By David Suissa, Jewish Journal
A reflex is defined as “An action that is performed without conscious thought as a response to a stimulus.”
I thought about that word the other day when over 100 prominent American Jews released a letter urging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take “concrete steps” to entice the Palestinians back to the peace table.
The letter, organized by the Israel Policy Forum (IPF), said such leadership “would challenge Palestinian leaders to take similarly constructive steps, including, most importantly, a prompt return to the negotiating table.”
Hmm, haven’t we seen that movie before? Do the signatories really believe that, once again, it’s all up to Israel to “entice” the naysaying Palestinians and revive a comatose peace process with offers and gestures?
Somehow, I doubt that any of these prominent Jews would negotiate against themselves to buy a house from an owner who didn’t want to sell — let alone negotiate.
But what makes their approach especially ill advised is that in the case of negotiating an Israeli-Palestinian peace, they mixed up the owner and the buyer.
The party who owns peace is the party who can deliver peace, and that’s Israel. The Palestinian Authority can neither promise nor deliver peace. That’s because they have zero authority over Hamas, the terror entity in Gaza that rules over half of the Palestinian population and is sworn to Israel’s destruction.
Evidently, that inconvenient detail hasn’t stopped the IPF signatories from urging Israel to “do more” to buy a meeting with the non-owners of peace.
This reflexive focus on Israel is not new — it’s been going on since the Oslo days. No matter how genocidal and Jew-hating the other side gets, the idea is to keep pressuring Israel to make more concessions until those same Jew-haters turn into peacemakers.
Ironically, this reflex to pressure Israel has created an opposite reflex on the Palestinian side — to dig in their heels and increase their animosity. Emboldened by all the pressure on Israel, they pile on new demands, malign the Jewish state at every turn and even threaten to take their “peace partners” to international criminal courts.
The Israel Policy Forum says on its Web site that its goal is to “promote pragmatic strategies for achieving regional peace.” Well, here’s a good topic for their next policy conference: “Is pressuring Israel the most pragmatic strategy for achieving regional peace?”
They might want to invite President Obama to that conference so he can remind them what he said recently in Ramallah: No preconditions should be expected of the Israelis for the Palestinians to return to the peace table.
It took Obama four years to understand that it’s not “pragmatic” to pressure the side that is already willing to sit down and negotiate. But not even Obama’s come-to-Moses moment can sway the Israel-obsessed IPF signatories, many of whom have been pressuring Obama for years to save Israel from itself.
Of course, now that there’s renewed pressure on Israel to take “concrete steps,” we’re right back where we started: The Palestinians, right on cue, have promptly added to their demands. Now they want the release of terrorist prisoners, transfer of parts of Area C to their control, and, get this, a map with final borders — all before any peace talks can maybe resume.
In other words, the more pressure on Israel to make friendly gestures, the more the Palestinians get nasty and raise the ante. Sound familiar? It’s as if the Palestinians are saying, “Give us everything we ask for, and maybe, maybe, we’ll come talk to you, even though we can’t deliver peace.”
It should be obvious by now that the Palestinians are playing everyone like a fiddle, and the IPF reflex chorus who are urging Israel to make more gestures are playing right into their hands, like suckers at the Casbah.
I wonder sometimes what typical Israelis think when they see earnest American Jews lecture them that they should do more for peace: “What do these Americans think — that they want peace and we don’t? That we’ve never made painful sacrifices for peace? That we should pretend Hamas doesn’t exist?”
In case you were wondering, this is not about getting American Jews to shut up — not even Mashiach can do that. Jews in America have every right to speak up and pressure Israel whenever they feel like it, and many of them do.
But in Judaism, there’s something more important than rights — there’s obligation.
You may believe, in fact, that it’s an obligation for pro-Israel Jews to pressure Israel to take more risks for peace, but if you believe that, then why stop there?
Why is it not an obligation for pro-Israel Jews to lobby for at least equal pressure on the Palestinians who have refused for years to come to the peace table?
Why is it not an obligation for pro-Israel Jews to expose the glorifying of terrorism and Jew-hatred in Palestinian society, the Hamas charter calling for Israel’s destruction and the history of Palestinian rejection to Israeli peace offers?
And while we’re at it, why is it not an obligation for pro-Israel groups like J Street to lobby against the vicious and libelous global campaign to delegitimize the Jewish state? Isn’t that “pro-Israel” enough?
Where is the letter campaign from those prominent, Israel-loving IPF signatories pressuring the United Nations to stop its blatant discrimination against Israel?
And where is their campaign pressuring Israel’s Arab neighbors to stop the demonizing of Jews and using Israel as a scapegoat for their self-inflicted misery?
For many peace-loving American Jews today, it seems that being “pro-Israel” means “pressuring Israel and no one else.”
