Eric Alterman Can’t Seem to Figure Out Why Israel Is Skeptical of Negotiations
Daily Beast left-winger Eric Alterman has taken a look at Vice President Joe Biden’s latest Mideast trip to address the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Three guesses who he blames for continuing violence in the region.
If you guessed Israel, pat yourself in the back:
The following day, before Biden arrived, the Israeli government announced approval for 112 new homes in Beitar Illit, an ultra-Orthodox settlement near Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, despite having agreed in November to curb settlement growth in partial fulfillment of Israel’s obligations under the Bush administration road map. But that was just a warm-up, apparently, for the announcement later in the day by the Jerusalem District Planning Committee that it had authorized the construction of 1,600 units in Ramat Shlomo, an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood north of downtown Jerusalem.
[...]
Why were the Israelis so intent on insulting the visiting vice president? Plenty of reasons, undoubtedly—some big, some small. Obama is unpopular in Israel. Netanyahu wants to shore up his support with his right-wing coalition. The argument over Iran is real and has no obvious solution. But the real reason Israel is acting against its own self-interest, insulting its strongest supporter, refusing to honor the commitments it made not only to the United States but to all four members of “the Quartet,” and refusing to face up to the situation it has created for itself is that its leaders have decided that peace is off the table.
Alterman laments that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government not only “has no interest” in peace talks, but “it is doing everything it can to undermine” them. His conclusion is that the only shot at peace left would be for “the United States and its allies to impose one.” (So now it’s okay for the US to impose our values on other nations, militarily if possible? It’s sometimes hard to keep track of the Left’s ever-shifting standards. But then, we shouldn’t be too surprised – Israel is a longtime boogeyman of Alterman’s.)
First, it’s noteworthy that Alterman himself admits that, not only is the Palestinian Authority not “in a position to enforce a peace agreement with Israel,” but also that “Hamas, which rules all but unopposed in Gaza,” wouldn’t accept one. If that’s the case, then what’s so outrageous about Israeli skepticism toward negotiation?
Second, Israel’s skepticism has not been reached lightly. Frank Gaffney has noted that they’ve tried playing nice. They’ve tried concession after concession from 1979 well past 2005, not the least of which was accepting the Oslo accords’ legitimization of Yasser Arafat. Every olive branch has been met with rockets and suicide bombings. As Gaffney puts it:
Unfortunately, there is now no basis for depicting such a policy as one in which Israel trades “land for peace.” Today, Israel is giving up land for war.
Third, while it may be comforting for some to believe that the key to peace is “stop being mean,” the fact is that the causes of Palestinian violence cannot be reduced to retaliation against Israeli offenses—not when the Palestinians keep electing Holocaust deniers who reject Israeli’s very right to exist, Palestinian state television boasts talking animals preaching anti-Semitism and jihad to children, and when the Palestinians themselves have repeatedly foregone their own statehood in favor of Israel’s destruction. (For more background on spin surrounding the conflict, check out F. Swemson’s March 6 NewsReal post.)
The Left seems to have taken the old childhood lessons about being the bigger person and not giving bullies the fight they want to a dangerous extreme. What might be fine for the playground becomes suicidal when applied to the real world of international relations. No meaningful peace or negotiations are possible until the Palestinians reach a consensus for Israel’s right to exist and against the jihadists in their midst. In the absence of that, Israel cannot be expected to defend itself in a halfhearted, politically-correct fashion, but should settle for nothing less than such a consensus and the destruction of Hamas and Hezbollah. Daniel Pipes has it exactly right:
What Israel needs is not hectoring about its residential housing policies but an American ally that encourages it to win its war against the irredentist Palestinians of both Fatah and Hamas.
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Hailing from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, Calvin Freiburger is a political science major at Hillsdale College. He also blogs at the Hillsdale Forum and his personal website, Calvin Freiburger Online.
Pay compensation to the Arabs, and expel them from Israel proper, the West Bank and Gaza. Unconditional surrender by the Arabs is the only way to end the violence, just as it was the only way to end WWII.
Zionists chose Palestine to colonise because the natives were so gentle. They set about beating and robbing them, and have carried on ever since. Arafat and the Palestinians even accepted the Green Line, well beyond what anyone intended, back in the mid-80s, and they signed up to it at Oslo. Israel simply wants more.
However, it's not the still-feeble retaliation that spells the end of Israel, it's that nobody is prepared to move there any more, while more and more are leaving.
In 1900 Jerusalem was 60% Jewish. Maybe that was 'why Israel?'
Gentle? Gentle? Honor killing were and still occur. The 1911 Arab massacre of Jews on land they purchased. Remember, many Muslims believe they are superior to the infidels, and want us dead.
When was this 'golden age' of Arab tolerance of Jews in Israel?
Not 1948-1967, a time of horrific terrorism (grammar schools attacked). Not 1920-1947 (1929 lynchings, 1930's lynchings of Jews), not before WWI (2005 was the 100th anniversary of Gaza becoming Arab when all the Jews in Gaza were lynched). Not 1800-1900 (Lynchings in Jerusalem, Aleppo, etc).
Arabs have been lynching Jews in Israel for hundreds of years. Only new thing is the jews now defend themselves.
We all know the Jooooooo's are not very bright. But even they recognize getting kicked by the US State Department as less than friendly.
“The Jews are God’s chosen people.”
as will many who fear them!
The prophet Zechariah warned that anyone who decides to tackle the problem of Jerusalem will be "cut in pieces." This week, we'll assess where America stands 17 years on from the signing of The Oslo Accords and the beginning of our earnest meddling in Israel's affairs.
I'll be watching
Fred,
Jews not bright? Jews comprise approximately 2% of the world's population, but a huge number are Nobel Laureates. Peruse the list: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judai...
….Do we really need another Arab State, and is Israel reallly trying to take over the Middle East? Did you know that Israel could fit into Florida SEVEN times!
Land Mass Comparisons…
Israel=20,770 km ~vs~ Arab World =13,486,861 km
How can the 13 plus million Jews in the world (almost 5 million fewer than they were in 1939!) be blamed for the problems of the 300 million Arabs, who have brotherly ties to 1.4 billion Muslims worldwide?
For over decades, since she became a nation in 1948, Israel has sought peaceful coexistence with neighbors dedicated to her destruction. Any peace-making must be at the negotiating table and not upon an autopsy table!
The Arab's Islam's Koran, commands Muslims to force the entire planet to submit to literal control by Islam. The Jewish Torah in promises the children of Israel a modest and reasonable allotment of land.
Israel is an oasis of Western Democracy and Judeo/Christian morality in the middle of an otherwise totalitarian Arab/Muslim Middle East.
Surrounded by 22 Arab countries and some very nasty Arab Islamic terrorist organizations; Israel is one of the tiniest nations on the face of the earth and has had no other choice than to fight to protect it's land given as a promise.
Arab propagandists call Israel "expansionist" and the "aggressor" against all Arab peoples. For those unfamiliar with the Arab interpretation of "aggressor," it means one who dares fight back against Arab aggression!! So even though Israel may have fought only defensive wars, the mere fact that she resisted total destruction is viewed as an "act of aggression." That's a case of wacky logic but, unfortunately, Israel doesn't have the luxury of picking her enemies!
Its funny how Jewish organization do not mind Israel being a Nationalistic Jewish state and even insisit on it being regognized as such but do want America to have a nation with an identity. In America they wamt multi-culturalism and support mass immigration and refuse to allow any White nationalist movements. But allow that for Jews.