Israel's False Dream of Peace
Daniel Greenfield
Sultan Knish
15 December 09
Sultan Knish
15 December 09
During the time of Chanukah, a holiday inspired by the resistance of a band of brothers to the tyranny of Aniochus IV of the Seleucid Empire, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is instead confronting the consequences of buckling under to Obama's tyranny by imposing a building freeze on hundreds of thousands of Israelis living in Judea and Samaria.
As police, housing inspectors and Jewish area residents scuffle over attempts to stop construction on private houses that their owner are already paying mortgages on-- the "settlement freeze" has emerged as yet another disastrous chapter in the long history of Israeli concessions meant to create peace, where there is no peace. Intended as yet another "confidence building gesture" to reassure the Palestinian Authority, which had already preemptively rejected it as well as any further negotiations, but in reality was more of an attempt to appease Obama by propping up his foreign policy credentials-- the "settlement freeze" has wreaked economic havoc on the lives of everyone from newlyweds planning to move into their first home, families looking to add an addition to accommodate an addition to their family to larger housing projects for Israel's growing population of immigrants from Russia and parts of the Middle East where Jews have traditionally been oppressed.
And so in the name of appeasing Obama and Palestinian Arab terrorists, Netanyahu's actions have touched off tensions among Israelis and worsened the economic situation of many working class families. And all for nothing. The "confidence building gesture" did not build any confidence on the Palestinian Arab side, which is confident enough to bypass negotiations entirely in the hopes of bullying Israel into agreeing to yet more concessions before even bothering to sit down at the negotiating table. Neither did it appease the Obama Administration, which remains frustrated that it could not get Jews barred from living in East Jerusalem, which under Jordanian occupation had its Jewish population ethnically cleansed. Like every confidence building gesture that Israel has made in the past, this one has been both destructive and futile, forcing Israel to pay dearly with nothing to show for it.
Unfortunately from the very beginning, Israel's leaders harbored a false dream of peace that has never been fulfilled. And that mirage of a friendly Middle East has tricked Prime Minister after Prime Minister into cutting deals that cut Israel's throat. In 1947, Israel was prepared to accept a UN partition plan that would have left a fingernail of territory for native Israelis and refugees from the Holocaust to build a state on. But the Arab powers rejected the partition plan, and the resulting War of Independence enabled Israel to hold on to at least marginally defensible borders. Had Egypt's Nasser and Jordan's Hussein not chosen war with Israel in 1967, Israel would have remained within those same weak borders and with its capital city cut in half. But Nasser and Hussein chose war and so Israel reunited Jerusalem and liberated some of its villages in Gaza and Judea and Samaria that had fallen into enemy hands in 1948, such as Kfar Darom, villages that the international community would insist on calling "settlements" and "occupied territories". And without those territories as buffer zones, it is likely that Israel would have been cut and half, and destroyed in the Yom Kippur War of 1973.
And so in the name of appeasing Obama and Palestinian Arab terrorists, Netanyahu's actions have touched off tensions among Israelis and worsened the economic situation of many working class families. And all for nothing. The "confidence building gesture" did not build any confidence on the Palestinian Arab side, which is confident enough to bypass negotiations entirely in the hopes of bullying Israel into agreeing to yet more concessions before even bothering to sit down at the negotiating table. Neither did it appease the Obama Administration, which remains frustrated that it could not get Jews barred from living in East Jerusalem, which under Jordanian occupation had its Jewish population ethnically cleansed. Like every confidence building gesture that Israel has made in the past, this one has been both destructive and futile, forcing Israel to pay dearly with nothing to show for it.
Unfortunately from the very beginning, Israel's leaders harbored a false dream of peace that has never been fulfilled. And that mirage of a friendly Middle East has tricked Prime Minister after Prime Minister into cutting deals that cut Israel's throat. In 1947, Israel was prepared to accept a UN partition plan that would have left a fingernail of territory for native Israelis and refugees from the Holocaust to build a state on. But the Arab powers rejected the partition plan, and the resulting War of Independence enabled Israel to hold on to at least marginally defensible borders. Had Egypt's Nasser and Jordan's Hussein not chosen war with Israel in 1967, Israel would have remained within those same weak borders and with its capital city cut in half. But Nasser and Hussein chose war and so Israel reunited Jerusalem and liberated some of its villages in Gaza and Judea and Samaria that had fallen into enemy hands in 1948, such as Kfar Darom, villages that the international community would insist on calling "settlements" and "occupied territories". And without those territories as buffer zones, it is likely that Israel would have been cut and half, and destroyed in the Yom Kippur War of 1973.
Love of the Land: Israel's False Dream of Peace
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