“It was the best of times…it was the worst of times.”
In Jerusalem the economy is booming. The semi-conductor and communications industries, pioneered in Israel are as strong as ever. The overall economic growth of the country is above three percent and unemployment is around seven percent. Vast discoveries of natural gas under the Mediterranean Sea bed are sufficient to meet Israel’s needs for decades to come and, if managed properly they hold the promise of complete energy independence, potentially making Israel the first western style Democracy to be energy independent.
In Washington there is apparent blindness to the “Arab spring” in which the Muslim Brotherhood and related Islamic fundamentalists are taking power all across North Africa and in the Persian Gulf.  The reach of Iran has extended as far as Egypt where the new government is threatening to repudiate the peace treaty signed with Israel in May 1979. The world supplies of crude oil emanating from the Persian Gulf are being threatened, creating very high prices on the futures markets and the possibility of this oil being diverted away from western buyers. China, for instance, is in direct negotiations with Saudi Arabia for crude oil.
Iran is close to manufacturing a nuclear weapon and it has threatened to use it to wipe out the State of Israel. Meanwhile Iran is supplying weapons to Hamas and Hizbullah, Iranian puppets located on Israel’s borders, and these weapons are being used to threaten and in some cases to attack Israeli civilians. The western powers in Europe and in Washington seem quite oblivious to the Iranian threat, as they continue to ignore the threat to reestablish the international Islamic Caliphate, in Europe and in America.
The UN has become an enemy, where double speak is the rule. Israel is prevented from joining committees and treated as a pariah while Libya is a member of the Human Rights Commission. The dictatorships that are the majority in the world no longer take their lead from the western powers. Rather they have taken over the General Assembly for their own propaganda purposes and the U.S. veto in the Security Council, on which Israel could always rely, is not at all dependable.
Our government in Washington not only ignores the threats but appears to condone them. The Prime Minister of Israel was subjected to shabby treatment on his last visit to Washington, forced to enter the White House by a side entrance, where he was all but ignored by the president. Meanwhile dictators and Arab potentates are granted access and courtesy not shown to our allies. Let’s not forget the deep bow to the king of Saudi Arabia, while the whole world seemed to turn on apartments being built in Jerusalem, of which our president did not approve.
Israel is under the greatest threat to the Jewish people since World War II. Our government in Washington does not seem to recognize this nor do they appear to care. We are entering an election cycle this year and it is time for those who care about the safety and security of the State of Israel to speak out. AIPAC will be doing just that at their spring meeting. All American Jewish organizations must demand a response to Iran and the threats to Israel that has real meaning. We cannot stand by again, silently as our people are under attack.

Frederic Leder is a retired oil company executive living in Westport and a frequent contributor to the editorial pages of the Ledger.