Beyond the fact that that approach has brought us even further away from peace, it’s hardly a secret that Israel is already under enormous pressure from a hostile world. It boggles the mind how smart and savvy pro-Israel Jews can conclude that what Israel and the peace process need more than anything right now is… more pressure on Israel.
Israel doesn’t need to be saved from itself, but from its enemies. Instead of getting more pressure from its own supporters, Israel needs help exposing the Jew-haters of the world who are the real obstacles to peace.
That’s not a reflex, that’s just reason.
David Suissa is President of Tribe Media Corp and Jewish Journal. He can be reached at davids@jewishjournal.com.
The American Jews who want to influence BB one way or another should move to IL otherwise they should shut-up. Nobody force them to give anything. How would American feel if IL Jews told Americans to allow more Mexican in the US?
@ Bernard Ross: The worst anti-Jewish arm-twisting committed by the West was the creation and financial support of UNRWA. Even the Arabs couldn’t care less and did not give a penny until recently. The Western orientalists are the prime responsible people for this state of affair.
As far as France is concerned, their allegiance is to the Arabs of North Africa. The French single-handedly oppose the classification of Hezbollah as terrorists.
the pressure on Israel is simply the continuation of the reflexive habit of extortion practiced on the jews by the euro christian culture as one aspect of their 2000 year chronic,culturally congenital, serial slaughters, swindles, libels and extortions on the Jewish people, which is still ongoing this same moment that I write. The Euro/christians are engaged in financing Jew killers(hamas and hezbullah), enthusiastically swindling the jews of the land of Israel through their govt and their NGO’s and extorting through fear(the age-old tactic) the Israelis at the bargaining table. Basically, what the euro/christian culture cannot achieve through murder it will achieve through other means.
If one analyzes all the past withdrawals and concessions from before Israel was born one can easily see a pattern of extortion by the employment of threats. The threats take many forms withholding arms, withholding UN vetoes, withholding aid, sanctions, etc.
Here are some examples of where Israel’s “allies” used extortion and threats to armtwist the jews to conceding and withdrawing:
partition, creating trans jordan, 1939 white paper, UNGA 181 partition, british withdrawal from mandate on the hope that their trained jordanian surrogates would slaughter the jews, 1956 suez withdrawal, 1967 ceasefire, 1973 ceasefire and withdrawal from suez, non annexation of west bank, sinai withdrawal,US sponsored PLO escape from beirut, beirut withdrawal, jordan “peace” treaty, Oslo, PLO admission from tunisia,lebanon withdrawal,gaza withdrawal, gaza cease fires and withdrawals twice, etc etc etc etc etc (Im sure some israelis can add more)
I have not one shred of doubt that this constant and repetitive extortion would never have been performed on any other people other than the Jews.
There is no “new and enlightened” world and the same actors continue, this very moment, to perform their recurring roles. When the jews full absorb this fact they will become independent and free to restore justice to the Jewish people.
CuriousAmerican Said:
How so? I have always said the same thing in my comments here on Israpundit check the archives going back to 2006-7.
Yes because by agreeing to pay for them establishes the wrong principle. We pay our enemies, murderers and would be murderers to leave as a reward? It’s no different than paying the mafia to get off your back. Once out there are no guarantees that they will not at some time in the future try to reclaim what we paid them for or their children and grandchildren would try. Our G-d commands us to exterminate them but I would allow them to leave with their lives because I am a Liberal Jew. The offer to leave is a one time time offer, once it is refused then their fates are sealed. The G-d of Israel is merciful to his creatures: the natives are killed so that they don’t compound their sin of opposing G-d and his people.
If you believe they are G-d’s creations and were created in the image of G-d, then look what they have done to that image?
CuriousAmerican Said:
Not morally superior but ethically superior. I reject christian morality as the antithesis of everything Jewish. Why don’t you tell us why you care more about the Pali cretins then you do about Iraqi, Syrian and Coptic christians being butchered by the relatives of those same Pali Arabs you are so concerned about?
CuriousAmerican Said:
It is clear what he is saying, You are obfuscating with an agenda.
Why do you argue, you are for transfer, you are only haggling over who must pay; you are not even haggling over who should pay. What is important to you is that the Jews pay.
This is reminiscent. Have you read “the emperors clothes”?
CuriousAmerican Said:
Nice shot Curio!
“the jews did it” and “the jews must pay” but we can now add “see, the jews are bloodthirsty killers just like us”.
Most of your posts have to do with pointing out the equality of what the jews do to what the arabs and europeans do to the jews.
the rest of your posts conclude in “…the jews must pay”
Do you know what you sound like Curio?
