Dear Reader (and Writer),
Welcome to the first “virtual” edition of
NATIV Online (in English).
Nativ, whose English
meaning is “path”, is a Hebrew language, bi-monthly periodical, which was
first published in 1988 and is now entering its 17th year. During
that period, 95 issues of Nativ, (almost 1,200 articles) on a
wide variety of topics, ranging from the fascinating phenomenon of the Jewish
left wing self-hatred to the conceptual failure of the Israeli ballistic
missile defense system (the Arrow), have been published.
Thus, the fundamental assumption at the
base of Nativ’s purpose was to rescue the Israeli public
discourse from the abstract, theological plane and to transform it into a
constructive discussion based on a foundation of data and facts.
Like every journal dealing with the
strategic aspects of its country (and the strategic aspect mentioned here is
in the broadest context of the word), the intention is to influence the
echelon of decision-makers. And indeed, prime ministers and government
ministers like Yitzhak Shamir, Binyamin Netanyahu, Moshe Arens, Ariel Sharon
and Uzi Landau have been members of the Nativ editorial board at
various times. However, once they donned the mantle of Prime Minister or
government minister they favored short-term political considerations over
long-term strategic aspects. In summary, we can conclude that Nativ’s
intention of influence on the decision-making echelon has been unsuccessful.
On the basis of the extensive pool of
over 400 writers, including some of the most outstanding scholars from Israel
and abroad, in 1998, the Ariel Center for Policy Research was
established, with the assistance of the Arison Foundation, and Nativ
became the Center’s journal.
The idea to initiate a periodical in
English was raised again and again. However, due to the lack of financial
wherewithal, we were unable to meet the challenge. Thus, the virtual edition
of Nativ in English is a compromise.
I will now attempt to formulate briefly the
strategic fundamental hypothesis, which we are seeking to present in this
periodical. Although there are a wide variety of topics, each and every one of
them serves that hypothesis.
The Jewish state is an extraordinary
phenomenon in comparison to normal countries. This is because of the potential
existential danger threatening it, unprecedented in modern history and almost
certainly in history in general.
The Zionist Paradox
In the introduction to his book,
Der Judenstaat, Theodor Herzl writes that “immediately upon the
establishment of the Jewish state, anti-Semitism will cease everywhere...” and
that the Jewish state “would not need an army at all but rather a garrison and
a police force to maintain public order”. These sentences, cited from the
credo of the father of the Jewish state are the rationale for the national
existence of the Jewish people seeking to find a safe haven from the terror of
anti-Semitism. However, the diametric opposite transpired. Not only did
anti-Semitism fail to cease everywhere, immediately upon its establishment,
Israel was forced to fight for its survival against those seeking to destroy
it, Hitler’s erstwhile allies, who resolved to complete the job, which the
oppressor did not finish three years before. Ever since the War of
Independence, Israel has been forced to fight for its survival in a series of
wars and daily acts of bloody terrorism. Thus, the State of Israel is the most
dangerous place in the world for Jews, and the number of Jews who have died
there due to their desire to sustain a sovereign entity is many times greater
than all of the victims of anti-Semitism throughout the world since the
Holocaust. Herzl’s second mistake, regarding the army, is a direct result of
the first. Israel is forced to maintain the largest per capita army in the
world; if it were to do otherwise, it would not survive for even a day.
At the same time, the Zionist “failure”
is accompanied by the success of the Zionist enterprise, which is most
certainly beyond the dreams of the fathers of Zionism. The demographic reality
that Israel is today the largest concentration of world Jewry, despite the
objective difficulties unparalleled anywhere else in the world, is an
exhilarating testament to the power of man’s will. The fact that the per
capita product in Israel is equal to the average in Western Europe and its GNP
surpasses that of 100 million Arabs in Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon
combined, despite the economic boycott and five wars, is testament to the
resourcefulness and talent of the Jew.
The Dream of Peace and
Its Demise – Defeatism
The existential threat accompanying daily
life, the Arab terrorism, European anti-Semitism, the sense that there is no
way out and that Israel will be forced to continue to live by the sword for
many years, slowly generated a critical mass under the weight of which Israeli
society began to collapse. The anticipated result was the creation of defense
mechanisms whose equally predictable symptoms are repression of reality,
creation ex nihilo of virtual worlds, deification of “peace” and the so
typically Jewish phenomenon of projecting blame inward during times of
distress, i.e. self-hatred. Thus, the central “strategic asset” of the Jewish
state against external existential threats began to crack: National unity and
the readiness for sacrifice in the face of adversity.
