Symbolic victories – and losses – are important
Elliott Abrams met The Jerusalem Post a day before the Argentinean national team and star Lionel Messi sent much of the country into the doldrums because of their decision not to play an exhibition game here Saturday night.
Nevertheless, what Abrams said about the upcoming visit of Prince William and the move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem resonates loudly in the context of the Argentinean team’s decision.
Prince William’s visit and the US Embassy move are “symbolic victories that send a message of Israel’s “acceptance and permanence,” Abrams said.
“You can live without symbolic victories,” he explained. “But given that there is a global movement against you, these symbolic victories contribute to the cause. Yes, you lived 70 years without the American Embassy in Jerusalem, and without a British Royal, but you are under attack here by Iran, a number of terrorist groups, and by the Left around the world; so you need political victories, symbolic victories, and friends.
“So when these victories come, when you win a song contest, it is better than losing because you are Israeli. And when the royal family comes, it is a big deal. It is better than the royal family refusing to set foot here officially.”
Prince William’s visit and the embassy move help to “normalize” Israel, Abrams argued.
“There is a still an effort to say that Israel is a criminal enterprise, that its creation was an offense, that it is not permanent and not acceptable. And all of these symbolic moves say, ‘No, we reject all of that.’”
Abrams cited his mentor George Shultz, a former US secretary of state, as saying in 2003 that the US Embassy needed to move to Jerusalem because “as long as it is in Tel Aviv, it seems as if we are just camping out.”
Asked what Shultz meant, Abrams replied: “It looks as if you are temporary, your presence is temporary, your role in Jerusalem is temporary, so our embassy has to be temporary. So now we are saying, ‘No.’ There are daily attacks on this country’s legitimacy; these victories are not meaningless.”
Unfortunately, then, neither are the losses.