Israel could do no worse than to hire a PR firm, like Bell Pottinger, to help burnish its image, and one day perhaps replace it’s present leadership with more pragmatic and at the same time more likable people. Perhaps with a more charismatic leader, Israel will be able to gain more friends in the Western media.
President Obama has a deep personal dislike of the present Israeli Prime Minister and that feeling is mutual. The American military, the ultimate guarantors of Israel’s security, are more circumspect but have their own misgivings which they express privately. Whilst they fight America’s wars, they know the human cost and do not like going into situations without clear objectives and knowledge of the endgame.
Israel knows about these misgivings and is looking to the future.
As Dr Alf knows, this feeling of dislike has blossomed into loathing now that President Obama knows that his time in office has just 23 months to run and he no longer needs anyone to assist him win the nomination. In corporate life, someone like President Obama would never have got the job in the first place, or would by now have been unceremoniously removed as the failure he is, but barring unforeseen circumstances; he has just the “fag-end” of his lame duck legacy to leave behind before hopefully fading into obscurity and replacement with someone much more competent.
The Israeli Government also knows that America’s strategic priorities have shifted eastwards and that money and power have shifted and are still shifting eastwards and draining away from the West.
A useful clue is Lord Rothschild’s house in Shanghai, an enormous construction as large as a Holiday Inn, from which he can personally survey his investments in the Middle Kingdom and the Far East and meet privately with those he wishes to do business with.
So it is not surprising that Israel, in the form of it’s Chief Scientist, Avi Hasson, is looking to achieve co-operation with China and Russia, China’s uneasy bedfellow in arms.
Overall, it makes sense for those countries which are innately innovative, like Israel and for that matter the UK, to identify their strengths and then look eastward for collaboration. Economic interests can, in this way, converge so that misunderstandings become less likely and rapprochement becomes more likely.
The world needs more of it.
Dr Alf's Blog 