Former Labor MK excluded from 'Peace Now' conference because she opposes delegitimizing Israel
Former Labor party MK Einat Wilf was uninvited from a 'Peace Now' conference because in addition to supporting 'territorial compromise' with the 'Palestinians' she also
opposes delegitimizing Israel.
Several
weeks ago I was approached by Peace Now to speak at their annual
conference on a panel discussing whether international pressure on
Israel is necessary to promote peace. I was specifically told that my
point of view (which opposes such pressure and certainly the domestic
efforts to invite it) would be very appreciated in this discussion.
Yesterday, I received a call from the head of Peace
Now disinviting me. Even though Yariv Oppenheimer noted that he
personally did not want to disinvite me, he was outnumbered within his
own organization. The reason, he explained, was due to the fact I am a
member of the International Advisory Council of NGO Monitor (along with
other “human rights offenders” such as Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie
Wiesel and Alan Dershowitz). Putting aside the way in which dogmatic
thinking seems to blind people to the importance of good manners, and
the inability of those who preach tolerance to hear a point of view that
is not their own, I am issuing the following response:
"If the
Israeli Left has no place for those who support a two-state solution
and who also wage battle against those who seek to delegitimize Israel,
it will not return to lead the country. Leadership is not built through
self-flagellation. Defending Israel and Zionism can and should be part
of supporting peace and a two state solution. Israel is under attack for
its very legitimacy and the human-rights discourse serves various
groups to undermine the foundational idea of Zionism that the Jewish
People have a right to a sovereign state in their ancestral homeland. If
people, whose work for human rights is indisputable such as Elie Wiesel
and Alan Dershowitz, find it proper to fight against the demonization
of Israel, then I am proud to wage this battle with them."
So is Israel's suicidal Left intolerant or is its intolerant Left suicidal? Anyway, kudos to Wilf for having a brain unlike most of her colleagues on the Left.
Labels: Einat Wilf, Israel's suicidal Left, Israeli Left, Peace Now
The Israeli consensus
In Wednesday's New York Times, Tom Friedman called on Israel to find a way to '
securely cede' the 'West Bank' to the 'Palestinians.'
Friedman forgets that Israel is a democratic country. Most Israelis no longer believe that it is possible for Israel to '
securely cede' land to an Arab entity.
Israel has conducted extensive experiments with this concept, experiments that have cost about the same number of Israeli lives as September 11 took American lives. Since the population of the United States is approximately 40 times that of Israel you can calculate the impact of those costs.
After all, Israel already acted “to securely cede” (the split infinitive is Friedman’s) the Sinai to Egypt, with the result that this peace treaty is about to be abrogated. It tried to “securely cede” the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority, getting rockets and mortars and cross-border attacks in return. It also sought “to securely cede” southern Lebanon and got rockets and cross-border attacks. To see what would happen it acted “to securely cede” much of the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority and then received in return incitement to violence, terrorist attacks, and intransigence.
Might there be a pattern here?
Yes, it would be better to have a stable, two-state solution that ended the conflict and made Israel’s neighbors friendly. But here’s where the gap is between Israel and much of the Western political elites today:
We tried it and it didn’t work.
That is not a “right-wing” statement. It is an Israeli consensus statement. And even if Israel tries and tries again, this doesn’t mean that people don’t know that.
For those of you who doubt that the consensus position in Israel is that it's not possible to 'securely cede' land to any of the current Arab entities or a 'Palestinian state,' please allow me to show you a column that appeared in Wednesday's JPost.
The column is by Einat Wilf, who is a member of the Knesset from the Independence party - the same party that is led by
Ehud Barak. But Ms. Wilf is far more solicitous of reality than our defenseless Defense Minister.
Hope is generally considered a positive word, but if it prevents engagement with reality while living in suspended anticipation of some make-believe future that will never materialize, then it is neither positive nor helpful. Those who feed this hope do the cause of peace and Palestinian statehood no favor.
