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After the deplorable Olmert comes the only-very-slightly-less-deplorable Zipporah (Tzipi, as all Israeli politicians are known by these undignified and to-me demeaning nicknames) Livni.
She too has her own story, of being the child, like Olmert, of Likud supporters, even perhaps Revisionists. Like Olmert, she thinks that she has become a "realist" and therefore put away childish things. But her "realism" is the usual, delusional "realism" of those who ignore the nature of the war -- a Jihad -- being waged on Israel. They ignore its permanence and its scope. They think that there will be peace if they surrender what is rightfully Israel's, tangible assets, the land of the "West Bank" that must be held onto, whatever the Arabs in the Arab-occupied parts may think. And they can, over time, respond to conditions they deem insufficiently favorable and be encouraged to leave, if they know they will never be masters of the place.
A news item tells us that "Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is quoted as saying that nine months of peace talks with Israel have failed to bring agreement on any of the core issues. That would include the status of Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees, Jewish settlements and the borders of a future Palestinian state. Mr. Abbas told the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz that ‘the gaps between the sides are very wide.’"
If that news item is true, Israelis can breathe a sigh of relief. But if Olmert is replaced by Livni, then they can expect more of the same. More negotiations over what will continue to be called -- without the government of Israel unmasking the farce -- a peace-process. This “peace-process” will be based on the "core issues" that leave out, that overlook, that deliberately ignore, the fact that none of these "core issues" really matters -- because they are trivial given what Islam teaches. Israeli leaders need to understand Islam, the immutability of its texts, and the permanence of its tenets, and understand that there will always be far more primitive Muslims than there will be the kind of suave, advanced ones -- the very ones that Israelis on the left pride themselves as counting among their "friends" and whose personal charm and affability (and that shared mockery of "religious Jews" who are depicted as the true fanatics) get in the way of an unhindered view of things. It is with an understanding of those Believers, and that Islam, and not some nuanced falling-away from it, that Israeli leaders must base their policies.
Any agreement or treaty that Israel reaches with the Gazan Arabs or the "West Bank" Arabs or both, that is, any agreement that a Mahmoud Nobody-Here-But-Us-Accountants Abbas, or someone else (it could be Sari Nuseibeh, it could be Marwan Barghouti, it could be Saeb Erekat -- it doesn't matter for Islam remains the same), will commit the Muslim Arab side to nothing. It has happened again and again, since the Armistice agreements of 1949. No matter what Israel thinks has been settled -- say, the status of the Shebaa Farms, or the Golan Heights (Israel annexed them in 1981, and has no business putting them up on the block yet again) -- for the Arabs nothing is ever settled. For once the Arab Muslim side receives its tangible gains, sooner or later it will renege on its own promises. There are those Israelis who allow themselves to believe that Egypt, and Jordan, can be said to be honoring a "peace treaty" with Israel. This misses the point. Those countries are not at war, in the battlefield sense, with Israel not because they are honoring a treaty, but because they are keeping the "peace" of their truce-treaty, or hudna, for exactly the same reasons that Syria or Saudi Arabia or any other Arab state does: because they have calculated that Israel is in a position to inflict terrible damage, and even, in the case of Egypt, in seizing the Sinai yet again and this time not likely to again surrender it for the sake of "peace."
Once it has pocketed the tangible concessions made by Israel, as always the Muslim side will sooner or later breach every single one of its promises. And it will do so not because this or that particular Arab has turned out to be untrustworthy, but because Islam instructs Muslims that they must never reconcile themselves to the permanent existence of Infidel rule anywhere in the world. And above all, or at least first of all, it is crazy to think that Arab Muslims would ever contemplate the continued existence of Israel, an Infidel nation-state, on land once possessed by Muslims -- and not only that, but land that bestrides the very area that links the Maghreb to the Middle East. It doesn't matter whom they seized the land from. Nor does it matter that in North Africa and the Middle East Muslim Arabs possess lands that together are a thousand times larger than Israel.
No, Livni will not mention this. She will not raise the issue of Islam because, you see, it interferes with her whole "getting-beyond-my-parents" personal narrative -- child of Likud supporters who finally "saw the light" because she became a "realist." What kind of "realist" ignores Islam in attempting to deal with Slow Jihadists and Fast Jihadists? What kind of "realist" thinks that the most important thing is not the physical survival of Israel and the Jews of Israel, but rather whether Israel retains its "Jewish and democratic character" by constantly giving up whatever lands happen to have large numbers of Arabs occupying them, instead of recognizing with grim sobriety that as a matter of national survival -- of border defense, of control of aquifers, of control of invasion routes -- Israel simply cannot give up, and should not be forced to give up, one inch or dunam of what is called, so comically, the "West Bank"?
