By MARTIN SHERMAN
If one knows a storm is brewing, but takes no measures to prepare for it, when the storm hits, who is to blame for the damage? The storm… or those who did not prepare for it?
“If the aim of the Israeli government is to prevent a peace deal with the Palestinians, now or in the future, it’s close to realizing that goal. Last week, it approved the construction of a new Jewish settlement in the West Bank, another step in the steady march under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to build on land needed to create a Palestinian state…The Obama administration, with every justification, strongly condemned the action as a betrayal of the idea of a two-state solution in the Middle East. But Mr. Netanyahu obviously doesn’t care what Washington thinks, so it will be up to President Obama to find another way to preserve that option before he leaves office.”
At the Boiling Point with Israel, The New York Times Editorial Board, October 6, 2016
Last week, the New York Times descended to a new low—with the publication of a particularly infuriating and offensive anti-Israel editorial—that was so distortive, deceptive and deceitful regarding the Jewish state and its democratically elected prime minister—that some less charitable souls than me might almost be tempted to say that it would have done Der Stürmer proud.
NYT’s anti-Jewish innuendo
Doubtless, many will claim that even the slightest hint that any such comparison is even vaguely valid is wildly inappropriate. True the NYT editorial did not sport a crude cartoon of a conniving, hooked nosed, money-grasping Jewish prime minister. But it did, however, include virtually everything else.
It seized on the recent government decision to build 100 new homes in the existing community of Shiloh to unleash a vicious attack on Netanyahu, liberally peppered with the basest anti-Semitic innuendo portraying him as devious, sly and underhand—whom those pesky Jews, inexplicably, keep electing in free and fair elections.
But the NYT Judeophobic barbs were not limited to Netanyahu alone. It went on to allude darkly that it was the demonic powers of Jews that caused George Bush sr. to lose his 1990 bid for re-election because of his withholding US loan guarantees over a dispute regarding the “settlements”.
The thinly veiled accusation is unmistakably clear: The avaricious land-grabbing Jews are hell-bent on depriving the poor Palestinian-Arabs for a chance of statehood. Nothing—literally nothing—about belligerent Palestinian rejectionism was mentioned—even hinted at—as a contributing factor for the continuing conflict. Everything is the fault of the Jewish state—despite the wrenching concessions it has made, both politically and territorially, over the past decades.
Lies about past; threats regarding future
Virtually every line in the editorial was either entirely mendacious or egregiously misleading. Exposing the entire web of falsehood and deception that comprises this shamefully biased excuse for journalism would require at least an entire column—if not beyond that. This is a task I shall postpone for a later date.
Rather than deal with the blatant lies regarding the past, I should like to focus on the impending threats regarding the future that the editorial appears to herald.
Indeed, there are gathering signs, of which the NYT editorial is but one, that the Obama administration is planning to exploit the presidential “interregnum” (between the election and the inauguration of the next president), in which there is no need to fear Jewish retribution, to unleash a savage diplomatic attack on Israel to compel it to accept far-reaching concessions on the Palestinian issue.
Thus, quoting senior congressional sources, The Weekly Standard (TWS) warns: “The Obama administration is manufacturing a crisis with Israel in anticipation of a post-election diplomatic push targeting the Jewish state, and this past week launched a series of broadsides criticizing the Israelis through the media and in press briefings”.
As the TWS points out, the current controversy and the administration’s contrived condemnation over the construction of about 100 new houses on state land within an existing settlement is merely “a pretext for eroding relations with Israel and potentially for setting up a broader diplomatic offensive.”
Hostile choreography not unexpected
Of course the recent incident of the planned construction of a handful of new houses in the confines of an existing community has purposely been blown out of all proportion by the Obama administration.
According TWS sources “President Obama has been ‘waiting for an opening’ to condemn Israel. The recent decision [to build]… in an existing community that did not expand the boundaries at all [is] not something that should even make the news in Israel, let alone the U.S.”
But this malicious choreographing of conflict should hardly have been unexpected. Indeed it is strongly reminiscent of the 2010-hullabaloo the Obama administration made over the approval for future construction in the northern Jerusalem suburb of Ramat Shlomo. The approval, decided upon during the visit of vice-president Joe Biden, was deemed a grave insult to the US, despite the fact that Biden himself had co-sponsored several Senate resolutions stipulating that Jerusalem should remain Israel’s undivided capital, under Israeli sovereignty. Indeed, as Daniel Greenfield caustically points out in “The deadly Israeli house”, Biden then feigned outrage “when the Israelis actually took him at his word”.
Thus, although this kind of animosity towards the Jewish state in not new, this time it appears “far more coordinated and aggressive“—perhaps spurred on by the fact that after the elections and before the inauguration—harsh anti-Israel measures can be undertaken with relative impunity, and immunity from deleterious political repercussions from the dreaded pro-Israel lobbies.
