The Horns of Bibi’s Dilemma
As of 1977, the platform of the right-wing Likud Party in Israel was quite clear on the matter of Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank: “The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable and is linked with the right to security and peace; therefore, Judaea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.”
It would be understating the case to say that this policy has been quietly subject to revision and attrition over the past decade. Beginning in 1998 with the Wye River Memorandum, which saw a first-term Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hand over most of Hebron, the largest city in the West Bank, to the then-nascent Palestinian Authority, and continuing into 2005 when Ariel Sharon brought off his unilateral disengagement plan from Gaza, dismantling the very settlements he had once encouraged, the establishment right in Israel has, through fits of ideological bluster and resignation, adopted a pragmatic position on the occupied territories, however difficult it may be for some to acknowledge the fact.
Last June, Netanyahu, now in his second administration, announced his acceptance of the two-state solution. Though grudging, overdue, and more or less forced by President Obama’s Cairo address a month earlier, the speech Netanyahu gave at Bar-Ilan University stood in marked contrast to the grumblings of a finance minister who not long before resigned from Sharon’s cabinet over the Gaza withdrawal. He’s also removed a record number of outposts and checkpoints in the West Bank, lending his tacit support to the enormous material strides made by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, another U.S-educated economist and in many ways Netanyahu’s natural interlocutor — if only Fayyad were entitled to deal.
Chastened by his years out of power, but considerably wiser as a statesman, Netanyahu has publicly come around to espousing a doctrine of conservative conciliation, best articulated recently by Dov Weissglas, Sharon’s former legal adviser, in a New York Times article assessing Bibi’s capacity for peacemaking. “No one in the world agrees to Israel’s presence in a majority of the Judea and Samaria territories and the continued construction there,” Weissglas told the Times’ Ethan Bronner. “Israeli persistence will bring upon it diplomatic isolation, and this is something that Israel cannot afford.”
He was referring specifically to Netanyahu’s latest reversal, announced in early December, to impose a 10-month “freeze” on settlement construction in the West Bank, barring three thousand housing units still slated for completion — an about-face arrived at after months of awkward bartering with the White House, during which period many premature obituaries of the Jerusalem-Washington “special relationship” were authored and Obama wound up with more egg on his face than altered facts on the ground. Small wonder, then, that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton chose to term Netanyahu’s alternative freeze proposal “unprecedented.” Close, but not quite. In keeping with the ideologue-turned-pragmatist tradition of Likudnik prime ministers, Netanyahu has only replicated Menachem Begin’s three-month construction pause during the 1979 peace talks with Anwar Sadat, the fruit of which was Jimmy Carter’s only foreign policy accomplishment, the Camp David Accords. And should Obama fail to wrangle a similarly historic agreement out of the Netanyahu program, he’ll have the ready-made excuse of Palestinian intransigence.
Abbas, who has lately threatened to resign the PA presidency despite the likelihood that this would incite a third intifada, categorically refused to renew peace talks with Israel unless all the cranes and cement mixers of East Jerusalem likewise fell silent. This sine qua non for preliminary negotiations seems especially extravagant in light of the recent disclosure that Abbas formerly ceded to Israel the East Jerusalem neighborhoods of Ramot, Ramot Alon, Ramat Shlomo, Pisgat Ze’ev, Neve Ya’akov, Ma’alot Dafna, French Hill and Gilo (long a hotspot in the settlement debate) in a proposed border-drawing and land exchange kibitz with Tzipi Livni. Abbas implied in an interview with Haaretz last week that by not formally “declaring” a more comprehensive moratorium on construction but by simply carrying it out, Israel might skirt domestic upheaval, and Netanyahu acute political embarrassment. There was no chance of either happening.
Mr. Weiss has no idea what he is writing about if he really thinks that the present Israeli government is having troubles. Where Mr. Weiss really falls off the rails is his apparent belief that the Palestinians ever seriously planned on reaching a peace settlement with Israel. By now even the most deeply brainwashed Peace Now Leftist knows that there is no Israeli concession, no Israeli offer, and no Israeli position which will ever bring the Palestinians to negotiate in good faith, much less reach a peace settlement with Israel. The Palestinians, unlike Bibi and most Israeli Jews, have only a “one state settlement” in mind, and that state will be a Palestinian one, replacing Israel, following the Palestinian genocide of all the Jews living here.
