FresnoZionism.org — ציונות פרסנו

A state, especially one that is trying to be a nation-state, a national homeland for a people, needs an organizing principle, a set of ideals, an ideology, a purpose — whatever you think it is, some kind of philosophical reason for being. Otherwise there is no reason to live there if you can go somewhere else. And in the developed world, going somewhere else is more of an option than ever before.

Israel’s worst enemies have powerful ideologies — Islamism and Palestinian nationalism/irredentism.

Even the US, a secular state with a very diverse population has such principles, embodied in its Constitution and Declaration of Independence. They are one reason that the nation survived, in united form, its terrible Civil War, and why — one hopes — it will survive the forces trying to pull it apart today.

Despite being the nation-state of the Jewish people, the state of Israel does not have a set of basic unifying principles. There isn’t a single Zionism, and for some Israelis, any form of Zionism at all is looked at as a combination of ignorance and gullibility.

The early struggle to define the state was won by the secular left-wing Zionists of whom Ben-Gurion was an example. Unfortunately that segment was seduced by and ultimately subsumed in the peace movement, a movement based on a pathologically false view of reality, and encouraged by the worst enemies of the Jewish people. Its collision with the bitter truths of the real Middle East has left in their camp only those who have rejected Zionism, the academics and Ha’aretz columnists who are simply anti-state.

The remnants of political vitality are found today on the Right, especially the nationalistic-religious segment. For example, here is how Naftali Bennett explained it, in a fascinating interview with Ari Shavit of Ha’aretz:

Zionism arose thanks to secularism … The dogmatic religious establishment in the Diaspora was not capable of initiating Zionism without [Theodor] Herzl’s secular involvement. But secular Zionism was an existential Zionism that saw the state of the Jews as a refuge state.

A state that is 64 years old cannot continue to exist on the ethos of a refuge state, on security alone. After all, if this were the reason for our existence, there are many places that are safer for Jews – like Melbourne, Australia, or New Jersey. They don’t send children to the army there, and missiles aren’t flying there. Therefore, the time has come to move from the existential Zionism that you come from to a Jewish Zionism. It is necessary to base our national life on a Jewish basis, and it is necessary to give the state a Jewish coloration.

I don’t support religious coercion, but I do believe that Judaism is our ‘why’: Judaism is the reason for our existence and the justification for our existence, and the meaning of our existence.

This isn’t an easy sell to secular Israelis. For many of them, ‘Judaism’ is a corrupt functionary that tells them that they aren’t Jewish enough to get married in a Jewish state, or a haredi who maintains a large family on welfare, doesn’t do army service and spits at secular women.

The ideal is a tolerant Jewish state which is nevertheless fully Jewish. This will have to come from those, like Bennett, who see themselves as observant, and not from the liberal side of Judaism, which has embraced pluralism to the point of accepting a universalist ideology that does not “distinguish between Israel and the Nations.”

Is it possible? I am not sure, but I think it’s essential to our survival.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Zionism, Naftali Bennett

Two new polls are being widely quoted in the media as showing that Israelis — even voters for  right-wing parties — want to make a two-state deal with the Palestinians. For example, Barak Ravid writes in Ha’aretz [subscription],

Two opinion surveys conducted by different Israeli pollsters in December show that most Likud-Beiteinu and the further-right Habayit Hayehudi voters would support a peace agreement establishing a demilitarized Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, Israel’s retention of major settlement blocs and a division of Jerusalem. The two polls also revealed that two thirds of all Israelis support such an agreement…

The Abraham Center commissioned parallel polls from Mina Tzemach’s Dahaf and from pollster Rafi Smith on the Israeli public’s views about peace with the Palestinians. The firms were aware of each other’s polls. Each poll asked one question: If the government of Israel presented a public referendum on a peace agreement that would end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to be implemented only after the Palestinians held up all the obligations at their end, especially the war on terror, and the United States approved of the agreement, would you support it or not?

The principles of the agreement as presented to respondents were for two states – Israel for the Jewish people and Palestine for the Palestinians, with Palestinian refugees having the right to return only to their new country. The Palestinian state would be demilitarized and its boundaries would be based on the 1967 lines with exchanges of equal-sized territory. Those exchanges would take into consideration Israel’s security needs and would retain the large settlement blocs in Israeli hands…

When it came to the general public, Mina Tzemach’s poll revealed that 67 percent supported such an agreement and 21 percent opposed it, while Rafi Smith’s poll showed 68 percent in favor and 25 percent against. The surveys found that the general public’s support for the agreement rose to 75 percent (Dahaf ) and 80 percent (Rafi Smith ) when augmented by various other “improvements” such as a defense alliance with the United Sates, disarmament of Hamas and an end to its rule in Gaza, and Arab states’ willingness to enact full diplomatic relations with Israel.

Does this mean, as the Left suggests, that it is the intransigence of the Netanyahu government that is holding Israel back from making peace? Does it mean that with a little more pressure from the US, such an agreement is possible?

Of course not. What it means is that Israelis really, really want peace and most would give up territory in return, if peace were attainable by doing so.

