I’ve been reading Ha’aretz lately and listening to some of our left-of-center politicians, and it seems like they are living in an entirely different world than I am.
The usual piece starts off with an attack on Binyamin Netanyahu, each one trying to find a new angle. Ari Shavit tells us that he’s dishonest, he’s obsessed with his father, he hates Arabs, he will destroy the country, he is little by little crushing democracy, and on and on. Avraham Burg claims that Israel is becoming a dictatorship and refers to Iran and the Hamas terror tunnels as “some … Netanyahu phobia.” Phobia!
Former PM Ehud Barak claims that Netanyahu has made serious errors recently that have made Israel vulnerable to a “central security threat.” But he won’t say what, exactly, so we are waiting for it to leak. This from the guy that opened the door to the Second Intifada, and who allowed Druze IDF soldier Madhat Yusuf to bleed to death because he didn’t want to anger the Palestinians.
Most of these writers and politicians admit that Israel is doing well economically and that Bibi has made some serious diplomatic gains, with Turkey, the Sunni Arab states, several African nations, India, even China to some extent. They have to admit that there have been few wars during his years as PM, and they’ve been limited in extent. He has kept us from getting entangled in Syria, seems to have reached a modus vivendi with the Russians, and avoided the big one with Iran/Hezbollah.
They blame him for our bad relationship with the US. They might as well blame him for climate change too, but anyone with eyes can see that the Obama Administration – correctly viewing our PM as the main obstacle to realizing their goal of reversing the outcome of the 1967 war – has it in for him and for us as a result. That’s why they blame him for the PLO/PA’s refusal to even sit down to negotiate and why they tried to intervene in our last election.
But, but, but, say the Ha’aretz writers. What about The Occupation, the source of everything evil, the poison corrupting our society and unfairly victimizing the suffering Palestinians, who only want to live beside us in peace if we’d just give in to their demands and evacuate Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem.
Then, according to Ha’aretz, we would have peace, democracy would return, and Bibi’s irrational “phobias” would be banished. Terrorism would stop as the Arabs happily worked on building their state. The Left, whose politicians are scrupulously honest, would return to power, and since we wouldn’t need to spend so much on defense, everybody who wanted an apartment in North Tel Aviv could afford to buy one. The media would stay safely in leftist hands, and the looming danger of more Mizrachi music on the radio would be averted. Free newspapers, those instruments of totalitarianism, would be abolished. Nobody would object to artistic expression, like “artists” sticking Israeli flags in their anuses at Ha’aretz-sponsored conferences. Nobel Peace Prizes would be given out. Even the publisher of Ha’aretz would get one.
Stupid morons! What would really happen? The PLO would immediately press the rest of their demands, total control of the Temple Mount and the Kotel with Jews forbidden to visit, free entry to Israel for the millions of Arabs that claim to be descended from 1948 refugees, and the de-Judaization of our state. Oh, we don’t agree? Then we get rockets on Tel Aviv, Kfar Saba and Ben-Gurion Airport. More infiltration and terrorism than ever before. A vicious war on multiple fronts, but fought without strategic depth. Possibly tens of thousands of casualties, Jews and Arabs. Maybe we win, maybe they do, but either way what’s left looks like Syria or Iraq.
Face it folks, “The Occupation” is here for the foreseeable future, unless we figure out how to encourage the Arabs to emigrate, which is unlikely. Instead of insane schemes to make deals with imaginary peace-loving Arabs, the best plan is the one put forward by Binyamin Netanyahu, which is to try to improve the economy of the Arabs in the territories, reduce the friction caused by Israel’s security measures to a minimum, fight the terrorist organizations, build international support outside of the US and Europe, and most important, make it clear to the Arabs that they have no chance of defeating us.
Deep in their hearts, those members of the Left that haven’t allowed their long exile from power to completely dry out their brains, have to understand this. Even Labor candidate Yitzhak Herzog had to admit that a “two-state agreement” would be unrealistic now.
But boy, do they ever hate Bibi!
Right on! Sadly there seems to be a sizable group of Israelis who must exist on drugs, and unfortunately J Streeters here and the Euro Jew Haters who are and have consistently poison the well.
Will we ever learn from our historical past
Am Yisroel Chai
I often wonder how the Prime Minister deals with the tremendous number of unfair attacks made upon him. The list is long but certainly ‘Haaretz’ and “Yediot Achronot’ have been in the forefront of thousands of unfair attacks. They have journalists who specialize in this obsession.
I find it all contemptible and worrisome. It however is too part of the same kind of unfairness and attack the state of Israel itself is subject to.