Mr. Weiss also fails to understand internal Israeli affairs when he uses ridiculous terms like “incipient civil war” or refers to nationalists and settlers, I happen to be one, as acting like “enemies of the state.” Mr. Weiss takes Israeli hyperbole and theater and twists it into a reality, when in point of fact, there is zero chance of a civil war here, and enemies of the state is a term tossed around by the Left, the Right, the Nationalists, the Ultra Orthodox, the Reform, and just about any Israeli with a big mouth who can get a journalist to listen.
Mr. Weiss also repeats the unfounded slander that Jews desecrated a mosque in a Palestinian village. The facts are that there is no evidence whatsoever implicating Jews in this affair, except that there was some Hebrew graffiti found at the site, graffiti which anyone, Arab or Jew, could have written. What Mr. Weiss doesn’t realize is that in most Palestinian villages there are at least two mosques, one affiliated with the PLO and one with the Hamas, and that on occasion these groups attack each other’s places of worship just as they on occasion massacre each other’s supporters. Indeed, the repetition by Mr. Weiss of this unfounded accusation, a blood libel if you will, should immediately disqualify him from commenting on any Israeli affairs. Mr. Weiss clearly has no idea what he is talking about.
He raises an incident in which several Israeli soldiers raised a banner at a ceremony which indicated that they would not participate in any further “ethnic cleansing” of Jews from Judea and Samaria, and rather hysterically attempts to turn this trivial and insignificant incident into a huge mutiny. Well, he got this one wrong too, and I have to ask myself if any responsible, mature, and informed adult at Pajamas Media bothered to check up and pass off on the nonsense this clown Weiss is writing.
I am convinced that at best Mr. Weiss may have visited Israel a few times and probably gets most of his misinformation from the internet since most sites there have one agenda or another, much of the time a Leftist and more or less anti Israeli slant.
I would suggest that Pajamas Media find a commentator on Israel who is informed, up to the minute, and aware of just how much of the politics here is playing to the peanut gallery and not to be taken seriously.
I have absolutely no idea what to make of this note, which links to this December 24 news release by the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In any event, “Israel’s ambassadors and consuls general serving throughout the world will discuss broad diplomatic and strategic issues at a conference to be held next week in Jerusalem.” This is, apparently, the first time for such a meeting to be called.
Something must be blowing in the wind, and as the note observes, “It’s too late for Hanukah and way too early for Purim.”
The issue concerning Jewish settlements reveals the bigotry of the typical Arab so-called Palestinian. It has next to nothing to do with space limitations. No, the Arabs simply don’t want to live next door to Jews. They are hate filled Muslims who despise all Jews, Christians, and anybody else outside of their cultural, social, and religious frame of reference. To be blunt: they are similar to the members of the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazis. The reason that this obvious fact is ignored is because of their dark skins. Only white people can be racists according to the doctrines of the politically correct establishment. Arabs are supposedly victims of white imperialism and possess the inherent right to behave like a bunch of jerks.
This administrations desires are NOT conducive with Israeli security needs.
Ken Besig Israel:
Thank you for your commentary. Two requests:
1. Can you recommend a good English language source or two for accurate news from and about Israel?
2. Will you please continue to comment?
Mr. Besig — I echo Jack Okie’s request: Please keep posting on the Israeli scene. It’s a pleasure to read something as informed, as immediate, and as trenchant as your remarks above. And yes, by all means, please let those of us here in the U.S. know of any reliable English-language sources we might actually learn something from. We get more than enough propaganda and balderdash over here; what we desperately need is clearly-written facts. Thanks for writing as you did. Shalom!