Blame Bibi bears
But for all the recognition of the innate anti-Israeli predilections of the Obama administration, and sympathy for the Israeli governments that have had to contend with it, there is still significant blame Netanyahu must bear for the accumulating US pressure on Israel.
After all, ever since he assumed office in Jan 2009 (and arguably well-before that), the inherent antipathy that Obama harbored towards Israel—together with his undisguised Islamophilic proclivities—have been painfully clear to anyone with the intellectual integrity to read the abundantly unequivocal signs.
Yet despite the fact that Netanyahu has been in power continuously for well over half a decade, he and his government have done virtually nothing to put in place effective mechanisms to contend with the pernicious effects of the White House’s predilections.
Depressingly, this is a matter I have raised repeatedly in the past years, warning time and again of the gravely detrimental repercussion that would inevitably result from such dereliction—to no avail. See for example If I were Prime Minister…; My Billion-Dollar Budget: If I Were PM (Cont.); Dereliction of Duty; Intellectual Warriors, Not Slicker Diplomats.
The pitiful amounts allotted by Israel for the fight for the hearts and minds of the international community have all but left what British journalist, Melanie Phillips, termed “the battle field of the mind” to its adversaries—whether this be the Palestinians and their well-oiled propaganda machine or the inimical politically-correct mainstream media, exemplified by the NYT.
Not a paucity of funds
Until recently, the total budget allocation for Israel’s global public diplomacy effort was less than the advertising budget of the Israeli “Osem” food company.
With such a feeble effort made to establish Israel’s case in the world, there should be little surprise that the Palestinian narrative, portraying the Palestinian-Arabs as down-trodden, dispossessed victims of the Zionist ogre, has dominated the international discourse on the Israel-Arab conflict.
This dismal situation is not a result of a lack of funds. It is rather a lack of political resolve and lack of political awareness of the crucial role public diplomacy plays in the nation’s strategic arsenal.
After all, with a state budget of around $100 billion, allotting a mere 1% for public diplomacy would make a sum of one billion dollars available for making Israel’s case in the world, and no less important, debunking that of its adversaries.
Such resources would not be devoted to attempts to win over implacable adversaries of Israel and the Zionist endeavor, but to the creation of a political climate in which their positions are exposed to be ridiculous, self-contradictory, immoral and irrational—and hence untenable as the basis for any policy decisions by any incumbent government.
Bibi’s bitter Bar Ilan fruits
Regrettably, Netanyahu has hamstrung much of the freedom needed for any official diplomatic effort to rebuff adversarial diplomatic initiatives against Israel by his unfortunate acceptance of the idea of Palestinian statehood in his 2009 Bar Ilan speech.
For having committed himself to the perilously impractical idea of two-states, he cannot articulate arguments that show it to be a totally unfeasible and counterproductive objective, which will precipitate outcomes—both moral and practical—that are the diametric opposite of those its proponents claim it will achieve.
For example, when the NYT urges Obama to use his interregnum immunity to undertake drastic measures to preserve the option of a two-state solution, it is in fact urging preservation of the option to establish yet another homophobic, misogynistic, Muslim-majority tyranny, characterized by gender discrimination, persecution of homosexuals and the suppression of political dissidence.
But if that was the manner in which the two-state option was portrayed, backed by the force of a billion dollar budget, driving pervasive social media campaigns, eye-catching billboards and impactful videos, together with a blitz of well-informed persuasive spokespersons across US campuses, it is doubtful whether any liberal leaning political party could embrace it for long.
Sadly, in light of his Bar Ilan speech, this is not a line of augment that Netanyahu can pursue officially and would necessarily have to work through “proxies”—government-funded NGOs able to express positions that might be too “forthright” for Israeli officialdom to adopt.
Mutually exclusive legitimacies
Yet here too, the Netanyahu government has shown little initiative.
Recent additions to the public diplomacy budget have been directed (with some success) at the symptoms of Israel’s diplomatic predicament (the BDS movement) and not at its underlying causes (at attempts to delegitimize the notion of a Jewish nation state).
The reason for this is clear: Since the Palestinian narrative and Zionist narrative are mutually exclusive—at least in practice, if not in theory, any attempt to re-legitimize the Zionist narrative must, ipso facto, entail the de-legitimization of the Palestinian narrative. But since the Netanyahu government is wedded to the two-state formula—which presupposes the legitimacy of the Palestinian narrative –it cannot work to undermine that legitimacy.
