Israel: 360-Degree Hostility

We must stand firm and offer Israel our unequivocal support in all ways always.

Posted 09/12/2011 06:40 PM ET

Foreign Policy: With Israel's two most important allies in the Muslim world now conspiring against her, we must act to help our strategic friend and avert a costly Mideast war.

The White House has to do more than just make phone calls and statements of concern. Yet that's all it did when Egypt's police and army last week let a mob sack Israel's embassy in Cairo following a flare-up on the Egyptian border.

Terrorists trekked across Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and sneaked into Israel, killing eight Israelis. In response to the attack, Israel killed five Egyptian police and soldiers along with the insurgents.

The next "serious incident," as Israel leader Benjamin Netanyahu described it, could be a flash point for war, spiking world oil prices.

For decades Israel could count on peace on its southern border, as former Egyptian premier Hosni Mubarak demilitarized the Sinai and held back the fanatics in the Muslim street. He also helped in the Israeli blockade of Iranian weapons shipped to the Gaza Strip.

Then President Obama threw Mubarak to the wolves. And now Israel must radically rethink its defense strategy. It faces growing hostility not just from Egypt, but even once-secular Turkey. Ankara has recalled its Israeli envoy to protest last year's raid on a Hamas-bound flotilla in which nine Turks were killed.

Turkey's belligerent Islamist prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, warned that his navy would in the future protect Gaza-bound ships, thus risking military conflict with Israel. Erdogan met Monday with Cairo's new regime and may pay a visit to Hamas-controlled Gaza — a move sure to infuriate Tel Aviv.

Mideast "peace is being challenged," Netanyahu warned.>>>