A low and dishonest decade

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Upon returning from Cairo on Tuesday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu proclaimed, “It’s time to move the peace process forward.”

 

The most sympathetic interpretation of Netanyahu’s proclamation is that he was engaging in political theater. It was a low and dishonest statement uttered at the end of what has been, in the immortal words of W.H. Auden, “a low and dishonest decade.”

 

Everyone with eyes in their heads knows that there is no chance of making peace with the Palestinians. First of all, the most Israel is willing to give is less than what the Palestinians are willing to accept.

 

But beyond that, Gaza is controlled by Hamas, and Hamas is controlled by Iran.

 

For its part, Fatah is not in a position to make peace even if its leaders wished to. Mahmoud Abbas and his deputies know that just as Hamas won the 2006 elections in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, Hamas would win elections today. To maintain even a smudge of domestic legitimacy, Fatah’s leaders have no choice but to adopt Hamas’s rejection of peaceful coexistence with the Jewish state.

 

Clearly, now is not the time “to move the peace process forward.”

 

No less than what it tells us about Netanyahu, his statement is notable for what it tells us about Israel. Our continued willingness to ensnare ourselves in the rhetoric of peace processes demonstrates how little we have progressed in the past decade.

 

In 1999, Netanyahu was ejected from office by an electorate convinced that he was squandering an historic opportunity for peace between Israel and its neighbors. A majority of Israelis believed that Netanyahu’s signature policies of demanding that the Palestinians abide by their commitments to Israel, and maintaining the IDF’s security zone in south Lebanon were dooming all hope for peace.

 

His successor, Ehud Barak, promised to remove IDF troops from Lebanon and forge a final peace with the Palestinians and with Syria within a year. After winning the election, Barak famously promised a swooning crowd at Rabin Square that the “dawn of a new day has arrived.”

 

Barak lost no time fulfilling his campaign promises. He withdrew the IDF from south Lebanon in May 2000.

 

He launched talks with Syria in December 1999. For four months he begged Syrian dictator Hafez Assad to accept the Golan Heights, stopping only after Assad harshly rebuffed him in March 2000.

 

And in July 2000 at Camp David, Barak offered Yasser Arafat Gaza, 90 percent of Judea and Samaria and half of Jerusalem in exchange for peace. After Arafat rejected his offer, Barak sweetened it at Taba in September 2000, adding another 5% of Judea and Samaria, the Temple Mount, and extra lands in the Negev, only to be rejected, again.

 

Barak made these offers as the wisdom of appeasement exploded before his eyes. Hizbullah seized the withdrawal from Lebanon as a strategic victory. Far from disappearing as Barak and his deputy Yossi Beilin had promised it would, Hizbullah took over south Lebanon and used the area as a springboard for its eventual takeover of the Lebanese government. So, too, with its forces perched on the border, Hizbullah built up its Iranian-commanded forces, preparing for the next round of war.

 

Similarly, Barak’s desperate entreaties to Assad enhanced the dictator’s standing in the Arab world, to the detriment of Egypt and Jordan.

 

To the extent he required encouragement, the ascendance of Hizbullah, Syria and Iran made it politically advantageous for Arafat to reject peace. Buoyed by their rise, Arafat diverted billions of dollars in Western aid from development projects to the swelling ranks of his terror armies. Instead of preparing his people for peace, he trained them for war.

 

Arafat responded to Barak’s beggary at Camp David and Taba by launching the largest terror offensive Israel experienced since the 1950s. The Palestinians’ orgiastic celebration of the mass murder of Israelis was the final nail in Barak’s premiership, and it seemed at the time, the death-knell of his policies of appeasement.

 

A year and a half after he took office, the public threw Barak from power. Likud leader Ariel Sharon – who just a decade earlier had been taken for dead – was swept into power with an electoral landslide. To the extent the public vote was for Sharon, rather than against Barak, the expectation was that Sharon would end Barak’s appeasement policies and defeat Arafat and the terror state he had built in Gaza, Judea and Samaria.

 

But this was not to be.