Thus, while on the one hand, foreign governments can finance a myriad of NGOs, with hundreds of millions of dollars, to besmirch Israel’s name and to create an inclement political climate that facilitates hostile measures against it; the Israeli government, on the other hand, does nothing to finance cash-strapped NGOs, fighting desperately on miniscule budgets, to defend Israel’s name and to create a favorable political climate that impedes hostile measures against it.
This is the grossly unlevel playing field that Netanyahu has created for himself and for Israel in the battle for international hearts and minds.
Laying the foundations for Israel’s demise?
Despite all the chatter about the unprecedentedly close intelligence and military cooperation between Israel and the US, a far from implausible case could be made for the claim that the Obama administration is—intentionally or otherwise—laying the foundations for Israel’s demise.
After all, for Israel a true nightmare situation would be the establishment of a mega-terror base in Judea-Samaria, ten times that of Gaza, which would complete its encirclement in the north, east and south by radical Islamist forces that could wage an ongoing war of attrition against it under the protective umbrella of a nuclear Iran.
The Obama administration, greatly aided by the paucity of Israeli diplomacy, has already facilitated the latter (nuclear Iran). It now seems bent on laying the foundation for the former (a mega-terror base overlooking Israel’s urban megalopolis).
This is the grim specter that is emerging as the next session of the UN Security Council approaches –with an inimical US president, unshackled from any restraining electoral consideration, facing off against a beleaguered Israel. This is the existential storm that Israel may soon have to weather—very much on its own.
Blaming the storm?
This is a storm that has been long brewing. Sadly, few measures have been taken to deal with it—measures that could, and should, have been taken.
So, if one knows a storm is brewing, but takes no measures to prepare for it, when the storm hits, who is to blame for the damage? The storm… or those who did not prepare for it?
Martin Sherman (www.martinsherman.org) is the founder and executive director of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies. (www.strategic-israel.org)
@ honeybee:
I must thank you for introducing me to Ovadia. His stuff is terrific and I was utterly disappointed that I couldn’t understand the words, but the music…. indescribable. I’ve heard klezemer bands, but this was a whole show combining all facets from extreme energy to slow pathos…as I understood it anyway. Good stuff. @ yamit82:
Yamit, now that I know what it means, It obvious that through all my growing up years and to this day, Ireland was and is full of Oylems of Goylems. I really thank you, and can see myself using that term in future disputes…….
(How did this comment become attached to my Honeybee post….??-my computer expertice I expect)
@ Felix Quigley:
The Irish aren’t that poor now, nor for many years, ever since the Celtic Tiger roared after entering the EU.
Even when poor they always had plenty of money to spend on booze, sending their wives out to clean floors, their kids to sell newspapers, and etc. The men took the money and there would always be a lineup at a pub, waiting for the 10 a.m. opening.
One time, years ago, during the poor times, we in Dublin were visited by an American cousin, a Rabbi, who seemed a bit simple, being a tourist, and the one thing he wanted to see above all was an Irish pub. He went on and on about this, salivating at the prospect. So we obliged him… There was a pub just in front of our factory, at a Y point where the wide road split. He marvelled at the lineup…. I brought him to the swing doors about 30 mins later. The place was packed, the guinness was flowing like a river, the noise was unbearable and the stink of booze and unwashed humanity was overwhelming. My cousin just stuck his nose inside the door for a few moments, and very quickly said he’d seen his Irish pub. For the rest of his stay, he didn’t even bring up the subject….
@ Austin:
English , get a hankie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqzGZ5AaeSs
@ Austin:
I grew up with Sophie Tucker and I have that very album. My Dad bought it just for me. Learned all the songs. My favorite ” Nobody Loves a Fat Girl” . I would lip sink it and dance. I was then 5’7″ and weighed 90 lbs.
@ honeybee:
I must thank you for introducing me to Ovadia. His stuff is terrific and I was utterly disappointed that I couldn’t understand the words, but the music…. indescribable. I’ve heard klezemer bands, but this was a whole show combining all facets from extreme energy to slow pathos…as I understood it anyway. I saw a reference “The Masses are asses” …Good stuff. Much like the present Israel political system.
@ honeybee:
Listen to Sophie Tucker doing “My Yiddishe Momma”. It always made us all cry…..still does, so I rarely play it. It’s in English on the other side.I saw her on many shows but she never sang it, always ended with “Some of these Days”…(a favourite with my Jazz Band).
My Yiddishe tear-jerker education stopped with Yiddishe Momma, although I have a small collection of Chazonas, even Yossele Rosenblatt. I had a very nice girl-friend who’s grandfather was Cantor Sirota, very famous in his own times, and much recorded. But as I didn’t really understand Hebrew, my enjoyment was limited to the voices and techniques-very limited.
@ yamit82:
@ Austin:
My favorite Yiddish Song ” Dona Dona” , I never listen to it, it makes me weep.
