Israel Matzav: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it

David Isaac finds some unfortunate parallels between the Netanyahu government's unwillingness to acknowledge that the Obama administration is not the 'most pro-Israel ever' and Chaim Weizmann's (pictured) unwillingness to bring Israel's problems with the British out into the open (Hat Tip: Dan F).

But the real problem with the Israeli government’s approach is that it focuses on what goes on behind the scenes as opposed to what’s happening on the world stage.

What we see, and what the Arabs see, isn’t the secret cooperation, which, as Glick points out, isn’t that cooperative, and as Mr. Sisco points out, isn’t all that beneficent. Instead, the world sees a president who tells Israel to get back to the 1949 Armistice lines and tells the Palestinian Arabs that they have the right to a “sovereign and contiguous state,” a proposal that would split Israel in two.

From the start of his presidency, Obama has sent a clear message, starting with his first major policy address on the Middle East in Cairo, where he speechified about how Palestinian Arabs “endure the daily humiliations – large and small – that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. And America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.”

It’s odd that that a president ‘who has done more for Israel than any other’ should have nothing to say about the suffering of Israelis at the hands of the Arabs. Yet, the Israeli government wants us to believe that relations are excellent – albeit secretly excellent.

It is a political error that Jewish leaders have made before and with predictably awful results. The prime example of this approach is Dr. Chaim Weizmann’s leadership of the Zionist movement during the inter-war years. From the start of the British conquest of Palestine, there began a deterioration of British-Jewish relations. Dr. Weizmann chose to support the British publicly and deal with any problems privately. Vladimir Jabotinsky, who would eventually establish a rival Zionist movement, warned him repeatedly to take the matter to the court of public opinion.

In a letter dated Jan. 22, 1919, Jabotinsky wrote: “…Arab impudence is growing daily. No forty-eight hours pass but some inciting speech is heard in Ramleh, concluding in a call to the ‘Arab sword’… [I]f all this exceeds certain limits I shall be forced either to resign altogether or to see to it that the cry of Palestine shall be heard in Europe.”

Weizmann, however, only expressed satisfaction with the British in public. As Shmuel writes in “Lone Wolf: A biography of Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky” (Barricade Books, 1996):
[The British military administrators] having assured themselves of an accommodating attitude from the outstanding Zionist leader Weizmann, they were able without major effort also to manipulate their pro-Zionist masters in London into broad acquiescence, or resignation, to their anti-Zionist actions.

Weizmann did from time to time, in letters and private conversations, complain bitterly about their behavior, but was careful not to cause them public embarrassment.
Weizmann had many opportunities to change course. In “Lone Wolf”, Shmuel writes that, following the 1929 Arab riots:
No moment could have been more propitious for the Zionists, even while mourning the dead, to launch a supreme effort, visible equally to the Jewish people, to the British public and to the world at large, to translate the agonies and pent-up bitterness of the Yishuv into a political offensive for exposing British encouragement as the prime cause of Arab violence; and for demanding a full reinstatement of Britain’s obligations to the Jewish people under the mandate.
Unfortunately, the Zionist leadership had for so long remained silent about the problems with the British that it couldn’t announce its dissatisfaction. As Shmuel writes:
It was morally impossible for the incumbent Zionist leadership suddenly to challenge the British government. It was itself too vulnerable. It could, of course, correctly blame the government for not foreseeing the campaign of Arab violence; but had it itself warned the government and aroused public opinion to the danger? Had it not repeatedly pronounced itself “satisfied” with the situation in Palestine and its relations with the government as “excellent”?
Just like the Zionist leadership of the past, Netanyahu’s government is too timid to make waves and, thus, lets things go from bad to worse.