 

Rather than abandon Barak’s policies, Sharon embraced them. He formed a unity government with Labor and refused to fight. He didn’t fight after 22 teenagers were massacred outside the Dolphinarium nightclub in June 2001. He did not fight after the September 11, 2001, attacks and the Palestinian celebrations of the slaughter in New York and Washington.

 

Sharon did not order the IDF to fight until the carnage of March 2002 that culminated in the Seder massacre at Netanya’s Park Hotel forced his hand. Had he not ordered the IDF to dismantle the Palestinian terror infrastructures in Judea and Samaria at that time, he faced the sure prospect of being routed in the Likud leadership race scheduled for November of that year.

 

Operation Defensive Shield was a textbook example of what you get when you mix weak politicians with a strong society. On the one hand, during Defensive Shield, the IDF took control of all the major towns and cities in Judea and Samaria and so enabled Israel to dismantle Palestinian terror networks by remaining in place in the years that followed.

 

On the other hand, Sharon refused to allow the IDF to launch a parallel operation in Gaza, despite repeated entreaties by the army and residents of the South. Most important, Sharon barred the IDF from toppling the PA or even acknowledging that it was an enemy government. And he maintained that the Palestinian jihad began and ended with Arafat, thus absolving all of Arafat’s deputies – who were then and today remain deeply involved in the terror machine – of all responsibility.

 

In acting as he did, Sharon’s signaled that he was not abandoning appeasement. Indeed, he made clear that his aim was to re-embrace appeasement as his national strategy as soon as it was politically feasible.

 

Most Israelis explained away Sharon’s behavior in his first term as the price he was forced to pay for his coalition government with Labor. So when in 2003 Sharon, Likud and the political Right won an overwhelming mandate from the public to lead the country without the Left, the expectation was that he would finally let loose. He would finally fight for victory.

 

Instead, Sharon spat on his party, his coalition partners and his voters and adopted as his own the policies of the Left that he had condemned in his campaign.

 

To implement those policies, Sharon dismantled his government and his party and formed a coalition with the same Left the nation had just overwhelmingly rejected.

 

The past decade’s major policies: the withdrawal from Gaza, the construction of the security fence, the acceptance of the road map peace plan, the Annapolis Conference, Operation Defensive Shield, the Second Lebanon War and Operation Cast Lead all shared one central feature. They were all predicated on ignoring the lessons of the failure of appeasement in 2000.

 

Whereas Defensive Shield’s strategic success was owed to Israel’s decision to maintain control over the territory the IDF seized in the fighting, in launching the wars with Hizbullah and Hamas, Sharon’
s successor, Ehud Olmert, ignored that success and chose instead to emulate the operation’s failures.

 

To further his government’s appeasement policies, Olmert refused to order the IDF to seize south Lebanon or Gaza. By the same token, like Sharon in Defensive Shield, Olmert announced at the outset that he had no interest in defeating Israel’s enemies. He limited the goals of the campaigns to “teaching them a lesson.” And of course by not seeking victory for Israel, Olmert enabled both Hizbullah and Hamas to claim victory for themselves.

 

By opting not to defeat Hizbullah or Hamas, Olmert communicated the message that like Sharon before him, his ultimate strategic aim was to maintain the political viability of appeasement as a national strategy. He was fighting to protect appeasement, not Israel.

 

As we move into the second decade of this century, we need to understand how the last decade was so squandered. How is it possible that in 2010 Israel continues to embrace policies that have failed it – violently and continuously for so many years? Why, in 2010 are we still ignoring the lessons of 2000 and all that we have learned since then?

 

There are two main causes for this failure: The local media and Sharon. Throughout the 1990s, the Israeli media – print, radio and television – were the chief propagandists for appeasement. When appeasement failed in 2000, Israel’s media elites circled the wagons. They refused to admit they had been wrong.

 

Misleading phrases like “cycle of violence” were introduced into our newspeak. The absence of a security fence – rather than the presence of an enemy society on the outskirts of Israel’s population centers – was blamed for the terror that claimed the lives of over a thousand Israelis. Palestinian propagandists and terrorists such as Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti were treated like legitimate politicians. Palestinian ties to Iran, Syria, Iraq and the nexus of global jihad went unmentioned or uncommented upon.

