Israel Matzav

Why the demonstrations happened on Sunday

Professor Mordechai Kedar (remember him)?writes that he has been warning for years about demonstrations like Sunday's, but there are specific reasons why they are happening now, some of which are not connected with the 'Arab spring.'

[W]hen Israel’s enemies see it compromising its core “principles” under external pressure, and realize its “red lines” are at most pale pink, hope rises that further pressure will be rewarded with further concessions; strong pressure from the refugees, for instance, will bring war-weary Israelis to give up on that point, too.

Israel’s image today – despite the Second Lebanon War in 2006 and Operation Cast Lead in 2008-9 – is that of a weak, wimpy state, a state that can be nailed to the global cross by Richard Goldstone, a state where announcing plans to build 1,600 homes in Jerusalem is enough to raise the ire of the current resident of the White House. Its neighboring countries are certain that Israeli society – especially the elite living in ostensibly hedonist, pacifist, post-Zionist Tel Aviv – will sell out all that it once held sacred in return for peace and quiet on Shenkin Street, because it has lost the will to fight.

At the same time, in the eyes of the rest of the world, Israel is becoming a leprous country – thanks to classical anti-Semitism amplified by European guilt over the evils of the Holocaust and colonialism. (It is always easier to beat the Jew’s breast in contrition than one’s own.) Israel is therefore expected to never resort to force against the unarmed “returnees”; those are the means used by the likes of Libya’s Gaddafi and Syria’s Assad.

Sunday’s events are not the last word. The dynamic in the Middle East is one of escalation and enhancement. Every person killed today is the martyr of tomorrow’s funeral, the funeral itself becoming a violent protest and its victims, in turn, the next day’s martyrs. Israel must thus be resolute on the one hand, but restrained and measured on the other, since a rising death toll will only exacerbate the situation.

We need to stand up for our own rights. No one else will.

Labels: Arab spring, Mordechai Kedar, Naqba day

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:53 AM