PDavidHornik

Bibi's pitch for unity

Speaking to the Knesset, he said some very perspicacious things that are reassuring in suggesting he's right on the ball.

Highlights:

Goldstone is a codeword for an attempt to delegitimize Israel's right to self-defense. The international battle against Israel began in UN Durban Conference I, and continued in the 2005 IJC advisory opinion against the security fence and in the Durban Conference 2, as well as the Goldstone Report.... This is a comprehensive attack, not on a specific Israeli government but on the state of Israel....

I did not promise a paradise in the West Bank, I promised economic prosperity....  And we removed barriers and checkpoints for this purpose, to help the Palestinian economy. We also took what US Secretary of State [Hillary Clinton] called "unprecedented steps" in declaring a 10-month settlement construction freeze.

But all we got [in return] was [the] Goldstone [report], [US pressure to stop all building projects in the Jerusalem neighborhood of] Gilo, all kinds of preconditions [for resuming peace talks] that were unprecedented and unjustified.

Hence: 

Our internal unity is important in order to successfully deal with the attacks on Israel's right to self-defense and in order to continue the peace process. When we fight against false accusations made against Israel we must fight together. We must do this together. The real options are either to ram the government or to support it. This is no less than what I asked of the opposition only several months ago when I was chairman of the opposition.

True--during the Olmert government's Lebanon and Gaza wars, even with all the blunders esp. in the former conflict, the Netanyahu-led opposition stayed loyal. But it comes much more natural to the nationalist side to stay loyal, seek unity where possible, and pursue the state's overall interest.

Saudis and Egyptians polled on key issues

Daniel Pipes reports on and analyzes some illuminating poll results of Saudis and Egyptians. Fairly small minorities in Egypt, somewhat larger minorities in Saudi Arabia, would like to see Israel or (preferred) the U.S. attack Iran's nuclear program. In other words, there's concern in these societies about that program, that it doesn't appear overwhelming.

Interviewees were asked: “Islam defines the state of Egypt/Saudi Arabia; under the right circumstances, would you accept a Jewish State of Israel?” Pipes reports: "In this case, 26 percent of Egyptians and 9 percent of Saudi subjects answered in the affirmative." And he comments:

We posed this question to quantify the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict, a conflict not about the size of Israel, its resources, armaments, sovereignty over holy sites, or the number of its citizens living on the West Bank. Rather, it concerns the fundamental goal of Zionism, the creation of a state defined by Jewish identity.... These results are in keeping with the more overtly religious nature of political life in Saudi Arabia than in Egypt. They confirm that the main source of anti-Zionism now is no longer nationalism but Islam.

In other words, it's what I and others have been saying all along, though my impression is that the intolerant nationalism also had Islamic roots.

Pipes put a positive overall spin on the findings:

these polling numbers point to a small but not trivial base of constructive views in countries largely hostile to the West and Israel. If this base has few prospects of driving policy anytime soon, it offers a kernel of common sense that, if given suitable attention, can be built upon to foster long-term improvements.

I hope so.

Eurabia vs. Israel

European publics may be waking up about the Islamization threat, but the Brussels bureaucrats remain hell-bent on Islamic Jerusalem as I discuss today on Frontpage.

What is Bibi up to?

Amiel Ungar has one of the best-thought-out speculations on that question that I've seen. Why did Bibi call the building freeze in Judea and Samaria, understandably angering and even outraging his right-wing base? Ungar thinks Iran isn't the explanation because it's too evident that Obama is not in Israel's boat on Iran anyway. Getting along with Obama more generally, and playing for time to deflect his pressures, could make more sense as the explanation. Ungar's concluding paragraphs are interesting:

By playing for time, Netanyahu was hoping for one of two things: that Obama's popularity would begin to descend from the stratosphere to normal levels - and better yet, that he would be mugged by global and particularly Middle Eastern reality. Netanyahu may have actually gotten both his wishes. Obama's ratings have sharply plummeted, which will have an impact on his ability to secure support for a policy inimical to Israel. More importantly, last week's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in Oslo, on the heels of the Afghanistan surge, may indicate that Obama has realized that using an unclenched fist does not win friends in the region, but only results in mangled fingers. In any case the freeze is set to expire in the midst of the U.S. midterm election campaign, perhaps the most propitious moment to resume building.