 

At the same time, opponents of appeasement – those who had warned of the dangers of the Oslo process and had spoken out against the withdrawal from Lebanon and a potential withdrawal from the Golan Heights and Gaza – were not congratulated for their wisdom. They remained marginalized and demonized.

 

This situation prevails still today. The same media that brought us these catastrophes now derides Likud ministers and Knesset members who speak out against delusion-based policies, while suddenly embracing Netanyahu who – with Barak at his side – has belatedly embraced their pipe dreams of appeasement-based peace.

 

Then there is Sharon. The man who built the settlements, who removed the PLO from Lebanon, who opposed Oslo, Camp David and the withdrawal from Lebanon; the man who opposed the security fence and pledged to remain forever in Gush Katif. As Israel’s leader for most of the past decade, more than anyone else Sharon is responsible for Israel’s continued adherence to the dishonest, discredited and dishonorable dictates of appeasement.

 

Whether due to his alleged corruption, his physical enfeeblement, his fear of the State Department, or his long-held and ardent desire to be accepted by the Left, Sharon betrayed his voters and his party and he undermined Israel’s ability to move beyond failure.

 

Auden’s “low and dishonest decade” was the 1930s. It was the West’s obsession then with appeasement that set the world on course for the cataclysm of World War II.

 

As Israel enters the new decade, we must redouble our efforts to forestall a repeat of the cataclysm of the 1940s. Disturbingly, Netanyahu’s call for a fraudulent peace process shows that we are off to an ignoble, untruthful start.
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19 Comments

  • Marc Handelsman, USA 01/01/2010 at 11:17

    Why, in 2010 are we still ignoring the lessons of 2000 and all that we have learned since then? The answer is weak leadership. Since 1991’s Operation Desert Storm, Israel’s strategic deterrence has eroded. When Israel did not retaliate against Iraqi scud attacks in 1991 that began an appeasement trend toward Israel’s adversaries and the State Department. For nearly twenty years with ineffective premiers, Israel has set the stage for a costly regional war. Israel sorely needs leaders like Prime Ministers Golda Meir and Menachem Begin, who were genuine Zionists.

    Reply
  • Marcel 01/01/2010 at 11:26

    ‘Why, in 2010 are we (Israel) still ignoring the lessons of 2000 and all that we have learned since then?’
    That is a very easy question to answer.
    Israel has abrogated it’s national responsibilities to others and they dictate that Israel remain on the road to destruction and the people love it so.
    When Sharon came to Washington to receive his orders of ethnic cleansing of Jews from Gaza he did not go to the State Department but to the President who dreamed up a Palestinian state in Israel’s heartland ,a president many in Israel still fawn over as if he were Israel’s God who gave them the new law of 2 states.
    This is the new religion which a majority Jews have piously embraced and nothing but terrible carnage will set them loose from this lying idol.
    Sharon like Barak and Netanyahu,Livni and Olmert just couldn’t say no to their first love.
    The ugly truth is that most of Israel loves lies and hates life and the truth.
    I used to see and hear a saying often among Jews in Israel and the US ‘la chaim, to life.I hear it less often as it has been replace with
    ‘to lies’.
    To Israels’ enemies it is evident that the nation has lost it’s way and it’s will to survive They are willing to sacrifice their soul on the altar of pseudo peace being more concerned about international thugs and neighbor terrorists than the God who returned them to their land.
    A profane people who religiously surrender and appease evil at every turn will not have peace.
    She obeyed not the voice; she received not correction; she trusted not in the LORD; she drew not near to her God. Zephaniah 3

    Reply
  • avi 01/01/2010 at 13:56

    I am disappointed . You are too well educated not to know that the new decade begins 1/1/11.