The poll question presumes that the PLO state would be demilitarized and the Palestinians would “hold up all their obligations [first].” How demilitarization could be enforced and how the Palestinians could be prevented from violating the agreement — as they have violated almost every agreement they made with Israel since 1993 — are not specified. As for the idea that Hamas would disarm and give up control of Gaza, it’s far more likely that Hamas will end up in control of Judea and Samaria too.

In addition to the practical issues above, the question assumes that the Palestinians would sincerely agree to Israel retaining the settlement blocs, to demilitarization, to abandoning their demand for ‘right of return’, to recognizing Israel as the state of the Jewish people, etc., when they have consistently rejected these ideas when presented as concrete peace proposals. Polls among Palestinians consistently show that they support violent ‘resistance’ until Israel has been replaced by an Arab state.

An acquaintance called this an “if pigs could fly poll.” There is as little chance of the conditions being fulfilled as there being a porcine airlift, so it has no real-world application, except insofar as it shows that even right-wing Israelis dream of peace. But we knew that.

Yet another recent poll, also conducted by Dr. Mina Tzemach, showed that 83% of Israelis believe that withdrawal to pre-1967 boundaries wouldn’t bring peace. That is why they vote for the Likud and rightward.

So why the flying pigs? The Ha’aretz article linked above helps us understand:

The polls were commissioned by the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace in Washington D.C. Abraham, who made his fortune with Slim-Fast diet products, is considered a major contributor and close to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He is also known to be close to President Shimon Peres and to former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. However, Abraham has met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on almost every visit to Israel over the past four years.

The Abraham Center is headed by former Congressman Robert Wexler, who is close to President Barack Obama and was very active in the latter’s recent presidential campaign. According to one assessment, Wexler may be appointed to a senior position in the Obama administration in the coming months.

It tells us that the Obama Administration has not given up on its plan to create a Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, and to divide Jerusalem. Just wait: the poll will be presented as ‘proof’ that the majority of Israelis want it to!

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinians, polls

We are often warned about the dangers of the “extreme right” in Israel — as Thomas Friedman called them, those who “actually want to annex the West Bank.” I presume that Friedman was referring to people like Naftali Bennett, who has made a proposal to annex Area C — the parts of Judea and Samaria where almost all the Jewish residents and few Arabs live.

Even Daniel Gordis, who — unlike Friedman — actually cares about Israel’s future, has suggested that Israeli voters should beware of, er, excessive Zionism, because it could lead to the isolation and ultimate destruction of the Jewish state. In a recent article, Gordis presents a ‘good’ and a ‘bad’ scenario for the Israel of 2063. In the ‘bad’ one,

European hostility to Israel never subsided, and successive Israeli governments turned irritating both the EU and the US into a national sport. In response to repeated European and American demands that building projects cease, the government assured Israelis, “They’ll learn to live with it. We just have to show them we can’t be bullied.”

Germany changed the rules first. Lufthansa stopped flying to Israel, and a year later, Germany refused El Al landing rights. After subsequent dustups, Air France and France followed suit, as did British Airways and the UK. Soon, the only way to get to Europe was by sea. Israelis could still fly to Turkey, though.

Both Friedman and Gordis seem to be saying that Israel must not defy the Europeans and Obama Administration on the issue of Israel’s rights in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem. By playing along — despite the fact that an excellent case can be made for the legality of Jewish settlement in these places — Israel can avoid potentially disastrous punishment.

There are two problems with this position, one philosophical and the other practical. The philosophical problem is that it represents an abdication of sovereignty, the sovereignty that Jews have been fighting and dying to preserve since the beginning of the Zionist enterprise. It represents a return to the ghetto mentality by which Jewish survival was dependent on the good will of the local gentile prince. Once we agree to the principle, where does it stop?

The practical problem is that the immediate objective of the EU and the Obama administration is the reduction of Israel to the 1949 armistice lines (the so-called “pre-67 borders” which actually were never considered borders by anyone). It is not for nothing that Abba Eban referred to these boundaries as “Auschwitz borders,” because they would be a strategic disaster. Whether you take Naftali Bennett seriously or not, you should look at the illustrations in his proposal. Here’s one of them:

Both the US and the EU do not accept Israeli sovereignty over any part of Jerusalem — the US State Department continues to insist that until there is an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, Israel’s capital is not Jerusalem (they won’t say what it is). Many European countries (and the EU’s Foreign Minister Catherine Ashton) are prepared to talk with with a Palestinian ‘government’ that includes Hamas. The EU’s oft-stated position is that any Israeli settlements beyond the Green Line are “illegal under international law.” How can Israel play along with a policy that calls for the expulsion of half a million Jews from their homes?

And this is only the immediate objective. What can we expect next, that the EU will require Israel to grant a ‘right of return’ to 4.5 million descendants of Arab refugees before it will welcome what’s left of Israel into the family of nations?