The IOU that Netanyahu signed to resume building comes due next September. His decision on honoring it will clarify his motivations. If accelerated building resumes, Netanyahu will reunite the nationalist camp. If it doesn't, it will be the start of divorce proceedings rather than of a simple separation between him and his erstwhile supporters.

Right. If building resumes in September, the rift will mend of itself. If it doesn't--if it turns out Bibi, after being elected on a Likud ticket, has adopted an aggressive left-wing policy of attrition against Jewish life in Judea and Samaria--then that is a different story.

William Cohen: Got to stop Iran one way or another

The former U.S. defense secretary explains in this Washington Times op-ed why "living with" Iranian nukes, relying on "deterrence" and the like, is not an option.

A Thomas Friedman-like Israeli left-winger, Ari Shavit

Today he ekes out the painful conclusion that not only Hamas, but also Mahmoud Abbas and his allegedly "moderate" Palestinian strain both seek, in different ways, Israel's demise. But "The occupation is destroying Israel," Shavit laments. "It is undermining Israel's ethical, democratic and diplomatic foundations."

This is tripe. The "occupation" of Gaza has ended for better or worse, and in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), the Palestinian Arabs enjoy the highest-possible level of autonomy. The security situation there, thanks to Israel's ongoing security access, has been more or less under control and the Palestinians' economy has been growing lately and even flourishing in some regards. Yes, Israel continues to come under worldwide diplomatic pressure to upgrade that autonomy to a totally undeserved, unwarranted, and gravely perilous sovereignty. Netanyahu's strategy appears aimed at demonstrating that despite his own radical concessions, Abbas and his Fatah do not want that sovereignty and will no longer even pretend to negotiate for it if it means recognizing, legitimizing, and perpetuating Israel. That is what an Israeli publicist like Shavit, his articles appearing for the whole world on Haaretz's English site, should be emphasizing instead of writing tripe about his own country, Israel, being "destroyed by the occupation" even as it continues to flourish in all spheres while that very "occupation" is what makes the security situation tolerable.

Is Israel America's last Iranian resort?

Is the U.S. basically at wit's end on Iran's nukes, and passively assuming Israel will "deal with" the problem? So a Washington Post op-ed, seemingly drawing on inside information, claims. I discuss the issue today on Frontpage.

Friedman's better side

Thomas Friedman has said so many false and vicious things about the Israeli Right, and Israel as a whole, that I have to get over emotional resistance to giving him credit where it's due. But I must. In this important op-ed, he calls on the Muslim world to (among other things) care more about slaughter of Muslims by Muslims in Iraq than about minarets in Switzerland. Here's the catch: many people who have been living in reality for a long time, instead of starting to flirt with it like Friedman, would not write such a column because they don't have expectations; they're using to seeing Islam as a gravely flawed civilization. But, with all those reservations, there's no denying that Friedman's words in this column have eloquence and weight.

The not-new Middle East

"Saudi Arabia to flog 75-year-old for breaching sex segregation rules"--read the report in The Telegraph.

Anti-Semitism: Fundamental to "Palestinian" identity

This is the unpalatable but essential truth, as explicated in another of the occasional important op-eds by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook who, through their Palestinian Media Watch, are among the people who follow the "Palestinians" most closely. (I put that word in scare quotes not because such a category of people doesn't exist, but because conferring on them a national identity is dubious. Gazan "Palestinians" are culturally closer to Egyptians, and West Bank "Palestinians" are culturally closer to Syrians, than the two are to each other. Also the stress on "Palestinian" identity grew exponentially once Israel took over those territories in a war of survival.)