    Reply
  • Anonymous 01/01/2010 at 15:10

    In the West, liberals who control much of the media, no longer consider a nation built on a common culture and language, as legitimate. In their view, “All people are the same”, and therefore there is no requirement for a state, or defending a state from its enemies – enemies being merely people, whose aspirations have been thwarted by the evil West. The liberal elite of the West hankers for global government, along the lines of the EU.
    I have no idea what the influence of the West’s liberal elite is on the liberal elite in Israel, the ones who control the media – they probably are one and the same, given the preponderance of liberal Jews in NY and NYT. If so, then nothing short of a clear and present calamity facing Israel will shift their position. Even then, once the danger is passed, the liberal elite will revert back to its natural policy of appeasement.
    Appeasement is merely a by-product of the religion of Liberalism. Removing this misguided “do-gooder” influence from the body politic, is the only way forward for Israel. However, as Liberalism is shielded by its “good” intentions, it needs political acumen to subvert it from within. I hope Netanyahu is equal to the task.

    Reply
  • Philip Safran 01/02/2010 at 0:08

    The problems did not start in the year 2000. They go back to at least the beginning of the Oslo Process (you could say back to the 70s and the ceding of land to Egypt) so it is not a low and dishonest decade. It is a low and dishonest (at least) 18 yeras.

    Reply
  • Ron Grandinetti 01/02/2010 at 11:56

    Caroline, “It’s time to move the freedom process forward” should be the statement in hand.
    When will the Israeli government wake up and accept the fact Hamas is in control of the Palestinians and as you state Iran in charge of them.
    Their only aim is to continue to be disruptive, kill Jews and wipe Israel off the map.
    I mentioned on Israpundit and I’ll say it again “Most Americans have a love affair with Israel not only because she is a trusted friend, ally and a democracy but likewise for the courage and determination in defense of her sovereignty in spite of being outnumbered by the enemy”. Each war she fought won the admiration of Americans.
    The Israeli government needs to quit pussyfooting around with the Palestinians and worrying about what other governments including the U.S. think.
    They will bitch and moan but they will respect Israel, that’s worth more than being weak and popular.
    The government blew two opportunities recently in Lebanon and Gaza by miss use of the IDF to merely to teach them a lesson and not to defeat the enemy. Some lesson.
    Freedom means taking complete control of your territory including all of Jerusalem the capital of Israel. This is not an international city and should be controlled by Israel. The Israelis will provide access to the holy site and will be sure to provide adequate protection.
    Freedom means taking back Gaza, retaking Southern Lebanon and defeating Hezbollah and a short trip to Damascus letting the goose neck dictator if he steps out of line Syria will become part of Israel.
    Mr. PM, forget peace it doesn’t exist in your part of the world, freedom and defeating the enemy is worth fighting for.

    Reply
  • Howie 01/02/2010 at 20:13

    Bravo Caroline, love your POV. Wonder why mainstream media USA is not publishing viewpoints like yours. Was glad to see Wall Street Journal print article de-mythisizing “occupied territories” by Danny Ayalon recently. What took him, and Israeli PR establishment so long to start countering the Arab propaganda machine? Bless you. Keep on putting it out there. Meretz and Ko’ach. Happy New Year.

    Reply
  • Bill K. 01/03/2010 at 1:01

    “At the same time, opponents of appeasement – those who had warned of the dangers of the Oslo process and had spoken out against the withdrawal from Lebanon and a potential withdrawal from the Golan Heights and Gaza – were not congratulated for their wisdom. They remained marginalized and demonized.”
    I hope this has not been totally your fate. You have been one of the voices in the wilderness condemning the collapse of, not just Israel, but the West into cowardly appeasement of the Islamists. If the West is to survive you deserve recognition as one of its saviors.
    Though your post is mainly concerned with the appeasement of Israeli leaders, the West in general and the United States in particular have been afflicted with the same destructive policies. For the unprincipled slackers that are the “leaders” in the West today appeasement is the path of least resistance. The path of maximum advantage, i.e. the destruction and unconditional surrender of the militant Islamists, is hopelessly beyond the limits of their courage and even their understanding.
    The West has defeated far more imposing and dangerous enemies in the past. Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were orders of magnitude more formidable as foes than Iran, Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia combined. Even today a concentrated effort by the emasculated militaries of the West could eliminate the Islamists and their hangers-on in a matter of months if not weeks.
    So what happened between the end of WW II and the present? The rise of the New Left with its domination of academia and politics and the abject failure of right to fundamentally oppose them. The New Left is anti-reason, anti-technology, anti-science, anti-capitalism, anti-military and in short, anti-West. As a consequence the New Left champions tribalism, environmentalism and naturally Islamism.

