Israel Matzav

Had Rabin lived

In The Corner, Jonah Goldberg cites an email from a reader

So far today, Bill [Clinton] has essentially blamed the Israelis for the lack of Middle East peace - in an aside from a genuinely ridiculous comment about how he'd take Hillary into the foxhole (saying that if Rabin were alive, there would be Middle East peace)

and then expands on it:

You know, that's a good point about Rabin and peace in the Middle East. Clinton's in effect saying if only Israel had followed the policies Rabin would have followed Hamas, Hezbollah and the rest of that misunderstood gang would have gladly made peace with Israel. That's really gross when you think about it.

What Jonah may not realize is that a lot of Israelis think exactly the same way - that if an assassin's bullet had not cut down Yitzchak Rabin, we would have peace today. The alleged assassin isn't reviled by most Israelis for murdering Rabin as much as he is reviled for murdering the 'peace process.' That's what we sometimes refer to here as Rabin's legacy.

I don't believe that there would be peace if Rabin were alive today. I do believe that a lot of Israelis who have been murdered over the past seven years would be still be alive if Rabin were alive today. Rabin would not have gone nearly as far in making 'concessions' to the 'Palestinians' as any of his successors.

Rabin had a revulsion for Arafat that was not shared by several of his successors. Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak treated Arafat as a partner and especially in Peres' case had warm relations with him (Barak's relations with Arafat went rapidly downhill after Camp David but Barak never let that get in the way of 'concessions' to the 'Palestinians' either - see Taba).

Olmert treats Abu Mazen much like Peres treated Arafat. He slobbers all over him.

Sharon hated Arafat but went ahead with 'concessions' - and worse - to the 'Palestinians' anyway. Sharon never believed in what he was doing, but he was desperate to keep himself and his sons out of jail.

Netanyahu, the slick politician, was smart enough to keep Arafat at a distance and to insist on reciprocity in all of his dealings with the 'Palestinians.' That's why he gave them the least of any Prime Minister in the last fifteen years.

But among all of the Prime Ministers we've had in the last fifteen years, it was only Rabin who had a visceral hatred for Arafat. He believed he had to deal with the 'Palestinians' because that's what his Labor party constituency wanted, but he held them in utter contempt. He would not have brought peace because at some point, he would have stopped giving them what they wanted until the 'Palestinians' cleaned up their act. (Rumor has it that he was reaching that point when he was killed). The 'Palestinians' are incapable of cleaning up their act.

And no one else is or has been capable of bringing us peace with the 'Palestinians' since then either. The 'Palestinians' don't want peace and they don't want a state. They want us dead and our state destroyed.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:08 AM