By Ted Belman
Yesterday I met an 80 year old guy named Yossi, who was very well connected politically and was a close friend of former PM Olmert. He also headed a movement to enhance Jerusalem. He seemed to know everyone who was anyone.
Yossi started out by telling me that he considered Netanyahu a coward because he is afraid to make a move. I told him that the right agrees accept that the Right want him to make a move to the right and the Left otherwise.
He lamented that Netanyahu’s last move to bring Herzog into the coalition in place and stead of Bennett’s party in preparation of negotiating with various Arab regional parties, didn’t succeed. He blamed it on the Zionist Union who wouldn’t go along. There was no question in his mind that Bibi wanted to move forward on this. Perhaps because the Arabs had shown a little flexibility on the parameters. But so far no one has indicated what change the Arabs might accept, but it won’t be much. He did think that al Sisi was prepared to give up part of Sinai to enlarge Gaza. He also said that Salam Fayyad, a former PM of the PA, was being groomed to take over when Abbas leaves.
His bottom line was a Jewish state. For him the greatest danger to Israel is a binational state that would result from rejecting a Palestinian state. Bibi always mentions the same fear. As for the security concerns he rejected them all. For him, the benefits to Israel of cutting a deal and ending the “occupation” far surpassed the the potential loss of life due to rockets from J&S reigning down on the coast. Would such a danger be any worse than having 150,000 rockets in Lebanon aimed at our destruction. We can handle Hezbollah and we can handle whoever takes over in Palestine. So what if some Jews get killed. Since our independence we have lost more Jews to traffic accidents than to the Arab wars. We lost 6 million in the holocaust. Any loss from creating Palestine will be so insignificant in comparison. The benefits of recognition and normalization would be enormous.
For him, J&S meant nothing. The Left encapsulates this idea in their reference to the settlers as messianic. But he insisted on Israel being the nation state of the Jewish people. He wanted to leave Israel to his grandchildren as the Jewish state. He said if we aren’t a Jewish state we may as well live in America.
But he did care about Jerusalem as Israel capital. After all Jerusalem has been in Jewish hearts and prayers King Solomon built his temple there.
As for Gaza, Israel will never defeat Hamas. The cost is too high. We would have to carpet bomb it to avoid a high casualty rate of our own and even then we would not have defeated Hamas who have an enormous tunnel network underground from which to carry on the battle. It just won’t happen he said. Maybe that’s why Netanyahu is looking for ways to make life in Gaza tolerable. Maybe that’s why he allowed Turkey to improve the situation. Or maybe he wants to prevent Iranian influence there.
Yet I would not call him a leftist who to my mind worry about the Palestinians first. He on the other hand is a pragmatist. He worries about the Jewish state first.
I wrote this from memory rather than from notes taken. It is roughly written. I just wanted to share with you his perspective.
Perhaps Ted has erred in labeling Yossi a pragmatist becuase all Yossi’s of ideas of land for peace,etc have proven to be a failure. Even the so called peace treaties with egypt and jordan are completely dependent on the leader of the day as the people would revert in a moment from their treaties. Any sign of pro israel in egypt is immediately met with mass anger, same in Jordan.
I would instead call Yossi a delusional… one who clings to theories which are proven fantasies. In the end it is irrelevant as making decisions based on ones own self serving fantasies is definitely not pragmatic.
again, a delusion….even those pretending to peace with the jews in europe work to fund jew killers behind the jews back
the pope smiles with the Jews but his proxies are busily funding jew killers… same with the dutch gov.
a pragmatic person sees the real world and acts accordingly… stalin churchill and roosevelt were pragmatic when they allied against hitler…….. but they did not fantasize that the same one trying to kill them and grab up their land was just waiting with white doves, flowers and kisses for the moment they would offer him peace. that all they needed was to agree a line with him and he would cease his atrocities and relent. No, they already did that at Munich and had learned their lesson… unlike Yossi and the left.
His claim of “pragmatism” does not imply that his brand of pragmatism is worth the risk for IL. Without a change of attitude in the Pal leadership (first and foremost), there is very little hope.
