Confessions are often times painful and revealing. This one is no different.
For years I defended the Israeli political left and its prescription for peace in the Middle East. I actively supported the peace process and the Oslo accords, even in the face of scorn from friends who thought me crazy. I supported the peace process in spite of the blatantly anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish rhetoric spouted by the Palestinians. I supported concessions and dialogue in spite of the open and numerous calls for Jihad made by Arafat in his Arabic-language speeches. I tried to persuade others in Israel and in America that the Jewish State must make peace with the Palestinians by creating a Palestinian state. I have believed all my life that Jews and Arabs could live side by side, and I saw a negotiated settlement as the only answer to the region's seemingly intractable issues.
In the last four weeks the rose-colored blindfold has been lifted from my eyes, and I am shamefully aware that that I am deserving of not a few "I-told-you-so's." Like myself, many on the Israeli Left have been disillusioned by the violence and bloodshed, and see no way of returning to the negotiating table with the current Palestinian leadership.
The Israeli leftist movement was based upon a rational and pragmatic approach to the problems Israel faced controlling a restive internal Palestinian population. The peace camp believed that Israel was stuck living with the Palestinians, and only by granting them an independent state would their thirst for self-determination be quenched, thus allowing us to live as brothers. History had shown that a nation within a nation was a dangerous thing to suppress, and therefore, the practical and strategic thinking of Israeli doves was to sue for peace. This ultimately became the vision of Yitzchak Rabin, a military man and a man of action, who changed camps to advocate "Shalom."
Alas, we have been delusional fools. It is now evident that our assumptions were based on dreams and hopes, and did not reflect the harsh reality of the situation. With the best deal the Palestinians could have ever hoped for on the table and Arafat's cynical refusal of that offer in favor of unspeakable mob violence, it is now painfully evident that we've been had, bamboozled, and deceived. Tragically, we have only ourselves to blame, for it was our dreams of peace that lulled us into a false sense of complacency. Our hope for coexistence led us to turn a deaf ear to the constant and unchanging Arab calls for the destruction of Israel and the takeover of Jerusalem.
The Arafat think tank has concocted a sinister plot to achieve their goals. Arafat would like Israel to be submitted to Kosovo-style manhandling by international goons. To bring about such an eventuality he has unleashed the schoolchildren and teenagers in the hopes of making them martyrs in the eyes of the media. Arafat prays for an Israeli massacre of women and children, which would give him the moral advantage and the mandate to call for peacekeepers, who would change the facts on the ground in his favor. In the alternative, the Palestinian's would like to use their superior numbers to vote the Jews out of their own parliament, to use Israel's democracy against itself.
To achieve his goals Arafat has unleashed a global campaign of anti-Israel propaganda, and he is aided by the UN, which in its omniscient wisdom, once again condemns Israel and shows the world its anti-Semitic colorings. Arab propaganda has undertaken to attack Israel's weakest point - its democracy, employing the old slogan that "Zionism is Racism." For their part, the Arabs wouldn't recognize a democracy if a senate would land on their nose! They have never seen a democracy in their nations and nor does Arafat's corrupt and violent regime reflect democratic values. Many Arab nations are racist nations, repressive and iron fisted and it is absurd that they lecture Israel on democracy and on human rights while they suppress those values in the people they supposedly speak for. Of course, they neglect to mention that Islamisism is racism as well, only it's much more prevalent in the globe.
But they do have a point.
Israel's constant pandering to democratic principles is their greatest liability. The air of the Middle east does not breath democracy and although Israel lives under the tutelage of the United States, America's western values are not tenable in the Middle East. Israel's non-religious liberalism is a tiny island of imported thinking in a region that has for eons been ruled by fervor and zealotry. Modern Israel was established as a state of Jews to the exclusion of other peoples, and that is frankly, nationalism, or at least race-centrism. Israel is a country reestablished as a haven for Jews from persecution and NOT in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, and insure domestic tranquillity, for all the people of the Middle East. The Arabs are right when they call Israel racist and they are right when they call its democracy fraudulent, because Israel was established to protect one nation and it enacted a democracy solely for the purpose of internal decision making and not to represent the various people of the land. The quicker we reconcile ourselves to this fact the quicker we shall extricate ourselves from this ongoing quagmire.
The great obstacle to good Israeli decision making is the country's close ties to the US. Although radicalism and fundamentalism are politically incorrect in this country, they are a way of life in the Middle East. The Arabs have never forgotten that, nor do they cease to remind us of that here. The Jews, on the other hand, have totally forgotten their fundamentalism and radicalism, mainly due to their incestuous relationship with the US. Like a thirty-year old still living at home, Israel the world's 17th largest economy accepts lots of money from the US every year. It is this monkey on Israel's back, which keeps it from acting with its gut and subservient to US wishes. The Israeli mentality is, like their Arab brethren, is particularly suited towards radicalism, but their wholesale acceptance of western ideology has made them weak and ineffectual in this conflict of old world values.
The Unites States, the leader of the free world and a nation built upon the rule of law, is notoriously naive when it comes to matters of the Middle East. In what I call the American Sports Mentality, the US sees itself as a fair referee of two equal sides who both wear shiny helmets with animal caricatures on the sides. Fair and impartial treatment is the US motto and it works well within the confines of the Atlantic and Pacific. Yet it is only the US in the entire world, which believes in fairness and impartiality, everyone else is just trying to win at all costs. Besides, when faced with critical situations, America also knows when to lay down its high-minded principles for the sake of immediate and forceful action.
If Israel is to prevail they must throw off the yoke of foreign values and face the reality of their situation. They must realize that at the very heart of this conflict lies the unsolvable conflict of two great religions. The Jews believe that it was Isaac whom Abraham bound and almost offered up as a sacrifice at Mount Moriah, and the Arabs believe it was Ishmael instead. The Jews believe that the land east of the Jordan belongs to them; the Palestinian's strongly disagree. While in the past the Arabs were willing to tolerate a dhimi (second class citizen under Muslim law) Jewish minority in their midst, it is an affront to the their sensibilities to be second class citizens in a Jewish State. Israel, having returned to the region after two thousand years, reestablishing its language, becoming a first class military power and having a high standard of living, is a bone in the Arab throat. The contradictory beliefs of these two peoples are irreconcilable.
My God bring a speedy end to the violence between our people and bring peace to the children of Abraham.