Israel began along the perilous path to
“peace” when it fell into the strategic trap set by Sadat at Camp David. The
“Editor’s Column” in this edition details the milestones in the journey of
Israeli defeatism from Menahem Begin, by way of Yitzhak Shamir in Madrid,
Yitzhak Rabin in the Oslo Accords through Ariel Sharon’s declaration regarding
his willingness to establish a Palestinian state. If this trend continues and
a Palestinian state is indeed established, it will do so, sooner or later, on
“the ruins of the Jewish state”, to quote Yitzhak Rabin from his Zionist
period.
The price of defeatism, as historical
experience teaches, is deadly. In the virtual world, which Israel constructed,
cut off from reality, what today is referred to as “PLO terrorism” is, to a
great degree, an optical illusion stemming from the lack of willingness to
confront the truth. The truth is that the PLO, an organization established by
Egypt in 1964, in other words, with no circumstantial connection to Israel’s
“conquests” in 1967, openly functions as Cairo’s agent and in full cooperation
with all of the Arab countries. This is the first stage in the Arab staged
process whose objective was and remains: The destruction of what they refer to
as the “Zionist entity”. Thus, PLO terrorism is a stage in a low intensity war
intended to cause Israel to disintegrate from within, among other ways, by
means of an Arab fifth column located there anyway, to destroy its economy and
to bring about Israel’s de-legitimization through the establishment of a
Palestinian state.
A Palestinian State – A
Stage in the Staged Process to Liquidate Israel
It goes without saying that the
“Palestinian nation” is a total fiction, which does not live up to any
criterion in the classification of a nation. However, even if the Arabs of the
western land of Israel were a “nation”, they have a state in every respect.
The ethnic makeup of the Jordanian Arabs is identical to the ethnic
composition of the Arabs of the western land of Israel, so by definition,
Jordan is the Palestinian state as the late King Hussein repeatedly claimed.
Thus, the Arabs want an additional Palestinian state, the condition of whose
establishment is the destruction of the Jewish state, and that is the purpose
of the establishment of a sovereign Arab entity west of the Jordan. To remove
any doubt, it is worth noting that this is written explicitly in the PLO’s
political platform – the Stages Plan.
With the establishment of the Palestinian
state, Israel will be deprived of its last territorial foothold. Israel’s only
international airport will be located only kilometers from the western border
of Palestine and every passenger plane, taking off or landing, will be in
range of a simple hand-held missile launcher. The deployment of Egyptian and
Syrian armored forces on the outskirts of Greater Tel Aviv, where 70% of
Israel’s Jewish population resides, will become an impetus for the strategic
enforcement designed to dismantle the Jewish state with no need for a
comprehensive war.
These simple hypotheses, which until
recently constituted the basis of the perception of Israel’s strategic
situation, and therefore were accepted by the political echelon, underwent a
dramatic metamorphosis since the 1978 Camp David Agreements, and to a greater
extent since the 1993 Oslo Accords.
Delegitimization of the Jewish State
In a survey taken in the European
community, Europeans were asked to rank the countries which threaten world
peace. Israel appeared at the top of the list. Thus, 59% of the Europeans
believe that Israel is the focal point of the threat to humanity. A year ago,
an edition of Newsweek was published with a torn Israeli flag and the
question: “Will Israel Survive?”
The French ambassador to Great Britain
characterized Israel: “The shitty little country”. The French Foreign Ministry
did not see fit to offer an apology. The threat of being placed on trial for
war crimes before the International Court in The Hague hangs over the head of
the Israeli Prime Minister. The analogy between Israel’s actions and the
actions of the Nazis is part of the European media’s agenda. One need not be a
genius to notice the general trend latent in this series of examples, which is
only a drop in the bucket. The trend is de-legitimization of the Jewish state
and the dehumanization of the Jewish person, so that the destruction of Israel
will become a “moral” act, i.e. for the good of humanity.
In reaction to these processes, the
average Israeli has created a defense apparatus, including primarily
repression, denying reality and constructing virtual worlds. It is hard to
imagine a more extreme example of self-deception than the comparison between
the Twin Towers disaster and the reality in Israel. The 1,300 victims of Arab
terrorism since the Oslo Accords are the equivalent of 26 Twin Towers
(adjusted for the relative size of the populations in Israel and the United
States), however the United States declared war in the wake of the incident,
while Israel “is in the midst of a peace process”.
