As long as Israel acknowledges that the Palestinian Arabs’ national claims to statehood in Judea-Samaria are authentic and legitimate, Israel can never be secure externally, or internally.
The Arabs… will not flinch from the war of liberation… This is a fight for the homeland – it is either us or the Israelis. There is no middle road. The Jews of Palestine will have to leave…We shall destroy Israel and its inhabitants and as for the survivors – if there are any – the boats are ready to deport them.
– Ahmad Shukeiri, Yasser Arafat’s predecessor as PLO chairman, few days prior to the Six Day War
Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.
– The Palestinian National Charter
In my column last Friday, I warned that we were on the cusp of carnage. This grim prognosis came true even more rapidly than I had feared.
Early on Tuesday morning, Arab terrorists brutally struck down Jews at prayer inside a Jerusalem synagogue.
New phase in old battle
In the wake of the column, I was interviewed by the Voice of Israel’s Dan Diker, who asked me whether the recent incidents of Arab terror constituted a new phenomenon, or merely a continuation of the Arab enmity experienced in the past.
My response was that they were, in fact, both.
On the one hand, they reflect the continuation of obdurate Arab refusal to countenance any expression of Jewish political sovereignty. On the other hand, they are part of the emergence of a new, more menacing phase of that process. It is, sadly and predictably, a ghastly culmination of almost a quarter-century of gutless, guileless Israeli policy that has drastically undermined Israel’s deterrence, and dramatically emboldened its Arab adversaries.
In my column, I cautioned that a “perfect storm” is brewing against Israel, from all directions and on every front – on every one of its borders with neighboring states, within those borders from an increasingly recalcitrant Arab population, and far beyond them, with the looming specter of an Obama-facilitated nuclear Iran.
All of these are dovetailing into a peril that could overwhelm the country and jeopardize its survival.
‘… disrespect for Israeli sovereignty’
But as daunting as external threats are, I suggested that “perhaps the gravest threat of all is the prospect of insurrection and revolt by the Arab citizens of Israel – if they sense weakness and vacillation on the part of the Jews.”
Corroboration of this concern appeared in an opinion piece, written this week by Jerusalem-based freelancer Yoel Meltzer, who deftly described the disastrous degrading of Israeli authority that this deadly combination of flaccidity and foolishness has produced in the Arab sector. Commenting on the lawlessness in Arab villages in the North, coupled with the reticence of law enforcement agencies to intervene, Meltzer remarked: “Already for years the Arabs in many parts of the country have become increasingly brazen in their disrespect for any semblance of Israeli sovereignty.”
In the South, the situation is, if anything, worse, with disdain for the rule of law often the rule rather than the exception. With the absence – some might say, abdication – of law enforcement bodies in large tracts of the Negev, crime among the Beduin – theft, extortion, drug trafficking, gunrunning and polygamy – is rampant. After a group of Israeli officials were attacked earlier this year, a senior government minister declared, “This is yet another illustration of the unbearable impunity of the Beduin in the area, which began with illegal building and continues with violence and refusal to accept the authority of the state.” With commendable – but, sadly, yet to be implemented – vigor, he pledged, “We must deal with this national problem as soon as possible, without blinking and without apologizing,” and vowed, “We will do it.”
Misconceived one-state proposals
The perpetrators of Tuesday’s attack, Ghassan and Uday Abu Jamal, came from the Jabel Mukaber neighborhood in Jerusalem, annexed by Israel after the 1967 Six Day War.
Both reportedly held (blue) Israeli identity cards – like most residents of Jabel Mukaber – and, consequently, were formally “Israeli Arabs,” who in contrast to the Arab residents of the “West Bank,” enjoy most of the rights of Israeli citizens, including National Insurance benefits, and the right to vote in municipal elections.
Yet despite this, numerous terror attacks have been carried out/aided by perpetrators who hailed from this neighborhood – including the horrific 2002 Patt junction bus bombing, the 2008 massacre at the Merkaz Harav yeshiva, the 2008 car attack against a group of off-duty soldiers outside the wall of the Old City, and the recent “tractor attack” in the city center.
These and other instances of savagery conducted by inhabitants of other areas annexed by Israel convey an important message for anyone willing to heed it. They provide yet further evidence – if any was needed – as to how poorly conceived are the one-state proposals being bandied about by some prominent right-wing pundits. Typically these proposals suggest that to avoid the dangers of a two-state solution, Israel should create a single state by annexing all of Judea-Samaria, while setting up mechanisms to allow the Arab residents the possibility of acquiring Israeli citizenship or permanent residency.
