By Ted Belman
When is Israel going to wise up? Israel’s preferred policy is to play defense and make as few waves as possible.
Whether its Obama insisting on a building freeze, or negotiations based on ’67 lines with swaps or the EU encouraging the Arabs to violate the Oslo Accords and build in Area C, Israel is always reacting. Thus when we wait to be diplomatically attacked we end up fighting on our own territory.
It used to be that we had a policy of fighting on the other guys territory which means pre-emptive action.
In diplomatic terms this means claiming ownership of the other guys territory or at least what he thinks is his, and building on it. Let the other guys, the Arabs, the EU and the US play defense.
For example if we claimed sovereignty over Area C, our enemies would be concerned with undermining such contention. As it is we have conceded too much territory in negotiations and we are debating over whether we get to keep 1% or 6. This is madness and idiocy.
Erekat: Freeze Construction or Talks End
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“The Amman talks are intended to obtain a colony freeze and the use of the 1967 lines as a reference for any future talks, and will be given a chance to succeed until January 26,” Erakat told AFP.
PLO Official: Israel Wants 6-9% of Yesha, and Jerusalem
Ron, you’re spot on here. I can’t fault you.
Most?
Don’t think so, Arnold.
“Some” is more sensible, certainly more logical.
Assertions of “most” in this matter are suspect, as are the “historical anthropologists” who posit such claims.
You are correct. I do have a condition, it’s called thought. What’s your condition?
I like short and glib easy answers. That said, I suspect anyone not like me…Which probably includes about everyone.
Anyone who thinks ron is a simpleton is neither naive or a simpleton but quite stupid.
I’d skip permission from Uncle Sam and go directly to their BOSS: THE CHINESE!
For cheap oil and guaranteed steady supply I don’t see any problem.
Okay Mollie,
Of course I am simpleton, having said that I stick by my statement.
I trust you find that suitable.
No rongrand, naive is not the word-rather a simpleton
Link to Usenet comment thread is here.
Sometimes the answers are right in front of your face, you just don’t want to acknowledge them. Perhaps the problem is in you…
I know, you don’t want to invest the pain that would be involved in introspection to come to the reality. Still, there it is.
Good point.
Of course I am naive, having said that I agree Israel should claim all of Israel, the Holy Land G-d provided for them.
In doing so, who would stop them? I don’t know of any nation willing to get involved.
Of course there will be threats, hell the world has threatened Iran without success.
Besides I don’t recall G-d leading any people other than the Jews to the Holy Land, certainly not a group calling themselves Palestinians.
My reply to Jonathon awaits moderation.
First you need permission from Uncle Sam!
I suspect anyone wth the glib easy answers.
Au Contraire- Methinks the B.S is flowing from you-by the ton.
Yamit writes like he knows something that nobody else knows. I sense he has some kind of “condition”.
Jonathon, Netanyahu in his address to the joint session of Congress several months ago, said all of Judea and Samaria is Jewish-Israeli land. It was the first time an Israeli leader said that without equivocation. Netanyahu also stated that Israel was prepared to relinquish much of her land in J & S to the Palestinians in return for a real, stable and enduring peace. He received a great many standing ovations.
It was indeed a great moment.
It should have heralded a dramatic change in the political discourse from Israel and all Israelis. The political rhetoric of Palestinian and world opinion until then, had been that for the sake of peace, Israel had to go out of Palestinians land. Until Netanyahu made that address, Israel had never come out and clearly asserted her own soveriegn rights to all of J & S and instead tacitly admitted the Palestinian position.
Our thoughts that Netanyahu’s speech was a watershed moment, soon faded. Since then, Netanyahu and the GOI have gone silent in asserting Israeli sovereign right to J & S. Instead they have gone back to the same peace process rhetoric. By not denouncing the Palestinian narrative and claims as being untruthful, Israel tacitly admits the Palestinian position and again premise their position not on Israeli rights, but Israeli security needs.
One can always make a rousing speech about the need to be strong and become stronger as one speaks with pride of nation while saluting their nation’s flag.
Frankly, the Israeli flag seems to often be flying at half mast, signifying the mourning of the death of truth and justice for Israel.
Can Israel and so many Jews regain that moment of pride and excitement when Netanyahu spoke of Jewish-Israeli rights to all the land of J & S?
That can only be answered by the Netanyahu government, for it is only they who can speak for all of Israel against the weight of anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian world opinion, when it comes to Israel’s biblical, historical and legal rights.
So far, Netanyahu and his government are not talking.
Yamit- Israel has made and signed literally hundreds of commitments to surrender the territories. If you think it go back on its word, YOU ARE DREAMING. JUST FORGET IT- IT AINT GOING TO HAPPEN.
In any game of chess you don’t start by taking your men off the board.
Israel should claim all of the West Bank and then negotiate – not claim 7% and then negotiate down to 0%. It should also strongly claim its legal rights to the West Bank – not hem and haw and complain as it has been doing.