One of the most dangerous manifestations
of the repression apparatus is the famous Jewish capacity for self-deception.
The classic example of this is, of course, the Israeli “Baron Münchausen”,
Shimon Peres. However, while Münchausen, an outstanding cavalry officer in the
Russian Army, only wrote his nonsense for the reader’s pleasure, Peres has
harnessed an entire nation to implement his madness. The result has been 1,300
dead victims, thousands of wounded, an economic crisis and a country on the
verge of political bankruptcy. However, not only was Peres not placed on trial
for his crimes, nor was he denounced or banished from society, but rather he
accuses Israel of not doing enough to realize his dreams of “peace” and create
the “New Middle East”.
The Raison d’Être and the Return to Auschwitz
This leads to the question of the
raison d’être of the State of Israel. The question is not posed in the
theological sense, but in comparison to other countries. As this is being
written, Syria and Egypt alone have 64 launchers equipped with 15 SCUD-B and
SCUD-C ballistic missiles, which have the range to reach Greater Tel Aviv, (as
previously mentioned, 70% of Israel’s Jewish residents are concentrated in
this
area). Approximately
one-third of them are armed with warheads of mass destruction. Even if only an
insubstantial part of them land in Tel Aviv, it will be the end of the State of
Israel, without taking into account the ballistic deployment of other
shorter-range missiles and the ballistic deployment of Libya, Saudi Arabia and
Iran. The sum total of the potential threat on Israel is immeasurably greater
than the aforementioned ballistic threat. However, that alone is sufficient to
portray the dimensions of the threat, unprecedented in modern history and
almost certainly in history in general.
The strategic balance of power between
Israel and its enemies is to Israel’s detriment in every area. As opposed to
the one “soft” target in Israel – Greater Tel Aviv, the Arab world and Iran
have at least 50 soft targets. However, even the incongruent 50:1 ratio does
not tell the whole story, as a significant strike at the single vulnerable
target in Israel is tantamount to the liquidation of the Jewish state, while a
critical strike against some of the vulnerable targets in the Arab world would
certainly cause heavy damage, however they would not wipe any Arab country off
the face of the earth.
The peak of absurdity is, specifically in
this situation, that Israel is prepared to divest itself of strategic assets
vital to its existence, which it acquired in accordance with international law
as a result of a defensive war in June 1967, and to downsize itself through
“painful concessions” into what are called the “1967 borders” and are nothing
more than the 1949 armistice lines, characterized by Abba Eban as “Auschwitz
borders”. Even Abba Eban, who is above suspicion of being a hawk or having a
right wing Weltanschauung, understood that by doing so Israel would
become the largest concentration camp in the world for Jews whose lives are in
danger. Israel is prepared to take irrevocable suicidal steps for a “peace
agreement” with a terrorist organization and in order to establish a terrorist
Palestinian state joined to its center, whose declared intention is the
destruction of the State of Israel as a Jewish state. Israel is prepared to do
so by repressing reality and disregarding the clear realization that the “next
painful concession”, i.e. return to the “1947 Partition Plan borders” is only
a matter of time and that the Arabs will not require a war in order to bring
that about.
The Price of Fear
The price, which the Jewish state pays
due to the situation described above, exists on several planes simultaneously.
Among them:
-
The apparatus of repression;
-
Creation of unique criteria for
evaluating reality;
-
Self-hatred.
The Apparatus of
Repression
The situation described above, even if
the man on the street is not familiar with all of its details, exists in the
back of his mind. The historical aspect exists due to the Jew’s historical
memory dating back to the destruction of the First and Second Temples, through
2,000 years of exile; and it reached its apex during the Holocaust and in the
apprehension from those seeking to recapitulate it in the Jewish state. It
goes without saying that under these circumstances, it is impossible to sustain
the course of a normal life and that an apparatus to repress reality on the
one hand and the creation of virtual realities on the other is necessary. Thus
an Orwellian world called “the peace process” is formed during which 1,300
Jews have been murdered over the course of the 10 years since the Oslo Accords
were signed, i.e. a yearly average of 130 “sacrifices of peace” (as they were
characterized by Shimon Peres), while the yearly average of those murdered
from the establishment of the state through 1993 was 20; the economy has been
severely damaged, a wave of anti-Semitism has inundated the world and Israel’s
political situation has never been this bad. However, this is the “peace
process”.
