Who could forget the dramatic meeting in May when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told President Obama in no uncertain terms that Israel would not go back to the 1967 lines? When he said “that a peace based on illusions will crash eventually on the rocks of Middle Eastern reality”?
Netanyahu received much deserved praise for his performance. He was firm and unequivocal. It was a welcome change. Previously he had caved to American pressure, ‘freezing’ Jewish construction in the territories and adopting weak-kneed policies he had criticized when in opposition.
Alas, the change did not last. Last week Netanyahu reversed himself, lining up his policy with President Obama’s as he signaled his willingness to negotiate based on the 1967 borders. An unidentified Israeli official admitted to the Wall Street Journal that Mr. Netanyahu’s formula is “similar to the language used in Obama’s speeches.”
The Journal article suggests that this is part of Mr. Netanyahu’s strategy to avert a UN vote for a PLO state. It’s a peculiar strategy to say the least. If Mr. Netanyahu says Israel can never go back to the ’67 lines because they are indefensible, then that’s it. You can’t say the borders are indefensible one minute and then say they’re OK the next. For Netanyahu to reverse himself for any reason, least of all a UN vote, which former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton says has no practical meaning anyway, only demonstrates to the world that the resolve of Israel’s leadership is just so much empty rhetoric.
Unfortunately, Netanyahu joins a long list of backpedaling Israeli leaders whose talk doesn’t match up with their walk. In “Surrender to Washington” (The Jerusalem Post, May 20, 1983), Shmuel Katz gives a rundown of the more prominent examples of Israeli collapse in the face of American pressure.
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In 1973, in spite of the disastrous opening of the Yom Kippur War, Israel was on the brink of overwhelming victory and, as then foreign minister Abba Eban asserted, the government was not even thinking of a cease-fire but only of victory. It nevertheless accepted a cease-fire resolution dictated – via Moscow – by U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger.
Then it abandoned its proposal (generously put forward in spite of Israel’s tremendous advantage in the field) to restore the status quo ante, and agreed to withdraw both from the large enclave it held inside Egypt and from the canal – all for good relations with the U.S., which was seeking Egyptian favours.
Several months later, it repeated the performance on the Syrian front. After weeks of resistance to Kissinger’s demands, the Golda Meir government caved in, returned to Syria the captured enclave and, for good measure, a slice of the Golan Heights captured in 1967.
Here was manifestly – in both cases – acceptance of the posture of defeat in the field – where Israel had lost 3,000 dead – all for those good relations.
A further price was yet to be paid – in 1975 – by further withdrawal in Sinai. The Rabin government at first refused to hear of surrender of the vital Mitla and Gidi passes and the Abu Rudeis oilfields – but in the end it capitulated, demonstratively as a favour to Washington.
Now came the turn of the Likud. The allegedly formidable, intransigent Mr. Begin turned out to be formidable and intransigent only temporarily. Throughout the negotiations on the “peace plan,” he finally accepted nearly every American formulation – which he had declared in the process unacceptable, jettisoning cherished and long proclaimed principles.
At the Camp David conference, which came after nine months of preparatory negotiations with Washington, only an emasculated remnant remained of his original autonomy peace plan. Nor did the agreement contain a hint of Zionist purpose, of the Jewish relationship and right to the Land of Israel; on the contrary, it quashed (if it were to be consummated) any hope of future Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.
In the negotiations for the subsequent peace treaty, President Anwar Sadat at the last moment demanded the nullification of the clause which would prohibit Egypt from going to war with Israel in fulfillment of previous pacts with the other Arab States. Begin – correctly – proclaimed this would make the treaty a “sham treaty.”
President Jimmy Carter, however, anxious for a foreign policy success, pressed Begin, and an annex satisfying Sadat was introduced into the text.
Big words followed by little deeds is a hallmark of Jewish leadership extending to pre-state days. Vladimir Jabotinsky, Shmuel’s mentor and hero, remarked on the phenomenon in a satirical feuilleton he wrote in May 1939, under the pen name Echad Rosho (the Bad One). Jabotinsky avoided ad hominem attacks and denied that the title of the piece “Mr. Ben Bouillon” referred to Mr. David Ben-Gurion. (Similarly, any resemblance to Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu is purely coincidental.)
In Joseph B. Schechtman’s Fighter and Prophet (Thomas Yoseloff Ltd., 1961), the second volume of his Jabotinsky biography (not to be confused with Shmuel’s own two-volume biography of Jabotinsky), the author describes the origin of “Mr. Ben Bouillon.”
“At that time – it was after the publication of MacDonald’s White Paper – Ben Gurion and other Zionist leaders were busy making militant speeches against British policy in Palestine and pledging themselves to fight relentlessly against any attempt to ‘freeze’ the Zionist effort.”
Schechtman, quoting Jabotinsky, writes: “Everywhere you meet people making patriotic speeches, full of blood and thunder. … You listen, and you shiver. But later, when you examine the contents more closely, you realize your error. You realize that all this was merely a superficial impression, a manner of presentation, at most – a phraseological definition. In your ears it sounds like ‘blood,’ but the meaning is – ‘bouillon.’ This is the origin of the name Ben Bouillon.”
“[Jabotinsky] stressed that this was ‘not the name of an individual: on the contrary, nowadays this is a type. … They can be seen on every platform. They publish their speeches in every paper. And the tune is always the same: ‘To the last drop! We will not let it pass! We are ready to sacrifice ourselves! We will not yield one single inch!’ … They spit fire, and echo answers: ‘Blood, blood!’ … And then all of a sudden it becomes apparent that it is all a misunderstanding. Who spoke of ‘blood’? Me? God forbid! Ben Bouillon is more than a type. Ben Bouillon is perhaps a race. There are people (among the Gentiles they constitute the majority) in whose arteries warm or hot blood flows. And there are also people in whose arteries bouillon flows. This bouillon might even boil, and its temperature might be not 37 degrees but 100 degrees. In our midst the Ben Bouillons are the ruling caste.’”
