The instinct is to say that the Israel Defense Minister’s comment on US Secretary of State John Kerry that he is “messianic” and “obsessive” is stupid, wrong, ungrateful. And, of course, this is right. High Israeli officials should be far more careful when speaking of high officials of Israel’s strongest ally.
And yet, there’s something about Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon’s bluntness that makes us say: finally, someone spoke the truth. We have observed on this page that it is wrong for the US to do nothing about the massive murder of innocents in Syria — to throw up one’s hands as if the evil there is somehow a force of nature, utterly beyond a significant American response of any kind — while returning to Israel again and again, redemptive though an Israel-Palestinian peace could be.
Still more: Yaalon, a resident of Israel, a veteran of Israeli wars, a witness to Palestinian terrorism, a victim of Palestinian denial of Israel as a Jewish state, professes that he knows what’s good for Israel’s security better than an American secretary of state. Yaalon is right. He does know better. He spoke the truth. Perhaps it’s good that he put it on the table.
Copyright © 2014 by the Intermountain Jewish News