All of the above is a moot point, anyway. Within the next few years Israel is going to be attacked, probably by Hezbollah and Syria, maybe even Hamas too. What will set this war off will be the inevitable attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities, whether through air attack or through sabotage. Either way, Iran will retaliate by attacking Israel with everything it has. Only two questions remain: 1) Will Obama, who obviously has no love for Israel, be willing to step up to the plate and defend it, just like Nixon did during the Yom Kippur War of 1973? 2) Will Iran retaliate against Israel with weapons of mass destruction (such as chemical weapons, biological weapons, or dirty bombs, all of which it has the capability of producing, if they don’t have them already)? A military decision is going to have to be made very, very, soon on whether or not the Iranian nuclear program is going to be stopped and Israel will probably be the one to have to do the dirty work. Will Obama, and the West, have the stones to support Isreal after it is forced to do the dirty work for us?
Here and here are two pretty good Israeli news sources.
#5 Jack
“1. Can you recommend a good English language source or two for accurate news from and about Israel?”
There is no website or link that will enlighten you to #1 Ken Besig’s summary, it’s knowledge that can only be gained through applied experience. Everything else is “trivial, insignificant theater” meant to be played out in the international arena to entertain the “peanut gallery.”
Your best option for empirical understanding is to the examine the big picture, remove the pc goggles and watch the patterns which have evolved. Also check out David Fromkin’s “A peace to End All Peace” for some factual historical perspectives.
We are discussing some of the most difficult problems faced by a nation. Israel is concerned about its very existence. The United States is weighing its national interests against the costs to be incurred by supporting Israel in its struggle for survival. My guess is that Israel comes off second best, regrettably.
Isn’t it time that Pajamas Media replace Michael Weiss with someone who knows something about Israel and who isn’t instinctively opposed to the nationalist forces, including the important Religious Zionist groups.
Nothing shows Weiss’ bias better than his statement that “..not for the first time are religious Jewish nationalists preparing to conduct themselves as enemies of the Jewish state.” The previous time was when the National Religious opposed Sharon’s “disengagement” (read surrender) from Gaza, which the nationalist forces said would undermine Israel’s security interests. We all know now what happened and who was ultimately right. Furthermore, Weiss fails to mention that 30% of the IDF officer corp is now composed of National Religious soldiers and that in both Lebanon and Gaza these officers distinguished themselves in battle more than any others. Meanwhile, among the secular non-nationalists centered in the Tel Aviv area draft-dodging is sky-rocketing.
We don’t need to read Pajamas Media to read regurgitations of the mainstream media’s bias against the only Zionist groups in Israel that remain both proudly Jewish and nationalist.
#2: what they are saying is thet this current israeli prime minister is not as murderous as the ones before
Thank you for your kind words, #5 Jack Okie, #Altalena, and #9 David P.
For me the single most accurate, responsible, and probably best source for news about Israel, local, national or regional, political and economic, cultural and media, and which is absolutely unbiased except for being pro Israel and Zionist in the purest sense of the words is an outfit called Independent Media Review and Analysis, IMRA, based in Kfar Sava and run by Dr. Aaron Lerner, which can be found at imra.org.il. The IMRA has a newsletter which comes out several times a day and which can be counted on to report on and occasionally to analyze, the breaking news stories of the day, as well as the really important Israeli news stories, they are not always the same by the way. Anyone who is seriously concerned about Israel will refer first and last to IMRA.
The Jerusalem Post, jpost.com, is also reliable and responsible and may well be the only newspaper in Israel that relies solely on verifiable facts for it’s stories. However the Post can and does have a fairly wide range of commentary and editorial which often includes radical Left wing anti Israel writers, Arab and Israeli, but also includes responsible Jewish nationalist and religious observers as well.
Unfortunately the other newspapers here, Yediot, Maariv, and Haaretz can and will publish the wildest Left wing, anti Zionist, anti Israel, and of course anti settler lies and rumors they can find. They seem to be in competition with Israel’s electronic media which are entirely unprincipled, unreliable, and irresponsible, routinely embellishing their reports with pro Palestinian narrative and Left wing anti Israeli invective.
If you want accurate and truthful news about Israel, do not, I repeat do not, rely on any of the three television news outlets, not Channel 1 owned by the government, Channel 2 or Channel 10, all of which are owned, run, and staffed by the most virulently and radically Left wing pro Palestinian and anti Israel Israeli Jews they can find.
