Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is playing with fire. And Israel is getting burned.
Over the past week, it has been widely reported that the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government are conducting secret negotiations regarding future Israeli land surrenders to the Palestinians in the Jordan Valley and Jerusalem. According to the reports, the Obama administration has presented Netanyahu with a plan whereby Israel will cede its rights to eastern Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley to the Palestinians and then lease the areas from the Palestinians for a limited period.
The reports on the length of the lease vary. Some claim that the White House is offering a seven year rental. Others claim the Americans are offering Israel to lease Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley for several decades before relinquishing them completely.
Netanyahu has reportedly accepted Obama’s proposal in principle. The only remaining dispute is the length of the lease. Netanyahu is demanding that Israel be permitted to lease Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley from the Palestinians for somewhere between forty and ninety-nine years. The Americans foresee a shorter timeframe.
The fact that these discussions are taking place is deeply disturbing both for what they tell us about the Obama administration’s view of Israel and for what they tell us about Netanyahu’s wisdom and character.
By calling for Israel to cede the Jordan Valley to the Palestinians, US President Barack Obama is ignoring the most fundamental reality of the Middle East: Israel is besieged by its neighbors who seek its destruction. Without the Jordan Valley Israel would become the modern day equivalent of Czechoslovakia stripped of the Sudetenland in 1938. It would be utterly indefensible.
None of Israel’s neighbors have accepted Israel’s right to exist. The absolute majority of the Arabs in all of the states neighboring Israel wish to see Israel destroyed. By relinquishing the Jordan Valley Israel would effectively be committing national suicide by inviting an invasion it would be incapable of staving off.
This is the truth today and given the depth of Arab hatred of Jews, in all likelihood, it will remain the case in forty years and in 99 years. At any rate, Obama’s suggestion that Israel entrust its future to an unsubstantiated hope that the Arab world will be fundamentally transformed is both ignorant and dangerous.
As for Netanyahu, he has no right to gamble away Israel’s future. He has no right to commit future generations to strategic suicide on the basis of Obama’s strategic myopia.
The very notion that Israel ought to ever surrender control over the Jordan Valley is egregious and unacceptable. And by proposing that Israel do so, the Obama administration is destroying the last vestiges of its credibility as an ally to the Jewish state. But that is not the worst aspect of the reported US proposal to Israel.
The worst aspect of the US proposal is that it calls for Israel to cede Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley to the Palestinians and then lease them from the Palestinians. Speaking to Army Radio, Science Minister Daniel Herschkowitz explained, “If we agree to the offer, we will be broadcasting to the Palestinians that the land is actually theirs.”
Indeed, we would. But it is worse than that.
Jerusalem is the center of Jewish history, civilization, culture, and faith. It is the lifeblood of the Jewish state and the Jewish people. As for the Jordan Valley, Jerusalem cannot be defended without it. When the US asks Israel to lease the areas from the Palestinians, what the US is telling Israel is that it rejects the very notion of Jewish national rights to the State of Israel.
Perhaps one day Israel’s leaders may be foolish enough to withdraw from Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley. Perhaps one day they will be stupid enough to withdraw from the Galilee and the Negev. But no Israeli leader has the right to cede the Jewish people’s national rights to the land of Israel to anyone.
At heart, the US proposal entails an Israeli submission to the Palestinians. It requires Israel’s leaders to say that the Palestinians have all the rights. We just have some minor security and political considerations. These considerations in turn are of limited duration and once they are settled, we will be out of everybody’s way. The Palestinians will be free to enjoy all of their rights without the troublesome Jews around bothering them.
NETANYAHU KNOWS full well that Israel cannot survive without the Jordan Valley. He also knows that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people and that we are the rightful owners of this land. So what explains his actions?
In acting as he is, Netanyahu is clearly trying to avert yet another crisis with the Obama administration. No doubt he believes that the Palestinians will save the day again by refusing to make a deal with Israel. Just as the Palestinians refuse to accept Israel’s right to exist, just as they refuse to give up on their demand that Israel destroy itself by accepting millions of foreign born Arabs as full citizens in the framework of a “peace” agreement; and just as they refuse to accept any limitations on the sovereignty of a future Palestinian state, so Netanyahu believes, they will refuse to lease the Jordan Valley and Jerusalem to Israel for 40 or 99 years.