CuriousAmerican Said:
basically you are saying you are not against their transfer but that they must be paid and that it is the Jews who must do the paying rather than the muslims and christians who originated and perpetuated the problem. It appears to be a matter of principle for you that the Jews do the paying just as it is a matter of principle for me that they don’t. For me your suggestion is just a more sophisticated form of the 2000 years of slaughter, swindling , libel and extortion practiced on the Jews by the euro/christian culture. The europeans, even their monarchs, would extract tribute, concessions and MONEY from the Jews by suggesting that things could go bad for them if they don’t cough up. therefore, it becomes symbolically important that the Jews swindlers and extortionists do the paying. Right now the swindlers are paying the jews killers to kill the jews so it would not be much of a burden for the euro jews swindlers and the arabs to pay the same arabs to leave. Jews and money seem to be a fixation of the euro swindlers and appears to have devolved to some of their american descendants.
Exterminatory?!
expendable?!
Do you know what you sound like?
Those commands were for 3,500 years ago. NOT Today!
CuriousAmerican Said:
Hardly!!! I am saying that if their choice is death or moving a few Km to join their relatives in safety most would I am convinced choose to move 5-20 Km east or south and north. Most Americans drive further to work each day. What I am saying is that I would offer them an option that was never afforded the Jews under the Nazis
Rabbis, when they were real rabbis, maintained that Jews must kill all the inhabitants of the Promised Land during the invasion. Joshua bin Nun allegedly sent three letters to the Canaanite nations before the invasion: Whoever wants to leave, leave; whoever wants to make a treaty of tribute and servitude, make the treaty; whoever wants to fight, fight.
The Torah commands us to return from Exile and take over this land (Deut30:5). Thus, the list of particular nations is expendable; Jews must take the towns in the Promised Land from whatever nations happen to have settled them at the time. And when we take the towns, the exterminatory commandment of Deut20:16 kicks in.
Machiavelli agrees: exterminating the natives is the only way for a conqueror to establish himself in the land. If he does not follow the cruel logic of conquest, the natives would become “thorns in his side,” which the Palestinian population has indeed become to Israel.
The Palestinians exercised their freedom of choice in 1948 when they fought the Jewish state. There is no room, accordingly, for the peace process. And in case you think that the Torah is out of sync with modern realities, ask the Native Indians who were exterminated by good Christians arriving from Europe.
Now that is an honest thought. It took a while to get there.
You would rather kill them than facilitate their removal if it costs you money.
Dehumanize the enemy. Makes it easier to kill them.
Y’know, I have no illusions about the Arabs; but you suffer from the illusion that you – I mean you, Yamit, not the Jewish people – you suffer from the illusion that you are morally superior.
Are you suggesting that Israeli is (or should be) ghettoizing the Palestinians to force them to leave?
Do you realize the root analogy you have made is to compare the Jewish victims of Nazis to the Arab victims (?!) of Israel?
You sound like an Arabist complaining about Jewish tactics, now.
You amaze me, because what comes out of your keyboard seems to indicate that your anger overrides your thought.
CuriousAmerican Said:
I don’t think that you know much of anything.
I can say that as an Israeli Jew who has fought in many engagements, that I want real peace more than most. Do you believe that Israelis enjoy sending their kids to the Army, and all the worry and sleepless nights? Glued to our radios and TV’s every-time there is an incident waiting for a call from our kids that they are all OK and unharmed?
Israel amidst a sea of over 300 million Arabs will never have real peace, many of us understand that. Anyway PEACE is not our raison d’etre. maybe it’s yours and if so pay the scum to leave from your own pocket and initiative. Think of it as saving lives no matter how worthless.
CuriousAmerican Said:
If you could hypothetically ask a Jew living in the Ghettos of Europe between 1938 and 1941, if he would oppose even resist himself and family being transferred out of Europe to anywhere,how many do you suppose would elect to stay? Transfer even forced transfer is more humane than having to kill them and they us.
In the struggle against the enemy it is a mitzvah (commandment or obligation)to fight without mercy, for as the Rabbis say: “When you go out to battle against your enemy, know that they are the enemy and not your allies. “As they would have no mercy on you, have not mercy upon them” (Tanchuma, Shoftim 15).
But you say, does this not contradict the teaching of the three L’s that we must always have mercy on all people? On our enemies? The answer is, yes, it does contradict it. Because there was never such a teaching in Judaism. Mercy and pity are reserved for people who are not our enemies. “Do not be overly righteous” (Ecclesiastes 7:16) – “Do not be more righteous than your Maker …”
Some of this discussion is meaningless.
Almost everyone here wouldn’t want a negotiation, even if the Palestinians were sincere.
The standard belief here is that Israel should just annex the territory. [I am not saying that is wrong]
Go ahead annex it!
But what are you going to do with the 1.5 – 2.5 Million Palestinians on it?
I know what most of you would LIKE to do.
Neither side wants the peace process. Let’s face it.
Just pay them to leave. Most will reject it at first, but as the the numbers pile up, those who take the money will snowball.