She, Livni, is not a "realist" at all. For having given up the "West Bank," Israel would simply find itself in the same position it was before, but now much reduced in size, and in this dimidiated state much more vulnerable. For the Arabs, who outbreed the Jews, would increase their numbers. The next place that might have an Arab majority would be the Galilee (where already the Arabs have been attacking Jews with impunity). And along will come Livni, or a later Livni, to say, yet again, that Israel cannot "remain Jewish and democratic" and that, of course, in order to retain its moral purity -- yes, we all know how important that is, don't we? -- it must now give up the Galilee, too. And so on.
For some, for many, for too many, in Israel, there is no understanding of the larger picture, and no attempt to take a longer view. And Islam, the most important force in the Middle East, is ignored. Yet it is the reason why Jews for centuries were treated as dhimmis, and why the Jewish state of Israel will never, ever be truly accepted. No amount of supposed intertwining of economic interests of Jews and Arabs, in, say, Jenin or some other "West Bank" town, disproves this. Instead, it merely shows that Arabs are perfectly happy to pocket whatever they can get from those hated Jews. But that does not change their deeply-held views, and does not change the texts and tenets of Islam that no collaborative efforts in exporting fruit or even computers will undo.
Livni is lacking. And so many others are too.
For now, the people of Israel have, it seems, been saved by the bell. Olmert is a crook, and is being hauled off-stage. But what if he had not been a crook? What if he had not had to leave the stage? Think then what permanent and terrible damage he might have done?
Supporters of Israel, the unthinking kind (there are so many of those), like to take consolation in that famous phrase from silver-tongued Abba Eban. I mean the complacent kind who think that if only, if only...then "peace" can be achieved, the kind who do not see what is wrong with the phrase "two-state solution" or "one-state solution" and who cannot get through their thick heads the real nature, and permanence, of the war -- the Jihad -- being waged on Israel. And that Jihad is being waged not only, or mainly, through qitaal, combat, or through what the Arabs consider to be a justified variant of qitaal, the killing of innocents through terrorism.
What is that phrase from Eban? Oh, it's about how "the Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity." But what consolation is that? This means that again and again the Israelis have offered grotesquely generous and dangerous concessions, and the Arabs, again and again, have saved the Israelis -- just as the people of Israel have been granted a temporary reprieve thanks to Olmert's petty greed (those expensive cigars, for example) and the loose tongue of Morris Talansky.
But this complacent quote -- "the Arabs have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity" -- shows a terrifying misunderstanding of what this means. It means that eventually the Arabs won't miss that opportunity, and Israel, having agreed foolishly to yield so much, will no longer be saved by the bell -- the bell of corrupt leaders, caught by the police, or the bell of the Arabs who will always manage, so it is fondly believed, not to "miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity."
No, that will stop. And unless common sense breaks in, unless Israel's ruling elite recognizes the permanent threat, the threat that can only be understood if you allow yourself to understand the meaning, and menace, of Islam, some day Israel will not be saved by any bell.
And that will be that.
Posted by Hugh at September 18, 2008 12:22 PM
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Hugh,
Excellent, most excellent and right on target. It is a shame the Israel gov't keeps hanging onto a sinking life preserver in trying to "achieve peace" with islamofacists. If Livini becaome PM then a free for all give away will continue unabatted until Israel is pushed further into a corner and there will be no furher way out. The Bush administration, State Dept. and condi dice(intentional) has run roughshod over any and all objection and will keep forcing the Jews to give away the farm. It makes me very sad to see the Israeli's so apathetic about what is transpiring within their own gov't as if it is inevitable. It is not inevitable unless the Israelis allow this to keep happening, which is what we are seeing right now. The arabs will NEVER be satisfied unitl Israel is nothing but a remembered name on old world maps and every possible Jew has been killed and the middle east wiped clean of their existence.It is amazing to me that the Israelis
are "blinded" by past history of FAILED attempts at peace and that they refuse to look back and see what has been lost, Gaza, Lebanon etc.. Too bad we cannot bring back Golda Meir(Sp?), Moshe Dayan and those other Israeli patriots who truly understood what was at stake and what they had to do to ensure the survivla of Israel. The only thing the islamofacists will ever understand is a
total thrashing by whathever means are necessary which in my opinion, includes ALL Options, militarily. Screw "world opinion", Israel's survival is at stake here.