Invade and occupy (Using Muslim Mercenaries) Saudi Arabia. Selling oil on a cost plus say, 30% to everyone, thereby lowering the price of oil to around $20-25bbl. That would have the economic effect of pulling the West out of the recession eliminating a verly dangerous enemy and strengthening Israels image of Power around the world.
Didn’t know I had to prove anything, especially to YOU?
You made several statements as to what you believe would happen if Israel asserted her rights by word and deed……! I agree that it is what the common perception by most people and pundits would offer but you have not made a case that those cause and effect scenarios are in fact so. I disagree with them, every one.
I don’t see where YOUR repeating common perceptions is an indication of “INTELLIGENT THOUGHT”.
Jonathon, what advice do you have for Israel to gain respect through strength?
Yamit, Intelligent thought isn’t your forte. You are making it tough on yourself to prove otherwise.
Re: Narvey
First you publicize Grief and Benzimra’s books to tell people the truth – that by international law Samaria and Judea belong to Israel. Remember Afghanistan and Iraq! There too they said that all hell would break lose and the Americans would lose disasterously within a few weeks. It didn’t happen. The U.S. won decisively. They staryed too long. Israel would stay forever which is a different scenario. Israel has only been respected by the world when it was strong and winning its wars. Srength, not weakness or appealing to the U.N., is how it will gain respect from the world and more self-respect.
Begin was a loud mouth demagogue, who never convinced a majority to accept his position till he watered them down to move from a demagogic ideologue into a populist demagogue. in the first instance he never dreamed of becoming more than he was : Leader of the Loyal opposition. Actually that is where is should have stayed.
The Israeli right never knew how to govern and the bureaucracy was always made up of the Left. Governments come and go but entrenched bureaucracy’s seem to last forever.
I mostly agree but with some serious caveats.
I agree..!!
Totally BS on every point.
Totally BS:
Go write letters, as an analyst you are batting less than zero.
Very well put!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It is easy for Israel to say she has historical, lawful and sovereign right to all of J & S. Before she could even act on that, Israel would be faced with a vicious storm of condemnation by world opinion including all Western nations and a very great many Jews, especially the left wing J Street, B’Tselem, NIF and JFSJ varieties. Add to that, to just declare all of J & S is Israeli territory would likely amount to throwing fuel on the fire of Jew hatred already furiously burning throughout the Mid East. All out war would likely erupt and Israel would be hard pressed to find anyone to support her, either morally or in terms of supplying her with munitions to fight that war.
It is however, correct to generally state that Israel has been almost constantly on the defensive and reactive. When you are always being set back on your heels, there is not much chance to regain balance and press your own case, a tactic bound up in the notion that the best defence is an offence.
If Israel is to effectively go on the offensive in terms of advocating, asserting and acting on its rights, she is going to have to find some calm interlude in the offensive war of words against her to figure out just how she can do so without bringing more hell and damnation to her doorstep than she already is contending with from so called allies, enemies and so many Jews within Israel and the diaspora, which latter group help the anti-Israel factions far more than they help Israel.
Cowardice combined with insanity, can only bring the demise of Zionism.
What is it about peace talks, when the PA talks of nothing but the destruction of Israel, not by peace talks, but piece by piece.
Why does no one listen to their admitted goals????
I agree with Ted. Israel should claim 100% of the West bank pursuant to the Balfour Declaration and San Remo and 0% of the Arab population as Jordan and Gaza have been taken from the original territory allocated to Israel for their use. Israel is a democracy for Jews – not for Muslims or Christians who happen to live there although the latter are certainly entitled to their rights, but not to perfectly equal rights as it is a Jewish state.
Gotcha, Andrew.
Posting on Arab websites? Oy veh! My Chinese son-in-law does business all over the world — South Africa, Namibia, Kazakhstan, Brazil, Russia, India, Tibet, Myanmar, Malaysia, Turkey, Estonia, Sweden… but he doesn’t even trouble himself with the thought of Arab countries. They’re like a tarpit whose people are stuck in the Middle Ages. Come to think of it, he doesn’t do business with Israel either… Hmm… different reasons.
Concerning Israel being on the defensive, Israel should have its natural gas online in a year or two, and I wouldn’t be surprized if the US 5th Fleet isn’t permanently based near Haifa to protect it (maybe in Caesarea — fitting, huh?) Once Israel starts becoming awash in petrodollars, I don’t expect them to be on the defensive about anything — including about God. In fact, their egos will be flying so high, I don’t think anyone will be able to talk to them.
…until !POP!, of course.
You should try posting something pro Israel in the Guardian or Al Jazeera. I get wiped every time.
I got b o t t e d. Who knows what keyword kicked it off. I encountered less censorship in Red China.
It used to be that Israel was ruled by the Mapai. Ironically, Mapai rule and “fighting on the other guy;s territory” went hand-in-hand. The so-called “peace process”, which has continually eroded Israeli sovereignty, was begun by Menachem Begin of Herut in 1977, and it has been downhill ever since.