Netanyahu may be right to think this. The Palestinians may reject the deal. But he is taking an enormous risk.
Yassir Arafat didn’t have a problem lying to Yitzhak Rabin in 1993. To get Rabin to set up the Palestinian Authority, arm the PLO, raise billions of dollars in international aid for the PA, and allow it to expand to the outskirts of Israel’s major cities, Arafat lied and said that the PLO recognized Israel and would live at peace with the Jewish state.
It is easy to imagine Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat’s deputy of forty years acting in a similar fashion.
And then what would Netanyahu do?
If Netanyahu’s tactics could only cause Israel tactical damage, his gamble that the Palestinians will also refuse this deal might be defensible. But his tactics cause Israel strategic harm even if the Palestinians reject this deal as well. And so they are inexcusable.
Israel cannot survive without the Jordan Valley. By negotiating a surrender of the Jordan Valley, Netanyahu makes it acceptable for the US and the rest of the world to demand that Israel commit national suicide.
Even worse than that, Netanyahu’s willingness to negotiate with the US on the basis of a plan that rejects the Jewish people’s right to the land of Israel confuses Israel’s friends and so dooms their defenses of Israel to failure.
By accepting the legitimacy of this proposal, Netanyahu is telling Israel’s supporters abroad that the Palestinians are right. Israel belongs to the Arabs more than it belongs to the Jews. With this message, the only thing supporters of Israel can do is encourage the Israeli government to make territorial concessions that are suicidal for the country.
This disastrous belief has been engendered since the inception of the Oslo process in 1993. Its deleterious influence abroad is evidenced by the flo
od of statements over the years by Israel’s supporters claiming that Israel must vacate Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley and the Golan Heights.
od of statements over the years by Israel’s supporters claiming that Israel must vacate Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley and the Golan Heights.
Take a recent statement by the American pollster Frank Luntz. Luntz often advises American pro-Israel groups about how to improve Israel’s image in the world. Yet as this friend of Israel sees things, “The only way for Israel to create sympathy is to be the side working hardest for peace. The best case for Israel is to demonstrate that she is willing to go twice as far as her neighbors to establish peace.”
AND WHILE moves like Netanyahu’s confuse Israel’s friends abroad, his willingness to consider a plan that denies Jewish rights to Israel and calls for Israel to make suicidal withdrawals demoralize Israelis at home. For evidence of this demoralization, one need only look to the Kadima Party.
As Kadima’s leader Tzipi Livni reminds us every time she opens her mouth, Kadima’s plan is for Israel to destroy itself by withdrawing to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines as quickly as possible.
Livni says day in and day out that Israel’s interests are best served by surrendering Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, and the Jordan Valley as quickly as possible. To the extent that Netanyahu tries to withstand US pressure to surrender all these areas, Livni accuses him of endangering the country.
Livni’s most recent broadside came on Wednesday at the Knesset. There she attacked the Netanyahu government for purportedly reacting with happiness to the news that the Republicans won control of the US House of Representatives in Tuesday’s elections.
As she put it, “For those of you who believe that Obama’s loss is good for Netanyahu, I ask myself have you all gone crazy?… He who says that a… weak American president is good for Israel is not just speaking stupidly, they are encouraging something that endangers Israel itself.”
Obviously Livni is wrong. Israel is not best served by preferring the political fortunes of a hostile US President to its national interests and rights. If Netanyahu and his associates expressed happiness at the outcome of the US elections they would be fully justified for doing so. The overwhelming majority of Israelis — who rightly view Obama as hostile –understand this.
But despite the idiocy of Livni’s arguments and the lunacy of Kadima’s policy, consistent opinion polls show Kadima closely trailing Likud. And Netanyahu deserves a large share of the blame for this state of affairs.
When Netanyahu agrees to negotiate from a position of moral weakness and strategic blindness, the message he sends the public is that we should take the likes of Livni seriously. He tells us that the difference between Kadima and Likud is one of tone, not substance.