Arutz Sheva, the so called settler media outlet is relatively reliable, but it has it’s pro settler and nationalist biases too, as well as it’s uncompromising Right wing political agenda. Far too often for my taste, Arutz Sheva lets itself be guided by those biases and agendas rather than by facts, simple logic, and the most important ingredient of all, common sense.
Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum, meforum.org or danielpipes.org, is one of the best commentators on the Middle East, and when he discusses Israel, he is excellent, but his main business really is radical Islam and the dangers it poses to the Middle East, Israel,and the world.
By the way, I do read Yediot and Maariv occasionally and regularly watch the TV news here just to see what kind of Left wing, anti Israel, and pro Palestinian propaganda they are spewing and what kind of stupid and twisted advice they are recommending in their editorials.
Frankly I wouldn’t use Haaretz as toilet paper because it is such a filthy rag filled with Israeli Jewish writers seething with hatred and loathing towards the Jewish People and Israel. If you don’t believe me, take a look at their English version internet site and read the rubbish their raving lunatics produce.
Unfortunately Haaretz has made a merger with the International Herald Tribune, and while Haaretz has practically no Israeli circulation to speak of, it’s lies, slanders, and half truths about Israel get a pretty big run among the English speakers in Europe and America, and is one of the biggest sources of anti Israeli and anti Semitic propaganda on the internet.
http://www.debka.com/
Debka is an unreliable information source. Most of the time their “exclusive sources” get the story completely wrong.
Weiss has some interesting commentary on the current situation. However, his article is worthless because he doesn’t mention Moshe Feiglin and the influence that he is and will continue to have on Israel politics.
Feiglin will be the next Prime Minister of Israel and it will happen at the next election.
People who follow the politics of Israel need to be attuned to Feiglin and what he and his Jewish Leadership faction in Likud are doing.
see here
http://www.jewishisrael.org/
here
http://manhigutyehudit.blogspot.com/
and here
http://jewishleadership.blogspot.com/
I had told another commenter that I would not deign to comment on this pathetic article after he brought it to my attention. But, here I am anyway. sigh
Mr. Weiss merely regurgitates the idiocies of the “mass media” and I can read that trash at CNN.com or the BBC.
Mr. Besig is right about the slant of Israel National News. That slant must be taken into consideration when reading the source. But let’s be clear. The Hebrew version of Arutz Sheva is far less independent than the English version. Nevertheless, there is a slant – one that I tend to agree with. Ken Besig gives a spot on analysis of most of the Hebrew media. What he leaves out is the one good thing about Ha’aretz – the ONLY good thing about that piece of trash from the Schocken family. The Hebrew is of high quality – even if it is mostly anti-Jewish and anti-Israel lies. Neither Ma’ariv nor Yediot AHronot can turn out such good Hebrew in its articles. Both newspapers are good for lining the floor underneath the litter box and that is about all. Even fish is too high quality an item to be wrapped in that garbage. Someone needs to wire Mr. Nimrodi and family that Ma’ariv deserves to go out of business. The man defecates on us daily – and expects us to be stupid enough to pay for the privilege of consuming his detritus.
Friend Besig is wrong about a couple of points. Security Minister Barak is nudging this country towards civil war, hoping that when the one bullet goes off in Judea and Samaria to start it, everyone will turn against us nationalists. The fool deludes himself. Most Israelis are nationalists in their gut and if they are not davka religious, they are traditional Jews who believe in G-d. Only the stupid anti-religious Jews of the People’s Republic of Tel Aviv still believe in the “peace” bullsh-t. Everyone else has woken up to the truth. But nobody really wants to kill fellow Jews – except the scum who run the Shaba”k and the labor “zionists” – who are traitors. And Barak works with the Shaba”k.
Ken Besig, Israel.
Thanks Mr Besig, you saved me the trouble of writing a criticism of this frankly lousy article by Mr Weiss.
I would add to your list of sites for good analysis of Israeli & broader Middle-East issues the site THINK-ISRAEL. Two other excellent sites are ZIONIST CONSPIRACY by Steven Plaut, a professor at Haifa University & SULTAN KNISH.