Contemptible Weakness 
By Angelo Codevilla, IASPS Director of Strategic Studies

The Aug. 20 edition of Ha’aretz details the woes of Israeli businesses located in the Free Trade Area of Jordan. Since the beginning of the Al Aksa intifada, they have suffered from decreasing security, increasing disaffection of their Jordanian workers, and a social-legal climate that is quite literally driving them out. Israelis are confused.

What else would anyone have expected? Not just in the Middle East but everywhere on the planet, human beings tend to be obsequious to those who are winning wars and contemptuous (or worse) to those who are losing them. If Israel were to kill Arafat and a hundred of his minions, destroy the Palestinian Authority, and declare its eagerness to do the same to any of its enemies; if the United States were thought willing and able to slaughter enemies as it did during the Gulf War, the same Jordanian officials who are now giving legal troubles to Israeli businesses, the same workers who appear ready to plunge knives into their Jewish managers, would be friendly pussycats.

There is nothing new in this. Note for example the title of Chapter XVIII of Machiavelli’s Prince: “How to Avoid Hatred and Contempt.” The only news is that Israeli (and American) elites ignore the natural consequences of contemptible weakness.

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