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at September 18, 2008 1:14 PM
I hope I live to the day when the representative of the Israeli side tells the Palestinians that the only question about the eternal indivisible capital of Israel, Jerusalem, is where the Palestinians would like to put their embassy.
Posted by: Karl Pov at September 18, 2008 3:41 PM
For the benefit of newcomers, first, a classic piece of journalism - Martha Gellhorn's "The Arabs of Palestine", published in 1961.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/196110/gellhorn
Among other things, you will discover that Gaza, which is today called a 'prison', was a prison when it was under *Egyptian* control...and that its captive audience was saturated then, precisely as it is now, with a venomous anti-Jewish propaganda rivalling that of the Nazis, only back then, the agitprop came from the Muslim Egyptian regime, rather than from Hamas.
Second: the wise words of an Israeli Jew, A Carlebach, writing in Ma'ariv on October 7 1955, who saw very clearly that the core of the problem was Islam. Had most Israeli Jews understood, back then, as well as Carlebach appears to do, what they were dealing with, they would not be in the mess that they are now in.
QUOTE "These Arab Islamic countries do not suffer from poverty, or disease, or illiteracy, or exploitation; they only suffer from the worst of all plagues: Islam.
"Wherever Islamic psychology rules, there is the inevitable rule of despotism and criminal aggression.
‘The danger lies in Islamic psychology, which cannot integrate itself into the world of efficiency and progress, that lives in a world of illusion, perturbed by attacks of inferiority complexes and megalomania, lost in dreams of the holy sword.
‘The danger stems from the totalitarian conception of the world, the passion for murder deeply rooted in their blood, from the lack of logic, the easily inflamed brains, the boasting, and above all: the blasphemous disregard for all that is sacred to the civilized world...their reactions -- to anything -- have nothing to do with good sense.
'They are all emotion, unbalanced, instantaneous, senseless. It is always the lunatic that speaks from their throat. You can talk 'business' with everyone, and even with the devil. But not with Allah...
'This is what every grain in this country shouts. There were many great cultures here, and invaders of all kinds. All of them -- even the Crusaders -- left signs of culture and blossoming.
" But on the path of Islam, even the trees have died.
"We pile sin upon crime when we distort the picture and reduce the discussion to a conflict of border between Israel and her neighbors.
"First of all, it is not the truth. The heart of the conflict is not the question of the borders; it is the question of Muslim psychology.....
‘Moreover, to present the problem as a conflict between two similar parts is to provide the Arabs with the weapon of a claim that is not theirs.
"If the discussion with them is truly a political one, then it can be seen from both sides.
"Then we appear as those who came to a country that was entirely Arab, and we conquered and implanted ourselves as an alien body among them, and we loaded them with refugees and constitute a military danger for them, etc. etc. ...one can justify this or that side--and such a presentation, sophisticated and political, of the problem is understandable for European minds--at our expense.
‘The Arabs raise claims that make sense to the Western understanding of simple legal dispute.
‘But in reality, who knows better than us that such is not the source of their hostile stand? All those political and social concepts are never theirs.
‘Occupation by force of arms, in their own eyes, in the eyes of Islam, is not all associated with injustice.
'To the contrary, it constitutes a certifate and demonstration of authentic ownership.
'The sorrow for the refugees, for the expropriated brothers, has no room in their thinking. Allah expelled, Allah will care.
"Never has a Muslim politician been moved by such things (unless, indeed, the catastrophe endangered his personal status). If there were no refugees and no conquest, they would oppose us just the same." END QUOTE.
Thirdly, if you are new to this site, and perhaps new to this subject, you must understand that hatred for, and murderous contempt toward, Jews qua Jews, is hard-wired into the sacred texts of Islam, into Qur'an, Sira (life of the 'prophet') and Hadith.
For a devastating exposition of what this means, and has always meant, for Jews in the Islamic world, you must obtain, and read, Andrew Bostom's massive scholarly anthology, "The Legacy of Islamic Anti-Semitism". Especially if you are a journalist or a church member, if you regularly encounter people pontificating about 'the cycle of violence' or 'the Middle East situation' or 'the peace process' - you *must* read at least Part One of Bostom's book. It is a kind of Rosetta Stone for understanding the attitude toward, and treatment of, Jews - and, today, the Jewish state of Israel - by Muslims.
In the world view inculcated by the foundational Muslim texts and by the broad consensus of their authoritative interpreters both ancient and modern, there is no conceivable place for any Jew (or for any other non-Muslim, for that matter) except as a despised and exploited dhimmi, a combination of cash cow, chew toy, punching bag and scapegoat. And that is how Jews within the Islamosphere were generally treated, for 1300 years. In some places they were, quite simply, slaves.