They are all shoving us off the same cliff so we might as well go with Blondie.
FOR 17 LONG years, successive Israeli leaders have come into office committed to defending the country only to be reduced within a few short months to quibbling over the price of surrender. Leaders from the Right hoped that the Palestinians would scuttle the deals. Leaders from the Left begged the Palestinians to accept them.
If Netanyahu wishes to be remembered as something more than another hack no different from Livni and all the rest, he should end these destructive talks and tell the Obama administration the truth: Israel’s survival is non-negotiable and the rights of the Jewish people are not for sale.
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.
Netanyahu has no choice as he is doing what comes naturally to him.
Like Livni,He know’s nothing else.
Obama’s will is God’s will to this idol worshiper who has masqueraded as an Israeli leader.
He’s only an empty soul,sock puppet of his false god America.
His only care has been to please and serve the agenda of the false god he religiously serve and obey.
No matter how insane and suicidal the demand from Washington the secular Jew will obey because they have no other options.
The end result of secular Jewish leadership has always led to Israel’s destruction.
It is so because to ignore the Holy One of Israel and obey evil men and place them above Him is the perfect recipie for the coming Jewish holocaust.
Israel You have no one to blame but yourselves and your evil leader’s who bend their knees to their false god for no peace and only lies.
So what’s gonna be?what’s gonna be?
Netanyahu talks to all the world’s shcutzim. When is he going to sit down with real Jews like you — you in particular — and listen to what you have to say? It’s about time he listens to the voice of Israel and not to its enemies and their dupes.
BWM
LA
This has to be a joke, yes?
No way is “leasing” Jerusalem on the table
Nice try…
Hi Caroline,
Just a quicky for now:
Obama is an enemy of Israel. It is better for Netanyahu to precipitate a confrontation with Obama now than to proceed only to emerge out of this false peace process in an undefendable weakened condition just in time for the other enemies of Israel to attack. This looks a lot like the preparation for the Ezekiel 38 and Daniel 9 prophecies.
Denial is a potent weapon for the enemies when it is practiced by the national leadership. Obama claims to be a Muslim and his actions and decisions in office reveal that he is merely fulfilling his obligation as a Muslim – death to Israel by what ever means at his disposal.
Rather, the Lord wants Israel to depend on the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob than depend on fallible and deceitful humans. Remember Jonathan and his armor bearer.
God bless and protect you all, and I pray that the Lord fills you with His Spirit and floods you with His peace and comfort with assurance of how much He loves you and Israel.
Love always,
Mike Ayala
I totally agree. I also think that a lease-back arrangement would encourage the Arabs to make still more demands.
Besides, we Jews should be the ones who care about what things are like 50, 100, or even 1000 years from now.
Netanyahu tactic of dodging Obama frontal attack on israel is stupid,shortsighted, since more and more pressure from Obama will come at the next stage. Come on Bibi show us you have resolve; make a joke of Obama; Tell him we agree to all of his present and successful demands as long as he grant Israel and the israelis full property of Florida , California , New York and Texas.
Obama is now weak. The Republicans wholeheartedly support Israel. There is therefore no need, for Israel to kowtow to Obama. In fact it is Obama who is in desperate need for a success.
To even think of leasing Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem, is in effect acknowledging that Israel has no rights to these territories. The damage is done, even if he now backs away from such a deal. It is these kind of acts that will forfeit the support that Israel has with the majority in Congress.
Frankly, this report is too bizarre. If it is true then Netanyahu needs counseling.
Thank you for a very eloquent column, Caroline.
But words mean little to those who are determined to carry out this partition, whether they are in Israel or abroad.
Only one thing can save the land – Effective Action.
I don’t expect a million Israelis marching on the Knesset or a foreign embassy. Although that would be nice.
I mean just a dozen well-respected Israeli leaders and thinkers joining forces and calling for a stop to this act that weakens the nation so severely.
Maybe less than a dozen Israelis. How about six? Six reputable citizens who would set their political differences aside and do what is HONORABLE and stand up united for their country at this time of crisis.