    Reply
  • Alan Greenfield 01/03/2010 at 2:47

    There is hope fpr the new decade — Caroline Glick for PM!

    Reply
  • Ray Turner 01/03/2010 at 3:14

    Caroline,
    I have been very impressed with your thoughtful writing for quite a while. I continually pray for the peace of Jerusalem. I am an American Christian and I am very concerned about the condition in the entire Middle East at this time. I am especially concerned for the peace and security of Israel and all of her people.
    I understand the difficult situation Israel finds herself in. She is surrounded by enemies who wish her destruction. Please continue your written struggle in pursuit of the safety and security of the people of Israel. The world needs people of conviction that understand the issues, and also understand the importance of being able to bring the hard reality of the situation to light for everyone to understand.
    I want to see the day when Israel is truly free, and living in absolute peace without fear from her enemies that seek hatred, murder, and violence.

    Reply
  • Salubrius 01/03/2010 at 11:45

    Dear Caroline, You must call a spade a spade. The negotiations are unduly dignified by called them “a fraudulent peace process”. The correct term is “charade”. A charade is “a blatant pretense or deception, esp. something so full of pretense as to be a travesty.”
    We need not rely on anyone’s opinion for this conclusion. We have it on excellent evidence, admissible in any courtroom as proof of fact, the personal knowledge of Major General Ion Mihai Pacepa, head of Romania’s intelligence service and the highest ranking defector from the Soviet bloc during the Cold War.
    Former CIA head James Woolsey has said he is credible.
    For nearly four decades, the PLO has been the largest, wealthiest, and most politically connected terrorist organization in the world . For most of that time, it was held in the firm grip of Yasser Arafat’s iron fist. But Arafat was not the fierce, independent actor he posed as; he was completely dependent on the Soviet KGB and its surrogate Warsaw Pact intelligence services for arms, training, logistical support, funds, and direction.
    According to Pacepa his KGB handlers included Vasali Samoylenko, Vladimir Buljakov, and Soviet “Ambassador” Alexander Soldatov. Arafat’s closest friend and head of PLO intelligence, Hani Hassan, was actually an agent of the DIE, the Romanian subsidiary of the KGB.
    Pacepa, who was personally involved,  has stated that the term the “Palestinian People” was disinformation invented by the Soviets in 1964 along with the “Palestinians'” alleged quest for political self determination.  It appeared for the first time in the preamble of the PLO Charter in 1964, drafted in Moscow and affirmed by the first 422 members of the Palestinian National Council handpicked by the KGB. That it is fictitious is corroborated by the admission of Zahir Muhsein, a member of the PLO Executive Board in an interview he gave to the Dutch newspaper, Trouw in 1977. He admitted there was no Palestinian People, that its use was a political ploy, and that there was no quest for political self determination; just as soon as they had wiped out the Jews, they would turn sovereignty over to Jordan.
    Ceausescu got Arafat to cease claiming the PLO would annihilate the Jews or drive them into the sea, and instead announce he was liberating the Palestinian People. By this method, the Soviets were able to disguise Arab religious jihad as secular nationalism and a quest for political self determination.
    Brezhnev took it one step further when Jimmy Carter became President. He asked Arafat to PRETEND to want to enter into peace negotiations and say he was willing to renounce force and violence to do so. He told Pacepa he thought Carter would fall for it. He persuaded Arafat by telling him that if he did so the West would shower him with money and glory. It did. Billions for Arafat and a Nobel Peace Prize.
    Ceausescu, Romania’s Dictator and Pacepa’s boss, warned Arafat that he would have to PRETEND over and over and over again. Arafat’s pretense has continued until today under Abbas.  Rabin was deceived as well as Carter.
    You can find Pacepa’s revelations in his biography, “Red Horizons, etc” and in an interview with Front Page magazine Interview of General Pacepa by Front Page Magazine, http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=13975
    See also: http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2007/08/how-the-kgb-cre.html