The Jewish people still love their bouillon. But they must acquire a taste for stronger stuff if the hearts of their leaders are ever to pump more than chicken broth. The Ben Bouillons must make way for a leadership with blood in its veins – blood and iron.
@ Bill Narvey:
I was serious. Direct democracy on all important issues based on the system of referendums. In a small country like Israel it’s workable and restores power to the people. It could be limited to a small number of issues but those issues are what’s really important. It will limit the power of the politicians and potentially some of the SC’s almost total power and control over everything. It works in Switzerland why not in Israel? The only alternative is a violent civil war. Maybe not today or tomorrow but not too far into the future. If one can bank and purchase everything from the home computer why not voting?
Yamit. I asked you a serious question. I would appreciate a serious answer. This National Initiative video is a reaction by those cynical of democratic roadblocks to the American people having their interests put ahead of political interests. In fact the proposal is pushing an idea that has been at work for years in many states that allow for interest groups to put forward propositions before state electorates to vote on.
Are you suggesting you would take the lead in Israel on having such a participatory ordinary citizen political initiative accepted in Israel?
Regardless, I ask you again, what if any advocacy/activist organization are you involved in, for the purpose of building public support to call on the government to right existing wrongs with the Israeli government and society?
If you are not so involved, why not?
A serious responsive answer would be appreciated.
@ Bill Narvey:
This could be 1 answer?
Yamit, accepting for the moment that you are right, I will ask you again, isn’t it time for you to start trying to do something about it instead of just complaining at Israpundit?
@ Bill Narvey:
I am disagreeing with you that BB, Olmert Sharon,BB, Peres and Rabin are not victims but corrupt leaders whose decisions are made due to their corruption rather than any assumed pressure by American presidents. Shamir and Begin I concede were weak and succumbed but not the rest.
Remember Rabin although being a leader of Labor in reality was elected by the right as MR. Defense!! If the right had voted for a right wing candidate Rabin would not have been elected. Peres was never elected but took over for Rabin without elections which he lost to BB in the next cycle.
No Israeli or for that matter American leader can reach the top without having made promises and incurred obligations that are expected to be honored. By the time they reach the top they are already corrupted. Israel being a small country, it’s easy and relatively inexpensive to corrupt our leaders and bureaucrats.. Everyone in Israel above the level of imbecile knows the score. The tent city and protests all over Israel may have been instigated and organized by the left but most participating are not and it will get bigger.
We Israelis have a social contract with all governments of Israel. We agree to the sacrifice of military service and reserves. We agree to the high taxation and in many cases substandard education and health services.. We expect certain things from the Government in return. Our recent past leaders in their arrogance and disdain for the people of Israel have crossed the lines of understandings between the people and the government. We have a broken social contract and BB’s attempts at Thatcherism is not for Israel nor is the leeches like BB, Olmert and Sharon’s cronyism style of governing. With all of my negatives towards Begin, I believe he was modest and honest. We have at the top of our political pyramid just a bunch of crooks.
This isn’t negativism it’s a fact.
Yamit, perhaps if you were not such a nattering nabob of negativism, your views would gain more traction.
My comment was a general observation, based on David Issac’s article and was not intended as a defence of Netanyahu or any past Israeli leader which Issac references.
According to you, it is not the poltical cream, but rather the political scum that rises to the upper echelons of Israeli leadership.
You dwell on Netanyahu’s failings, both in character and policy. By your measure, no world leader, let alone Israeli leader would ever measure up.
Why not consider turning some of your seemingly boundless energy for negativity into a positive force?
Narvey and all BB lovers, Pls. Note: This is the real BB. Who owns him and or who is blackmailing him?
Recent allegations remind many of Netanyahu’s penchant for perks
The prime minister is under scrutiny for allegedly taking foreign vacations paid for by private individuals and organizations when he was an MK and finance minister.
By Ilan Lior
Is Netanyahu in debt to wealthy acquaintances or Israeli public?
“It appears that the prime minister and his family are big fans of a lifestyle of the type led by isolated rulers of oil emirates”.
Watchdog to probe Netanyahu funding over Bibi-Tours allegations
Micha Lindenstrauss’ announcement comes in wake of recent Channel 10 reports claiming PM did not report all campaign donations, allowed businessmen to pay for his travels.
@ Bill Narvey:
Funny we keep dumping these slime and they keep coming back. What difference if we call them BB or Zippi, Olmert, Sharon or Barak. They are all the same, belong to the same club, are financed and run by the same people.
If they all had Italian names we would call them the Mob!
Narvey did you ever hear of the word NO? Our leaders know the word when it comes to we the little people but they make sure our elite Oligarchs get their share and profits at our expense. For those Elites and Oligarchs Our leaders don’t know the word NO! There is no essential difference between BB not saying NO to our Oligarchs in Israel and abroad and saying No to Obama, Bush or Clinton.
A wise antisemite, Voltaire remarked “If the Jews ever gained sovereignty over their land, they would sell it”
What this speaks to is not so much the weakness of Israeli leaders past and present, but the historical power and leverage of America and world opinion over Israel.
Jews and Israelis that damn their leaders for bending to the will of these powers in essence are blaming the victims of this world pressure and thus themselves instead of blaming and fighting against those powers that are forcing Israeli leaders to succomb to pressure.
Energy spent on these pages and other forums calling down Netanyahu for his failing to hold fast to his strongly stated positions, would be better spent advocating against Obama, other world powers and the UN that all work in concert to foster anti-Israel world opinion that continues apace as it has before.