The cry 'Kill the Jews!' sounded in the bazaars of the Muslim world, for centuries before the modern Jewish state of Israel rose from the ashes. Muslims were using 'Yahood!' ('Jew'!) as the ultimate deadly insult against one another - or even against a recalcitrant donkey or camel - centuries before the resurrection of Israel.
Many Muslims hate and resent the 'uppity Jews' of Israel - who refuse to convert to Islam, who refused to be massacred, who forced the Empire of Islam to disgorge a tiny part of its ill-gotten gains, who reclaimed part of the ancient Jewish homeland and claimed the right to bear arms and to defend themselves (thus breaking the Rules for Dhimmis: Dhimmis are not allowed to bear arms or defend themselves against Muslim aggression) - much as the KKK in the deep South hated and resented 'uppity niggers' just after Emancipation. Only, probably, worse.
Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at September 18, 2008 4:40 PM
Why was my response to Hugh's article pulled.
Really curious.
Posted by: thugulla at September 18, 2008 5:40 PM
OOPS. Sorry. I was looking at the wrong article. My response is to the second posting of Hugh.
sorry!
Posted by: thugulla at September 18, 2008 5:48 PM
"(Tzipi, as all Israeli politicians are known by these undignified and to-me demeaning nicknames)"
I dunno. I've always found Israeli nicknames endearing. I think they survive because earlier Israeli politicians were kibbutzniks, who grew up in a communal atmosphere.
Posted by: skevin at September 18, 2008 6:49 PM
I don't think Vladimir Jabotinsky would ever have allowed the public to call him "Volodya." Or, come to think of it, whatever nickname might go with "Zev." David Ben Gurion was never "Davey" Ben Gurion. No, it may seem simply to be wonderfully we-don't-stand-on-ceremony here, but it is very different from the admirable practice, in the Israeli army, of having officers, even generals, entirely unbedecked of medals. It's on a par with the credit-card and insurance-company people who call you, always at supper-time, and think they have a right to address you by your first name, even though you have never been introduced, and even had you been, you prefer to keep things on a formal level. It is akin to those teachers who think it just swell if the students address her, or him, as Frank or Pat or Jimmy or Sally, instead of as Miss Shattuck or Mrs. Avazian or Mrs. Rosenbaum or Mr. Collard. Pedagogically, a little distancing is a good thing. You are not the student's "friend." You are the teacher.
And it is the same with political leaders. "Bibi" Netanyahu should be Benjamin, and Tzipi Zipporah. But it's too late, I suppose, to change the manners and customs of the age, or at least of the age in Israel. A pity.
Posted by: Hugh at September 18, 2008 8:35 PM
For more than a year I've been sensing there's something bigger going on that we can't understand. I'm also sensing others wonder why there's so much insanity when it comes to naming the problem / enemy. My wife prodded me to check what those who study prophesy and end-time themes have to say about Islam. To that end I just finished Hal Lindsey's 'The Everlasting Hatred:The Roots of Jihad.' There will likely not be a deal, for the land belongs to the God of Israel and he said it will be held by Israel until Armageddon, which for many years has been prophesied to be an attack by 10 Islamic nations along with Russia. That scenario is lining up very nicely. The book was written in 2003, but is very prescient as to the events of today.
Posted by: Tick at September 18, 2008 8:52 PM
The Katima Party of Olmert and Livni reminds me of the Nazi guards hearding the Jews into the cattle cars in Shindler's List. They are willi-nilli putting Israel into the cattle cars.
Posted by: Jimmy Bones at September 19, 2008 2:43 AM
I'm sorry to say that "that will be that" may be the last word on the future of Israel. Supposing that Israel has much of a future, I am dismayed to think, may be rather like a French aristocrat in 1788 hoping that a few right choices, a couple of reforms, an adjustment of attitude, would save the monarchy of Louis XVI.
If I were a praying man, I would pray for the survival of Israel. But like the French monarchy in 1788, Israel is a phenomenon against which so much is ranged, is the object of so much opposition and hatred, and is in such an exposed position, that its survival seems, I will say, spectacularly unassured.
What will its end be like? I have met people myself who would react with nothing but delight to the enemies of Israel dancing on Jewish graves with knives between their teeth. If that day comes, I will probably not be alive myself. That will be among God's special mercies.
