Z STREET

by Yisrael Medad

If you have read this Jerusalem Post report, you know that there is very real economic loss facing those persons immediately affected by what the Second Netanyahu Government refers to as a suspension of construction.  Given the poor record of the previous governments of Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert of protecting and securing the property and fiscal rights of Israeli citizens, it is no wonder that the petitions to the High Court of Justice are pouring in.

In essence, the Government is actually engaged in a suspension of belief: on the internal-social front, the economic front and the diplomatic-security front.

(As for the moral-justice front, I suggest you read the JPost article which informs us that:

"A report published on Sunday by Regavim, the movement for protection of national lands, accused the State Prosecutor's Office of discriminating against Jews...Regavim's study found 400 petitions, dealing with 700 Arab homes, which were still awaiting a response, but nearly none of Jewish settlers. In one case Regavim found that a petition by an Arab homeowner was unattended for 12 years..."

This, of course, is blatant discrimination and although we don't expect the myriad NGOs supported by a dozen or so foreign governments in addition to progressive alternative funds based in Jewish communities abroad who seek to subvert Israel's society in a very undemocratic fashion to raise their voices against this policy, perhaps helping out some Jews could be expected.)

If Minister Begin is correct and ten months will pass and all will continue as before, why stop now?  Even if PM Netanyahu knows full well that he might be forced not only to stop construction but pass on the authority to issue new building permits to some non-Jewish institution, since he will not halt Arab construction in Israel in a sweeping all-inclusive way, why should that happen to Jews?  Let us build and as for the flag that will fly, that's for the future.

But already, as predicted, the mindset of a "freeze" (note how of all the places on the globe there is no "warming") has glaciered into Jerusalem.  And at the same time, Arab autonomy demands based on a separatist ethnic conception will proceed apace, as at least one Minister knows.

The price to be paid - in shekels, in lost faith, in social ruptures, in Zionist idealism - not to mention Netanyahu opening himself to more pressure to resolve the Syrian hostility which is predicated solely on surrendering further strategic territory, indicates a process of a construction of suspension.

We are being asked, no, demanded, to suspend our Zionism, suspend our natural logic and suspend our economic personal freedoms for irrational political behavior.

This is not the contract the Likud signed with its voters.
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By Yisrael Medad.

The New York Times has provided Roger Cohen with room for another op-ed commentary (this is not the place for a full discussion of the topic, but when was the last time you read the opinion of someone who actually supports all those activities the New York Times rails against in Israel?) and despite his inability to exit his cocoon of shallow intellectualism, he remarkably arrives at conclusions I have expressed.

His piece, "A Mideast Truce" (New York Times, Nov. 17, 2009), presents a simple but brilliant summation: forget about peace and instead work on detente. Cohen doesn’t know this, but that's been my line for the past 25 years. I would always challenge my audiences with the question: "why is it that the US is permitted to go for detente with Russia, but would consistently insist that Israel must talk peace?"

As Cohen explains:

Obama, who has his Nobel already, should ratchet expectations downward. Stop talking about peace. Banish the word. Start talking about détente. That’s what Lieberman wants; that’s what Hamas says it wants; that’s the endpoint of Netanyahu’s evasions.

Admirable.

He even gets closer to the real number of Jews living beyond the Green Line: 

             ...the number of settlers has risen steadily to over 450,000.

Actually, it is a half-million already. About 310,000 in Judea and Samaria and almost 200,000 in east Jerusalem neighborhoods.

Cohen plays at name-dropping and we are treated to quotations of (in order): Avigdor Lieberman, Ron Nachman, Michael Sfard, Barack Obama, Shlomo Avineri, David Grossman. 

Grossman's words, actually, are a reflection of Cohen's own shallowness.  He is quoted thus: “We have dozens of atomic bombs, tanks and planes. We confront people possessing none of these arms. And yet, in our minds, we remain victims. This inability to perceive ourselves in relation to others is our principal weakness.”

This, though, is too simplistic and facile.  Would he want us to employ suicide bombers?  

And is there any doubt we are victims?  We surely are victims of an insane movement of false nationalism, and we are victims of a pathological religion-corrupted hate and we are victims of our own willingness to adopt behavior patterns as no other country under attack has ever done.  We are victims of media outlets steeped in bias that cannot or will not perceive the propaganda service they provide the Arab side.  We, too, are victims of our own insistence to compromise and that we consider peace as a goal with no true reflection on the reality of our particular situation.