An additional fascinating aspect is the
portrayal of the military balance between Israel and its enemies to be in
Israel’s favor. This explains that the phrase uttered by every Prime Minister
that “the IDF is the strongest army in the Middle East and it has the strength
to rout any military coalition of Arab countries.” The Jaffee Center,
affiliated with Tel Aviv University, which has a quasi-official status, has
taken this furthest. No one asks how a minuscule country with five million
residents is capable of creating military superiority over the Arab world and
Iran with a 500:1 advantage in territory, 65:1 in terms of population and 10:1
in terms of military balance. Indeed, the Egyptian army alone maintains a
standing army of 450,000 and another comparable number in para-military
forces, against 190,000 IDF soldiers. The military balance between Syria and
Egypt alone, two of Israel’s traditional enemies, and Israel is 5:1.
There is not even one instance in history
where a similar military balance existed and the inferior side won the war.
However throughout the Israeli public, which is being guided by means of
deceit in its simplest sense, the supposition that Israel’s victory in the
case of war is guaranteed has taken hold and therefore, due to its military
superiority, the State of Israel can allow itself territorial concessions on
the basis of “land for peace”. Thus, the tiny Jewish state, the only guarantee
of whose existence is territory, is required to deliver “territories” to an
enemy whose land mass is 500 times greater than Israel, while the Arabs are
asked to provide the one and only thing, which they cannot deliver – peace.
Self-Hatred
Self-hatred is a phenomenon which has
always accompanied the Jewish people. However it has never attained the
dimensions that it has reached in the Israeli circumstance. The standard and
convincing explanation for this is, at first glance, that the self-hatred is
in direct proportion to the depth of the anti-Semitism and the existential
distress. The Jew entrapped in his Judaism develops hatred towards his people
and his Judaism because they are the cause of his personal tragedy. However,
it seems that the root of the problem is much more profound. Theodore Lessing,
in his famous book Das Judische Selbsthaas (Jewish
Self-Hatred), discussed this matter. Lessing discussed the extraordinary
phenomenon that the Jew always, and in every instance, blames himself and not
any external factor for his troubles. This is the case, regardless of the
facts. The peak of this phenomenon was after the Holocaust, when the
ultra-Orthodox circles sought to blame the Holocaust on the Jews themselves
for not affixing enough mezuzot. Lessing himself did not go back to
Biblical sources. However, anyone reading the horror of the punishment, which
will be administered to the Children of Israel if they do not obey their God,
can not help but shudder from the burning hatred towards man and the demand to
place a burden, which he cannot bear, upon his shoulders.
There are many passages indicating this,
beginning with the stories of the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah and through the books
of the prophets. The following are four random citations:
But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the
voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his
statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon
thee, and overtake thee. Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt
thou be in the field. Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store. Cursed shall
be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine,
and the flocks of thy sheep. Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and
cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out...until thou be destroyed, and until
thou perish quickly; because of the wickedness of thy doings, whereby thou
hast forsaken me... The LORD shall cause thee to be smitten before thine
enemies...and thou shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth...Thou
shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her...Thy sons and thy
daughters shall be given unto another people, and thine eyes shall look, and
fail with longing for them... The stranger that is within thee shall get up
above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low... And thou shalt eat
the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters...in
the siege, and in the straitness... Also every sickness, and every plague,
which is not written in the book of this law, them will the LORD bring upon
thee, until thou be destroyed...and ye shall be plucked from off the land
whither thou goest to possess it. And the LORD shall scatter thee among all
people... And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the
sole of thy foot have rest... And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee;
and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life (Deuteronomy 28:15-69).
But ye are they that forsake the LORD, that forget my holy
mountain, that prepare a table for that troop, and that furnish the drink
offering unto that number. Therefore will I number you to the sword, and ye
shall all bow down to the slaughter: because when I called, ye did not answer;
when I spake, ye did not hear; but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose
that wherein I delighted not (Isaiah 65:11-12).
...And the carcasses of this people shall be meat for the fowls
of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth; and none shall fray them away.
Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of
Jerusalem, the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the
bridegroom, and the voice of the bride: for the land shall be desolate (Jeremiah
7:33-34).
The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the
point of a diamond: it is graven upon the table of their heart, and upon the
horns of your altars. Whilst their children remember their altars and their
groves by the green trees upon the high hills...And thou, even thyself, shalt
discontinue from thine heritage that I gave thee; and I will cause thee to
serve thine enemies in the land which thou knowest not: for ye have kindled a
fire in mine anger, which shall burn for ever (Jeremiah 17:1-4).