Clearly the terrorism that has emanated from within the annexed areas of east Jerusalem proves – or at least, strongly suggests – that this will do little to attenuate the fierce enmity the Arabs have for Jewish statehood.
Perceived collapse of Jewish resolve
Last week, I laid out a clear rationale explaining why any consideration for, or acknowledgment of, Arab demands would be counterproductive, not satiating appetites for such concessions but merely whetting them – spawning further and more far-reaching demands.
This is why the Oslo process was so disastrous.
For by acknowledging the alleged validity of demands previously vehemently rejected, Israel has not created any progress toward amicable resolution of differences, but merely made ever-escalating concessions that at the start of the process would have been inconceivable.
Anyone doubting this should examine the startling erosion in Israeli positions today, under an allegedly right-leaning coalition, by comparing them with those expressed by Nobel Peace laureate Yitzhak Rabin in his last address to the Knesset seeking ratification of the Oslo II Accords in 1995.
What were considered by many as excessively concessionary dovish policies then, would be dismissed as unrealistic right-wing rejectionism today.
This procession of unrequited retreat has conveyed the impression of collapsing resolve on the part of the Jews to stand firm on any matter of principle – no matter how inviolable it is initially declared – not only to Arab adversaries beyond Israel’s borders, but to Arab communities within them.
Vacillation begets violence
In societies where protection of the weak is not exactly the defining hallmark, this perception of weakness cannot but fail to translate into increasing disdain, leading to growing disobedience and finally to bellicose defiance.
We are at a critical crossroads in the history of the Jewish people. Misreading the situation, and the response it calls for, will be disastrous – perhaps beyond what many imagine. That is why it is essential to grasp that at this stage restraint will be ruinous, and vacillation will beget violence.
There have been previous acts of terror that have inflicted greater loss of life and limb than Tuesday’s attack, but few have had such a profound public impact. There is a growing sense that we are on the brink of a qualitative – and insidious – change in the way the Arabs wage their century-long war against the Jews.
The indecisiveness in responding to external challenges has bred a perception that similar responses can be elicited to internal ones. That is why domestic Arab insurrection is an increasingly tangible prospect.
This must be nipped in the bud, a threat snuffed out before it can materialize, for if it begins to gather momentum it will be virtually impossible to contain.
Tactics meaningless without strategy
Contending with this danger will call for firm operational measures. But such measures, however harsh, will not be effective unless conducted within an appropriate ideological envelope and a suitable intellectual context.
For if operational measures are designed only to quell immediate manifestations of insurrection or revolt, and not directed to serve the attainment of some coherent and long-term strategic objective, they will at best be short-term tactical stop-gaps, with limited lasting effect, before they are rescinded under pressure from the international community.
In the wake of Tuesday’s massacre, there have been talk shows galore with endless successions of security experts giving their opinions on what practical steps should be taken to address the situation. Setting aside the mindless mantra that we must resume talking to Mahmoud Abbas, nearly all the focus was on the practical measures Expert X or ex-Expert Y recommended.
Few if any dealt with the shift in mindset that is necessary before the emerging danger can be dealt with. To salvage the viability of Jewish national sovereignty from the combined assault from domestic and foreign sources, it is imperative to abandon the Oslo-compliant mindset, and its corollary land-for-peace doctrine, that has been imposed on the political discourse over the last two decades.
Unless an alternative rationale is articulated, the measures suggested to deal with the current violence will appear nothing more than unjustified brutality and gross violations of human rights.
Democratic governance not a suicide pact
The first step that needs to be taken along this path is to reject the mindless drivel that effective steps needed to curtail Arab violence, on both sides of the Green Line, necessarily violate the principles of democratic governance. Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, if the gory record of the “Arab Spring” has taught us anything, it is that if Israel is to remain democratic it must remain Jewish – and any challenge to its Jewishness is a challenge to its democratic nature.
It should be clear that the only way that liberal-democratic values such as gender equality, religious tolerance, social diversity (including gay rights) can be preserved in this neck of the woods is by preserving Jewish sovereignty over the land.
