Infuriating. All the more 'cause it's true

Ilana Mercer (a Clear Thinker ™) writes the following at FrontPageMag on why Putin doesn't 'deal' with Israel: He knows Israel is weak:

Israel was not always strategically insignificant. For a brief period after the Six-Day War, observes Arieh Stav, “Israel ceased to be a provisory state, which constituted a political liability and became a strategic asset, to use State Department parlance.” Compelled by their American handlers and their own failings, Israeli leaders have since abandoned the national interest—and with it the very principles of international law.

By returning land to the aggressors—the Sinai first—Israel violated Nullum crimen sine poena, the imperative in international law to punish the aggressor. It continued to breach this principle—and its own national self-preservation—by signing and honoring agreements (Oslo I and II) with a terrorist organization (the PLO).

I'm not that interested in what Putin does or doesn't do (with the exception of selling nuclear technology to Iran). But the motives Ilana Mercer ascribes to him are valid: Israel has consistently shown weakness in giving in to the demands of peoples and parties that have less than zero right to make any demands. Giving up land to people with the sworn, declared and sacred purpose of destroying you (land conquered in defensive wars) is stupid at the very least, and quite possibly fatal. And they've been doing it since '67. And it doesn't look like they're about to stop anytime soon.

Mercer makes an excellent point, albeit a very disconcerting one. Must read.