Internalization of the Hatred
Thus it seems that thousands of years of
the need to explain to themselves their terrible condition in exile and the
Gentiles’ hatred of them on the one hand and their inability to live up to the
rigorous demands of divine morality, which they took upon themselves on the
other, engineered among the Jews a process of acceptance of their lot,
submission, self-hatred and self-blame unprecedented in the history of
humanity. This process is at times accompanied by identification with the
oppressor and understanding of his motives, to the extent of finding
justification for unjustifiable intentions, statements and actions.
The Theory of Relativity
One of the aspects of the repression is
the creation of unique criteria for Israel, removed from those accepted in the
real world.
As this is being written, 27 IDF Air
Force pilots announce that they will refuse an order to carry out
assassinations against the heads of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad
due to the fact that in the course of the attack, innocent civilians are liable
to be hurt. The Arab practice of situating the headquarters of terrorist
organizations in the midst of civilians, in schools, hospitals and populated
areas is an old trick with a twofold return. The human shield generates
hesitation to strike at the school or the hospital and provides the murderers
with immunity; and if the concentrated population is hit, it will be utilized
to portray the Israeli side as a war criminal. As the overwhelming majority of
the media is anti-Israel, this maneuver becomes an all-important component in
the Arab war against Israel.
The declaration of the Arab commitment to
destroy Israel is unconcealed and repeated unceasingly. Thus the threat
against Israel is greater than at any other point in history and Israel’s
right to defend itself, including the right to strike at the innocent, is
greater than any other case in history. In any case, terrorism and not Israel
is responsible for the death of the innocent. (The very characterization
“innocent” is questionable when applied to a populace, which overwhelmingly
supports the destruction of Israel.)
More than 100,000 people were killed in
the allied bombing of Dresden. As most of the men were serving at the front,
the lion’s share of the victims included children, women, the sick (Dresden
was one of the largest medical centers in Germany) and refugees.
Two-thousand-seven-hundred tons of firebombs were dropped on Dresden in
February 1945, i.e. the month when Germany’s fate was sealed. The city was
totally destroyed. It is worth noting that Dresden had no heavy industry and
the primary industry there was Dresden’s famous china. The city was known for
its delightful treasures and its museums.
It is also worth noting that it was Great
Britain, which declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939, and not the other
way around. Indeed, after the war, tentative criticism was sounded regarding
the action.
Had that criticism been sounded in the course of the war, it would have
been considered treason and the critic might have received the maximum
punishment under the emergency regulations in effect. Had a pilot refused to
carry out an order he would have been subject to a military trial and it is
conceivable that the death penalty, established in the law for
insubordination, would have been reduced to life imprisonment. The commander
of the RAF (Royal Air Force) Bomber Command, Arthur Harris, was quite adamant
that “all of the German cities together are not worth the bones of one British
grenadier.” Harris was not declared a war criminal; on the contrary, he was
promoted in 1946 and in 1952, due to Churchill’s intervention, and was granted
a title of nobility. Recently, his statue was placed in the Imperial War
Museum.
It goes without saying that there is no
comparison between the actions of the British and the Americans during the
World War, certainly during the last few months of the war, and present day
Israel. The potential strategic threat to those powers, certainly not of the
existential variety, never came close to approximating to the blatant threat
of destruction of Israel on the part of the Arab terrorist organizations,
which carry out acts of mass murder on a daily basis. Thus, the question can
be raised: Did the British and the Americans perpetrate war crimes? And are
those two countries, who are among the most enlightened democracies in the
history of Western democracy, the earthly embodiment of Satan?
In the late 1990s, Japan proposed to
Russia to end the old disagreement regarding the Kurile Islands east of
Sakhlin. The Japanese, aware of Russia’s economic problems, offered to
purchase the islands from them for a considerable sum. The matter was raised
in the Duma and was immediately dismissed. It was characterized as treason
against the homeland, as the idea that territories of the homeland could be
sold for money was inconceivable. The Kurile Islands were captured by the
Soviets during World War II. The area of the islands themselves is minuscule
and was never part of the homeland. According to a survey conducted the day
after the Duma debate, the decisive majority of the Russians knew nothing of
the existence of the islands.
