As I have mentioned previously. I do look at comments. I do so in order to get an idea of how well my words jive with the beliefs and ideas of Townhall readers. Many readers leave kind comments, some add details that I have missed, and of course, there are nay-sayers. If everyone likes what you write, then you aren’t writing anything that interesting. I don’t mind people disagreeing or bringing facts to counter my arguments. That is the way a free and open society should work. Try bad-mouthing Khameini in the middle of a Tehran street and see how that goes for you. But like all things, there are limits. In one of my recent articles, a recurring nudnik claimed that somehow I was MIGA (Make Israel Great Again) and that pushing an Iran strike was for Israel’s benefit. Israelis realize that should the US attack Iran, we here might be on the receiving end of Iranian retaliation. I know of no country in the world that would accept casualties and destruction for battle of two other states. Israel wanted to go into Iraq in Operation Desert Storm. Israel absorbed 3 dozen SCUDs (missiles) and let George Bush the Daddy keep his coalition by staying out of the fighting.
I thought about the expression MIGA and how totally inappropriate it is for the state of Israel. Everybody is into Make NAME YOUR COUNTRY HERE Great Again, but in this case, it is not relevant. Why did Donald Trump hit pay dirt when he invented the expression Make America Great Again and led a MAGA revolution? The simple reason was that people in their own lifetimes or in that of their immediate predecessors saw successes that we can no longer reproduce. Just for some examples:
- The US was a manufacturing powerhouse until jobs were shipped overseas.
- We used to put people on the moon; we don’t know how to do that anymore.
- The US was first in many fields, including powered flight and nuclear weapons.
- The US was the first to apply nuclear power to naval ships and commercial electricity generation.
- We used to fly commercial at Mach 2 in the Concorde (not American), but no such planes exist today.
- We used to have lower levels of crime and higher levels of marriage and in-wedlock births.
- We used to have hope for a better future, something that died under Joe Biden.
This list is not even close to being complete. The short of it is that virtually any American voter could think about how things used to be and how they are today and wish that things were more successful as they had been in the past. I remember when it was fun to go to New York and take the subway and walk around Central Park. Most people remember when flying was more fun than taking off your belt and shoes. The idea that 1) America was great and 2) is in a funk and 3) could be great again made a lot of sense. Just as Donald Trump closed the border when his predecessor claimed that it was impossible to do so, he is showing that, in many fields, stagnation and failure can be reversed. The US is a major hydrocarbon producer, something that Democrats wrote off years ago. America can be better and those who associate with MAGA look forward to such becoming a reality.
Now, as to Israel, the country is relatively young. She has not yet reached 80 years. Some have noted that Israel can remind you of America in its early years: dynamic, less regulated, seat-of-the-pants military activity (like the pager operation). Israel is becoming more sclerotic as she gets older, with more rules and laws to make doing things harder than in the past. And Israel faces many challenges. Maybe the biggest issue today is that of ultraorthodox doing military service. But it is not the only issue. Housing is painfully expensive, there are serious problems in the Beduin areas of the country, and Arab Israelis suffer a very high internal murder rate. Israel is not perfect and there is much one could point out as being less than optimal. That is not antisemitism to point out how Israel—and other countries—fail or could do better. But if the idea of making something great means looking at past success and trying to recreate it, where does that fit in with Israel?
Israel’s armed forces have performed exceptionally well during the past two years. With numerous threats spread out over thousands of kilometers, Israel has succeeded in dealing with Hamas, Hezbollah, the new Syria, Iran and Yemen. So do we want the IDF to go back to how it was in 1980 or 1965? Israel's high-tech sector is one of the strongest in the world. I met a technology scout from a Fortune 100 company, and he said that he only looks for new technology in the US and Israel. No interest in Europe or Japan. So, should Israel go back to its socialist past, where the government owned most of the big businesses, and Israel was an economic afterthought? Israel, through the Abraham Accords, is more connected to the outer world than at any time in her history? Should Israel long for the days when the Arab Boycott choked Israel off products from multinationals that would not cross Arab leaders? Israel is producing huge amounts of natural gas offshore and just signed a $35 billion agreement to supply Egypt. Should Israelis long for the day when they were completely dependent on overseas delivery of energy?
There is no MIGA movement because Israel does not have a previous period where everything worked and today that is not the case. A drive from Jerusalem to Ben Gurion Airport that generally requires between 45 – 60 minutes has been replaced by 22 minute train service. In every way, Israel seems better today than it was since the days of its founding: economy, tech, military, and world acceptance. So while there is much to fix inside Israeli society, the country does not make the list of “Great Again” countries because there is nothing so impressive about Israel in the 1950s or 1970s that people yearn for those days again. Sure, families were probably closer due to simpler living, but Israel never had the destruction of offshoring manufacturing or the gutting of the army that it now needs to go back to how things were before such events. Israel is still on a positive growth curve that started before the formation of the state. Maybe in a hundred years, there will be a MIGA movement, but for the moment, Israel seems to be enjoying her best days in her 78-year history.
Much of what people do online is projection. People claim that certain events have taken place, not because they have actually happened but rather because they dearly hope that they will take place. I have seen loons claim that Israel is either pushing the protests in Iran or is pushing the US to act. As with most regime changes, nobody can know what will come out of Iran should the mullahs get the boot. Israel definitely wants the major funder of the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas and others to be replaced with something either neutral or possibly pro-Israel. The protests are the outcome of economic ruin (over 1 million rials to the dollar) and the waste of the country’s wealth on world terror. I am rooting for the Iranian people. Israel did not start the protests and may be aiding the people secretly. But don’t think that Israel is the cause of the protests. The people are sick of 50 years of economic and social destruction. They want a better future.
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