However, commitment to the principles of democratic governance is not a suicide pact – and coercive measures required to sustain it are at times essential, even if it involves temporarily curtailing certain individual liberties in order.
Only if this mindset is firmly internalized in formulating policy to deal with potential domestic insurrection – and assertively and unapologetically conveyed to the international community – can any lasting efficacy be hoped for.
Symbiosis across the Green Line
The second step required for the formulation of the required alternative policy rationale is to realize that there exists a symbiotic relationship between Israel’s attitude toward the Palestinian Arabs on either side of the Green Line.
As long as Israel acknowledges that the Palestinian Arabs’ national claims to statehood in Judea-Samaria are authentic and legitimate, Israel can never be secure externally, or internally.
For complying with those claims will make the country indefensible over time against threats that emanate beyond the Green Line, and ensure that the embers of incipient domestic revolt within it will continue to glow menacingly, capable of bursting into flames at any moment in response to legitimate actions taken to deal with those threats.
For the Jews to prevail in the war the Arabs have launched against them, it is essential that they rebuff the claims of the Palestinian Arabs to statehood and reject all challenges to Jewish sovereignty in the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.
Next week…
I have of course left several important questions glaringly open. I hope – subject to breaking news – that I will be able to elaborate on these in next week’s column. I hope to include a more detailed to-do list; reject the threat of a religious war; and explain why “international pressure” is more of an excuse, than a reason for the government to avoid what is required of it.
Until then – be safe
Martin Sherman (www.martinsherman.org) is the founder and executive director of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies
the phoenix Said:
Climate change !!!!!!!!!!!! Maple Sugar Honey
honeybee Said:
Yep.
Still trying to figure out what hit me…
🙁
Mike Lumish Said:
And what does a fascist, ” look like” ? In fact, do you what political beliefs a fascist holds ?
Mike Lumish Said:
Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh
Bear Klein Said:
Tricky for the Lady members of the Tribe of which we constitute at lest half.
yamit82 Said:
Done already.
bernard ross Said:
Bernard , Darlin boy, you’re such an innocent.
Mike Lumish Said:
Heaven forbade, the ladies of Van Nuys be endangered on the way to their pedicures by the necessary actions of Israel !!!!!!!!!!
@ the phoenix:
You dig yourself out of the snow just to spammed. Poor Darlin.
honeybee Said:
Truth in Two words!!!! I agree.
Felix Quigley Said:
You have learned nothing and forgotten nothing Felix…..
After all these years and after all you have read and penned, you still don’t get it and probably never will….
Jewish History
(TOP)
It has been prophesied in the Torah that Jews would be an eternal nation:
“And I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and your descendants after you, throughout the generations. An eternal covenant to be your God, and the God of your descendants after you” (Genesis 17-7).
This promise is repeated many times throughout the Torah (Leviticus 26:43, Deuteronomy 4:26-27, Deut. 28:63-64). And it has come true. Even though Jews did not have a homeland, a common language or a shared history (the factors that historians use to define a nation), they have remained a distinct people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kggixlEHzfE
Mike Lumish Said:
This, may just be viewed as blood money, lumish.
Fwiw, I believe that not only the terrorist home should be bulldozed but the ENTIRE NEIGHBOURHOOD !
I couldn’t care less if you think I am a fascist, for, to put it mildly, I really don’t give a damn how it looks or sounds.
Are you on drugs???
What kind of a moronic statement is THAT ?
Should we speak with a soft voice and admonish them: “…tsk tsk… We don’t do things like that achmad…it is not nice to butcher people … Bad boy, achmad!”
Not only should it be bulldozed, but it should be done with a smile .
To the entire world, (as the bulldozer finishes leveling yet another house…) “this one’s for you!!!”
😀
@ Mike Lumish:
It will happen because we will be left with no choice.
It’s not if but when and how!!!!!
We can legally blow up their houses because they are enemies and it does have some deterrence effect; but stealing is not permitted.
What do you think we are thieves???? Fascists maybe but not thieves.
Rather be a live Jewish fascist then dead. Learned something about you Mike. Your main concern is how your goy neighbors will deal with you wussy Joooos. 🙂
I hope your fears are realized Dafka!!!
Forget about transference.
It is not going to happen and its advocates look like fascists.
Even the bulldozing of terrorist homes is anachronistic and unnecessarily brutal. Instead of bulldozing homes maybe Israel should take a page from Caroline Glick’s book and transfer title of the home to the victim’s families.