    Reply
  • Marcel 01/03/2010 at 18:33

    :and what profit hath he that hath laboured for the wind?
    Ecclesiastes 5:16b
    For over sixteen years Israel has pursued the wind (the peace process) but instead of inheriting harmless wind Israel has brought upon themselves,growing threats,weapons smuggling tunnels, more advanced missiles now able to hit every Israeli city, well armed armies on it’s flanks,more threats of holocaust from the impossible to appease Islamic hordes,growing antisemitism and a global pack of rabid wolves dressed in the garb of leaders ready to pounce on what remains.
    Israel’s religious obedience to her peace hustler’s in Washington has only invited war on all fronts.
    It’s subservience to others has brought the exact opposite of the intended results.
    Israel and Jews are more hated across the globe after all their determined peace efforts.
    That is your reward for all your serious efforts to live in peace with evil neighbors.
    You get blamed for everything ,they get no blame.
    The groveling and beggarly craving for a nonexistent peace has shown Israel to be weak and easily pliable to her enemies who do not hide their true intentions.
    It will prove to be one of the greatest misfortunes to ever befall Israel.
    The International community know that the Islamic world have no desire for peace with the infidel nation of Jews and this is why they never squeeze their preferred victor but always squeeze Israel for more.
    It is only Israel which has not figured out that this process has all been a ruse to defeat them by other means.
    My hope is that the catatonic state much of Israel has been induced into by outsiders bent on weakening and destroying the nation with the help of the godless Israeli left and the spineless pseudo right will finally lift.
    Israel must prepare for the fallout from so many years of appeasement and capitulation to the Islamic front line armies massed on her borders growing stronger daily.
    Hearing the words of Israeli FM Lieberman yesterday
    http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3828613,00.html
    gave me hope.
    Now if only the defeatist grasshoppers of Israel with their 16 plus years of failure would just get out of the way.

    Reply
  • peter42y 01/03/2010 at 20:16

    First I must apologize for my english. I am a portuguese living in portugal.
    Your article is very interesting ,indeed.
    I would like to make some comments about sharon.
    It seems to me there were at least 2 sharons , the younger Sharon..,that was one of the the architects of the setlement expansion and the older Sharon that evicted the settlers from gaza.
    I believe the common denominator of both Sharons were his love for Israel as a Jewish state.
    Earlier in his career he believed setlement expansion would make Israel stronger but at some point he realized that if Israel did adsorb all territory from the jordan to the sea…, the jewish state would also have to take the millions of muslim arabs living there..,and in case that hapenned…, the jewish state would be dead since jews would became a minority inside the greater israel.
    That would mean the very destruction of the jewish state.
    Sharon of the setlement expansion and the Sharon from gaza withdrawal were driven by the very same idea , the survival of Israel as a Jewish State.
    I admire Sharon because he was able to change.
    His main goal remained the same throughout his life.., but he realized setlement expansion and conquest would not strenghten Israel.., much on the contrary , they would destroy it as nation of the jews since they would become ( once again ) a minority among a majority of arabs.
    Further thoughts : There is no alternative to the creation of a palestinian state between Jordan river and the sea.
    The only alternative to that would have been the expulsion of Arab Muslims from palestine .
    (Any other solution – in case Gaza, Ramallah did become part of Israel – would mean jews would become a minority in palestine in a couple of generations).
    I do not believe the US and EU would allow Israel to expel 2 million palestinians from palestine.
    Since such alternative is not possible the only way to ensure a state for the jews is to create a state for the palestinians.
    It is very simple.
    Happy 2010.
    I hope this year will bring a low loss of life in palestine .
    Years ago I was completely pro Israeli but operation cast lead was a big shock to me.
    Dozens of children were killed. (and dont blame Hamas since Hamas was ready for a cease fire).
    I believe peace is paradise as long as palis and israelis are concerned.
    Stop killing each other.