@ honeybee:
Yes I’m VERY familiar with that Elizabeth quote, and indeed the whole address. I’ve come across it at least a dozen, maybe 2 dozen times whilst delving into Tudor, actually Yorkist history which segued to the Tudors after the Battle of Bosworth Field where Stanley, whose mother was a Tudor, and thick with them, betrayed Richard. For a late medieval King, he was foolishly trusting, and basically had very good impulses, and did good deeds. I’m familiar with all Edward’s peccadillos and Bishop Stillington’s pronouncement etc.etc. Permission for Jane Shore to marry into respectability surprised me indeed. I’ve exhaustively examined the murders of the “Little Princes in the Tower” etc all the way from Horace Walpole to modern times and probably own a 100 books on the Yorkist/Tudor mess up and related subjects including De Commines (2 vol)and read hundreds more. Der Gantze Shtik. . Josephine Tey was a revelation, although written as fiction, she was in real life, a well-knwn working historian.
Elizabeth’s speech was just another example of the earthy, non P.C. social intercourse, commonly prevalent at that time. Pepy’s Diary of much later shows that this trait prevailed for hundreds of years, I believe until Victoria ascended the throne.
You must be very handy with a computer. Until comparatively recently I was a confirmed book reader, and dedicated typewriter operator. So computer skills of any kind are missing with me. Can’t find anything on Internet.
Although you’re so fond of music, I see that you didn’t even mention the key in which she belched. That was unusual for you. I’ve been tryig to find out, but as I say, I have no computer skills.
When Pujol came on the scene, Victoria must have taken to her bed
@ Austin:
@ yamit82<
My favorite Yiddish song " Dona Dona", I never listen to it, it makes weep.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M48nDgU_uIw
yamit82 Said:
@ Austin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0mjABu8mCw
@ Austin:
Just for you A famous Yiddish folk saying, “der oylem iz a goylem”.
Felix Quigley Said:
Don’t want their love, don’t care even.
Who gives a fiddle what the stupid ‘MICKS’ think about us????
They are an inconsequential country inhabited by mostly stupid bigoted drunks.
Austin Said:
http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/tilbury.htm
http://thejewishvoiceandopinion.com/why-is-ireland-so-hostile-to-israel-why-do-the-irish-support-bds-what-is-it-about-israel-that-upsets-them/
Felix Quigley Said:
It is not my task in life to convince people, who HATE me and want to beat me to pulp, to like me,
But i am NOT saying you alone is racist. All on that post last week WEREracist against the Irish…now man up and discuss your problemwith me.
How can you win the Irish to love Zionism if you hate them?
Austin Said:
I “lifted” this from Queen Elizabeth I’s speech to her troops before the battle with Spanish Armada.
Felix Quigley Said:
Racism ???? Sugar Pie, I was the one being chased.
Austin Said:
“Educating the over educated is my life’s passion” Dicha of Deborah
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/williammak108677.html
When this comes up many in this old form of Zionism hide so let these who are hiding on this issue of your racism against the Irish come into the open where I can see them better.
Austin for example I knew there were issues when last MS article you did not answer the obvious racism of Honeybee
@ Felix Quigley:
I was merely detailing my personal experiences, and what I saw happening to many friends as I was growing up in VERY anti-semitic Ireland, actually Dublin. I understated in fact, quite a bit. For instance I didn’t mention that I, being naturally aggressive, conveyed a few smaller kids home every day, and often had to fight a ring of ruffians, one at a time, that bricks were thrown at the back of my head, missed, and splashed the nose of my opponent, whom we took into our house and gave him first aid etc. I didn’t mention that Our Headmaster went to the Jesuit school a block away (Bernard Shaw’s School) to speak to the Head and got nowhere, was then forced to let us out of school 10 minutes early to avoid their kids ganging up on us.
I didn’t mention that when the Holocaust became known in 1942 already, Rabbi Herzog, former Chief Rabbi of Ireland and then Chief Rabbi of Palestine, wrote a pleading letter to his “great friend” the PM De Valera to allow Jews to escape to Ireland, which was “neutral”…. I didn’t mention that when it was brought up in the Dail, it was rejected unanimously, the leader of the opposition saying that “we already have far too many Jews here already (about 3000, mostly there since the late 1800s) Even ONE is too many”. I believe that during the whole 5 years War, a total of 7 sneaked in quietly over the border by bribing guards. There was an Irish Jewish girl, whom I knew well, who had married a Belgian in Dublin (in the synagogue beside my home) just before the war, and went to Belgium to live. She was murdered in a concentration camp along with her new husband. Ireland had very good relations with Germany, but did nothing about her.
