The tidbit below was written by Caroline Glick and published in the Jerusalem Post:
It remains entirely unclear why it is that Netanyahu felt that he had to do either. What I have been reading for weeks is that Netanyahu was essentially given a choice, either free murderers or freeze construction in Judaea and Samaria. And, yet, nothing is required of the Palestinians, not even ending genocidal incitement toward Jews on Palestinian Authority television and other forms of media. In other words, Palestinian-Arabs have every right to screech for the murder of Jews, but if Jews so much as take hammer to nail within the territory of Judaea this somehow represents an affront to the American president.Netanyahu reportedly agreed to release terrorists from prison because Kerry told him that he had to make a big concession: either release murderers or effectively surrender Israel’s national rights to Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem by abrogating Jewish property rights in those areas through a so-called construction freeze. As law professor Eugene Kontorovich explained last week in Commentary, Netanyahu chose the terrorist release as the lesser of two evils because it involved no long-term, substantive concession of Israel’s national and legal rights to the Palestinians.
Furthermore, of course, Israel has not actually built any new townships or villages beyond the Green Line in many years. The construction that Obama and his partner, Abbas, complain about, if it is taking place at all, happens within existing townships and mainly in areas that are slated to be part of Israel under any negotiated conclusion of hostilities.
In any case, Israel should never have agreed to the release of murderers under any circumstances. There is no chance, after all, that the United States would ever agree to what the Obama administration is demanding of the Netanyahu government.
But then along came the Palestinian-American demand for Israel to release Israeli Arab terrorists, and transformed the Palestinian-American demand for Israel to release terrorists from just another act of bad faith into an assault on Israel’s right to exist.Glick believes that Netanyahu was essentially tricked into agreeing to release Israeli Arab murderers and that doing so represents an assault on Israeli sovereignty.
The PLO’s demand that Israel release terrorists who hold Israeli citizenship, (or in the case of Jerusalem residents, permanent residency), is a clear bid to weaken Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem, and over the Galilee and the Negev.That Glick is privy to PLO calculations is entirely unlikely, but her point concerning Israeli sovereignty requires serious consideration. There is an important distinction between stupidly releasing non-Israeli Arab murderers of Jews versus stupidly releasing Israeli Arab murderers of Jews. While neither should be done in any case, the latter suggests that Israel has no real sovereignty over its non-Jewish citizens.
More generally it is an attempt to undermine Israel’s right to assert its sovereign authority over non-Jews.
By the PLO’s calculations, if Israel’s right to assert its sovereignty over its non-Jewish citizens and residents is sufficiently discredited, then over time, the PLO can destroy Israeli democracy and undo Israel’s national rights and sovereignty.
The former concession undermines our humanity because it says to the world that even Jews do not necessarily mind the murdering of Jews; not so much that we actually keep such murderers in prison. The latter concession undermines Israeli sovereignty because it says to the world that outside powers - in this case, the Obama administration in cahoots with dictator Abbas - can easily force Israel to abandon that sovereignty when it comes, if not to non-Jews, then certainly to Arab citizens of the Jewish state.
This is a terrible precedent because it shows a glaring chink in Israeli armor. It demonstrates a weakness that can be explored and exploited later. Nonetheless, Glick remains optimistic concerning the Arab citizens of Israel.
Each year more and more Arab parents in Jerusalem – and increasingly in the Galilee and Haifa – are registering their children in Hebrew-language, Jewish schools.Naftali Bennett is said to have suggested that the Palestinian Arabs, if not Palestinian-Arab citizens of Israel, represent shrapnel in the Israeli tushky. What Glick sees, at least in terms of Arab citizens of the State of Israel, is a growing awakening to the benefits available to Israeli Arabs who seek to live productive lives and who demonstrate no particular interest in fighting against Jewish sovereignty on historically Jewish land.
The number of Christian Arabs enlisting in the IDF has increased hundreds of percentage points over the past few years. The number of Muslim and Christian Israeli Arabs volunteering in national service is similarly skyrocketing.
Even Jerusalem residents are volunteering for national service. And adult Arabs are integrating into all levels of the job force countrywide.
From the comments:
Sol
The key of Caroline column is the message that even if Israel will give to Arabs J&S they will continue their jihad against Jews in Israel.Sol is correct. The so-called "peace process" will not bring peace to the besieged Jews of the Middle East. When, and if, the local Arabs establish a terrorist statelet on Jewish land, they will use the resources of that terrorist statelet to continue their genocidal race war against their Jewish neighbors.
Revisionist
Walking away will not be painful because it won't happen. The statement itself seems strange and indicates a disturbing disregard for logic on the writer's part: how exactly do you expect the PM - the same PM who crumbles under every ounce of American or media pressure, the same PM who folds repeatedly - to actually work up the courage to walk away from the talks?It does certainly seem that Netanyahu is at sea and unable to stand up to either the PLO or the unfriendly American administration.
I have two questions at this point.
1) To whom should we look for the next generation of Israeli leadership?
2) Should Israel, or should Israel not, annex the entirety of Judaea and Samaria and, if so, what of Israeli democracy? What of the Palestinian-Arabs who live in those regions? What will be their political fates?
I can't understand why despite all the incitement and escalating demands Israel is still at the table as the only side continually giving in. As the victors of previous conflicts and having liberated all the lands previously conquered , why have the leadership fallen for the rhetoric of defeat? And continue to appear to be the appeasers to the demonstrably insincere and false Palestinians and sel aggrandising Kerry
ReplyDeleteCompromise is a significant part of Jewish culture.
DeleteThis is due to the fact that our numbers are small - and were kept small - and therefore the only way to get by in a hostile world is to be flexible.
The vast Arab-Muslim majority in the Middle East dominate the region and therefore do not feel a great need to compromise. Compromise is viewed as a form of weakness.
The great irony, of course, is that from a progressive-left American perspective, the Arabs are weak. They are the victims of western imperialism and exploitation and thus deserving of protection as an abused minority.
From a Jewish perspective, however, the Arabs from that part of the world represent a dominating, majoritarian population that has kept the Jewish minority, Christians, and all non-Muslims in a state of second and third-class non-citizenship for 13 long centuries.
My favorite part of dhimmitude, by the way, was when they would not allow Jews out of their houses during rainstorms so as not to pollute the clean streets with Jewish filth.
There are, you can be sure, disagreements within the academic community on the place of Jews within Arab-Muslim societies from an historical perspective, but I do not see how we can reasonably white-wash the condition of dhimmitude.
Some are trying, tho. That much is certain.
I agree with Evelyn Gordonhttp://bigarticlesoftheweek.blogspot.co.il/2013/12/quiet-diplomacy-or-public-confrontation_31.html
ReplyDeleteI couldn't complete my response so I'm following up , I accept your argue however I believe that the point Evelyn Gordon makes re the honour / shame society of the Arab world must be taken into account and we are too prone to judge from our own western Judaic /Christian perspective rather than putting ourselves into the mindset of the enemy
ReplyDeleteI agree.
DeleteI am a little skeptical of the honor / shame thesis, but there are any number of highly respected individuals, such as Professor Richard Landes, who approach matters from that angle.
And when I say that I am a "little" skeptical, what I am mean is just that. I am only a little skeptical, because in the debates around culture versus access to raw materials as the primary determinate of societal behavior, I favor Landes over Jared Diamond who wrote Guns, Germs and Steel.
Romney, as you may remember, took a kick to the teeth for praising Israeli Jewish culture as the reason for its financial success in contrast to the relative economic poverty of the local Arabs.
I am not a Republican, but ultimately Romney was correct and his detractors, on this question, were nothing but malicious.
Culture makes all the difference.