Syria and Lebanon to have so-called Palestinian refugees march to the Israeli border on May 15th in order to try to force Israel to accept millions and millions of foreign-born Arabs as citizens, we see that the whole edifice of Bush’s idea—his vision of the establishment of a Palestinian state, the idea that you can somehow or another enable Hezbollah to remain in place in Lebanon without having Lebanon itself become an Iranian proxy—all of these ideas are coming crashing down.

And the cognitive dissonance that you need to maintain in policymaking circles in order to continue this fiction that it’s possible to find a middle road between appeasing terrorists and fighting them is just completely , evaporating and falling apart. And yet, President Bush is going to come to Israel this week and he’s going to continue talking about Palestinian statehood and what a great strategic alliance will happen with the United States when both the Israeli government and the U.S. government are pushing policies and strategies that are inimical to both these countries’ national interests and in this case inimical towards our, our essential interests.

So I’m not expecting a lot from Bush’s visit in the way of of giving Israel the kind of help that we really need to win, which is ideological help, which is spiritual in a way help, saying, “Look, you guys are the most important country today in the world, and we need to make sure that you fight and that you fight to victory in order to ensure that the rest of us survive,” which is basically the theme of my book and basically the theme of every single thing that I write.So that, that’s those are my remarks and like El—like Allen said, you know, buy the book, plug the book in your sites and I will be grateful to all of you till the end of my days.  

Roth:
Okay, well, let’s just hope that it’s not the end of your day at this moment ‘cause I’m sure that we have plenty of questions for you and the first, —I will not ask a question to start things off but is there someone—one of the bloggers out there—interested in making a question? Please introduce yourself. 

Jeremy Schwartzman, Blogger:
I’m Jeremy Schwartzman [phonetic], Caroline Glick; I’m with American Congress for Truth and I write periodically in [unintelligible]. Firstly, I want to thank you and somebody else I know in Israel, Barry Rubin, and today Bret Stephens in The Wall Street Journal, for being a Greek chorus about the same line that you have articulated so nicely this morning regarding the précis of your book. However, I wish to read to you for your reaction comments from Ehud Barak, who met yesterday with several people in the Eshkol region after the attack that killed a seventy-year-old woman.

And also, I think, out of that contact came, came some truth from Israelis who are within the half a million that you described that are threatened. Barak says, “It won’t take another eight years and not even another year, but tomorrow the situation will change,” and he reverts to the fortification of the vicinity. The head of the Eshkol Regional Council, a chap by the name of Chaim Yellen [phonetic], sort of got to the quick in terms of the event. He said, “Instead of demanding that residents stay and resolutely, the government should swiftly to end the [unintelligible] fire.

The government’s powerlessness and its disappearance during these difficult days in the Gaza periphery are intolerable.” He and another chap go on to say, “We want to meet President Bush, because he’s the one really calling the shots.”In your opinion, is that correct? And also what, in your opinion, can anything be done in Israel to avoid this denouement? 

Glick:
Well, I think that it is largely correct that since Ehud Barak was prime minister—, he was elected in 1999—he, his government and successive Israeli governments have tethered Israel’s polices towards our neighbors and, indeed, towards the entire world, to the vagaries of the U.S. State Department. , Barak, who was elected prime minister largely as a result of, of the efforts of then-President Clinton, who sent his election consultants to Israel to run Barak’s campaign and essentially did everything that they could to de-fragment Israel’s political map in order to ensure Barak’s ascension to power.

We’ve seen successive Israeli governments—Barak’s government, the two Sharon governments, and now the Olmert-Livni government—simply will not make any decisions that are not given to them ahead of time or perhaps after the fact in the case of, of some of the things that, that have been attempted in the past couple of years, of the State Department. Not the White House even, per se, but of the State Department; and not of the entire State Department but of the Near East Department of the State Department—the Near East Bureau.

And so, that is true. We have not had an independent Israeli government—independent of the State Department—since 1999. And that is, of course, horrible because the State Department’s view of the Middle East, as we’ve seen, you know, since 1948, when they didn’t want to allow President Truman to recognize the newly-declared state of Israel—, has been incredibly hostile towards Israel, incredibly pro--Arab, specifically pro-Saudi. And Saudi Arabia, of course, is interested in the destruction of Islam—has been interested in the destruction of Israel for jihadist reasons since 1948.

