It’s a healthy sign when prominent and articulate Zionists rise to challenge liberal double-agents like Alan Dershowitz, Thomas Friedman and Peter Beinart. Still, it’s a mistake to think the fate of Israel will turn on debates, op-eds or gentlemanly rebuttals concerning the fine points of international law. As Yitzhak Shamir observed and Netanyahu acknowledged while eulogizing him, “the Arabs are the same Arabs” and, being Muslims too, they’ll never reconcile themselves to a Jewish state in their midst. And in an ironic twist, it’s that feral hatred for the Jews that more than anything keeps Israel honest. After twenty years of Oslo most Israelis will tell you they’ve finally had it up to here with “peace” and its hucksters. For the foreseeable future, and probably beyond, the best Israel can expect to do is keep getting more powerful, more prosperous and more Jewish, leaving no doubt in anyone’s mind that she is a permanent fixture at her current address and that it would be foolhardy and much too costly to try and evict her. Dayenu!

Perhaps then, and only then, will Israel reach a modus vivendi with her neighbors. The great Jabotinsky put it this way: “As long as the Arabs feel that there is the least hope of getting rid of us, they will refuse to give up this hope in return for either kind words or for bread and butter, because they are not a rabble, but a living people” And that dear friend was written in … 1923!