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Kerry's Attack on Israel
(Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies-Bar-Ilan University) Prof. Hillel Frisch - In U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's recent speech, he sounded like the European leaders who reflexively condemn Israel. Kerry noted that the U.S. had concluded an "historic" $38 billion military aid agreement with Israel, but he neglected to mention that most of those funds will go to meet the dangers of an aggressive Iranian policy. Tehran has been emboldened by a $50-100 billion windfall resulting from the unfreezing of its assets in Western capitals. Israel knows that much of that windfall will be used to buy Russian state-of-the-art air defense systems that will make it much more difficult for Israel to attack Iran when it goes nuclear (which it inevitably will). In Syria, President Vladimir Putin, the leader of a country with less than half the population of the U.S. and one-tenth its GDP, has led a winning Russian-Iranian-Syrian coalition against an ineffectual U.S. In shedding tears over the Palestinians' plight, Kerry cannot dispel the truth that life expectancy in Gaza is a respectable 75 years - far higher than that enjoyed by one-third of humanity. Fifteen thousand Gazans have received critical medical care in Israel's hospitals, just as they receive Israeli electricity (for which they rarely pay). The writer is a senior research associate at the BESA Center and a professor of Middle East studies at Bar-Ilan University.