Unless you are a Jew born and raised in Ireland before, during and after the War, you cannot dispute a single word I’ve written with any conviction.
http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/ghada-karmi-palestine-and-the-right-of-return-1.2781331
In the following quote the Arab writer is very consciously playing games with the Irish consciousness and is associating the Arab Poison Narrative with the Irish historical experience of exile. That (poisonous) narrative has been sold to the Irish as have other narratives but I do not ever blame the Irish poor. The Irish poor also are the victims in this narrative of hate. This is not made clear by those too ready to add to this racism…against the Irish…such as commenters on Israpudit
https://www.israpundit.org/archives/63617555
Annexation of Judea-Samaria together with its Arab population, will culminate in Lebanonization of Israel and the end of the Zionist dream—as surely as the two-state paradigm it was meant to replace
By MARTIN SHERMAN
A strong statement by MS and a very truthful one. But that truthful statement pales into a lesser category of significance when contrasted with the anti-Irish racism that was exposed on Israpundit in the last article by MS – on ALL of the comments because silence means involvement with that racism
Apart from the confused ramblings of Glick who in the 2003 Iraq war stands condemned for all time you can only fight a war if your basic principles are sound and the principles of THIS FORM OF ZIONISM are not sound. How can they be sound when a representative section such as Israpundit veers into an anti-Irish racism?
Once again…this time from Austin especially…there is anti Irish Racism
Last weeks MS article comments proved that there is serious racism inside THIS FORM of Zionism
@ honeybee:
Your “feeble female heart” alliteration reminds me of the Hank Williams tune “Cold, Cold Heart”. I’ll play it some time…maybe, and see how it fits in. Then we can re-name you “Texas Icicle”. Especially that honeybees are on their way out……
@ honeybee:
Well we all called our grandmothers “Bubba (Bobba)…..bubbele is a diminutive of some sort, probably an endearing meaning, and that’s a way I just don’t feel right now…
I’m going to have to take lessons in Yiddish, before I get caught up in a discussion I can’t handle. Yiddish, especially the spicy way of denigrating, is a wonderful leveller. When on a team playing against goyim, we used to use a little yiddish to make changes whilst passing each other in the field; hoping our opponents wouldn’t notice.
(Wonderful language. Wish I could really speak it. There’s a lot I’d like to say to certain people, if I was sure they wouldn’t understand it….. Especially today since that UNESCO garbage).
By arrangement, our opponents would have kosher stuff for us at teatime break, resulting in our saying…..” nem fur de kinder”…
@ P Sydney Herbert:
So you know exactly what I mean. I recall seeing our very elderly Rebbe shambling down the street, with his coat undone and his tzitzit flying in the breeze, being spat at and stoned by the dirty little shgotzim. He would never ever notice, his head in clouds of Gemara or Mishnayot.
But I got my revenge…. I found a talent for pugilism and achieved a rather high level in our National Stadium Leagues, club match-ups, and in England on inter-Varsity tournaments. And they were not Jews….
@ honeybee:
Being serious for a change with you, (I’m feeling very sombre today over the UNESCO vote) I’d normally be delighted to oblige…except that I don’t use any kind of foul or suggestive language although I know that as an American, you don’t mean it that way. I got quite a shock when I first landed in Canada. I just don’t feel it’s necessary, apart from an occasional “bloody”, or “damn and blast”.. The kids at my school didn’t either.
G-d forbid a teacher catching a kid using even my above mild epithets…. We’d be saying kaddish for him. In those days they’d take down your pants and whack you with a cane….. sometimes in front of a mixed class to shame you…… It happened to me ONCE, but that was for dancing on top of the teacher’s desk entertaining the class, when he was out of the room. All the time he was observing me through the glass in the door…. Oy Veh…. He actually got the traitorous class to vote on it…. I wasn’t as popular as I’d thought.
So be content to just dream about my “literary talent”, which consists of reading and writing. My computer keys are a bit smaller than I was used to, sooo… and my fingers are sometimes like a bunch of bananas.. result..typos. (paraphrasing Dickens)
@ honeybee:
I looked up your link at the bottom and, being a Thackeray enthusiast, nearly drove myself crazy trying to recall in which book he made that comment about the sham diamonds. I just couldn’t recall, although I’ve read all his books several times over, and some, more than that, seeing something new each time.
Eventually I had to give up, and assume that, like Churchill, Oscar Wilde and others, it is one of a series of many quotations he must have made in either conversation, or in a speech.
So, Honeybee chile, yoh sho is lukky, that I’m still here to appreciate your head-scratching comments. (please note that the reference to “scratching” is purely metaphorical, and nothing to do with any “live little crittur”)
I was chased by Irish hoodlums in Boston in the 1930’s. I live on the west coast of USA where most Jews are liberal anti-Zionists and, of course, they are all voting for Hillary. As to the NYT, Ochs is said to “not want to have a Jewish newspaper”..