And so you have this situation where Israel has essentially tethered its foreign policy to the vagaries of the Saudi royal family because the State Department does what the Saudis say or Israel does what the State Department says. And we see that kind of pathology coming about when people in the south are hailed for taking a massive amount of terror from the skies—rockets, mortars, missiles—on a daily basis. They’re hailed for their stoicism in doing this at the same time as their military is prevented from actually taking the actions needed to defend them by having an offensive in Gaza.

And one of the main reasons that we are seeing this particularly in the last two years is because this government was founded on the principle that it was a really good idea to leave Gaza to expel ten thousand Jews from their homes, transfer their land—which was all strategically located along the coast of Gaza or along the border with Ashkelon within spitting distance of the Ashkelon oil pipeline and the Ashkelon power station to Hamas and the Fatah terrorist organizations.And not only did they say that this was a brilliant plan, but they wanted to, as a first step in their government that was elected in 2006 continue on and expel a hundred thousand more Jews from their communities and transfer them to Hamas and Fatah terrorist organizations in Samaria.So, you know, that is the stated policy of this government. That’s what they want to do.

They think it’s excellent policy to transfer the land of Jewish people to Arab jihadists and if they were to actually have a ground invasion of Gaza—which is the only thing that can be done in order to secure southern Israel from the missile threat that only grows— then they would have to acknowledge that the basic rationale of their regime is a joke, is wrong, is crazy, is incorrect and has been overtaken by reality. And they can’t do that.And by the way, it’s the same thing that we saw in Lebanon in2006 in the war.

This is a government that wanted to enact a full-scale withdrawal from Samaria and, and Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. And so we thought that the war in 2006 was a war that was a direct consequence of the Israeli’s precipitous removal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon in 2000. And if we were to go in and re-conquer southern Lebanon and destroy Hezbollah’s forces in southern Lebanon and take over the area in a proper, in a proper conquest, then we would’ve had to acknowledge that that strategy was insane.

And since the government wasn’t interested in acknowledging that that strategy was insane and the Americans certainly weren’t interested in acknowledging that that strategy was insane we didn’t.And we lost that war as a result. So today, Hezbollah’s takeover of Lebanon is a direct consequence of that kind of strategic insanity that has taken hold in Israel and in, and in the United States.

Allen Roth, Host:

Is there another question from another questioner for Caroline Glick?

 

Ralph B. Kostant,  Blogger:

This is Ralph Kostant speaking; , Ralph Kostant, I write on the Hedgehog blog. , Caroline first of all, thanks to you for participating in this and regards also for your colleague Frank Gaffney. , the—, it seems to me, looking at the situation in, in both Lebanon and Iraq, that Iran and Syria are trying to create a, a crescent of anti-American confrontation states stretching from the Mediterranean all the way to the Persian Gulf. What are your views on that? , is there a possibility of the Sunni Arab states that are afraid of Iran being counterbalanced on that, and what role do you think that China and Russia play in all this?

Caroline B. Glick, Author, Shackled Warrior: Israel and the Global Jihad:

That’s a pretty complicated question, so I’m going to just try to take it apart for a second. First of all I think it’s really important to understand that the campaigns against Israel from Gaza and from Lebanon are not local conflicts; they are part of a larger regional campaign that is being waged as you said, Ralph by the Iranians and the Syrians.

 

And we see that it’s in Gaza, it’s in Lebanon, and it’s in Iraq principally, that you have this kind of attempt by the Iranians and the Syrians to be taking over governments, to be taking over countries in order to expand their sphere of influence with Iran’s ultimate goal being global domination, the destruction of the United States and et cetera.

And so that is what they want to do.

Now, the one good—or one of the good things about the U.S. forces being located in Iraq is that it, it—the generals, or particularly the surge under General Petraeus—is that the surge was essentially a decision by the President to win in Iraq. I, I mean, you see an influx of U.S. forces who are now leaving, and, and I don’t know what’s going to happen. But, but the idea was, “Okay, we’re going to actually have to take matters into our own hands and and protect Iraq, and enable the transformation of Iraq into a working democracy that’s multi-ethnic, and remains unified under one national agent of, of Iraq, and not separated into its component parts.