Zionism, unlike colonial movements, was a movement of people who were coming home. As such, it was not about exploiting the (nonexistent) resources of a foreign land, but about exploiting the only resources the Jewish people ever had – their own brains and ingenuity – in order to build one, literally from the ground up.
Building a country requires the mobilization of a people.
As long as the Palestinians continue to divert their own country-building resources into resisting Israel and hoping for its disappearance (and yes, hoping that Israel will become a country with a Jewish minority among Arabs is hoping for its disappearance), there will be no peace, and they will have no state.
And yet, should the Palestinians finally recognize that in creating the state of Israel, the Jewish people have come home, they will signal to the world, to Israel, and above all to themselves, that they have chosen to leave behind the siren call of resistance and are ready to get down to the remarkable, difficult and immensely rewarding task of building a state they can call their own.
Would Ms. Wilf want us to 'securely cede' land to a 'Palestinian' entity that has yet to recognize Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people? I doubt it.
Labels: Ehud Barak, Einat Wilf, securely cede territory, Tom Friedman
Winners and losers
Make sure to take a look at Shmuel
Rosner's list of winners and losers as a result of Ehud Barak's new
Atzmaut party splitting from Labor and staying in the coalition.
Labels: Atzmaut party, Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, Einat Wilf, Labor party, Tzipi Livni
Labor party splits
Ehud Barak and four other MK's from the Labor party have split off to form their own faction in the Knesset. The faction is called
Atzmaut (Independence).
Barak said that the faction's agenda will be "first of all the state, then the party, then the media, and only then ourselves." He vowed that he and Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilani, Agricultural Minister Shalom Simhon, Deputy Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor Orit Noked, and MK Einat Wilf would "do what's best and what's right for Israel."
"We are creating a new faction and we will call on everyone who believes in our path to join."
"We are leaving for a new path. We are leaving a home and people we love," Barak continued.
"It wasn't always healthy and good for Labor. We noticed a shift towards the Left and post-Zionism," Barak said.
"This isn't easy for me. [former prime minister Ariel] Sharon, [former prime minister David] Ben-Gurion, [President Shimon] Peres did it. I didn't think I would have to do it, but we are doing it. We are going to a new path," Barak explained.
Einat Wilf explained that the two parties ideologically cannot sit together anymore. "One party wants to be close to Meretz and one, that in the tradition of Mapai, sees itself as pragmatic.This party believes that threats to leave the coalition harm the diplomatic process," she said.
"We believe the best way to advance the process is with the current government. It's important that there be a leftist social party in Israel but it wasn't right for us," Wilf continued.
Later today, three cabinet ministers who are staying in the Labor party resigned from the cabinet (and the coalition): Industry and Trade Minister Fouad Ben Eliezer, Welfare Minister Yitzchak Herzog and Minister of Minorities Avishai Braverman. Earlier in the week, a fourth Labor MK, Daniel Ben Simon, had sought to leave the party and set up his own faction as a means of leaving the coalition.
You might think that Prime Minister Netanyahu would be upset about his shrinking coalition.
You'd be wrong.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was aware of the move and encouraged it, and his associates at the Prime Minister's Office even helped Barak plan it. Labor's senior ministers - Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, Isaac Herzog and Avishay Braverman - were surprised by the announcement.
"The split will create an island of stability, a small and consolidated group within the coalition," said a source close to Netanyahu.
According to estimates, Barak decided to split the party in order to avoid having to quit the coalition.
Netanyahu ends up with a coalition of 66 out of 120 (actually comparatively good by Israeli standards) and he no longer is under the threat of a large party quitting the government over lack of progress in the 'peace process.' The flip side is that if either Yisrael Beiteinu or Shas were to quit, Netanyahu would no longer have a majority.
What could go wrong?
And for those of you wondering what the difference between Atzmaut and Kadima is, the answer is that Kadima is stuck with Tzipi Livni and her enormous ego, and Atzmaut has Ehud Barak and his.
Labels: Atzmaut party, Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, Einat Wilf, Labor party, Tzipi Livni