Why is it, that the so-called “Nationalist Camp” is so ineffective in building and expanding the nation? The blame rests squarely on their shoulders, yet I have seen nobody in the Nationalist Camp own up to the reason. I will offer my own guess: The Nationalist Camp is inherently divided and divisive. Mapai had a unified vision for Israel: secular, socialist and unashamedly Zionist. The nationalists are divided between secularists and varying degrees of religious — most of whom don’t even accept members of their own camp. They blame Labor and other leftists for Israel’s decline; yet who has given away the most? Begin gave away Sinai, then most of the gains in Lebanon; Netanyahu gave away Hevron; Sharon gave away Gaza. On the left, Rabin gave away Jericho, but was responsible for Entebbe. Barak gave up the Lebanon buffer.
I don’t know what got into Begin, to make him so free in giving away 2/3 of Israel’s territory. In the case of the Oslo Accords, Rabin could not have succeeded without help from Shas — supposedly in the “Nationalist” camp. Sharon likewise was able to exploit divisions in the Nationalist camp to give away Gaza: Shas and Likud were with him at first, then Kadima and UTJ. It’s not too difficult to understand Labor’s shift away from nationalism: They need the Arabs to help them in the opposition, in order to protect and promote their socialist agenda. To them, socialism is more important than Zionism. Unfortunately, the Nationalist camp is also divided, WITHOUT the need to curry Arab support; and the weakest link has always been the religious, who treasure their own form of socialism (yeshiva support) more than Zionism.
So, there you have my guess at the root cause: disunity, brought on by the demise of the unity that once was Mapai. Some posters here have come up with great ideas; but until there is an abiding unity in Israeli politics, none of them have a chance.
I’m not much on Bible-thumping. And my interest in formal Judaism is solely limited to whatever effective role its practices and beliefs may play in protecting and extending the interests of the Jewish nation.
But as a trained and experienced urban and regional planner (who got part of his training at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s City and Regional Planning department) on a graduate studies fellowship), I fully know that purposely creating urban sprawl as a nationalist exercise could help Israel fill Shomron, Yehuda and the annexed parts of Jerusalem with Jewish residents, which is the only way to make land annexations irreversible. International recognition and good will are nothing. Permanent control of the historical lands of the Jewish nation — and even more such lands that belongs to the enemies of the Jewish nation — means are everything. I would sacrifice every other interest and consideration on behalf of conquering or infiltrating, populating with Jews and annexing lands extending from the Nile to the Euphrates rivers.
In order to survive in the long run, the Jewish nation must expand its population both as a means of defense and offense. The Jewish population of Israel, with appropriate national planning, doubles approximately every 35-40 years. There is no reason this population growth cannot be maintained throughout the remainder of the 21st century. Today’s 6 million Jews in Israel could double to 12 million in time for the first centennial of the State of Israel. Then it could double again to almost 25 million well before the end of the century.
In order to sustain that growth, Israel needs more land. The outright conquest of neighboring lands is made relatively easy by the convenient fact that enemy leadership cadres of the neighboring Arab states seem forbidden both by their religion and culture from ever agreeing to make permanent peace with any Jews or to recognize Jewish sovereignty over any part of the Middle East, and most especially, Jerusalem.
“Excellent!”, I say. Because the best justification for war is that one’s enemies have declared a permanent one against the Jewish nation. Let Israel learn to take advantage of just that situation.
As the land area of Israel is made to expand, increasing national resources will be made available to the Jewish nation and its state. And as Israel grows even more powerful, dissident Arabs will break away from their flock and seek protection from the Jews. Should we oppose them joining with us? Of course not. My own readings in historical anthropology have taught me that most of the present Jewish population have descended from local peoples among whom Jews lived, who joined their Jewish neighbors and then were spurned by their former countrymen. There is no reason that the same use cannot be made of the local Arab population.
Where and when will this end? The truth is, it never ends. All national entities, especially in times of threatened access to vital fossil energy and freshwater sources, are locked in permanent struggle with one another. There never has been true world peace, and there never shall be. So let us learn to capitalize on the territorial imperative that is hardwired into the biological codes of all living matter.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Even from biblical times Israel’s leaders continue to betray the Jewish people. Too many of our leaders have big egos and ignore our Torah. The Torah posses a choice: Either fear G-d or fear man. To fear G-d requires faith. Even in biblical times when we saw miracles some of our leaders refused to have faith in G-d and those betrayals have had terrible consequences.
To place our faith in man means we end up with Obama who is pushing a spiritually weak Israel towards destruction. The bible says that if we forget thee O’ Jerusalem our tongue will cleave to the roof of our mouth. That means that when Obama treats us like dirt our faithless and corrupt leaders, including Netanyahu, can only stutter incoherently in response. And our gentile friends look on in dismay.