The Horns of Bibi’s Dilemma
Already, the Israeli premier’s plan has been met with fury or condescension at home, depending on whom you consult. His left-wing critics, who never miss an opportunity to miss one of Netanyahu’s climb-downs, dismiss the program as opportunistic; all Bibi really wants, they claim, is American support for an inevitable strike on Iran (failing that, they neglect to mention, actual American diplomatic headway on forestalling the mullahs’ acquisition of the bomb would also be nice). Furthermore, what Netanyahu has taken away from Likud dogmatists here, he has redistributed to them elsewhere. See, for instance, his needless restoration of national-priority status to smaller Jewish territories that fall outside the three major settlement blocs in the West Bank.
This minor messianic stimulus package has approximately 110 million shekels going to settlements that will almost certainly disappear in any future final-status agreement. According to Aluf Benn, Netanyahu conceived this as “a small, easy gesture that might mollify settlers’ anger and restore quiet to Jerusalem’s streets. Or at least to his own Likud party.” Yet despite his attempts to reassure Likud of his continued commitment to its expansionist principles, Netanyahu must now buck threats of criminal defiance by settlers who accuse him of the worst betrayal. His milksop hasn’t worked.
Earlier this month a mosque in the West Bank town of Yasuf was desecrated by Jewish villagers who scrawled racist graffiti on the walls and immolated holy books inside — an act of vandalism that elicited Netanyahu’s condemnation and solemn promise to bring the assailants to justice. Last Wednesday, 10,000 of the prime minister’s constituents, most of them settlers, staged a protest outside his home in Jerusalem, led by a chant, “Bibi, you can’t freeze our spirit! We’ll continue to build the land of Israel, with or without you!” And these are just the “visceral” responses. A more organized conservative effort to undercut the freeze is currently underway.
Danny Dayan, the chairman of the Yesha council of settlements, along with Knesset members Tzipi Hotovely, said to be Likud’s “rising star,” and Uri Ariel of the reactionary National Union, convened a meeting in the settlement of Ofra this month to brainstorm methods of stopping their government’s stop order. (Dozens of new inspectors are to be imported to the West Bank and satellite photographs are to be taken of the area to determine what’s already been built versus what will be built in violation of the freeze.) As reported by Haaretz, the “chairman of the Binyamin regional council suggested, among other things, that ‘everyone begin building. Add a shed, and make it white so that the satellites will pick it up. Build new structures, for B’nei Akiva, for whatever, build them far from the gates so that it will take the inspectors a long time to reach them.’” The regional council also advanced the idea of erecting structures “on a hill, so that the tractors won’t be able to demolish them, and they will have to be demolished by hand.”
Concealed construction runs apace with settlers’ other method of outflanking Netanyahu — military insubordination. On December 13, Defense Minister Ehud Barak officially severed the IDF’s ties to the Har Bracha Yeshiva in the northern West Bank, whose rabbis had instructed young soldiers to disobey settlement evacuation orders (though none are called for in Netanyahu’s proposal). Jewish clerics in the West Bank have instructed high school seniors to defer their mandatory enlistment in the IDF until Barak folds. Conscientious objection, once the exclusive domain of the Peace Now contingent, is more and more being taken up by the religious right as a way of thwarting colonial rollback. As Gershom Gorenberg reported in the American Prospect this past November:
[S]ix soldiers in the Nahshon Battalion — part of the brigade that polices the West Bank — unfurled a sign on a rooftop at their base declaring that they would not evict settlers. The two ringleaders, who were jailed and demoted, had studied at a yeshivah in the settlement of Elon Moreh, known for its ultra-nationalist atmosphere. The protest followed the demolition earlier that day of two illegally built houses at the settlement of Negohot. The head of the Elon Moreh yeshivah, Rabbi Elyakim Levanon, said afterward on Israeli Radio that ordering his students to evacuate settlers was “illogical, insufferable, [and] opposed to all of their personal morality.”
Thus, not for the first time are religious Jewish nationalists preparing to conduct themselves as enemies of the Jewish state. But that such an incipient civil war has broken out under Netanyahu’s watch is telling. The ash heap of Oslo and the blood and tears of two intifadas have vitiated the Israeli left such that the socialist Labour Party founded by David Ben-Gurion is today an electoral nullity; the only major opposition Netanyahu faces is a party that itself claims schismatic discipleship from Vladimir Jabotinsky.
Attempts by the United States to undermine Netanyahu on his own turf are now met with derision and recrimination, whatever Obama’s true poll numbers are in Israel — another stunning contrast to the early nineties when Bill Clinton came to Jerusalem and successfully played the role of kingmaker. Yet with the emergence of a center-right consensus in Israel, a process that began under Sharon, the pro-settlement right has grown more emboldened and radical. “As we say in Hebrew, things look different from there than they do from here,” Isaac Herzog, Netyanahu’s welfare minister told the Times.
Yes, but from which side of the Green Line did it ever seem likely that Bibi would emerge on the side of the liberals?
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.