And, as a result of the basic decision by the White House to win in Iraq, you had something happen at the military command in Iraq which hadn’t happened previously with the generals who were charged, not with holding their heads above water, but actually winning began pointing out the fact that this was not a local war. That it was not just against local insurgents, but that Iraq was an international war; that it was being waged by—principally by Iran and by Syria with Pan-Arab and Pan-Islamic foot soldiers that were coming from countries like Syria like Saudi Arabia and Libya and, and, and Lebanon and, and others—Morocco. But that it was being—the architects of this war were the Iranians and the Syrians and their purpose was to prevent Iraq from becoming a coherent state, and maintaining it as a basket state so largely under Iranian influence to prevent an American victory and to and to increase chaos in the region in the way that would work to Iran’s benefit as a revolutionary power.

And, so, when the General started saying, “Look, most of the weapons are coming from Iran; most of the fighters are coming from Syria; , they’re getting their ideological indoctrination in Iran and in Syria,” , that was the first time that you saw the Administration really recognizing that this is a regional war.

My colleague and friend, Michael Ledeen, at American Enterprise Institute has been characterizing the U.S. Army’s war in Iraq since 2004, more or less—of the U.S. playing defense in one, —on front of a regional war, which, of course, is doomed to failure.

So, I think that it’s important just, first of all, to understand the nature of the war. Second of all, you asked about the Sunnis—, and, you know, there’s been a lot of talk about the fact that the Sunnis are concerned about this, —what Jordanian King Abdullah referred to a “rising Shiite crescent,” stretching from Iran to Lebanon. , and there is concern about it; but I don’t see how the Sunnis can do anything about it.

And they can’t do anything about it because one of the ways that Iran is able to paralyze them is by placing its focus on Israel; Israel has not been a traditional enemy of Iran but it has been a traditional enemy of the Arabs. So, when Iranian propaganda is directed mainly against the Jews and then, secondarily, towards the Americans, they win the sympathy of the overwhelming majority of the citizens of the Arab world who have been din—indoctrinated for the past hundred years, essentially to view the Jews as subhuman and as, you know, what Ahmajinadad refers to as, as, as bacteria and diseases, and they agree with that. And, so, by focusing his attacks on Israel, he’s able to neutralize any possibility of Sunni action against him.

And, by the way, it’s not only through political warfare that he does it. He is also essentially taking control of Qatar and—or, or what the Americans call Gutter [phonetic]—which is the seat of central command in the Gulf. And he has essentially taken over the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which have very large Shiite populations. So, you know, you, you have a neutralized Arab world and it’s important to realize that. As for China and Russia, I think that they’re cheering on both sides, sort of the way that Israelis and Americans cheered on both sides of the Iran/Iraq War.

They want the United States to bleed; they want it to become weaker because they see themselves as competitors with the United States in the global superpower arena. And, so, they’re acting as spoilers on both sides. They don’t view themselves as farm line states—and, rightly—, that are being targeted by the forces of global Jihad. They do have Jihadist problems inside of their own societies, but they have decided that for now, it’s best for them to either sit on the fence or play one side against the other.

 

Which is why you see the Chinese and the Russians on the one hand signing on to weak Security Council resolutions that have no capability, no chance of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. And, at the same time, supply Iran with nuclear assistance, whether it’s through Russia’s building of the nuclear reactor, or whether it’s China’s and Russia’s assistance in Iran and North Korea’s ballistic missile programs Russian military sales, Russians’ intelligence assistance to the Syrians and, through them, to the Iranians. All of these things basically show that the Russians and the Chinese are playing a double game and gen, generally have the role of spoilers.

 

Roth:

We are speaking today with Caroline Glick, author of Shackled Warrior: Israel and the Global Jihad. And, by the way, the book has an introduction by James Woolsey. , and can I ask you, Caroline, if you would comment on the very forceful statements on Jerusalem that were made, I guess, yesterday by Dan Kurtzer, who is now an advisor to Barack Obama? Was it surprising to you that he would come out in the middle of a presidential campaign so forcefully on this issue that it must be negotiated?