@ Austin:
Now Austin , use a little of your literary talent and change the words of the above song to ” Screw You I am Jew”.
Austin Said:
Don’t ask , don’t beg It’s attitude Bubba [ not bubbele}
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-cFtSPIF4Q
@ honeybee:
Surely, being a Jewish-Texan-I hope,rather than a Texan-Jew, so you mean Zayda, not Bubba…. nachon…?
Austin Said:
You ain’t the only one Bubba !!!!!!!!!
@ Russell:
Thank you Russell for your kind response. I was zooming in on the point in the article which mentioned that Netanyahu had hobbled himself with the Cairo speech. It seems simple to me that any world politician, who normally tells far more lies than truth, should, could, and would reverse himself, especially when he receives so much flack, and so many subsequent events are blamed on that speech.
As for Draiman, I am ahead of him double-double, never fear. You should look at my post regarding the UNESCO vote, and you’ll see that Draiman’s letter, strong and interesting as it is, as well as important, really mild compared to what I posted.
I felt that it was time to give vent to my true feelings on these matters. I grew up in pre-war Ireland, where Jewish kids were chased through the streets by little bastards, spitting and throwing stones, and shouting “Ya dirty Jewman go back to Jerusalem”… and other sweet epithets. I actually spoke to ignorant goyim who were convinced that Jews were born with little tails that were surgically removed at birth, and had tiny stubs (incipient horns) in their foreheads under their hair, along with deformed feet like little hooves. I had the indignity of having my head felt under duress one time. But when I got loose I broke a chair on the heads of 2-3 of my tormentors. Naturally it was in a pub.
Read the book by Joshua Trachtenberg “The Devil and The Jews” which will explain why this was foisted on me. The Catholic Church ruled Ireland with an iron fist, and taught these things to their goyim.
So, you can see that although I might be socially a Liberal, where Jews and Judaism are concerned I am an implacable “hawk”. My natural Jewish heart turns to ice in these cases and I would cheerfully burn them all, the Anti-Semites; I would light the match.
Isn’t it long past time that Jews should be left alone to live our lives in peace, with no hounding like animals. The world owes us that, and we have truly been “a light unto the nations” everywhere we’ve settled. We deserve it.
@ David Leopold:
Even if the Arab World and the Local Arabs accept a Jewish State, what’s the difference..? There is no reason to hand over the heartland of the Jewish State to barbarians,right on their doorstep already culpable for untold misery and destruction of lives, property and good-will. Not to forget tthe wounded and injured, with thousands of shattered families and lives.
The country is just too small, and the Jewish People, who have legal rights to that Land, don’t need to bend over backwards to accomodate a fake and concocted “nation” of murderers.
I agree with the general tenor of practically all the comments so far, especially Bear Klein’s comments.
However, although the Mossad undoubtedly is among the world’s finest intelligence services and must have been aware of weakening US Jewish domestic support, I still think the belief that overall American Jewry and also the US Congress would stand behind Israel helped Israeli policy makers to believe they could still appease US administration demands, without endangering Israel fatally. The desperate dependence on US support-financial, diplomatic and for armaments and armament resupply in case of war, I believe, was critical in their thinking. Netanyahu, in order to assure continuation of these, has been weaving and bobbing, and playing for time until Israel became stronger and a new US administration would bring new policy. However, the US has held all the trump cards,including the enabling of Iranian power through the Iran deal. So it would appear that the gamble hasn’t worked in the foreign policy arena. Likewise, if Hillary wins, it will not have paid off in the US domestic area either.
And, of course, we must factor in the political situation within Israel. Netanyahu, probably correctly, concluded that his political career would be over if Israel, under his government, lost US support. The tragedy is that if Hillary wins, she will put the finishing touches on Obama’s efforts in that direction anyway. The one hope in this case is that Hillary will desire a second term and hold off total US betrayal of Israel until she has safely been re-elected. And who knows what the world situation will be by then.
Austin Said:
Do to my ‘feeble female heart” ,I like to quote others and so I shall in answer to your question.
” Put not your faith in Princes” THE ALMIGHTY
” A man may smile and smile and yet be a villain” Shakespeare
http://www.quotehd.com/imagequotes/authors7/william-makepeace-thackeray-novelist-quote-there-are-many-sham.jpg
PLO State is further away now than when Obama took office. Israel without firing a shot could close down the PA. It would just stop the transfer payments required by OSLO from imports into the PA. This is about 75% of their revenue.
There may end up being a UN Resolution against Israel or not. It will not result in a PLO state even if it does.
