There has been a long
perception in Europe and the USA, that Israel survived when it should not
have, with gains, and therefore since 1967 and 1973, it has been subject
to pressures to cut it down to size. Since the end of the Cold War, this
has meant a willingness to seek a rapprochement with Syria (EU financial
promises; courting of Assad by Clinton). By the acceptance of this process
by Rabin and Peres (followed by Ehud Barak), an extraordinary phenomenon
has occurred in Israel.
The pressures on Israel to
surrender the Golan have been accepted, not simply seen as external and
malevolent. The false arguments behind them have been swallowed and have
then poisoned rational analysis of the importance of the Golan. Syria's
image has altered in Europe and the USA and Israel has lost, as it were,
the capacity to see what the many internal left wing changes in perception
of its true interests mean: that those working heedless of Israeli
vulnerability and destruction are succeeding – and with Israel accepting
this weakening as a recipe for "peace" when in fact an inversion of logic
has occurred – a kind of "paradigm shift" exacerbated by the timing is
taking place: an ailing minority regime, bankrupt, in a succession crisis,
is gaining a position of mastery. How Europe views Israel being
sacrificed for the sake of Europe’s and America’s ambitions is an
unpleasant reality to be faced up to – it appears not to care at all.
The only conclusion: the EU
and USA, wishing Israel to surrender water, strategic assets, deterrent
capability, historic and religious association and so on, are either
themselves incapable of understanding the significance of such, or
willfully desire the end of Israel. So developed is the deception in
Israel that loss of assets to those who hate it is viewed as beneficial.
Thus it is perhaps justifiable for someone from outside to draw attention
to it.