Millions of Jews are willing to lay down their lives to defend Israel against military attack. Where are they now that the country is being dismantled by “diplomacy”? Isn’t it essentially the same thing?
WHO SPEAKS FOR THE JEWS OF ISRAEL NOW, CAROLINE?
Not the Knesset. Not the Judiciary.
UNLESS good people step up, ORGANIZE, and take on this role in a law-abiding but effective manner – those who work for the weakening of the country at home and abroad will continue with their insidious work unabated. Because they think that your spirit is too broken to offer any resistance. Will anyone show the world this is not true?
To
C. Glick:
I once wrote you asking whether or not B. Netanyahu understood izlam or not.
You never responded.
However, your response is well understood from your article.
He doesn’t know shinola about the existential and implacable threat from izlam
God has given this land to the Jewish people. He says this in the Scriptures. The Jewish leadership needs to draw courage from this when replying to any outside attempt to strip Israel of her God given homeland. It is the so called ferrel arab palestinians who are really a reincarnation of the Philistines who need to be leasing Bethlehem & the other God given lands they occupy. Drive them out of your God given land in the next war. The world acts like drunken fools when it comes to Israel.
”We’re not for sale.” Hilarious. I couldn’t stop laughing, bitter laughter to be sure.
What a joke, our politicians would sell their mothers & pimp out their daughters, to sell us out requires about a nanosecond of reflection.
You can’t admit that our politicians are scum, selfish, greedy, lowlife scumbags whose only principle is narrow short-term interest.
I don’t know if this leasing idea is being seriously considered but nothing would surprise me anymore.
Of course, the PMO denied this idiotic idea was being considered but who can believe this bunch of liars?
And where is the Israeli public in all this? It sure isn’t America where people organized themselves to give Obama & his left-wing Democrats a good slap in the face. Where is our equivalent of the Tea Party?
Dear Ms Glick , you should remind Bibi how the USA disposed of Nguyen Van Thieu the South vietnamese leader in 1973. Bibi is totally wrong trying to placate Obama, he must speak out loud and clear and unmask the true leftist nature of Obama which is anti-Israel and anti-Western world as well. Obam tries to look as an idealist a new Woodrow Wilson when in fact he just calculate and push for the western world weakening and Israel’ s demise.
The sweet Obam rethoric towards the muslim is not an accident , a misuinderstanding of the true nature of the world, it is Takkya ( dissimulation ) at the highest form. Meanwhile Obama gives Iran a free ride towards the nuclear bomb , and bully Israel as if Israel was threatening the world. For Bibi avoiding to unmask the true aims of Obama is stupid .
There was a time when the Jewish people could not fight back against an enemy determined to wipe them out.The majority went silently to their death without any fight.
Submission was the order of the day
No resistance against the ruling evil,just quiet submission to death.
Now the Jewish people have a country,and an army and what do they do against the latest final solution onslaught.
They appease and surrender to evil once again.
An evil Jewish leader now secretly betray’s his own people and the nation to please devious criminal’s intent on Israel’s destruction and there is no outcry only silent submission once again.
Have the people been paralyzed by the outward garb of this false peace,frontal attack on their nation or is it that they are more concerned about offending evil men than they are about pleasing God ?
At present holding high office in Israel means being a defeatist,appeaser in surrender who must go along with the two state final solution.
It is time to end this national suicide,don’t you think ?
Are you afraid of making the mad world mad at you dear Jew ?
It is wiser to fear God than it is to fear man is my message to you.
Fear of man has almost destroyed you.
Jewish leaders who cannot annex Judea and Samaria and drive out the interlopers and say no to those dismembering Israel to appease the Islamic world need to be removed from power
ASAP if the latest final solution plan is to be thwarted.
‘The Republicans wholeheartedly support Israel’
DaveP
Where are they and what exactly are they doing for Israel except for empty words of support since Reagan came to the rescue of Arafat in Beirut in 1982 ?
More of the same support we saw for Israel from wonder Republican Bush who gave Israel Hamastan, Gaza after pressuring PM Sharon to drive out every living and dead Jew for his vision and dream Palestinian State ?