    Reply
  • Trumpeldor 01/04/2010 at 4:44

    Bibi knows that peace will not come.
    He is just the bad actor who tries to play a stupid scenario to please the new failing messiah

    Reply
  • Marcel 01/04/2010 at 10:30

    ‘I hope this year will bring a low loss of life in palestine ‘
    Dear Peter from Portugal,
    There is no Palestine.
    No matter how much you fantasize it’s always going to be ‘Israel’.
    Sharon couldn’t stand up to pressure and threats from Washington just like Bibi twice proved.
    PS.
    The Sudanese Arab,Muslims drove the people of Darfur off their land and the world did nothing.
    SCREW THE WORLD AND THEIR DOUBLE STANDARD AGAINST Israel !
    Israel has good reason to encourage the Palestinian,arab enemy to pick one of 22 arab nations to make their new homes.

    Reply
  • David Tsal 01/04/2010 at 22:58

    Dear Caroline,
    The low dishonest decade is only beginning.
    I am trying to write a poem about it, in the manner of W.H. Auden’s September 1, 1939. Here is what I wrote so far:
    “The dead corpse of peace is decomposing,
    Contaminating the river and the valley,
    Yet no one has the honesty to pronounce it dead
    So it may be buried at last.”
    To quote another poet, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
    Such is the time we live in. And it will come to the same thing.

    Reply
  • yuval.hatikva 01/06/2010 at 10:50

    Rather than abandon Barak’s policies, Sharon embraced them. He formed a unity government with Labor and refused to fight.
    But why? was Sharon craven or stupid? Is Bibi craven or stupid? Don’t they know that the PLO, Hamas, and the islamic world backing them, inclusive of Egypt and Jordan, has no other intention than Itbach Al Yahood? Sharon refused to fight because he waited for a clear signal from the People to fix the problem once and for all. He waited for 18 agonising months, and the people preferred to die rather than tell the IDF to fix the problem once and for all. So he capitulated, and ordered a limited operation that offered some palation, but no cure.
    Bibi is a decade older. He is witness to the unwillingness of the people to demand a solution, a real one. Since the people are unwilling to fix their own problem, why sould he risk his neck? If 22 dead kids in the middle of Tel Aviv is not enough for jews to demand an end to the Arab occupation of the Land, how many are enough? 220? 2200? 22000? No one knows, and as long as no decision is made to clear the land of the invaders, to recognize that peaceful co-habitation in this narrow strip between the river and the sea is impossible the subtrefuge of a Palestinian Authority with a large Arab electorate is far better that no PA and all those Arabs demanding “One man, One vote, One time”.
    Dont blame the leadership. Jews dont understand Sovereignty unless its preceeded by a holocaust. That’s the real problem.

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  • https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawlyYV17gvAAPMhMUY-7ipb3Ghog1m43tGA 01/13/2010 at 1:02

    All over the Western World. We the people, now find ourselves in a social war with a blind class of political elites.
    People who we elected have gone off the reservation thinking their some how more special than the rest of us. Are willing to scrub the Constitution while ghettoizing Israel.
    Anti-Zionism is the in fad with the Marxists.
    Since there perverse alliance with Islamics. Both figuring to back stab the other after stealing individual liberty from society, for a Nanny State. Based on rights given by a bureaucracy imbued with ideas of absolutism.
    It will not last long, a singularity point is being reached. You can only abuse folks for jut so long with lies. The term liar to me is indistinguishable from the Harlot MSM, or any politician these day’s.Its a tainted era we live in, where truth has become extinct. Ask the Global warming nuts!!!!
    JMO

    Reply
  • Jack Kessler 01/25/2010 at 20:19

    This is silly stuff, written as though there were no Egypt. Hezbullah and Hamas are mere gangs of thugs. Egypt is a country of 83 million people. It is very much in Israel’s interest to keep Egypt’s current government in power. Actions as provocative as those Glick suggests could either lead to a major war or worse, the overthrow of the Egyptian government if it were not seen doing something about it. The endless pretense of peace negotiations with Palestinians, no matter how inherently fruitless because of Palestinian rejectionism, help keep Mubarak in power. That is vastly more important to Israeli peace and safety than Caroline Glick stamping her little foot and demanding action.

    Reply

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