Without a change in the Western deception, there is very little to expect.
for Yossi and BB this all makes sense, just crunch the numbers and you will see they are right. what makes no sense is that Jews died in wars against these muslims in order to allow the muslims to abuse the Jews under a jewish gov. I think that even france would have a more logical approach to anti semitism than this. Arabs throw stones then ban the jews, the vanquished are puppeteers of the victors, there is more muslim anti semitic abuse of jews in Israel than in france… do those making aliya expect to receive anti semitic abuse and murder under the supervision of jewish government….. hmmmm….. sounds like the Judenraat.
perhaps his friend olmert can tell him why he allowed the hezbullah buildup and why military officials keep telling Israelis of the rocket dangers but never do anything about it. shouldnt they have crippled hezbullah while they were spread thin and before the russkies arrived?
yep, thats how bb and the left think too….. but why should anyone else care about what happens to such folk who think like that? It looks like jews in Israel are also just another number to compare against the “enormous benefits” of which we have heard nothing. Making aliya to a nation led by jews who tolerate more anti semitism than france seems questionable….. and the machievallian approach to jewish lives is available any where on the globe…. so why does it matter….. hoping for change amongst the enemy is absurd and sacrificing real zionists for the right to live where you dont even care about seems meaningless. In my view if the jews have no right to YS then the same is more true of tel aviv and the rest of the world might reasonably see such jews as a pain in the ass who should just give the arabs whatever they want, including tel aviv….. why not move the jews somewhere where they will be less troublesome to muslims?
Why bother with a jewish state… someone who sees zionist jews settling in the heart of the jewish homeland as messianic rather than simply natural should have no need of a Jewish state……. considering the anti semitism which the so called jewish gov allows against jews in israel why not move to america…. I dont see why yossi thinks he belongs in Israel? After all the white farmers of zimbabwe were there for hundreds of years and nobody cried for them being thrown out. whats yossi’s claim to Israel, is it just that he was born there?
what benefits, what deal? the minute the israeli arabs see what the rabid dogs got they will ally with them to turn Israel into a non jewish state even if they agreed to a jewish state… duh… lying and breaking agreements is the substance of …. taquiyya. The benefits would not occur because there will be a new conflict and reason for continuing the situation and the usual suspects in europe will as usual agree with the jew killers. At what point does someone notice a repetitive MO…. surely 80 years of it should bring some recognition of its re occurrence?
Yossi’s whole narrative is based on pie in the sky assumptions which evidence suggests will be consistently the opposite of his declared expectations.
actually he sounds exactly like a typical leftist to me in that his reasons for his suggestions are all hopey dreamey and completely contradicted by all prior similar actions.
It doesn’t matter what yossi “worries” about because his judgement is transparently poor. If you draw a line across your living room the rabid dogs on the other side of the line will not remain on that side simply because it is your hope and dream that they do. All evidence points to the fact that the rabid dogs will continue to find ways to cross the line and kill jews. In such a circumstance it is absurd to give up any security advantage, especially the ability to enter the areas at any time desired. having left gaza one can only go to war, which Yossi beleives is impossible to win.
What should give yossi a clue is that the rabid dogs have never stopped teaching their toddlers that jews are sons of apes and pigs. I wonder why a man over 80 would think things would change because you give the rabid dogs what they want.
Yossi may not worry about YS just like others would not worry about tel aviv… but yossis worries are irrelevant because he has not shown us the efficacy of hopy dreamy.
a close friend of a corrupt jailbird who sought to give away the jewish patrimony probably to escape the blackmail file of foreign intelligence services…. reminds me of sharon where him and his family were under a cloud of corruption scandal when he gave away gaza. it appears that all those seeking to give away what they dont worry or care about…… it seems that they only cared about what corrupt folks tend to worry and care about.
I dont see yossi as a pragmatist… I see him as a hopey dreamy leftist proposing something which has always failed and predicting an outcome which contradicts evidence and reality.
Perhaps yossi could tell us why the giving away of the jewish homeland should suddenly result in a different outcome?
Lets face it, the giving away of sinai and the peace with jordan are not stable… they rely on the specific heads in power now and the people of those entities hate the jews… with different leaders they will revert and Israel will have given something for nothing
I’ve heard the very same naive non-thinking from many other pseudo-intellectual Israelis.
Iv’e heard the same naive non-thinking from many other pseudo-intellectual Israelis.