"Israel’s" multiple personalities are too much for the region to bear
Source: Daily Star, 15-09-2008
Will the real 'Israel' please stand up so that its Arab neighbors - who have enough of their own problems, thank you very much - can at last know who and what they are dealing with? It has almost always been the case that 'Israeli' governments have sent conflicting signals; the country's political system has gone through several permutations, but each has had the effect of lending influence and prominence to fringe elements. The problem has been worse in recent
years, however, because the price 'Israel' will have to pay for peace has become clear - and many
'Israelis' have yet to resign themselves to the idea of being anything but enemies to their neighbors.
So it is that the current prime minister, Ehud Olmert, can thoroughly chastise his own people for vigilantism, just days after Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz publicly called for the campaign of "extrajudicial executions" (i.e. assassinations) against Palestinian leaders in the West Bank to be radically accelerated. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Mofaz's rival to replace Olmert as head of the Kadima Party and premier, has expressed determination to continue the Palestinian-'Israeli' peace process; but Defense (War) Minister (and Labor Party boss) Ehud Barak has trouble forming complete sentences without using words like "war" and "destruction."
It has now been more than six years since the 22 members of the Arab League unanimously approved the Arab Peace Initiative, a proposal that asks very little of 'Israel' in exchange for normalization of relations with its neighbors. In essence, Arab leaders of every stripe swallowed their pride and bent over backward to communicate their willingness to be accommodating. In return, the 'Israelis' have never missed an opportunity to behave in a warlike fashion, badly undermining Arab public support for a negotiated, two-state solution.
It is not just 'Israelis' who need to think about where their comportment is leading their country and the rest of the region. 'Israel', after all, is highly dependent on outside sources of funding like Jewish communities in other countries and, especially, the US government. These actors, especially the latter, have long been strangely quiet about what their money has been used to buy, but increasing numbers of Jews from around the world are tired of being given a bad name by an outlaw state that claims to act in their name.
No such progress has been made in Washington, however, and none will be forthcoming unless and until the White House is occupied by someone willing to take on "the lobby" and its media minions. The next US president will need to convince a good many Americans and 'Israelis' alike that things need to change. Lost in the hoopla over Olmert's seemingly noble "pogrom" comments, for example, was a sign of the denial that grips him and so many of his compatriots.
"There will be no pogroms against non-Jewish residents in the state of 'Israel'," he declared.
Very decent of him to say, but the incident that inspired his remarks - like the vast majority perpetrated daily by the illegal colonists known as "settlers" - took place outside 'Israeli' territory on land that virtually everyone recognizes to be Palestinian.
Will the real 'Israel' please stand up so that its Arab neighbors - who have enough of their own problems, thank you very much - can at last know who and what they are dealing with? It has almost always been the case that 'Israeli' governments have sent conflicting signals; the country's political system has gone through several permutations, but each has had the effect of lending influence and prominence to fringe elements. The problem has been worse in recent
years, however, because the price 'Israel' will have to pay for peace has become clear - and many
'Israelis' have yet to resign themselves to the idea of being anything but enemies to their neighbors.
So it is that the current prime minister, Ehud Olmert, can thoroughly chastise his own people for vigilantism, just days after Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz publicly called for the campaign of "extrajudicial executions" (i.e. assassinations) against Palestinian leaders in the West Bank to be radically accelerated. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Mofaz's rival to replace Olmert as head of the Kadima Party and premier, has expressed determination to continue the Palestinian-'Israeli' peace process; but Defense (War) Minister (and Labor Party boss) Ehud Barak has trouble forming complete sentences without using words like "war" and "destruction."
It has now been more than six years since the 22 members of the Arab League unanimously approved the Arab Peace Initiative, a proposal that asks very little of 'Israel' in exchange for normalization of relations with its neighbors. In essence, Arab leaders of every stripe swallowed their pride and bent over backward to communicate their willingness to be accommodating. In return, the 'Israelis' have never missed an opportunity to behave in a warlike fashion, badly undermining Arab public support for a negotiated, two-state solution.
It is not just 'Israelis' who need to think about where their comportment is leading their country and the rest of the region. 'Israel', after all, is highly dependent on outside sources of funding like Jewish communities in other countries and, especially, the US government. These actors, especially the latter, have long been strangely quiet about what their money has been used to buy, but increasing numbers of Jews from around the world are tired of being given a bad name by an outlaw state that claims to act in their name.
No such progress has been made in Washington, however, and none will be forthcoming unless and until the White House is occupied by someone willing to take on "the lobby" and its media minions. The next US president will need to convince a good many Americans and 'Israelis' alike that things need to change. Lost in the hoopla over Olmert's seemingly noble "pogrom" comments, for example, was a sign of the denial that grips him and so many of his compatriots.
"There will be no pogroms against non-Jewish residents in the state of 'Israel'," he declared.
Very decent of him to say, but the incident that inspired his remarks - like the vast majority perpetrated daily by the illegal colonists known as "settlers" - took place outside 'Israeli' territory on land that virtually everyone recognizes to be Palestinian.
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