Posted by: Novalis at September 19, 2008 3:55 PM
Israel has several hundred nuclear weapons. It can rain down destruction, in case of military attack not just on its immediate enemy, but on its smiling aiders and abetters in the enemy camp. It is not likely to go that way, but more likely, to go slowly but inexorably, in the way that parts of Western Europe, if the governming elites do not come to their senses, are likely to go. Both ways are unacceptable.
And the consequences, for the Western world, for morality and more morale, are incalculable. But there were such consequences, as yet largely unrecognized, for the non-Jews of the Western world, for their morale and sense of well-being (I am referring to those who possess consciences), after World War II. Were Israel to go under, the Western world, I am convinced, would not long be able to withstand the same forces. This does not require a belief in God. It merely requires making a connection between certain acts, and the emotional and intellectual consequences of those acts.
Posted by: Hugh at September 19, 2008 5:16 PM
Here is the coda to Jacques Ellul's 'Un Chretien Pour Israel' ('One Christian For Israel', or perhaps, 'One Christian Supports Israel') [1983] in the original French, and in my own - somewhat awkward - English translation.
"Il est donc impossible de conclure, d’achever et de presenter un panorama satisfaisant de la recherche et de la reflexion.
"Un chretien pour Israel? Oui, ce qui signifie avant tout un chretien qui tremble parce qu’engage’ dans un combat militaire et spirituel qui le depasse infiniment.
- So, it is impossible to conclude, to complete and to present a satisfying overview of the research and of the reflection.
One Christian supporting Israel? Yes: which above all means one Christian who trembles because he is engaged in a military and spiritual struggle which infinitely exceeds his strength.
"Un chretien qui tremble devant l’incomprehensibilite de la volonte du Seigneur, de notre Seigneur commun, quand il fait revenir son peuple selon sa promesse, mais pour le livrer a la haine et a la menace, alors que ce retour devait etre l’annonce du temps de la paix.
- One Christian who trembles before the incomprehensible will of the Lord, our common Lord, when he makes his people to return according to his promise, but in order to deliver them up to hatred and fear, although this return ought to be the proclamation of the age of peace.
"Un chretien qui tremble devant le Mystere (non pas d’Israel) de la volonte de Dieu, sachant que tout est accompli en Jesus-Christ, et que tout est aussi accompli pour Israel, accompli, acheve, porte a sa perfection, exauce, realise,
au moment meme ou la frele plante de ce minuscule Etat est battue par toutes les tempetes, accuse par toutes les calomnies, prise dans l’engrenage de toutes les necessites.
- One Christian who trembles before the Mystery (not of Israel) [but] of the will of God, knowing that everything has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and that everything has also been fulfilled for Israel, fulfilled, brought about, brought to its fullness, done, realized,
at the very moment when the fragile plant of this tiny State is hammered by every storm, accused by every shameful lie, caught in the net of every necessity.
"Un chretien pour Israel, que’est ce que c’est?
"Rien, un roseau qui fremit au vent, un bruissement de feuille, un livre parmi cent mille livres;
"et qui, dans amertume, sait que ce livre pourra etre utilise par toutes les propagandes, ou incompris par tous les partis pris differents.
"Tentative qui ne fera pas bouger d’une ligne la marche du temps politique.
"Et cependant il faut le faire, parce qu’un chretien pour Israel, c’est d’abord un homme qui vit dans l’Esperance du Seigneur, et qui prie.
- One Christian for Israel, what is he?
Nothing: a reed that quivers in the wind, a murmuring of [a] leaf, of a page, one book among a hundred thousand books;
and who knows with bitterness that this book will be used for every propaganda, or not understood by all the other partisans.
An attempt which cannot shift by one line the march of political time.
And nevertheless he had to do it because a Christian who stands for Israel is, first of all, a man who lives in the Hope of the Lord, and who prays."
Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at September 19, 2008 7:01 PM
" (Tzipi, as all Israeli politicians are known by these undignified and to-me demeaning nicknames)"
Eh?!?! What a load of nonsense! And I'm shocked to see people agreeing.
Should Joe Lieberman be called Joseph? Would John F Kennedy have been a different president if people didn't call him Jack?
Dhimmi Watch has been going downhill for a while now. I don't think I'll be back...
Posted by: FieryJack at September 20, 2008 4:39 AM
FieryJack ,
I used to know a 'David Green' a school friend in Adelaide, we called him 'Davey' , I though was always a 'Dave' which I dont think is a diminishment. Its more about the surnames ...but thats another story.
Posted by: David Xavier at September 20, 2008 8:18 AM
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