Racing Toward Irrelevance

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer claims to have been blindsided by the American military action in Iran.  The British, long used to being privy to the most timely and important intelligence through the “Five Eyes” network, now seem to have no idea what is going on.

It’s not hard to see why.  Starmer and his Foreign Minister David Lammy have been verbally quite hostile to Israel, have placed a hold an export licenses for certain weapons systems for Israel and have announced that Great Britain will arrest Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu should he set foot on British soil.  Not surprisingly, the Israelis stopped sharing intelligence with Great Britain.

A similar dynamic has taken place with Australia, where Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penelope Wong came out in favor of the American bombing, notwithstanding their extraordinary hostility toward Israel and their seeming abandonment of the Australian Jewish community in the face of numerous actions of intimidation against the community.

One of the byproducts of the Middle East wars since October 7, 2023 has been that Israel, and to a lesser extent the United States, have ignored the criticism of its erstwhile Western allies.  This includes Canada, whose Liberal government first under Justin Trudeau and now under Marc Carney have paid little more than lip service to the concerns of the Canadian Jewish community while at the same time giving the fundamentalist Muslims in their countries wide latitude to try to bully and intimidate both their national Jewish communities and their body politic in general.

Now these leaders wake up to realize they may have bet on the wrong horse.  Notwithstanding the constant criticisms of Israel, the Israelis are on the brink of one of the most astounding military achievements since the Six Day War.

Unlike most other countries in the Middle East, Israel is on the cutting edge of technology and innovation.  The Mossad certainly has among the best intelligence in the world.  Great Britain, Australia, Canada and others now realize they may be shut out from all of that in the future.

In addition, all of these Western societies face their own restive populations, furious at the extent of migration allowed by their leaders and concerned that so many of the migrants, who predominately come from Islamic countries, not only are refusing to assimilate but are demanding the Sharia law become the law of their new countries.   At a time when they may need Israel most, they will have Israel least.

In most of these countries, it has been the more conservative opposition, from Pierre Poilievre in Canada to Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, and even to Marine Le Pen in France, who have most supportive of Israel.  To further the twist of fate, the German government has been among the most supportive of Israel since October 7.  To date, few of the rightist opposition figures have been successful winning elections in their own countries, but their stances raise the question of how internal politics in these countries will play out as these societies deal with Israel potentially ascendant and their own people becoming more violent in their opposition to increasing Islamic immigration.

Almost two years after the massacre of October 7, 2023 Israel finds itself far more isolated internationally than before that date.  In the next few months, however, it might be these Western countries that feel that sting of that isolation more than Israel.