Felix Quigley Said:
MONEY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HONEY
@ yamit82: I agree with that Sherman and Kedar should sit together and formulate a realistic solution to try and solve the problem and not just work from separate plans.
We need to have a real concrete plan (not just vague political concepts) and then get someone like Bennett, Ya’alon, Erdan and other important government figures to endorse it and work to implement it.
If we can not get together and unify we have no chance of solving the problem. Pissing on each other and denigrating others motives just makes the problem hopeless to solve.
The issue of immigration into America or any other country is a matter of national rights. All states have a right to decide who enters and who leaves. Open borders is opposed to national identity. There is also a question of fairness. How is it possible that someone who breaks all the rules gets to become a citizen of America while those who fill out all the forms and waits cannot even travel?
This is the way to approach the Israeli issue also in relation to Arabs. The Israeli state has the power to decide who lives inside of the Israeli state. It is a national state. That is the ESSENCE of what Sherman writes about as far as I can read and see. I emphasise these are my views on the matter. People may disagree but they have to answer MY arguments.
The problem is one of nationalism and of the way that various elites and leaders and people in positions of leadership such as even lowly bloggers see nationalism.
The Jews have a unique problem in this. They keep mixing up nationalism with religion. Religion was never the issue for the Jews. It was always nation.
When we have Israelis and Israeli supporters talking about this not being a nation and national issue then you can tell that betrayal is going to take place – I mean take place very quickly.
Sherman for example says certain things about monetary encouragement to heads of Arab families to go elsewhere to make a new life for themselves. Escape!
This suggestion is misinterpreted by ill meaning people and/or stupid people who cannot think.
The Jews were a people striving for nationhood from the very beginning.
It was this early emphasis on nationhood that created jealousy and reaction (the first Antisemitism) which grew in response to their nationhood.
These Jews were not able to avail themselves of the latest (our modern) developments in science and thus it was inevitable that this took religious forms. Thus we can clearly see that religion was merely the form and the content was the nation.
It is a national issue. The Israelis have got to take control of their destiny and act accordingly.
The fact is that they are unable, totally unable, to take control of their destiny. This may be because they continually reject that they are a nation because they are continually being led into the blind alley of a religious view of life by really arrogant religionists.
They still long to hear the voice of Charlton Heston booming out of the burning bush to either rescue them or guide them on their way. Or it may take other forms, many other forms, but the essence is the same. They are paralysed in the face of great danger.
Such a myopic view of life and the world will lead only to another Holocaust of the Jews.
But you do have people trying to perpetuate this method of looking at the world.
So when I talk of the enemy within I am not just referring to Amira Hass of Haaretz. I am also talking about those who work to deny that this is an issue of nationality, nation state and national liberation.
@ yamit82:
This is music to my ears.
BUT,
is it doable?
The mayor of ashkelon decides to stop the employment of Arabs (it’s about time …) and there is such an outcry…. What would happen when (if) Arabs will (FINALLY) be kicked out??
@ Ted Belman:
Do you have any idea of how many Jews would jump at such an offer to leave with 200K?b 🙂
Paying them is admitting that they have rights to the land.
Kahane was willing to pay them only a fair price for registered legal property and if they refuse or resist to force them over any common border without a cent. If we don’t kill em first.
Natural gas revenue could pay it without any major drain on our economy. That said Unless you can get almost 100% to leave it’s a stupid exercise.
Unless you include all Arabs with Israeli citizenship in the mix don’t even consider it because they are the real problem.
Apply (strictly enforced) all Israeli laws and cut out all acts of affirmative action towards them. Drain the swamp and force them to carry an equal load or burden of citizenship and adherence to the law will go a long way to convincing mostly the young to leave..
Sizable Arab population left in place and you will have achieved nothing except to deplete our own treasury for nothing.
You just saw what a handful of Muslim Zealots can do, you want to continue with more of the same on steroids for the foreseeable future????
Ted Belman Said:
This is the starting point for a realistic solution whereas most Israelis have not yet reached that point as the logical conclusion of the analysis of the problem. I wonder why?
My own view resembles Bennett’s view. I want to annex area C and then spend the next hundred years negotiating autonomy over the rest while at the same time paying Arabs to leave, starting with Arabs living in place like Qalqilya and Tulkarn. Sherman wants to annex all of it and then pay them to leave. I say lets do it in stages.
