Historical Amnesia

This morning we awoke to the news that a deal was about to be announced. Details were lacking, but it suggested a coming memorandum of understanding lasting a minimum of sixty days – not a signed agreement. As a lawyer by education and occupation, I recognize what that would mean, and not mean. In legal parlance, the former is not binding, but simply stated, a “gentleman’s agreement” establishing a moral and practical commitment. The latter is a formally, binding contract with specific obligations, deliverables and penalties for failure. To the layman, the state of negotiations between Iran and the United States, even if through the former vehicle, is quite welcome to those who want an end to the war and its damaging effects on the political and economic climate.

For political and military strategists, the strategy of endless non-binding negotiations coupled with the inevitable delay in utter destruction, is familiar to anyone dealing with Iran over the nearly half century since the Iranian regime overthrew the Shah.  Iran has since then used diplomacy to obtain billions of dollars of aid, commerce and concessions from successive administrations, utilizing such monetary influx to build up its military apparatus, funding its proxies, and developing its nuclear program. The election of Donald Trump changed the landscape, and subjected Iran to the combined military operations of the United States and Israel, first against Hamas, and later upon Iran itself. All agree that the devastation Iran experienced brought it to the negotiating table, and succeeding ceasefire extensions to advance negotiations.

During these months of operations, President Trump laid down certain “red lines” – initially, demanding a complete cessation of an effort to obtain a nuclear weapon, ending any uranium enrichment which had reached a dangerous 60% level, suspending all funding to proxies, curtailing the ballistic missile productions that could threaten its neighbors, Europe and even the United States. Iran responded with unsuspected attacks strategically aimed at its neighbors, who were or in the process off becoming part of the Abraham Accords. Most harmful was Iran’s closing of the Strait of Hormuz, countered by the American blockade against Iranian commerce. While it is certain that the combined acts of the United States militarily and economically have done great damage to Iran, the Hormuz-effects have rendered devastating blows to the price of oil, and reversed an improving economy to one that hurts the consumer to the point that public sentiment has plummeted and the danger of losing both houses of Congress in the upcoming mid-terms. These palpable effects upon the United States are  purposeful, intended and effective in changing the negotiating climate.

Now – the upcoming memorandum with Iranian signatories who may lack any authority and easily denied – for instance the Supreme Leader had declared that Iran will not give up its nuclear program, and a pending provision before the Iranian Parliament seeking to provide a lucrative bounty for the assassination of Presidents Trump and Netanyahu – seems a watering down of the prior “red lines” – now the Strait may be reopened (Iran insists it can tax ships coming thru) and a promise to stop its nuclear program, but getting a lifting of sanctions and a release of millions of frozen assets. While no one has seen the memorandum as of this writing, the sixty days is meant to permit a final agreement to be entered into, in the event that during that period, Hormuz remains open and steps are taken to take possession of the enriched uranium so it can no longer reach weapon capability.

How much confidence should we have in these negotiations?  We have to place 21st century occurrences in the context of biblical and historical precedent. Treaties were used by the enemies of Israel – Philistines and Arameans – when our enemies knew that the Jewish Word given by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob would make them immune from attack, while they grew in power, attacked and sought to destroy their negotiating partners in Biblical Israel. Later, that military tactic of war – enter into pacts and agreements – were explicitly employed by Sun Tzu and Saladin.  As reported by Al Jazeera, Yasser Arafat embraced these war strategies in dealing with Israel.

We must also remember that our modern day enemies – geographically aggregated in Iraq-Syria-Iran-Egypt, date back to their prior label names of Babylon-Assyria-Persia-Mitzrayim. Our conflicts, as recognized by those who study Torah and History, identify Antisemitism as going way beyond the State of Israel but directed in reality toward Jews worldwide. Consequently, there may never be a true understanding without a realization that the roots of centuries-long conflicts are theological, not territorial, political or economic. They go back to Ishmael-Isaac and Jacob-Esau, their descendants that seek the obliteration of Jews and their belief system, in contrast to Christianity and Islam.

For most of Israel’s existence since Sinai, our descendants experienced persecution, expulsion and genocide at the hands of the Roman Empire and both Western and Eastern Europe. For centuries, Jews enjoyed relative peace living in Islamic host nations, primarily in North Africa and the Middle East. But for Jews being born since World War II, the greatest threats to our existence has been from the Islamic world, a reversal of roles by our enemies prophesied in kabbalistic and eschatological texts, but actually going back to the Book of Genesis, 16:12, wherein it is written: “He [Ishmael] will be a wild-ass of a man, his hand against everyone, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.” In the End of Days, as prophesied by Daniel and Zechariah, the forces of Ishmael and Edom will unite in their attack upon Jerusalem.

While these futuristic apocalyptic scenarios are yet to occur definitively, and G-d forbid not inevitable, what is clear and should not be ignored through a collective amnesia and cognitive dissonance is to not pay heed to history. Iran is behaving as it has for decades and its ancestors practiced their geo-political affairs for centuries. Can we truly trust any deal that allows Iran to regroup, rearm, reaffirm their determination to resume cries of “Death to Israel” and “Death to the United States”, its labelled Satans? Incredibly, the present negotiations seem to include a lifting of sanctions, easing of Iranian commerce, and revoking the freezing of billions of assets, so that Iran can be rewarded for this expected memorandum of understanding. Such amnesia and madness, as experienced by so many who relied on pacts, agreements, and votes in the past, cannot become the response to an Iran determined to employ time as a war tactic, utilizing delay to return to its historical and theological missions against Israel, the United States, and the entire Western world.