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Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Israel's Fate Amid Arab Uprising

Nadene Goldfoot
The Jewish Review newspaper's front page April 15th article, "Can Israel weather Arab spring?" brings to mind the fact that Israel has many political factions, and that the important leaders in Israel questioning Netanyahu's stand in the peace struggles with Fatah's Palestinian faction are the doves who are not in power.  Their position is to give up Judea and Samaria.  Just as Israel has a group called "Peace Now" who were a part of the Labor Party, they are proposing doing what Israel has done in the past, give up land for peace.  After Israel did just that with Gaza and has received nothing but missile attacks for this, I don't believe the present Likud party will go along with it, though it has logical elements to it.  Another thing they propose is to make Jerusalem a shared capital.  They say nothing about expecting Arabs to accept Israel as a  Jewish state which is the first concession that Likud expects.  They do have expectations of a Palestinian state being demilitarized, which is also on Likud's agenda.  In fact, this proposal really doesn't differ from other plans of the past ten years that were brought up. 


The problem is that Israel is not dealing with logical advisaries right now.  If instead of the foe they are dealing with, they were confronted with Canada, they would be completely wise.  This isn't the fact which makes the solution difficult no matter which way you look at it.  One has to think out the problem with a psychological understanding of the advisary.

Yaakov Perry was the spokesman for the new Israeli Peace Initiative which was the topic of the article.  He is the type of Israeli that was the subject of the book, Start Up Nation, which was about Israel's position of being the number one country that is starting new businesses.  He has been the president and general manager of a cell company and was the head of a general security service.  Naturally he has had an IDF background of army service.  He's speaking about the concerns of businessmen in Israel who are confronted with blockades against their products and country. 
Netanyahu has begged Abbas to come to the peace table, but since he decided to go to the U.N. instead to create Palestine, Abbas has refused to address Netanyahu.  From his position, he feels there is no need to have a palaver.  He has shown that it's his way or the highway and has wanted conditions met before they break bread. 

Netanyahu is up against a jury that is out to lunch.  It's like he's on trial and the opposer is his estranged wife who has been beating the children as well as practicing other physical abuses on them, but the jury and judge are all females of the same ilk and behavior.  They are finding that this father will lose the children no matter that he is the kindest and wisest father in the land.  He's set up to lose his children. 

The above is my way of expressing that Israel has done everything correct in establishing Israel.  They bought land that was exceedingly expensive, but being holy land they bought it anyway.  They went through all the legal hoops and challenges and went through the United Nations to establish Israel.  They are not agressors but have wanted to live in peace since the first moment.  They have returned to their ancient land which holds a religious and cultural meaning to them developed over 2000 years of hope and prayer and we find that Jews had never completely left in the first place.  They have been attacked by Arabs even before their country's renewed birth and the attacks have continued for the past 63 years of its life.  They have lived in a constant state of anxiety and have had to be militarily prepared for their whole existence.   The bottom line is that they have no other choice of living and intend to do just that, for L'Chaim is their watchword:  To Life! 

Israel is a democracy and they have the same magnetic pulls as the United States, the Doves and the Hawks, or Democrats and Republicans.  Netanyahu is working on yet another proposal for a peace pact and we will see what he comes up with.  The religious groups will not be happy with giving up the even more ancient and important land of Judea and Samaria and allow it to become Judenrein or free of all the Jews who live there.  Neither will all the Christian groups who are backing and praying for Israel to have strength of mind and courage of body.  Israel didn't go after Judea and Samaria but received it after being bitterly attacked with a loss of life and blood.  Will Arabs ever learn to stop trying to carry out their goal of driving Jews into the sea if they are rewarded or will they continue to see Israel as weak?  Will they ever see that Israel has reacted magnaminously by having a democratic state with over a million Arabs as citizens?  After all, this was what our Jewish founding fathers saw as the Utopia they were trying to create. 

Resource: Jewish Review article by Dina Kraft from Jewish Telegraphic Agency: Analysis

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