The worthless Republican base (you) did nothing buyt kiss his ass and let Israle twist in the wind.
I would guess by now that Israel is tired of empty words from those who talk support and never produce anything but syrupy B.S. ?
The Republican Party has the creation of a Palestinian State IN their Party Platform and your scum George was the first US President to call for a Palestinian state so stop the lies that ‘The Republican’s wholeheartedly support Israel.’
Do the Jewish people [of Israel] love their life so much, that they are willing to surrender themselves and their children, to the bondage of wicked men, for a false promise of peace?
Are they willing to appease any evil, for a false promise of peace?
And what are the promises of these evil, wicked, violent men, and these faithless liars, worth?
These false promises of peace, come from men whom we know full well, have stated [openly among themselves, i.e. within their moslem councils] that their real, their only aim, is to subjugate [enslave] the local Jewish people, and to destroy the Jewish state, Israel.
see too… Koran 9.29
“16. The state of war is a state of enmity and destruction; and therefore declaring by word or action, not a passionate and hasty, but sedate, settled design upon another man’s life puts him in a state of war with him against whom he has declared such an intention, and so has exposed his life to the other’s power to be taken away by him, or any one that joins with him in his defence, and espouses his quarrel; it being reasonable and just I should have a right to destroy that which threatens me with destruction; for by the fundamental law of Nature, man being to be preserved as much as possible, when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preferred, and one may destroy a man who makes war upon him, or has discovered an enmity to his being, for the same reason that he may kill a wolf or a lion, because they are not under the ties of the common law of reason, have no other rule but that of force and violence, and so may be treated as a beast of prey, those dangerous and noxious creatures that will be sure to destroy him whenever he falls into their power.
17. And hence it is that he who attempts to get another man into his absolute power does thereby put himself into a state of war with him; it being to be understood as a declaration of a design upon his life. For I have reason to conclude that he who would get me into his power without my consent would use me as he pleased when he had got me there, and destroy me too when he had a fancy to it; for nobody can desire to have me in his absolute power unless it be to compel me by force to that which is against the right of my freedom- i.e. make me a slave…”
Of the State of War
John Locke (1632-1704)
“…For I have reason to conclude that he who would get me into his power without my consent would use me as he pleased when he had got me there, and destroy me too when he had a fancy to it;”
+++
Proverbs 28:4
They that forsake the law praise the wicked: but such as keep the law contend with them.
5 Evil men understand not judgment: but they that seek the LORD understand all things.
How is peace achieved, in the real world?
Is peace achieved through the appeasement of bullies and evil men?
Today, many people appear to believe that peace comes merely from ‘wanting it’ [i.e. desire], or from embracing ‘pacifism’ [inaction], in the face of the violence of evil men.
By pursuing such logic [in the world], the logic that peace comes from ‘wanting it’ or by embracing ‘pacifism’ [inaction in the face of evil], we would become the slaves of violent, evil men.
We [who seek peace] are kidding ourselves [we are living in la la land!], if we believe that aggression, or violence, is ‘overcome’, by our surrender to it!
Or if we believe that the appeasement of evil and wicked men, is a way to peace.
The appeasement of evil [men], does not lead to peace.
The aggression and violence of evil men, is not overcome, by our surrender, to the designs of those evil men.
That path leads only to slavery, and death.
How is peace achieved, in the real world?
Peace comes through sacrifice, and our willingness to fight for truth, and to fight for what is right[eous].
And, judgement.
Peace among men comes as a consequence of righteous judgement.
Peace among men comes when wicked men are judged, and when their fellows [other wicked men] come to understand that their wicked actions, will bring judgement upon them.
And Frank Luntz, should go back to his village.
I’m sure that the village is missing its idiot.
To be blunt, Frank Luntz is wrong. There is a good deal of us Americans eagerly awaiting the day when the Israelies tell the Obamaites and the Arabs to go fuck themselves…
Hop to it!!!!
