User:Eman70

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I need your help in proofing this letter, since I am Israeli, and English is not my native language. It purpose is to give Israel supporters which think about supporting Bush because they think he is better on Israel but otherwise would vote for Kerry, a justification to vote for Kerry because their support for Israel. After the proofing I will put it on a diary post, and try to circulate it.

Here it is, make changes in it here, or post a comment in my talk page.

Which candidate is better for Israel? An Israeli perspective

Many American voters, Jews and non-Jews alike, care deeply about Israel, and think about the security and well-being of Israel when deciding which candidate to cast their votes for. If you are one of these people, I would like to share with you my perspective - as an Israeli.

If there is one thing that I, as an Israeli, don't care about, it is the "beauty contest" of who will say more positive things about Israel in his stump speech. Both presidential candidates support Israel, and I am sure that both of them will stand by Israel when neccessary. But the direct attitude toward Israel is a minor issue in this election. The main issue at hand that concerns Israelis is who will do a better job in Iraq. Why? Because the fallout from an American failure in Iraq will have a direct and extremely negative impact on Israel and her citizens.

Personally, I have been very skeptical about the war since well before it started. It was clear to me that the Bush-Cheney administration was exaggerating the threats posed by Saddam Hussein. At the time, I did not believe that Saddam had the ability to hit Israel with WMD. That is why, despite the order of my government, my gas mask is still sealed. And so are the masks of many other Israelis. Saddam's WMD programs were at their peak in 1991 during the first Bush administration, and most of Saddam's worst atrocities occurred around that time - not in the 2000's. It is quite possible that force would have been neccessary against Saddam's regime at some point, but there was no pressing reason to rush into war as hastily as the Bush-Cheney administration did.

And once the war began, things could have been done much differently. The number of coalition troops was enough to bring down the rotten regime of Saddam, but it was not enough to control the country afterward. The Bush administration should have known this, they had in fact been told this by military commanders, but they decided that the Iraqis would be so thankful that such a big force wouldn't be needed. Surely there were non-military people in the Bush administration who had studied the disastarous fallout of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon by Israel? They should have known better. Ignoring the lessons of history, the Bush-Cheney administration preferred to base their planning on an ideology-driven mental picture rather than a reality-driven one. Another grave mistake was disbanding the regular Iraqi Army. The British warned against this, but the Bush administration was fixated on its mental picture of Saddam as the new Hitler, so proceeded to act based on a decision made according to the past reality of 1945 post-Nazi Germany, instead of the present reality of 2003 post-Ba'athist Iraq.

And I fear the worst is still yet ahead of us. Iraq is an explosive barrel, both literally and figuratively. It can be broken apart along several sets of fault lines: the Shitie – Suni - Kurdish line; the secular - traditional Islamic – radical Islamic line; the internal line within religious Shi'ite between those who support Iran, and those who want to be independent of the Iranians, and even feel superior to them; and even the tension between a central government and the local rule of tribe leaders. Saddam squashed all these tensions under the boot of his brutal regime. The liberation of Iraq is like opening a steam pot - it should be done slowly and carefully. Otherwise it is going to be a "catastrophic success" indeed. Yet the Bush administration thought that they could bring Iraq from such a dictatorship into a "shining beacon" of democracy in the Middle East within just a few years, ignoring the repeating lessons history teaches us, that democratization is a process that takes decades of ups and downs, instabilities and bloodsheds – even in countries like England, France, and Germany. They also ignored the lesson of the 1991 election in Algeria, in which an Islamic victory was followed by an abolishment of the election and a military takeover that threw the country into a decade of murderous civil war.

Today, Iraq faces several options in regards to its political future. None of them is particularly great. The worst case scenario is a civil war and a total collapse of the state – which will lead to a greater instability in the region than during the Saddam era, and will made Iraq a haven for terrorists. Terror thrives on a political chaos; we already see that today, but it can get even worse. The prospects of a radical Shi'ite Islamic regime of people like Muktada As-Sader that will cooperate with Iran is another scenario that doesn't look much better for Middle East stability. Even a more positive realistic option, such as the rule of supporters of the Ayatollah Sistani, is far from idyllic.

The question is, who can deal better with this complex situation? Will a second Bush-Cheney term be able to release itself from the fantasy-land, admit no mistakes attitude it has held in the past three years? Would it be more sensitive to the nuances of the reality on the ground? Would Kerry's tendency to see every problem from all its sides be a problem, or perhaps an advantage? I have my opinion, but I guess as a U.S. citizen, you can answer this question better than I can. However, I feel that I can tell you that this is the primary question that you should be asking yourself when thinking about which man is the better candidate for Israel.

Emanuel Yellin
Beer-Sheva
Israel
eman@bgu.ac.il