The following snippet was written by Attila Somfalvi and published at Y-Net.
The cabinet approved Sunday the release of 104 security prisoners with a majority of 13 ministers voting in favor, and seven ministers opposing the decision. Minister Limor Livnat and Silvan Shalom abstained.Gee, I find myself even more nauseated than usual.
According to the resolution, 104 prisoners will be released and a ministerial committee to be headed by Netanyahu and ministers Ya'alon, Livni, Aharonovitch and Peri will be established to supervise the process as part of the negotiations with the Palestinians. In addition, if it would be decided to release Arab-Israeli prisoners, the matter will be brought for reapproval of the cabinet.
This is deeply immoral, deeply counterproductive, and deeply humiliating to the Jewish State of Israel.
If I have avoided judging Netanyahu too harshly in the past, I think that I will probably not make that same mistake going forward. And, again, how is it that, if the local Arabs are such a persecuted and oppressed people, they require Israel-Jewish concessions before they will even agree to negotiate the end of that persecution and oppression within a state of their own?
How persecuted can one be if one refuses to give up that persecution unless the one doing the alleged persecuting gives in to such outrageous demands?
Furthermore, of course, this tells the Palestinian Authority, if not the local Arabs, more generally, that intransigence works. Why should the PA negotiate when they know that the EU and Obama will pressure Israel into giving in to their demands?
I cannot even begin to imagine what Netanyahu was thinking and must assume that there is much more going on behind the scenes than we realize.
What Arab quid pro quo is there is for this decision?
ReplyDeleteNo civilized country has ever subverted justice until now! Now its true countries have released convicted criminals, but only in very special circumstances and NOT as a general principle.
Any one in Israel who thinks releasing baby killers and mass murderers from prison will reconcile the Arabs to Israel and make them like the Jews more - are fooling themselves.
This is not going to lead to peace. But it will certainly lead to a lot more dead Jews in the future.
Yup.... its not like these prisoners are being released for good behavior or on a promise not to re-offend in the future.
DeleteThis was a purely political decision - and in many respects its worst than Netanyahu's apology to the Turks because he did not have to do it.
Any Jewish blood shed in the future as a result of this is will be on his head!
As I said elsewhere, one can never say, when all is said and done, that Israel did not try in earnest to make peace with the Arabs.
ReplyDeleteConversely, it is hard to find much the Arabs have done to “live at peace with their neighbours,” to borrow a phrase.
This is the point that Western anti-Israel folks cannot wrap their heads around, so consumed they are in their surreal world of hatred on account of "privilege."
I am truly disgusted and have lost all respect for Netanyahu.
DeleteThe apology to Turkey was bad enough, but now this?
He needs to be replaced by someone with some backbone.
Don't underestimate his backbone. It takes backbone to go against public sentiment.
DeleteWe are all armchair quarterbacks and looking from the outside.
Even though there are huge doubts, if this is a step that may lead to a real agreement, who can judge the efficacy?
There will also come a tipping point where the reality of the Palestinian/Arab side is finally exposed. We are not there yet, but the behavior of glorifying killers and the like will not go unnoticed by a growing number of people.
In game theory we talk about what happens when you know what he knows you know. And in this case, everyone knows the Arabs will balk or even refuse to attend. At best, and this can't be a mystery - the Arabs will show up, make some noise and go away not ever having agreed to anything. And we know they know we know this. We also know that Hamas will send rockets into Israel and we know that Abbas is an old sick man ruling like an autocrat and when he dies which can't be long, the new dictator's first speech will be to scream about exterminating all the Jews forever and never giving an inch and, if the slightest thing was set to paper before, it will all be torn up. Again, we know they know we know this.
ReplyDeleteSo the question remains why do this puppet theater at all? What's the upside? What's the merest potential of an upside? One could argue that Kerry and Obama's sole point is to topple Netanyanhu and replace him with Livni or worse, but again, they must know we know they know this is absurd. Even if they were able to create a crisis of confidence vote, no one sees Israel suddenly veering leftward.
I have a few theories but few of them even make sense to me. Maybe it's simply what it appears to be - mindless stupidity. I am out of ideas for now what could possibly be motivating everyone to chase this down a rathole to nowhere.