The United States and Israel achieved unprecedented military success in their campaign against Iran, which started earlier this year on Feb. 28. But according to JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin, the American decision to stop the war due to the economic pressure Iran was able to exert via its menacing of shipping in the Strait of Hormuz revealed a bitter truth about the West’s ability to defend itself.
He’s joined in this week’s episode of “Think Twice” by military expert Col. Richard Kemp, a veteran of several wars in which the United Kingdom took part and an on-the-scene analyst of the conflict Israel has been fighting against Iran and its terrorist proxies. Kemp says the reason why the United States pulled the plug on the war was due to President Donald Trump’s unwillingness to risk even a small number of casualties to ensure freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf.
“Very clearly, the United States was not, and probably would never be prepared to commit to boots on the ground in that situation,” says Kemp.
While Israelis are willing to do what is necessary to defend their country as well as their homes and families, the political leadership of the United States, as well as Western Europe, lacks the will to commit to such a fight. Kemp also believes that the refusal of Britain and other NATO allies to fight alongside the United States against a nation like Iran that is as much of a threat to them as America also played a role in Trump’s decision.
That is a political decision by London. According to Kemp, this has embarrassed the British military, since they would have been willing to defend British sovereign territory, like their bases in Cyprus, which were attacked by Iran, but their political leaders lack the will to do so.
Kemp also described the enormous difference between the image of Israel, which he visits frequently, and the way it is depicted in the Western media. “We shouldn’t forget that this is not a misunderstanding or a lack of knowledge,” says Kemp. It is a deliberate campaign to delegitimize Israel, which began in the Soviet Union in the 1960s.”
In particular, he drew a strong contrast between the way Israel empowers and takes care of all of its citizens, including those who are disabled, and the way Palestinian Arabs treat their people. Israel is, he says, the only country that allows its disabled to serve their country, while the Palestinians sacrifice their disabled children as human shields in the fighting in Gaza.
When asked about the future of British Jews, Kemp says the problem isn’t only the plague of antisemitism that has been tolerated by both the British Labour and Conservative parties. It’s that the rights of all British citizens, what he refers to as the “indigenous” people of Britain, are being undone by a willingness to tolerate law-breaking and Islamicization of society by immigrants from the Arab and Muslim world.
Kemp says the prospects for a political sea change that will enable any conceivable British government to protect the rights of all British citizens, including Jews, are not good. He believes it is more likely than not that future British prime ministers, like the last few, will be too afraid of violence from Muslims and the far left to do anything about the problem. If that is the case, he predicts that it will result in a kind of civil war, comparable to the strife that prevailed in Northern Ireland for decades, where government forces strove in vain to counter violence from competing factions. In this case, that will mean Muslim terror will become a normal part of British life alongside counter-terror from “indigenous” Britons.
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