Sherman doesn’t advocate forcing them to leave. He advocates giving them financial inducements to leave, perhaps $200,000 per family. He believes that Israel could afford the cost of $200 B over a 10 year period. He does not make religious arguments nor legal arguments. He believes that we will never be secure until they leave.
comment in moderation
@ Mike Lumish:
Deportations aside If Israel ever begins doing what we must do to protect Jewish lives here in Israel, I think you Jews in America will experience a lot of negative fallout and blow-back. Based on everything I know and see today you American Jews are very vulnerable and even quite defenseless.
I would suggest if you don’t already own a firearm to go out and buy one and learn how to use it.
I know Israel is doing the right thing for us here in Israel when American Jews start to feel threatened because of our actions. You must understand that the Israeli governments first obligation is the safety of Jews here in Israel first and you other Jews second.
Seems you Jews over there will just have to learn to defend yourselves.
If you begin to feel safe because of what we do or don’t do here then I know our government is not doing what it needs to do to protect us here in Israel.
@ bernard ross:
I enjoy resurrecting some of his writings into discussions like this. If you read headlines from 35 years ago you would think they are speaking of what is happening here today.
If you read and study Jewish history you will see Jews never learn from past mistakes. Seems each generation must suffer their own mistakes which for the most part could have been avoided if they were not so arrogaant and learned their historical lessons.
Can one describe colors to one born without sight?
yamit82 Said:
Excellent…. betrayed by his own for telling the truth.
yamit82 Said:
I agree with this 100%
yamit82 Said:
pearls of wisdom
yamit82 Said:
clearly stated in 1981, 35 years ago and even more true today…what a loss to the Jewish people…an honest leader defending the jewish people with rational policies related to reality rather than hopes and dreams of wonderland.
@ bernard ross:
Well said!!!
@ Mike Lumish:
They Must Go
By Rabbi Meir Kahane 1981
The question of transferring Arabs out of the land will drive them to a frenzied condemnation of Israeli policy. Their danger is their influence on large numbers of simple, good American and Western Jews.
The simplistic and demagogic use of labels such as “immoral,” “inhumane,” “un-Jewish” and “Nazi-like” is likely to find a troubled, sympathetic ear with the ordinary, decent Jew. Thus, we will pay for all the years of deceit and delusions. For all those decades Jewish and Israeli leaders refused to tell the truth about the remedy of the Arab problem in the Land of Israel. They preferred to avoid it and to lie to world Jewry. It is not surprising that any sudden policy that calls for transfer of the Arabs will meet with astonishment and guilt. It is imperative that there begins, today, a campaign among world Jewry to explain the full extent of the Arab hatred and danger. The complete truth must be told to the masses of good Jews both to justify the need to remove the Arabs and to expose the dangers of the liberal Establishment bloc.
The Jewish opposition from within – that is the obstacle to successful transfer of Arabs and the saving of the Jewish state. There is no gentile problem, only the Jewish one of self-destruction.
The problem is the Jew who stupidly equates the transfer of Arabs with Hitler’s genocide of the Jews, as if we were advocating gas chambers or the killing of the Arabs in any form. As if the separation of Jews and Arabs will not save Arab and Jewish lives both! As if it is not precisely the policy of the perverted moralists that will lead eventually to the horrible bloodbath the Jewish realists see all too well!
How outrageously dishonest is the equation. How they cheapen and demean the terrible historical uniqueness and horror of the Holocaust, those intellectual dwarfs who equate it with any event they cannot abide! Did the Jews of Germany say that the land was really theirs, stolen from them by the Germans and that they would work until the day they became the majority and take the land and make it “Judea”? If they did, the Jews of Hitler’s time can be equated with the Arabs. Did the Jews of Europe massacre Germans, rape their women, burn their settlements, and vow to drive them into the sea? If they did, Europe’s Jews and Israel’s Arabs are the same. And if they did – if Germany’s Jews killed Germans and sought to take their state from them – Germans would have been justified in removing them from Germany and saving their country.