The EU’s positions can only be expected to harden in the future, as its Muslim population grows. Although it’s harder to predict the behavior of the US in the long run, there are worrisome indications today — like Obama’s floating of a possible nomination for the anti-Israel Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense.

A policy of appeasing the US and EU can only aid the Arabs in their project to weaken Israel and slice away at it, bit by bit. A better plan is to stand firm and insist on Israel’s legitimate rights — to stay off the slippery slope.

Technorati Tags: Israel

I am not one who thinks that only Israelis have the right to comment about Israel. After all, I’m an American and I write about it all the time. But I do think that foreigners should at least pay attention to what Israelis think when forming their opinions, and even more so when proposing ‘solutions’. After all, Israelis are the ones who suffer the consequences of outside meddling.

Can there be a worse example than Thomas L. Friedman of the NY Times? Recently he wrote,

Israel’s friends need to understand that the center-left in Israel is dying. The Israeli election in January will bring to power Israeli rightists who never spoke at your local Israel Bonds dinner. These are people who want to annex the West Bank. Bibi Netanyahu is a dove in this crowd. The only thing standing between Israel and national suicide any more is America and its willingness to tell Israel the truth. [emphasis in original]

It’s hard to imagine a more arrogant attitude! For Friedman’s information, Israel is a democracy, and if right-wing politicians are elected, it is — gasp — because Israelis voted for them. And probably the single most important issue driving votes today — not the only issue, by any means, but the most important — is security.

Israelis have finally realized what a bill of goods they were sold in 1993, when they were suckered into the Oslo agreements. They experienced the Second Intifada, and the results of the ill-advised withdrawal from Gaza. Most of them now understand that security does not lie in surrendering territory near Israel’s population centers to those who want to kill them.

They also are coming to understand that they don’t have to allow antisemitic Europe and Saudi-influenced America to to define the borders of the Jewish state and its capital. Some even believe that the 19-year Jordanian occupation of Judea and Samaria, including eastern Jerusalem, did not magically render these areas forbidden to Jews. And the fact that “Palestinians want these areas for their future state,” as we constantly read in news reports, is not an argument for giving them up.

Friedman and other ‘friends’ of Israel believe that they know better, recycling the ideology of the Israeli Left that Israelis themselves have rejected out of harsh experience. They are either ignorant of reality, or their objective is not that Israel should survive and thrive — but something else.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Thomas L. Friedman

Naftali Bennett

If someone tells you that all of your property belongs to him, and he will get it and dispossess you no matter how long it takes, then would you suggest that he take half of it now in the name of peace?

I am always confused when what the US and European media constantly refer to as Israel’s ‘hardline, right-wing’ government says that it is committed to a ‘two-state solution’ with the PLO as partner — the PLO that has murdered more Jews than any organization since the Nazi party. What is so ‘hardline’ about this?

The government is called ‘hardline’ because it has announced that it will permit construction of apartments for Jews in places like E1 that are under complete Israeli control, according to the Oslo Agreements (even though the PLO showed its contempt for those agreements by unilaterally turning to the UN for recognition as a ‘state’), and in its capital.

But since the PLO wants all of those places to be part of its Jew-free state (the media, normally hypersensitive to the slightest breath of racism, never seem to notice this), then these announcements are considered ‘obstacles to peace’.

The biggest obstacle to peace, of course, is the Palestinian intention to establish an Arab state from the river to the sea.

In 1993 the Israeli Left managed to con the government into letting the PLO return, and since then, the rapidly diminishing Left (now pretty much confined to some academics and members of the Ha’aretz editorial board) has been joined by the Europeans and the US in an effort to force Israel to implement the first stage of the PLO conquest by giving up Judea and Samaria and half of its capital.

The US and Europeans are affected by economic pressure from Arab oil producers, the political muscle of Europe’s growing Muslim population, the entrenched Saudi influence in the US, and plain old Jew hatred. The Israeli Left, such as it is, is either paid off — leftist NGOs are financed by the Europeans and the US-based NIF — or suffer from terminal cases of the Oslo Syndrome.

I’ve explained over and over again that the “two-state” solution is not a solution to anything — rather it would be a security disaster — and that there is no reason to make any concessions to the Palestinians as long as their oft-stated goal remains ending the Jewish state.

Everyone who understands the situation knows this. Certainly the Netanyahu government knows it better than most. So why does it continue to pay lip service to the destructive idea that peace could be had through concessions to the PLO?

In a piece about Naftali Bennett of the Jewish Home party — who is considered more ‘hardline right-wing’ than Netanyahu –  David Horovitz notes,

[Bennett] charged that the policy of Netanyahu’s government on settlements and the Palestinians is “schizophrenic” — by which he apparently meant that the prime minister talks a lot about major expansion of building beyond the Green Line, while also insisting he wants to move forward with the Palestinians, positions that manage to annoy the international community, the Palestinians, the settlers and just about everybody else in between.

Is it right-wing extremism to expect consistency? I don’t think so.

It’s time to dump the obligatory genuflection to the need for a Palestinian state, and get on with building the Jewish one.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinians, two-state solution, Naftali Bennett