In outlining "the deep scars inflicted in the past decade," Cohen ignores two major concerns: the 2005 disengagement and its failure as well as the continuing Hezbollah threat. Cohen offers his readers misinformation that points them uselessly in the wrong direction.

Here, though, is an interesting observation:

These...developments...have transformed the psychologies of the protagonists. Israelis have walled themselves off from Palestinians. They are less interested than ever in a deal with people they hardly see.... Peace and walls do not go together. But a truce and walls just may. And that, I must reluctantly conclude, is the best that can be hoped for...A peace of the brave must yield to a truce of the mediocre — at best.

Cohen, whose op-eds earlier this year on Iran were examples of completely off the mark thinking, seems to be beginning to see things, or at least possible conceptions of policies and politics, my way.

Miracles never cease.

Many who define their politics as liberal or progressive or humanist, to mention a few of the descriptions of what is generally the “left”, seem to adopt a rather shrill and extreme position versus Israel.  But they becloud their harshness by suggesting that they are perturbed about the policies in the “territories”.  They are upset about the “settlements”.  They dislike East Jerusalem expansion that entails home demolitions and evictions.  They are terribly upset at water restrictions, land ownership issues, roadblocks and the list, seemingly, goes on and on.

No matter how effectively these issues are defended by Israel by facts and statistics, the response is that the animosity of those opponents of Israel’s policies increases.  And deepens.  And broadens.  And grows ever more irrational.

Worse, there seems to be a complete identification with the most radical elements in the Arab/Islamic camp.  Apartheid is a keyword.  Racist as well.  Terror. And the major element is denial: denial of Jewish nationalism, denial of a connection to Jerusalem, denial of the Temple Mount centrality.  It is as if the last 100 years of Zionism, the Holocaust, Arab terror during the Mandate, et al. simply did not exist.

Together with the general lack of knowledge amongst too many people, the unrelenting campaign by the Arabs and their cohort and collaborators is making inroads.  There is the BDS Movement, boycott and divest from Israel.  Disruptive rallies at appearances of Israeli and pro-Israel speakers.  Violence.  Attacks on tax-exempt status.  Identification with the pariah-state goal.

The nature of the beast is changed.  The thrust is 100% negativism.  No more is there an expression of understanding for Israel’s plight, or sympathy for the terror attacks or a critical eye on Arab claims and assertions.  The media is no longer an agent of exchange but an actor/participant.. Archaeological finds are dismissed.  More and more, the debate (for there is no longer any dialogue) is irrational with no attempt to seek out bridges.  They have mostly been all burned.

We have the US State Department already creating the state of “West Bank” when the preferred label for location of birth for an American citizen’s child in the area between the former Green Line and the Jordanian border will be “West Bank”.  Since that is not only an entity that has no geopolitical existence and was the term employed to rename a territory illegally occupied and annexed by Jordan beginning in 1950 and since the true terms, even employed in the 1947 UN Partition resolution, are Judea and Samaria, the prejudices of the Near East Section are not only perverse but extra-judicial.

Unfortunately, Israel’s supporters, excluding, oddly enough, the non-Jewish camp, are too divided among themselves.  A repeat adventure of the Ihud of the 1930s, an American Council for Judaism spin-off from the 1940s and a Breirah rejuvenation from the 1970s called “J Street”, as transparent and as inimical as it is, was treated much too gingerly by the Jewish establishment.  The great and powerful “lobby” was treading water, too unsure of itself.  Israel Ambassador Oren, despite is own very lukewarm attitude toward a Jewish presence throughout the Jewish national homeland, and that is a generous description, managed at almost the last minute to exert himself in the matter.

An “Always Israel” approach need, then, be assertive, affirmative and feisty.  It must be upbeat and positive.  It cannot shy from issues.  It must insert itself into all fields of the debates, the discussions and the deliberations.

In the specific theme of the phenomenon of renewed Jewish life in those areas intended to become part and parcel of the reconstituted Jewish national home by international law which recognized the historical connection between a people and its patrimony, which will be my sphere of activity, there is no need and surely no reason to be defensive or trembling.  The residency of Jews in Shiloh, Hebron, Bet El, Efrat, Elon Moreh and dozens of other locations, the communities of Yesha, is a right, a just right.  It is a privilege and a responsibility.  It is new and it is ancient.

It is children and their schools and nurseries.  It is agriculture of vineyards, olive groves and fruit trees.  It is industry.  It is art and literature and theater.  It is science and hi-tech advancement.  It is a major contribution to global success as well as the fulfillment of ancient Biblical narrative.  It is positive and contributory.

And it is and will continue to be a success story.  One that cannot be denied.  Always.