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.
What could go wrong?
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, British Mandate, Chaim Weitzmann, Zev Jabotinsky
Liberal Jews embrace reincarnation: The 'peace process' never dies
I received this by email:
“As long as the Arabs feel that there is the least hope of getting rid of us, they will refuse to give up this hope in return for either kind words or for bread and butter, because they are not a rabble, but a living people. And when a living people yields in matters of such a vital character it is only when there is no longer any hope of getting rid of us, because they can make no breach in the iron wall.”
---Vladimir Jabotinsky, The Iron Wall, 1923
There is an interesting pattern (call it a leitmotif) that typically runs through the writing of Jewish liberals like Jeffrey Goldberg, who today provides us with a prime specimen right here.
Be it the murder of infants in their bed, or Abbas’s fabrication of history in the New York Times on Tuesday, every Arab assault on Israel is just another reason both sides need to try harder to reach an “agreement.” Goldberg adheres closely to this liberal protocol. He begins on a promising note by devoting about the first 65% of his essay gently exposing the “contradictions” in Abbas’s vicious lie. But that formality is just a tease in the run-up to the standard-issue liberal sales pitch, which in Goldberg’s iteration goes something like this:
“There is no particular reason to hope for a successful peace process when the leader of the Palestinians is selling a false history of Israel's independence... Mahmoud Abbas cannot bring himself to note that the Jews accepted the partition plan, while the Arabs rejected it, and went to war to extinguish the new Jewish state in the cradle, and then lost their offensive war.”
Yet:
“Mahmoud Abbas.... could be president of an independent state of Palestine on the West Bank and Gaza with a capital in Jerusalem. If only he -- and, of course, Prime Minister Netanyahu -- could find a way to avoid rehearsing old grievances and instead work toward a future in which both parties don't get all that they want, but get enough to live.” (Sigh. If only.)
What cloying condescension! - especially to the proud Muslim Arab standing atop 1300 years of real history that commands him to hate and subjugate the Jews.
Sadly, this is the canned sound effect an obsessed (but sincere) Jewish peace processor produces in order to stay on the liberal kibbutz and still sound like a sane man. In the final analysis, though, the only thing separating the liberal Jeffrey Goldberg from the extremist Tony Kushner is the theatrics they employ before the curtain comes down on Israel in the last act.
Maybe that’s why the “peace process” is a perennial crowd pleaser. It’s the triumph of sweet fantasy over bitter experience.
Dan Friedman
NYC
Indeed. The picture at the top is Zev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky.
Labels: liberal Jews, Middle East peace process, Zev Jabotinsky
Kahane and Jabotinsky were right
Whatever you think (or thought) of Rabbi Meir Kahane HY"D (may God avenge his blood), is there anyone who can deny this is true? (Hat Tip:
Dan F).
When the Israeli Arab is told to rise for his national anthem, “Hatikvah” (the hope), and sing of “the Jewish soul yearning” and “the hope of 2,000 years,” can he be expected to feel empathy? ... the song’s motif of Jewish longing for Israel is not acceptable to Israel’s Arabs. When the Israeli Arabs looks upon the happy revelers on Israeli Independence Day, celebrating, in effect, the Arab defeat and the displacement of an Arab majority of Palestine by a Jewish majority of Israel, can he be seriously expected to join us? When, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, the Law of Return opens the gates “for Jewish immigration,” and not Arab influx, for the cousins of the residents of Tel Aviv and not those of Nazareth, is it surprising that the Arab feels alienated from the state?
--Rabbi Meir Kahane (OBM), 1981
And then there's this from Zev Jabotinsky, the mentor of the Likud, including Menachem Begin and Binyamin Netanyahu's father:
As long as the Arabs feel that there is the least hope of getting rid of us, they will refuse to give up this hope for either kind words or bread and butter.
-Vladimir Jabotinsky (OBM), The Iron Wall, 1923
Labels: Rabbi Meir Kahane, Zev Jabotinsky
A fine Jewish tradition
Rick Richman points out that when Sarah Palin criticized Israelis for '
constantly apologizing,' she was repeating a criticism made by
Zeev Jaobotinsky in the
pre-State period.
Palin probably knew her question reflected a profound historical echo, from a famous essay by Ze’ev Jabotinsky entitled “Instead of Excessive Apology:”We constantly and very loudly apologize… Instead of turning our backs to the accusers, as there is nothing to apologize for, and nobody to apologize to, we swear again and again that it is not our fault…. Every accusation causes among us such a commotion that people unwittingly think, “why are they so afraid of everything?” … We think that our constant readiness to undergo a search without hesitation and to turn out our pockets, will eventually convince mankind of our nobility.
Isn't it amazing how little we have learned?
Labels: Sarah Palin, Zev Jabotinsky
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).