Let’s hope this is along the same lines as Jacob our forefather who had to “trick” Lavan in order to be sure that he could marry Rachel. Sometimes tricks are warranted when you are dealing with the lying and deceitful palestinians!
I’m glad Caroline focuses our attention on the PM.
Most other Israeli columns are and have been for some time focused on what Obama thinks, what Obama wants, whether Obama is weak or strong, whether the PM can outsmart Obama, whether Obama will be re-elected… ad infinitum.
THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER is that Israel’s fate rests with G-d first, and then with the Jews of Israel.
The government of Israel has a big responsibility. But the ultimate political responsibility is in the hands of the Jews of Israel, and so far they seem too quiet.
This has to change.
Living in Israel requires a strong spirit. Some of us don’t measure up and are still in the Diaspora. But those in the land of Israel cannot give up, cannot let their fate be decided by foreigners and a weak government. They need to take the initiative and fight back (within the law, of course)
As Terry says, Where is the Jewish Tea Party? Americans saw danger ahead and rose from a despised and defeated Republican Party and re-invented themselves into something much better and stronger that will be calling the shots in the GOP, several state government houses, and in the House of Representatives.
The best antidote against hopelessness is to take action.
Call for a stop to the partition talks and demand immediate annexation of the land.
Whatever happens after that won’t be as bad as submitting to the will of your enemies.
I cry bitter tears to think the land of my heart and soul could be destroyed just to satisfy a mean spirited anti-Semitic Obama and his followers which include Leftist Jews. It is in Israel’s best interest and ultimately Jewish survival for Netanyahu to be brought to his senses immediately or he must be replaced by a leader who has the strength and courage to say no.
Perhaps this is the moment to reprint Bibi’s campaign speeches.
Wouldn’t it be nice to recall what he told us, and then compare that with what he is now doing?
If what Caroline has described is true (and I have never doubted her), then the implications for the continuity of the Jewish people are horrific – whether they are in Israel or in the Diaspora.
Yasser Arafat recognized that he could bring Jewry to its knees by manufacturing a claim on Jerusalem. Now this has become negotiable as a place to be rented?
We celebrate Purim because the Jewish people were in a similar situation. A three day fast certainly brought the message home to every Jew then.
Maybe we ought to have a day of fasting across the Jewish world in order to send a message to PM Netanyahu that appeasement to people like Barak Obama will only take you down the road to total self destruction.
Did not Masada teach us “never again”!!
I will laugh, and laugh, and laugh when Netanyahu and his friends all get what is coming to them: Show trails and summary execution.
Sorry, Caroline. Netanyahu is just another hack. To him, everything is for sale, including our lives and the very existence of our country. He is too focused on trying to destroy the dati leumi and on stuffing his pockets to care for the enormous danger he is putting the country in.
The next logical step is Liberman. He is also a hack, but at least he is a JEWISH hack, not a rootless “citizen of the world”. I suggest pushing public opinion towards Liberman. After Liberman fails, Feiglin and Ben-Ari will, bizrat Hashem, be viable contenders. Then there might be hope.
Bravo, Caroline. At least there is an Israeli with a set of cajones (even though that is hard to visualize in your case).
Bibi is giving a bad name to secularism. However, some religious Jews don’t believe in the Jewish state until the messiah arrives. So this is not a problem unique to secularism.
The problem with secularism, is it’s negative definition as “atheism” (against theism); as distinguished from positive humanism. One can oppose “G-d” without knowing anything about math, science, philosophy, literature, psychology, etc.
It’s not clear that Judaism is a religious faith; in any event, it is more than a religion, it is an affirmation of humanism and human life. One can affirm humanism without affirming or denying religion.
Communicating a position on a specific set of supernatural beliefs is in any event impossible, because human communication relies solely on human means. Therefore communication is natural, and not supernatural. If means existed to communicate the supernatural, they would be supernatural means. Therefore not natural or humanistic.
So, while Judaism is positively correlated with positive human(istic) values, people can affirm humanism without also embracing Judaism. Naturally, the perfect should not be the enemy of the good. So, humanists should side with Israelis, even including the religious; and should not side with nihilists even if they are secular.