Israel's great divider
The only blog comment I've read all day on Saturday night's Rabin memorial in Tel Aviv is Treppenwitz, and he wasn't even there. But he managed to put his finger on what irks so many of us about this annual event.In an annual memorial event that is supposed to be an opportunity to encourage unity and help heal old wounds, Peres (as keynote speaker) got up and offered the following gems:In the same post, David discusses Peres' polar opposite: RivkA Matitya a"h (peace be upon her). If Peres is the great divider, RivkA was the great uniter. Saturday night's funeral included people from all walks of Israeli life: From Hasidim in long, black coats and hats to kids in t-shirts and jeans, from women with every hair on their head covered to women in pants and short sleeves, and just about everyone in between. It's a pity that Peres didn't spend Saturday night in Jerusalem learning how to unite people instead of spending it in Tel Aviv dividing them."In this square they killed Yitzhak [Rabin], they tried to kill peace...we are more determined than the enemies of peace and we will be victorious." [emphasis mine] ... “It is completely obvious that Rabin didn’t believe that a Jewish state must require discrimination against the Arab minority; or for the state to be controlled by the religious.” [emphasis mine]In the first quote Peres willfully ignores the fact that Rabin was killed by a lone gunman... not the entire right wing of Israel's political spectrum. Then after dividing the country along political lines with his first quote, he goes on to neatly split the country again, this time along religious lines.
It was always my understanding that the president of Israel is supposed to unite the country, not dabble in party politics. But in our present state of war (what else can you call it when the only thing everyone agrees upon is the need for peace?), how dare he help the enemy by neatly dividing the country against itself?!
In his call for a two state solution as Rabin's legacy, Peres conveniently ignored the fact that in all the speeches delivered in the weeks before he was killed, Rabin made it crystal clear that he opposed the creation of a Palestinian State. When pressed to describe what he did envision for the Palestinians, Rabin used the words "something less than a state".
Every year when I make these points and ask people to remember that the religious right did not kill Rabin, somebody invariably responds that, yes, it was Yigal Amir who pulled the trigger, but that it was the violent rhetoric of the religious right which pushed him to do so. And every year I call bullsh*t on such tripe.
Read the whole thing.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:41 AM
2 Comments:
All over the world, "peaceniks" think that the best way to make peace in the Middle East is to show extreme hatred for one side: Israel.
I've wondered for a long time how they think they can get two sides to have a better relationship by blasting one side and not the other.
I think it all comes down to the left wing and their "beautiful souls" that they try to advertise to the rest of the world.
They indicate to our enemies: "See? We are the enlightened. We hate Israel as much as you do. You can lay down your hate because we'll carry the banner for you. Aren't we nice? Make a deal with us."
They expect our enemies to fall into their arms and say, "Well, we've been bad in some ways too." Then they're all supposed to have a good cry together before signing a deal.
The problem is that when "peaceniks" tell our enemies how horrid Israel is, our enemies simply agree and vow all the harder not to budge from their non-starter demands by a single centimeter.
Peres is trying to tell our enemies that Israel's peace camp is enlightened and shares a common enemy with the "Palestinians": Israel's right wing and Israel's religious Jews.
America's "peaceniks" do this, too. It's a problem with people who see themselves as "enlightened."
They are indeed dividers.
No one in Israel cares about Peres. I don't know the last time any one took him seriously. Oslo is dead and there will be no peace in the Middle East in our lifetime.
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