But if, as really happened, the Jews sought, not to destroy Germany, not to separate from Germany, not to be independent of Germany, but to be good, loyal, fervent, assimilated Germans, then what the Germans did was horrible, and what the Jews who equate the murderous Arabs with the murdered Jews do is obscene. With no apologies, no defensiveness, no hesitation, the Jew rejects with contempt the gentilized Hebrews and the neo-Hellenists. He knows the Jewish response to threats to destroy people and state: “If one comes to slay you, slay him first” (Sanhedrin, 72d). “Do not be overly righteous” (Ecclesiastes 7). “Said Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish: He who becomes merciful unto the cruel is destined to be cruel unto the merciful.”
How cruel are the overly righteous, the carriers of perverted morality, the unthinking, the gentilized. How many Jewish women and children will die because of the mercy of the overly righteous to the cruel? The foolish children, the twisted adults, all calling in the name of “humanity” for the destruction of the Jewish state – they will be the problem, nothing else.
Mike Lumish Said:
Who is paul berman, where did he show this and why should arab violence and western sadist leftist violence encourage Jews to act in detriment to their safety as a result of bowing to the violence. i thought that lesson was learned in the shoah?
Mike Lumish Said:
what is innocent about teaching your children that Jews have no connection to Israel, are sons of apes and pigs,etc. Perhaps you need to read more about what Israeli arabs say about Jews in Israel.
Mike Lumish Said:
so you believe that Jews suffering the consequences of muslim terrorists in Israel should continue to suffer so that you can enjoy sunny california? When less than 3000 americans were killed you invaded 3 countries and warred for over 10 years.
Mike Lumish Said:
Actually the answer is NO they will not, but the REAL question is why not because right now they have gone along with a couple of million refugees out of Syria, so why not the same with the Jews.
Mike Lumish Said:
This is already happening when Israel does everything right, such as doing what no army has done to protect enemy jew killing wives and children. WHAT IS YOUR SUGGESTION THAT JEWS IN ISRAEL SHOULD DO?
Mike Lumish Said:
You appear to be giving credence to what they think of Jews. Your analogy equates deportation with nazi death camps. OH, if only the jews could have been deported to Israel or anywhere rather than die in death camps. what about the deportation of Jews from arab lands after, and in spite of, the Geneva Conventions?
the arabs are killing jews and raising their children to kill jews so how is it possible to compare deporting them with the deported and slaughtered Jews? Your analogy is as gross and despicable as the liars and libelers of the Jewish people.
All you are saying is that the threats and lies of the lying filthy anti semites who are currently libeling Jews and Israel should be obeyed or the anti semites will make it worse. Of course they will make it worse, have you read no history?
yamit82 Said:
I completely agree with this: their culture interpreted the results of the 67 war decisions by Israel as weakness and therefore hope for a future total victory. Had they been severely punished, driven out and no sovereignty given to Jordan over the Mount, and muslims banned from the mount perpetually, the mosque destroyed or turned ito a secular musem, the rebuilding of the temple to demonstrate victory, humiliation and submission….. this would be a breaking of their will. Israel instead behaved as a qualified victor who was not confident of the victory.
Israel must only give the stick to their intransigence and leave out any carrots so as to be completely clear as to who rules. Immediate andmandatory deportations, the license to kill rioters, the locking up of muslim imam anti semites or their beating by thugs,any form of anti semitism must result in mandatory expulsion…..there can be no middle way is demonstrating what is NOT acceptable towards Jews in Israel.
I have seen, in a democratic nation where the government covertly gives the security forces the license to kill and organizes the aftermath to support that de facto position. I have seen it done in crime waves not as serious as what happens in israel.
Ted Belman Said:
the obvious solution. The rest is a form of rationalization to convince myopic Jews who live in Stockholm Syndrome and consider current “laws” and norms more important in governing their behavior than their existential and present danger.
The rational reaction to existential danger is to unequivocally neutralize that danger and potential blowback. This is why in other times not only was the enemy eradicated but also all his children to prevent cycles of revenge. The best examples of modern “peaceful” solutions have been Japan and Germany after WWII. They are allies now because they were totally devastated and unconditionally ruled under martial law and all their intransigence was broken as was their will and spirit. I cannot remember such successful results from cease fires and truces which did not result in a clear, unconditional victor and vanquished. the regular routine of allowing the arabs to save face is a mistake: they must be vanquished and humiliated like saddam appearing from his mole hole in his underwear or Ghadaffi in his meat freezer; after that the war in Iraq was lost to policies of hearts and minds.