 

Glick:

You know, I think that the whole idea that Is, Israel’s capitol city is up for negotiations and that it’s reasonable to demand that Israel negotiate its capitol, is sort of—, in a way, its emblematic of the, the spiritual and ideological , weakness of a lot of the people in the West, because Jerusalem is the center of Western civilization, even more than Athens. , you know, it was there that from the Christian perspective, you know, if Jesus were to return to Earth, the first place that he would go is the Temple Mount.

 

And he would go there not as a worshipping Muslim or even as a worshipping Christian, he would go there as a Jew, because that’s where he preached. There is no place in the world that is sacred to Jews, essentially, except for Jerusalem and there is no Jewish people without Jerusalem. It’s not just a religious thing, it is a, it is, it is who we are, I mean, as a nation. And it is, eh, it—there’s no, there can be no separation of Jews from Jerusalem.

And so when people say that peace is contingent on Israel giving up the Temple Mount and transferring it to people who claim that Israel has no right to our heritage, that our heritage is a lie which is what the Palestinians and the rest ‘a the Judaists say we’re—the demand is essentially for Western civilization as a whole, not just for the Jews, to renounce our identities. And the minute that you renounce your identity, you’re done.

So, I think that placing the stress on Jerusalem, and the fact that such ideas are being proffered by people who are advising Barack Obama just shows what kind of existential challenge and just basic level of who we are and what our identities are eh, what, what sort of a challenge the Obama candidacy poses to the United States and, of course, not only to the United States, but to the, to the world as whole.

Because if somebody who offers up these ideas as elected president, then it’s going to—you know, the war is going to really come inside of everybody’s home, because everybody is going to have to feel like they have to that they’re on their own for descending [phonetic] who they are, because the president of the United States doesn’t think it’s important.

And, and that’s made clear by his choice of advisors, that he would have somebody like Dan Kurtzer, who is, you know, just pathologically anti-Israel and he does it, is emblematic of the entire challenge that we face.

 

Roth:

Is there another question for Caroline, ah, author of Shackled Warrior?

 

Bennett Rudo Addaramos [phonetic], Blogger:

Ah, yes. , First, I want to point out that…

 

Roth:

Please identify yourself.

 

Addaramos:

Oh, I’m sorry. , Bennett Rudo Addaramos. I just noticed on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble both are out of stock of your stock. I hope it’s because of the popularity and nothing else.

 

What I’m going to ask: I noticed that you participated in a symposium on the National Review Online. The question was: where is Israel going to?

 

Glick:

Mm-hmm.

 

Addaramos:

And it’s seemed you were the most optimistic person in the whole survey.

 

Roth:

Yeah.

 

Addaramos:

You had written—you concluded that given Israel’s extraordinary accomplishments in its first sixty years, once it solves its leadership crisis, there will be little reason to look to its next sixty years with anything but optimism and anticipation. , but you say solving the leadership crisis, are you talking just in terms of prime minister? If so, who do you think would be in position to really turn things around? And, and why? Or are you, are you speaking in terms of something, eh, more, more general?

 

Glick:

Well, I think that’s both general and particular. And it’s true and, and the reason why I think that we have to be optimistic—look, my job is to look at trends that we see on a daily basis and try to understand them. But I think that, when you look—and that’s why I spent the last chapter of my book talking about what kind of country Israel really is and what we’ve accomplished over the past six years. You—when you look at the base level of where Israel, you see that our, our accomplishments are simply miraculous and stunning.

And also, when you look at the general levels of patriotism and of dedication to the country and commitment to Israel’s future that you find among Israelis citizens, you see that the problem is not in the citizens. The problem is with our so-called elites, the people who determine the course of the public discussion in Israel, and our media, and our academies, and our universities, and in our political classes.

And these are people who are ideologically weak, whose many of whose children don’t even live in Israel. I mean, Olmert’s children didn’t serve in the army and they don’t live in Israel. Barak’s children don’t live in Israel. Their chief advisor’s children don’t live in Israel. So these are people who are not committed to the future of the country, whereas ninety-four percent of Israelis , define themselves as “deeply patriotic” Israelis. And over, I think it was eighty-seven percent of Israelis wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.