I do believe Israel needs to pivot away from Bibi’s Bar Illan speech and go to Bennett’s concept of simply telling the world that their will not be PLO State west of the Jordan River.
It is fitting that the NYTs is like Der Sturmer. After all it buried the Holocaust in the inner pages of its paper during World War II. The Sulzburger-Ochs publishing family being Reform German Jews who deny the idea of a Jewish Nation and State. The same could be said of Reuters, also founded y a Reformed German Jew. Likewise, Haaretz published by the German Jewish Schocken family.
There must be a pattern here.
Hi, Austin, I’m not a scholar as many others such a YJ Draiman but please read his post. He us right and although not easy and with some drastic consequences Israel must stop pussyfooting around and tell the world that acceptance of a two state solution never was, never will be unconditional. The Arabs must stop their belligerence, reverse their agreement for no acceptance of Israel’s right to exist, no negotiations and no peace with Israel.. And follow this up with some definite actions.. Such a change will need as Martin Sherman points out, some very serious investment in pro-Israel publicity.
It is sad that whilst commenters such as we, rightly and accurately present the truth of the total illegitimacy of any Palestinian Nation, a view that Millions of people in the world have never been made aware of, Israel does nothing much more than try to deal with daily terrorism and death whilst clinging to the impossible notion of a two state solution with people that seek the total demise of the Israeli nation and genocide against its people.
I am not Jewish, by the way, I am a Christian and I believe that Israel will continue in this useless and endless seeming conflict as long as it does not stand firmly in the truth, trust only in the G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Israel even if this means the whole world being against Israel (as if that would be something new) well so what. The Almighty has said that Israel will stand in such a circumstance. As far as I and many other Israel supporting Christians are concerned if He said it, that settles it.
Will this mean war?. Yes most likely but the current policies of Israel are not working anyway and if good men do nothing, evil thrives.
Left out and also the seven comments is the most immediate…Trump must win
The government of Israel; must stop doing what’s it thinks is politically correct and perform the right action to defend our people with zero tolerance, to eradicate terror and expel the Arabs. There are no innocents. The silent Arab majority is complicit by not objecting to terror and violence. The nations of the world throughout history stood idle while Jews were persecuted and killed. The Arabs terrorized and expelled over a million Jewish families and confiscated all their assets including homes and over 120,000 sq. km. of Jewish owned land for over 2,200 years.
When is the Israeli government stopping in deluding itself that the Arab/Palestinians want peace? It is time to face reality and stop wasting time on a façade in the illusion of peace. The Arabs behavior and actions speak volumes, that they do not want peace. When you teach your children to commit terror and violence, honor terrorists and suicide bombers, these are demonic and destructive people look around the world and the terror and violence they are causing; there is no one to talk to.
Once the Israeli government decides to face reality that there is no second Arab/Palestinian state and that the Arabs do not seek peace, only Israel’s demise. Then you must proceed with a new approach and take care of the people in Israel without appeasing or giving concessions to the Arabs or the world at large. When you defend your citizens at all costs, eventually the world might respect you. Past response and actions by the Arabs was and is detrimental to Israel’s and its people.
As long as you have Arabs-Muslims living in Greater Israel, terror and violence will never stop. It is in their blood and in their culture. Just look around in the world and see how terror and violence is promoted in the Muslim countries and in the Muslim communities in Europe and elsewhere. They are killing each other by the tens of thousands. When is the world at large going to wake up and face the harsh reality? That terror and violence must be eliminated at all costs like a cancer or we are doomed to extinction. Death to all terrorists must be applied, no exception. When the Arabs Muslims; are teaching their children from infancy to commit terror and violence. There is no alternative but elimination of the terrorists and those who promote and incite the masses to commit terror and violence. The Arabs have an Arab/Palestinian state in Jordan which is over 80% Arab Palestinians. The territory of Jordan is Jewish territory and the Jews are not permitted to live there. The Arabs also have the over 12 million sq. km. of land received after WWI, the Jewish property, homes and the over 120,000 sq. km. of Jewish owned land; that the Arabs-Muslims confiscated from the over a million Jewish families terrorized and expelled from Arab countries that had lived there for over 2600 years.
All terrorists must be eliminated, zero tolerance. The leaders in Gaza are all terrorists who must be eliminated and not run for office, that they continue terror and violence and abuse and defraud their own people. They use their people misery as an excuse for terror and blame on others for their failure to use the funds given to them by the world organizations to improve conditions for the people in Gaza.
It is time for Israel to go in with the Army and start taking over Hebron, the second holiest city for Jews. Every terror attack another section of Hebron will be retaken by Israel the rightful owners. Since the 1920’s Hebron has and is a hotbed of terror. It is time to take some serious actions. Arab terror in Hebron against the Jews started in 1517.
