Ari Shavit swings and misses
In discussing comments by former Mossad director Meir Dagan (pictured) at Tel Aviv University last week, Haaretz columnist Ari Shavit comes up with this: My gut feeling is that Dagan was absolutely right about the Palestinian issue. What we see today is not only Israeli diplomatic paralysis. What we see is Israeli diplomatic failure. In the bunker in Jerusalem they still don't understand this. But Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has roundly beaten Netanyahu. Abbas has corralled Israel's prime minister to the abyss. At first he took terror out of the Israel-Palestinian equation and thus garnered sweeping international support. Then he maneuvered Israel toward the settlement front, where it has no chance. Finally, he moved the battle from negotiations to the United Nations.Oops.
Thus, in three brilliant moves, Abbas forced a diplomatic checkmate on Netanyahu. He took advantage of Israel's lack of initiative to push it to the wall.
Labels: Ari Shavit, Meir Dagan
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:17 PM
1 Comments:
"swings and misses"?! Wow! I'd say that Shavit did worse than that. He fanned the air on the first three wild pitches and struck out spectacularly.
Remarkable excerpts: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are not as crazy as some tend to present them." I'd say that these two can only be seen as crazy by those who themselves refuse to see the reality of Palestinian/Arab intransigence and near total Oslo compliance failure. PM Netanyahu's speech to Congress was a masterpiece of reality, reason and a clear, forceful presentation of rationality, decency and non-wishful-thinking-non-liberal-denial-of-reality. Failure to please one's enemies who wish one's destruction is not "crazy".
"Abbas has corralled Israel's prime minister to the abyss. At first he took terror out of the Israel-Palestinian equation and thus garnered sweeping international support." Making slight, superficial pretenses is hardly taking terror out of their equation.
"Dagan believes that if the question of a state is separated from the issue of borders, a two-state situation will emerge that will serve both the Israelis and the Palestinians. Negotiations to be conducted between the two states, with the help of the Saudis, will eventually determine the borders." Dagan may believe that, or Shavit may do so, and want to purport that Dagan does also.
However, if Israel had a real partner for peace, as eloquently defined by Netanyahu to Congress and the American people, all could and should be resolved in one comprehensive peace conference and treaty. If Israel does not have a real partner for peace -which it doesn't- allowing a Palestinian state (or reichlet, as Carl succinctly puts it) without clearly defining borders and other Palestinian commitments, would IMO be unwise to the point of feckless stupidity on Israel's part. Comprehensively pinning the Palestinians down on borders, security commitments, etc. in a settlement also receiving general global recognition seems to me the only safe, rational way to go. And, given general Arab intransigence and unwillingness to recognize the Jewish State of Israel, it's just impossible to see that happening in the foreseeable future.
Post a Comment
<< Home