Judea and Samaria are the cradle of the
Hebrew nation and the rationale for the existence of Zionism. The Bible was
not composed in Tel Aviv, which is the land of the Philistines, but rather in
Hebron, Shilo, Nokdim, Shechem, etc... The fathers of the Hebrew nation are
buried in Hebron, which is the ancient capital of Israel (preceding
Jerusalem); David ruled there for seven years. Rachel our matriarch is
buried in Bethlehem and David is buried in Jerusalem, the City of David,
Zion. Joshua is buried on Mount Efraim. King David is from Bethlehem in
Judea. Jeroboam resided in Shechem (Nablus), Isaiah, the son of Amotz
prophesied about Judea and Jerusalem, Jeremiah was “a man of Anatot in the
Land of Binyamin”. Uziahu, Yotam, Ahaz and Hezekiah were kings of Judea and
Jeroboam the son of Joash was the king of Israel – Samaria. Amos was from
Nokdim in Tekoa; Micah prophesied “about Samaria and Jerusalem”, and Boaz is
from Bethlehem as well as Ruth the Moabitess. Shilo, where Samuel the Prophet
prophesied, the site of the Tabernacle, was the first capital of Israel. Thus
we are speaking of territories of the homeland in the most profound sense of
the word. However, Rabin called them “real estate”, Sharon calls them the
“occupied territories”, and the most common phrase in the Hebrew press is the
“West Bank”, a phrase totally baseless from a geographical perspective, coined
by a clerk in the British Colonial Office.
The Cultural Paradigm
The culture of the Jew in the Diaspora
drew from two sources: Judaism on the one hand and European culture on the
other. After the sealing of the Bible and the Talmud, European Judaism
established the comprehensive opus of Torah literature with glorious
personalities like Rabbeinu Gershom, Light of the Exile; Rashi; Maimonides; and
later the Hassidic masters, the Baal Shem Tov, Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav among
others; and the great opponent of Hassidism – Elijah of Vilna, and others. On
the other hand the Jews, ever since the Emancipation, have taken an
ever-greater part in the culture of the nations. A series of intellectuals,
poets, authors, musicians and artists were and continue to be among the elite
of Western civilization, a fact well known. The famous triumvirate of Marx,
Freud and Einstein and the fact that one quarter of the Nobel Prize laureates
in the sciences are Jews, characterize Jewish excellence to the point of
justifying research into the Jewish genius. Thus, the spiritual poverty of the
common Israeli is unprecedented in the history of the nation. What is
ironically referred to as the “intellectual elite” in Israel is largely a gang
of leftists who have disposed of Judaism like some unwanted vessel and has expelled itself from the culture of nations. Israel is
geographically and linguistically isolated from Western civilization and has
therefore ceased to take part in that culture. The result is ever-increasing
acculturation into the Levant. The generation, which was born in Europe and
absorbed its culture, is gradually dying. The cultural standards, which Martin Buber, Hugo Bergman, Yaakov Talmon, Leah Goldberg, Avraham Shlonsky, Natan
Alterman, Israel Eldad, to mention just a few names, have perished with the
deaths of those personalities. This leaves its mark on the political level.
Political leadership on the left and the right are neither “in touch” with
Jewish heritage nor with European culture.
In Summary
The Israeli political leadership has
never delineated for itself political objectives in any war, including the Six
Day War, perhaps because it was never in touch with its Jewish-national roots
but rather with concepts of European socialism and social democracy. The
willingness to make painful concessions, withdrawals and territorial
compromise of the “land for peace” school – a direct result of the absence
of national roots – is a language not understood in a region mostly Muslim and
Arabic speaking. In the (existing not the new) Middle East, it is perceived as
weakness and as an invitation to extort further concessions.
The “nationalist” right is also not free
of these phenomena. Within 55 years of the establishment of the State of
Israel, the Likud agrees with and implements the original credo of
Jewish
radicals and far left: “Two states for two nations”, conducts negotiations
despite continued terrorism and allows extra-governmental organizations to
conduct negotiations with hostile elements and to offer them concessions with
no national mandate and no legal authority and, needless to say, absolves
these extra-governmental groups of any responsibility for their actions.
The spirit of defeatism inundating the
Israeli left has infected the center and right circles as well. The continuing
terrorism, the difficult economic situation, the leadership’s loss of
direction and its corruption contribute to the weakening of the Israeli
people’s staying power and faith in the justness of their path. The tendency
to grasp at “pipe dreams” of “peace now – and later we’ll see” distorts any
sense of reality and obviates any sober view of the dangers and threats.
* * *
NATIV Online
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