Israel must take back Gush Katif and all the Jewish communities vacated in 2005 by PM Ariel Sharon.
@ Irmgard Gesund:
One thing Israel has is one of the most formidable intelligence gathering systems headed by the MOSAD.
All top level officials with the need to know, in particular the PM receive totally accurate information regarding every aspect of major importance for the security of the State. Including but not limited to DIasporas settings.
It simply cannot be that the Mosad or the government did not know about the so called American Jewish communities true condition and objectives.
In spite of that Netanyahu has intentionally moved about to increase that element’s reach into Israel. Including the KOtel. “Reform” elements are allocated to this day standing against Jews.
He did not misread, not the condition nor the reports from the Mosad.
I would ask some knowledgeable person to post an answer to my questions. There are many on this site who have much to say about just everything, so please, give a little thought to it. Politicians constantly say things with the utmost sincerity, that they don’t mean and have no intention of doing, so I feel my question ie relatively easy for any politician to do a 180 deg. turn on, feeling no pain.
I think one of the primary, but understandable, mistakes BiBi and his advisors made was to depend upon American Jews to run defense for Israel during the Obama years. They misunderstood the inroads the American Left, led as usual by many radical Jews, have made in infiltrating the major American Jewish Organizations themselves, not to mention their lock on the media, academia and the entertainment world.
The sad reality is that, although American Jewry gives lip-service to Israel’s survival, most of its members really care much more about their own well-being, which they interpret as supporting political correctness and all that it entails, and appeasing every anti-Semitic trope, lest they face anti-Semitic discrimination and accusations of dual loyalty.
Although much like American Jewry’s response to the dangers of encroaching Nazism in the 30’s, this time, they may face a different outcome–much more like what happened to German Jews in that tragic period. The belief that “it can’t happen here” may be put to the test. America is rife with political division. As things get uglier and uglier, as they undoubtedly will, with the onslaught of Islamic immigration invasion, terrorism, and Leftist collusion, someone will have to be blamed and sacrificed. Guess who–it is always the Jews. We already see it in the EU. And if Hillary gets elected, that’s her template.
Some of the hens are coming home to roost.
But we must credit him his dues. Netanyahu has wildly succeeded at… being the one pm who has, single handedly, done the most damage to Israel as a Jewish State and its Jewish people.
What that person represents is not statesmanship but second hand furniture salesmanship. Speecherisms and stupid cardboard props only served to undermine us all. Even Dore Gold finally closed shop on the subject.
He joins dozens of top grade patriots that finally just dropped out and away from Netanyahu’s miasma.
The freeze master and destruction leader failed all around.
Now his only cards are “uniting” again with la Livni and don Hertzog, besides binoculars Peretz.
The latest castrated stunt of his is to beg his controllers in the self elected supreme court to delay a bit Amona’s destruction…. WOW!, what a shining act by a miserable failure. He is destroying much of Ofra as well…
The people must face reality and remove that stain before it will be too late if it is not already so.
He has castrated the soldiering youth just as as well. Some of them simply run away rather than destroy the enemy.
I see NO valid reason that a statement made, based on the time, place and political climate, could not now be retracted, by quoting that “it was possible then, but not now, nor will it be possible until the several generations of heavily indoctrinated Jew hating YESHA Arabs have died out, and also because …etc.etc….
Here a mention of the thousands of years of historically proven CONTINUOUS connection to Palestine, Jewish magnanimity, the 1920 San Remo Convention, The 1921 Treaty of Sevres, the 1922 L. o. Nations British Mandate, the 1924 Anglo-American Treaty and The 1945 UN Charter Art.80 would finish it up just going past the post…….
I would appreciate comments on my postulation that there is no valid reason for statesmen not to be able to change their minds over the content of a speech, with no legal validity, due to the more recent political situation.
Also a comment on WHY is the Cairo speech regarded as Torah by everyone concerned. It was only a speech, pushed on him by an “International” Group now moribund and in fact, defunct.
Not that it matters but just for the record, I wrote on the day BB was leaving for Israel after his first meeting with Obama that while he was still on the plane going home he should alert his government to draw up new plans for dealing with Obama and the new USA. But Dr. Sherman is right, BB did nothing to prepare for the storm – and that makes the PM suspect.
There will never be a separate Palestinian state unless and until the Arab World accepts Israels existence and current borders. That is most likely never going to happen. Therefore, I see only continued bloodshed and strife. The international community will continue to vilify and condemn Israel while many Arab countries have abominable human rights practices. This region of the world is steeped in religion and no other issue is steeped in so much passion and activism. The future holds more of the same…unfortunately