So, you’re living in a very small section of the overall Israel that is leaning in a direction that is antithetical Israeli’s interests as a country. And so I think that we have to have some sort of a political reform and I don’t care whether it’s district elections or, or another type of elections, but, to my mind, we need to have direct election of members of Knesset, because we need to have politicians who are accountable directly to constituencies.

 

And there are a lot of different ways that that can be done. Of course, the problem is, eh, what we’re in Iraq as well: they’ve realized that the proportional electoral system is horrible, but the people who are in power and the parliament are in charge of making laws, got there because of the proportional method of electing leaders. And so they’re not going anywhere and it’s very difficult to, to change once you have a system like this in place. But I think we need that.

And, as to the prime minister, himself, I’m a very big supporter of a former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Likud, and there are two principle reasons for that. When I look at the political system today and I see that is essentially a crony-based political system that discourages individual courage among leaders, I know that what has to happen is that we have to move both philosophically, and also politically, towards individualism.

More individualism in Israel, less of this sort of communal way of looking at things, which is very European and not, —and a group accountability , as opposed to individual accountability; group responsibility as opposed to individual responsibility. And I think that the leader in Israel that has done the most to push us towards this kind of understanding of individualism and individual liberty is Netanyahu.

He did it as prime minister and he did it as for, as finance minister, in terms of his economic policies, which are directly responsible for the fact that, even in the face of increasing clear global recession, Israel’s economy is still growing at over five percent a year in the middle of a war. And he did it by empowering individuals, by lowering tax burden, by privatizing sclerotic [phonetic] state- , owned companies and banking institutions.

And there’s still more to be done, but he’s already the leader that’s pushed most towards that whole notion of individualism and individual empowerment, which I also think is necessary in order to reform Israel’s political system going down the line.

So I think that, if he were again to become prime minister the Likud party the now gutted Likud party, thanks to Ariel Sharon and, and Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni were to reassert its prominent role in Israel, that we would see a party both rejuvenating itself after its taken this hit, and also a prime minister that would be pushing his role in the direct—[audio drops out]—that, in the long term, and even in the medium term, has the best chance of forcing us to have the kind of electoral reform that we need in order to bring individual accountability to members of Knesset, and in order to empower individual Israelis in a way that they’ve been stopped in the past and at present.

 

So I think that those are the kinds ‘a things that we need. I think, in order for the mass majority of Israelis, who want to live in Israel, who are patriotic, who , couldn’t—don’t really care about what other people think of us, except in terms of explaining to them why they have to support us. I think that the key to Israel’s survival is empowering Israeli citizens as much as possible to determine the course of our future.

And I think that that’s the kind of direction that, Bibi, and only Bibi Netanyahu, would take Israel, just because of the way that he sees the world.

 

Roth:

Before we run out of time I do want to offer Ann Lieberman an opportunity…

 

Glick:

I can’t hear it, I can’t hear.

 

Roth:

Before we run out of time, I would like to offer Ann Lieberman an opportunity to ask a question if she wants to.

Anne Lieberman, Blogger:

Thank you, Allen, for doing this. I didn’t know that all I had to do was ask you and you would, you would come up with it. This is wonderful. , Caroline, I am—admire you so much. And, I appreciate your doing this. And my questions are somewhat of a personal nature ‘cause I, I consider you such a hero.

Where do you get your strength? Because this is very depressing and very difficult to continue. Where do you see our, our greatest hope? And, what do you think we should be doing—specifically, American Jews in, well, in America— what should be our priority? Because we want to intervene in an Israeli suicide attempt, right? And, we want to call off the State Department. And we’re trying to protect ourselves from anti-Semitism and the Left at the same time. So if you could help us prioritize, that would be helpful.

 

Glick:

Well, Anne, the admiration is mutual. I think the [unintelligible] is absolutely terrific. And, by the way I think that one of the things that has to be done in Israel—and one of the things that I’m working on here at the Center for Security Policies—securing funding to develop some Israeli blogs that Allen has also been working on a lot from his corner to try to bypass the mainstream media on Israel so that we can have the kind of conversations in Israel that I’m having with you today that are going to be conducive to changing to the way that people consider Israel’s options and what we can do.

