The Inner Strengths of Taiwan and Israel
Two Tiny Countries At the World's Military Flashpoints
As the holiday season commences, we all note that storm clouds continue to build throughout the world. I’m thankful to The Free Press for unearthing Winston Churchill’s moving Christmas 1941 reflections when he met Franklin Roosevelt at the White House only three weeks after Pearl Harbor. His comments appropriately apply to our perilous time today.
Churchill sought to produce a single night of peace as war raged around them, saying to his audience, “In the midst of war, raging and roaring over all the lands and seas, creeping nearer to our hearts and homes, we have tonight the peace of the spirit.”
As we prepare for Christmas and Chanukah 2024 - which fall on the same day this year - I want to shed light on two tiny countries that are actively dealing with those storm clouds: Taiwan and Israel. Both small nations are sitting at the center of two of the world’s major military flashpoints.
I’m not taking away from Ukraine. But Ukraine is a large country with NATO allies surrounding them.
Israel and Taiwan, in contrast, are surrounded by implacable foes that are massive in size. As you will see, they also are twin countries that share many unique and common traits as they sit on the front lines of a potential World War III.
The first time I connected together both small nations was last September, when the world woke up to learn that 5,000 Israeli pagers had exploded among the highest ranks of Hezbollah military commanders, killing 20 officers and wounding 2,300.
This James Bond episode captivated the world. By 2024, most people believed such intelligence coups had been relegated only to the imagination of Hollywood scriptwriters and to mythical 007 agents.
Last night even CBS 60 Minutes, which has been consistently anti-Israel, acknowledged the operation with its lead segment titled, “Inside Israel’s Plot to Deliver Explosive Pagers to Hezbollah’s Terrorists.”
This ingenious attack momentarily shed light on Taiwan and Israel, two of the world’s most advanced technological powerhouses.
However, the pager story really isn’t the main story. The most fascinating story of our century that’s not been told is how these two tiny countries, living continents apart, share so many common intellectual, creative, moral, and spiritual strengths.
In effect, they are fighting for us with long lost values that were once embraced by the world.
The secret sauce for both countries can be found within their cultures: inner strength.
Kenneth Weinstein, the former Hudson Institute president and foreign policy guru recognizes that “inner strength” - an abstract but key cultural feature - is one of the secret ingredients that allow societies to succeed and thrive.
Modern inner strength has been on display since World War II: the British people who once stood alone during Battle of Britain, the people of Eastern Europe who liberated themselves from Soviet tyranny, or the Korean people who continue to face North Korea’s fanatical dictator and his military machine,
“The Israelis have an inner strength and courage that goes throughout the society, including among the Jews and Israeli Arabs,” Weinstein told me. “And both Israel and Taiwan recognize that special strength they have to face daily.”.
Of course, much of the world has lost this inner strength. When the pager story “exploded” onto the headlines, so to speak, Leon Panetta, Barack Obama’s Defense Secretary and CIA chief, called it “an act of terrorism.”
The Israel operation, of course, reflects all the incredibly daring episodes portrayed of the wildly popular “Mission Impossible” TV series.
This long-lost resilience has not been forgotten in Taiwan and Israel, which are among the most creative innovators in the world.
But there’s much more.
Both are also the products of ancient cultures going back thousands of years. Israelis feel 3,500 years of their Jewish religion and today it’s an integral part of their identity. And about one in five Israelis are Muslims. The people living on Taiwan follow the ancient religions of Buddha, Tao and Confucius. Their spiritual histories are essential to the character of both countries.
A Taiwanese citizen recently unpacked to me what that meant. He said both have become “living demonstrations of the synergies of the past and the present.”
Both countries also were born amid war. Israel fought for its existence during the country’s rebirth in 1948 when five different Arab armies surrounded them to attempt to erase the Jewish state. Remarkably, the small country won and has flourished as one of the most successful countries in the region - although the current war issue the ninth in its short modern history.
And the Chinese Nationalist anti-communists fled to Taiwan after Mao Tse Tung’s swarming army defeated Gen. Chang Tsai-Shek in 1949. Since then, both the native Taiwanese and Chinese have had to stand up to Beijings constant threats of war as well as face a monstrously large People’s Liberation Army.
And war continues to be their realities. For more than a year, Israel has fought a multi-front war against the Iranian mullahs, Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria and Yemen’s Houthis called the “Axis of Resistance – with of course key support from Russia and China.
And Taiwan has been under continued attack from China. Although it was ignored by most of the American mainstream media, last week the Chinese military escalated its own military operations against Taiwan. Ninety Chinese ships and dozens of aircraft were part of the largest Chinese military exercise around Taiwan since 1996.
Both countries also face diplomatic isolation. Taiwan has full diplomatic relations with only 12 countries. And the United States and Israel aren’t among them.
When President Nixon recognized the People’s Republic of China as the sole representative of the Chinese people, he reduced Taiwan to “unofficial” status. It continues to be a pariah state in the world’s eyes, which brings much joy to the Beijing communists.
Israel diplomatically recognized the PRC in 1950 under the faulty assumption that as the first Middle Eastern country to recognize Mao Tse Tung’s regime, it would help forge a positive alliance. But it didn’t quite work out as Beijing didn’t return the favor. It only extended full diplomatic relations to Israel in 1992 after the Soviet Union collapsed.
As a result, Israel and Taiwan diplomatically have been forced to operate mutual “trade offices,” not embassies. This didn’t totally sour relations between the two countries. Over the past 50 years, they have signed dozens of agreements covering such areas as technology, healthcare and aerospace. In 2022, Israel’s trade with Taiwan reached more than $2.6 billion. It’s quite unclear if they share any military assistance.
The distance between Israel and Taiwan dramatically changed after October 7 when Beijing celebrated the brutal Hamas attacked and denounced Israel. A PRC representative to the International Court of Justice posted on X that the attacks by the Hamas constituted “armed struggle” which was an “enshrined right.” Beijing also has hosted meetings between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority since October 7.
This of course disrupted Israeli-PRC relations and brought Israel and Taiwan closer together. Following October 7, Taipei donated more than half-a-million dollars to Israel to help soldiers and their families.
Last April an Israeli delegation traveled to Taiwan. Its president said, current “interactions between Taiwan and Israel have recently been very close.”
Meanwhile, Israel is being treated like a pariah state by much of the world. It’s lost that the genocide charges leveled against Jerusalem before the International Court of Justice was initially filed by the South Africa, one of the most wildly corrupt governments in Africa.
Some European governments also are blocking arm sales to the country. And most countries don’t keep their embassies in Israel’s capitol, Jerusalem, but, rather, in Tel Aviv.
Now, as the “Axis of the Resistance” withers and the European governments are finally waking up to the fact that Tehran is putting finishing touches on their nuclear arsenal, things possibly may change.
And Beijing’s aggressive military moves throughout the Pacific seems to have stirred the Asian-Pacific region to some renewed action.
Will the world wake up to these two amazing small countries? The next year will tell.