Apparently emotion rules decisions rather than science.
@ Ted Belman:
He said this to which I disagree:
New phase in old battle
In the wake of the column, I was interviewed by the Voice of Israel’s Dan Diker, who asked me whether the recent incidents of Arab terror constituted a new phenomenon, or merely a continuation of the Arab enmity experienced in the past.
Our conflict with the Arabs was never over Jewish sovereignty
As Soon as Jews began coming to Palestine in any numbers the Arabs resisted. Those long on the land had to endure Arab brigands and being robbed raped and murdered for centuries because they were Jews and offered no resistance.
The Basis for Arab nationalism opposing any non Muslim presence and certainly no non Muslim sovereignty is based on Islamic doctrine.
Sherman goes back 25 years and security in not just an outcome of sovereignty but military power and the will to use it.
Israel has mistakenly applied Western concepts and cultural
postulates erroneously to Arabs and Muslims and that includes Sherman. I admire Sherman and agree with much of what he writes but he should consult if his ego allows those like Kedar and together formulate a realistic program and response to our situation and real threats.
yamit82 Said:
You appear to be correct
yamit82 Said:
It looks that way to me
yamit82 Said:
this is the big mystery to me. It appears to be a mindset. It makes me question my view of facts:
perhaps the arabs aren’t so threatening and the media blows it out of proportion….?
The Israelis should have the best judgement as they live with them and suffer the damage…..?
Perhaps my distance makes me wrong and Israelis know more than I do…..?
Do the Israeli Jews have the same blindspot as the shtetl Jews of the past….?
why would Israeli Jews have to wait for a great suffering to perceive what is already presenting itself…?
Do Israeli Jews beleive there can be accomodation and peace with this culture…..?
Is Israeli perception of peace based upon their perception of the cultures peacful nature or on Israel’s ability to deal with the outcomes….?
if someone kept talking about want to kill me and drive me out I would not need more convincing.
At least kill the ones who say it and live in Israel, use covert terror gangs if necessary.
the Jews have the power but that power is impotent
I just dont get it,
If you want to discuss forcibly removing the Arabs from Israel after annexing Judea and Samaria then you must give very serious consideration not only to the morality of forcing many hundreds of thousands of innocent people from their homes, but of the consequences toward Israel, and Jews worldwide – even here in beautiful, sunny California – to such an action.
This strikes me as an exceedingly risky move because it would likely trigger a significant world-wide reaction that I am not certain Israel could stave off. Violence toward Jews would increase dramatically, particularly in Israel, and as Paul Berman has shown, it is precisely when Arabs are most violent toward Jews that western-left sadists scream the loudest against Israel… blaming the Jews for the violence against us, thus justifying that violence.
The real question would be, would the west go along with Arab transference and it is very hard to see that happening. The western governments would strenuously object and the western-liberal street would go entirely bonkers, forcing decision makers to take action against the Jewish state.
If you thought that they painted us as Nazis before, wait until we start literally rounding up Arabs and forcing them into camps in preparation for deportation.
yamit82 Said:
Felix Quigley Said:
Sherman made no such distinction and didn’t say other wise.
He says, we are sovereign and we should have as our goal, maintaining that sovereignty. He soesn’t speak about religion or nationalism His issue is security . He believes that the only way to be secure is to be sovereign. He , of course, wants to resettle the Arabs elsewhere as part of his goal.
I differ from Sherman in this. Our 100 year running conflict with the Arabs is Religious based and not nationalistically based. Both Islam and Judaism do not separate religion and nationalism.
There is no way to bridge such a divide into an amicable compromised agreement. It has always been them against us and while the tactics may change from time to time the ultimate imperative of Arab Muslims is our elimination from this place even if it takes centuries.
There is no way Israel or any state can accommodate a minority of enemy 5th column irredentists, especially such a large and growing proportion of our population now over 20%.
There is no doubt that most if not all Arabs currently enjoying Israeli citizenship must go. No current or potential leader will I believe take any steps to remove them so we will have to wait until we suffer so greatly at their hands that it forces the people to demand they leave and forcing our weak myopic leadership to remove them.
Under cover of a defensive war waged against us many things can happen that might seem impossible during periods of calm.
This is what will probably happen.
Felix Quigley Said:
Is that what you read????
To sum up the Sherman analysis this morning the essence is Jewish nationalism, always has, always will be.