I’m moving ahead so, I, I actually—and, and I don’t want to sound like I’m pandering but I think that the blogosphere in the United States has really been vital to getting the word out. And, I actually talk about this in my book, as well , when I talk about how to get through , and win the battle for the hearts and minds and, and, and combat the kind of psychological warfare that the terrorists and the left are putting on us.

And so, you know, some of the, the ones that I talk about are terrorists—is in a column called “Terrorist Theater Tricks,” and another one called “The Prime-Time Blood Libels,” which both talk about the incredible importance of the blogosphere, and enabling a debate about the nature of the war that is inhibited by the mainstream media. Both in the United States, and in Israel, and, and throughout the Western world.

So, I think that’s important. You ask me where I get my strength from. Well, you know I think that there are things worth fighting for. And, when I, when I look around and I see what’s being attacked, it’s not just a question of, you know, —it’s not somebody else’s problem.

These are the things that I care most about, the notion of individual freedom, the empowerment of Jews, the defenses of Jews the State of Israel, United States of America. I mean, these are the things that really define who I am.

And so, I think that the strength just comes from this understanding that, as the late, great Michael Kelly said—or wrote—in his first book, “There are things worth defending.” And, there are things worth dedicating your life to defending.

And I feel, actually, not strengthened but I feel very lucky and privileged that I’ve been able to carve up a, a niche for myself where I’m also able to ma—make a living, actually, about doing what I feel most passionate about, which is defending the things that I care about most deeply. So I don’t know whether it’s a question of being strong or not; in my view, it’s a question of being blessed with the opportunity to dedicate my life to doing the things that are most important to me. So I, I don’t consider that to be a question of strength.

And, I also think that there’s a lot to be hopeful for. I mean, when you, when you really look at this situation in Israel—when you look not only at this—the strength and the vibrancy of Israel as a place—it’s an exciting place to live. And, you know, not even—without even thinking about the terrorism, Israel is a really happening place. There’s stuff going on all over the place. It’s it’s not like going—I was recently on vacation is Lisbon and I felt like that city hadn’t moved in any direction for the past five hundred years—by the way, since they kicked the Jews out.

But you, you go to Israel, and it’s—the only other place that’s as exciting as Israel is the United States. They’re the most dynamic countries that I’ve seen. And it’s amazing and Israel is also a beautiful country, and I take a lot of heart from that. I mean, the beauty of Israel is just stunning, and I, and I’m lucky enough to live right off of a bunch of hiking trails, so I’m able to experience that every day.

But hope is in what is real. Hope is in Israel, hope is in the United States, hope is in everything that we are and everything that we stand for. So I don’t think there’s any lack of hope. Hope is in what the U.S. military is doing in Iraq today. I mean, for the first time, there is the shot that an Arab country might actually understand that people have power over how they live their lives and take responsibility for their actions. I mean, when has that ever happened? That’s extraordinary.

As to what U.S. Jews should be doing. You know, one of the things—I was talking to this big donor who gives a lot of money to , educational institutions, particularly universities. And, some of the universities that he gives money to are really besieged by this kind of anti-Semitism on campus that’s propagated not only by student organizations, but also in most, —most viciously by professors.

So, he said, “Well, if I stop giving, then they’re going to say that it’s a Zionist plot.” Of course he keeps giving, and they say that it’s a Zionist plot or a Jewish plot. So I said to him, “Look, you know, the funny thing about anti-Semitism—the tricky thing about anti-Semitism—the malicious thing about anti-Semitism—is that you’re damned if you fight it and if you—and you’re damned if you don’t.” Because, Jews are always blamed whether we defend ourselves or we don’t.

And so my view is that, if you’re going to be damned either way, you might as well defend yourself. And, I think that people who are worried about what anti-Semites are thinking about them—or going to say about them, or how they’re going to attack them—fail to recognize the basic reality that anti-Semites will always attack them, because they’re anti-Semites, that’s what they do. They attack Jews, in one way or another.

