A Correction – Eli Cohen

Yesterday in my blog post, I highlighted Eli Cohen’s statement on his Libya meeting as the ‘most obvious and foolish’ example among many from this Government of someone who doesn’t consider the consequences of his actions.

However in so doing, I also mentioned that this particular incident may not be the most damaging.

This was an error on my part which I now wish to correct for the record – this particular bout of incompetence on Libya may indeed turn out to be among the most damaging.

This government’s foreign policy strategy is based on weakening the position of the Palestinians by progressing ties with Arab and Muslim countries. (Weakened Palestinians are less able to mobilise opposition to settlement expansion, let alone force through a two-state peace.) One of the country’s main longer term foreign policy battles is to reverse the isolation imposed on Israel from its birth, and which has ebbed and flowed throughout its 75-year history.

Therefore, Eli Cohen – by not only burning bridges with Libya, but also scaring the living daylights out of any other Arab or Muslim country that is quietly talking with Israel, or thinking about doing so – has probably destroyed his government’s own foreign policy strategy, and caused significant set back to one of the country’s over-arching foreign policy objectives.

To be clear, in two minutes of supreme incompetence, he has strengthened the Palestinians and entrenched Israel’s regional isolation far more than 18 years of BDS.

If you are ‘right wing’, or, like me, at least share in some way the Government’s underlying aspiration of a more Torah-oriented society in which Jews are free to live securely and peaceably across our Land, this Government is doing a terrible job of it across every domain.