The Israeli Left’s distorted mindset

By Zvi November

For over one hundred years there has been an ongoing conflict between Moslem Arabs and Jews in the Middle East. The Arabs are the aggressors and the Jews are on the defensive. Before Israel was re-established in 1948, Jews living in the British mandate organized self-defense units and kibbutz settlements still have protective fences around them.

Throughout this long century the Arab battle tactic has been primarily based on terror: the 1929 Hebron massacre, the 1936-39 uprisings that targeted Jews, plane hijackings, the 2000-2005 Intifada bus and market bombings, frequent murders such as the Fogel family slaughter in Itamar and the continuing indiscriminant rocket bombardment of southern Israel from Gaza that aims at the civilian population. These attacks are all war crimes but Israel spokesmen rarely if ever describe these atrocities as such.

Israel’s representatives may complain to the UN once in a while and prime ministers frequently declare that ‘we will never yield to terror’. However, officials, especially after the left-wing Labor party’s electoral victory in 1992 emphasize peace and ignore Arab blood lust. Public figures proclaim that no price is too high to pay for peace. Peace, they intimate, is not free.

So the 1993 Oslo “peace” process was concocted.

The Israeli government run by extreme leftists, Peres and Beilin, converted the PLO terror organization into a negotiating “partner”. They recognized supposed Arab “rights”, installed Arafat and his militia in Jericho, Gaza and Zone A in Judea and Samaria. Almost instantly (from February 1994) attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians increased dramatically. The Rabin government’s suicide initiative was termed a “peace process” and anyone who questions surrender to the Arab foe is labeled “an enemy of peace”.

It behooves us to examine the Left’s delusionary frame of reference. We must acquaint ourselves with the Left’s self-destructive thinking to better understand why Israel’s predicament keeps getting worse.

The first thing to notice about Israel’s “peace” promoters is that 99% of them are secular people who identify themselves as westerners. They are oriented to Western Europe and love America. They consider American liberal values and democratic ideals as holy precepts that must be applied to Israel. Their Hebrew language is impregnated with colloquial English.

Almost all of these secular Israelis have spent years in the US and some have settled permanently in the states.

These “enlightened” types often express strong criticism of the Jewish religion and Israel’s rabbinical establishment. They are especially antagonistic to the ultra-orthodox Hareidim. Rarely, if ever, do these “progressives” voice pride in Jewish history, religion, thought and traditions.

One exception, however, to this generalization is when these capitulators refer back 2000 years to the extreme friction that developed between the Jews and their Roman occupiers as well as intra-Jewish murderous hate in the years leading up to the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD. They opine that Israel must not become a modern-day Sparta even though Sparta beat Athens and won the Peloponnesian War.

A second complementary theme that is an inherent component of the “peace” monopolists’ disposition is their fatigue. Both former prime ministers Rabin and Olmert publicly stated that ‘we are tired of fighting and winning on the battlefields’.

These stressed-out, weary peace seekers never bother to distinguish between real peace and temporary fragile cease fires. They have married themselves to the “two-state” solution. Israel’s survival they absurdly assert depends on the creation of a Palestinian state in the historical Jewish homeland. They further declare ‘that we all know what the final status will be and the enormous painful price we will have to pay’. The Tel Aviv based “peace” brigade is as dogmatic as the Catholic Church and mocks those who dare question the wisdom of surrender to an implacable enemy. Conservatives who prefer the current status quo or back the annexation of all or parts of Judea and Samaria are disparaged as “extremist right-wingers”, even “racists” intent on turning Israel into an apartheid state.

A third motif invoked by the “peace” dreamers is that we cannot and must not antagonize the ‘international community’. Accordingly, Israel must accede to US and European demands and threats because Israel is a tiny highly vulnerable country dependent on American and European good will. Israel must unconditionally surrender to John Kerry and the EU.

Coincidently, many of Israel’s defeatist left-wing “peace” organizations are substantially funded by the EU, some Western European governments and anti-Israel churches.

Communist thinking also contributes to the Left’s deranged mentality. Traditional Marxists used to claim that class struggle and not inter-ethnic rivalries was the primary source of social unrest and economic backwardness. Today, Israel’s home-grown anti-Zionist establishment has replaced “class struggle” with “human rights”. Consequently, Israel’s Left works very hard to protect “Palestinian human rights” and supports Arab complaints even when the evidence for these complaints is weak.

“Peace” zealots are outraged if anyone suggests transferring Arabs to one or more of the twenty-two existing Arab countries in the framework of a political solution (favorable to Israel). But these same leftists have absolutely no problem transferring Jews. They enthusiastically supported the 2005 expulsion of all the Jews from the Gaza strip.

Recently, Shulamit Aloni died. She was educated in the extreme left “HaShomer HaTsair” movement, created the Meretz party and served as education minister. Once, in a tirade against the Jewish presence in Hebron (Judaism’s second holiest city), she referred to the Herodian structure over the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron as ‘a pile of meaningless stones’. But she never chided Moslems who pray in the very same building.

The Left’s double standard is always directed against the Jews and never Arabs.

To summarize, one must never dismiss or underrate the self-hate evinced by Israel’s “two-state” advocates. They worry about Arab rights but find it difficult or impossible to relate to Jewish rights. For example, leftists condemn Jewish construction in Judea, Samaria and east Jerusalem but remain silent about illegal Arab construction anywhere in Israel.

Left-wing historians even revise history. They blame the Jewish/Israeli side for this never-ending one hundred-year war. Politically correct intellectuals blame Israel for Arab aggression and intransigence. They are, evidently, affected by the ‘Stockholm Syndrome’. The current impasse in the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue is a result, they believe, of Israel’s refusal to cave in to Arab demands. The Left is against Israel’s control of the strategic Jordan Valley, retention of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and ridicules the government’s requirement that Mahmoud Abbas recognize Israel’s legitimacy as the Jewish nation-state based on nearly 4000 years of history in this land.

When you combine all these lop-sided thinking patterns you can better understand why peace is no closer now than it was in the past. In fact, Israel’s international isolation is on the increase. This proves to the Palestinians that their ‘Trojan Horse’ strategy is working and the destruction of Israel in stages is in reach.

Unfortunately, people who do not have a death-wish and refuse to commit national suicide have made no progress against the Left’s political perversion because Israel’s mainstream media has adopted the Left’s lexicon, mindset and phony “peace” objectives. There is no balanced reporting and important events such as the recent escalation of attacks on Jews and serious internal dissension in the Palestinian camp are basically ignored by the media intent on promoting “progress” no matter what is really going on.

True progress and real peace will come when Jordan is re-named Palestine and extends citizenship to all the “Palestinians” wherever they live.
Zvi November 2 February 2014