And so I think it’s important to deter them by defending. And it’s important to deter them by attacking. And, the best defense is always offense. And, it’s important to stay on offense—particularly now—both intellectually and, and politically. , so I think that that’s very important, you know. I understand a colleague of mine was telling me that she saw Netanyahu and Glenn Beck, and that Glenn Beck was pushing him very hard to say something about  Obama’s candidacy for president. And Netanyahu, rightly didn’t want to say anything, because if he said something then he was going to be accused of interfering in American politics. And, it’s an internal political matter, and that’s fine.

But I’m not running for office and I’m not an Israeli politician, and I can say that American Jews who vote for Obama are sticking a finger in the eye of the Jewish people. Because, this is a man who surrounds himself with people who are known anti-Semites, who have dedicated their careers to vilifying the Jewish State, to trying to force the U.S. to abandon its alliance with Israel.

And he wants to talk with Ahmadinejad, who’s worse than Hitler in a lot of ways because he is not just resonating in one country, but, you know, throughout an entire region. And, he makes very clear that the Holocaust that he and his cadres in Iran want to enact is not something that’s going to take place over five or six years but over five or six seconds.

And, so, you know, the idea that he would say that he wants to talk to him is crazy. And, to say that, oh he’s going to—somehow or another—be acceptable from, from Israel’s perspective is ridiculous. The only good thing that I can see coming about—out of an Obama presidency for Israel is that perhaps, finally Israel will stop taking its orders from the U.S. State Department because it’s going to be impossible to ignore the fact that they’re hostile.

But as to that, I mean, I think that American Jews—and I understand that still over sixty percent of American Jews claim that they’re going to vote for him if he’s the Democratic nominee for President—, you know, should be ashamed of themselves. And, I think that it’s important for American Jews to be educating their fellow Jews about how dangerous that would be not only for the United States generally, but for American Jews specifically. And, so that’s one of the things that I would do. And, the other thing that I would do is what American Jews are doing and have taken on an increased role in doing since 2000 which is that they’ve been trying more and more to influence the kind of intellectual debates that are going on in college campuses.

 

The campus advocacy group—The David Project—is also trying to expand their operations into U.S. high schools. ‘Cause it works out that in high schools, the indoctrination against Israel and Jews is already starting at the high school level and so they’re trying to get into the public high school system, and together with groups like Kadima go through the kind of drivel that’s being taught to students in their textbooks to, —that’s not only anti-Israel, but it’s also, equally, anti-American.

And, so, you know, I think that that kind of education work that people are doing—both in college campuses, and now increasingly in high schools—is essential work for American Jews. And, again, you know, we have to remember that Jewish identity, and, and, to a large degree, the identity of people who understand the responsibilities and the gifts of freedom and liberty—it’s not something that people are born with. , it’s something that has to be educated.

And, it has to be educated from, from use. Because if people don’t develop the habits of freedom—and if Jews don’t develop the habits of Judaism—when they’re young, then their tendency to not understand that they’re sacrificing something invaluable when they don’t fight to defend those, those identities and those freedoms is much lower.

And, so, I think that the main thing that we have to do is, is to educate ourselves and our children and our communities about who we are and what we stand for and why we should be defending them both.

 

Roth:

On that note we’re going to bring this call to a close. , I want to thank Caroline Glick author of Shackled Warrior: Israel and the Global Jihad. , I urge everyone to read this book, and to and to digest what Caroline has to say. , I thank all the bloggers—, like I said, later on today, this interview will be up on our site. And, it’ll also be up on Caroline’s site at some point in the near future.

 

And Caroline, thank you very much for taking your time and, and spending it with us.

 

Glick:

Well, thanks so much for having me, Allen. And again, if there’s a problem with Amazon and Barnes and Nobles’ web sites then you can always put on the link for Israel Books, which is the web site of my publisher—Geffen Publishing. And, they have a direct order form from the publisher that you can link to on your sites instead of going through Amazon—and I, I know that there’s been a problem with Amazon for the past couple of weeks, even though they have the book.

So that’s the other thing. And, my web site is Caroline—spelled CarolineGlick.com. So, thanks, everybody, so much, and have a wonderful day.

 

Roth:

Thank you. Bye-bye.

 

Lieberman:

Thank you.