Why Israel Needs To Keep The Palestinians Under Its Heel – OpEd

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Steve Linde, editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post, was master of ceremonies at a conference the newspaper hosted in New York City on Sunday. There were 1,200 attendees.

Caroline B. Glick, Post senior contributing editor, drew cheers from the crowd when she called for permanent Israeli control of Judea and Samaria [the West Bank], saying it was better to keep the Palestinians inside Israel rather than allow them to establish a “terror state.”

Have no doubt: neither Glick nor those cheering her believe that keeping Palestinians permanently inside Israel should lead to them acquiring equal rights as Israeli citizens. What she is advocating is quite simply the institutionalization of Jewish fascism in a Jewish apartheid state. But that was just an uncontroversial side note in the event.

This is how Haaretz described what Linde called “most dramatic moment in the conference”:

An embarrassing confrontation broke out … when former Mossad chief Meir Dagan accused Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan of lying, while Erdan replied that Dagan is sabotaging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to put a halt to Iran’s nuclear aspirations.

At the conference … the two also exchanged harsh words after Dagan warned Erdan over the so-called “Dagan law,” forbidding former security officials to issue open statements until a certain cooling period wears off.

“As in Germany, you know where you begin but you don’t know where you end,” Dagan told the audience.

The exchange erupted after Dagan was asked about statements made by former head of the Shin Bet security service Yuval Diskin. Diskin criticized Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Friday over their bellicose stance on Iran, as well as what he called the premier’s unwillingness to advance peace talks with the Palestinian Authority.

Dagan said that Diskin was his friend, and added that he “spoke his own truth.” “Diskin is a very serious man, a very talented man, he has a lot of experience in countering terrorism,” he said, adding that he “talked about a matter that is close to his heart.” Dagan also dismissed criticism of Diskin for not voicing his opinion to Netanyahu and Barak earlier. According to Dagan, Diskin had done so “in close quarters and on many occasions.”

“I have no doubt that the Israeli Air Force is able to destroy the infrastructure of Iran’s nuclear program – but five minutes later, Israel would find itself involved in a regional war, involving Hezbollah and possibly Syria,” the former Mossad chief said.

Dagan also said that an attack would bolster the support for the Iranian regime as opposed to the sanctions imposed by the international community which have been eroding its public support.

He added that a regional war would lead the superpowers to impose a settlement with the Palestinians on Israel – a settlement which he vehemently opposes.

Erdan replied that “if Diskin thinks things are so dangerous, he should not have stayed in his post for five years and agree to a sixth year. He should have resigned.” Dagan intervened at this point and countered that “I may be impolite, but I prefer the truth be told.”

Erdan then said he would prefer if “Mossad chiefs do not sabotage Netanyahu’s efforts to garner the world’s support against Iran. He also referred to Diskin’s description of Barak and Netanyahu’s “messianic tendencies,” and asked, “Is this how a serious man, as you describe him, speaks?”

The exchange between Erdan and Dagan clearly made the audience and American members of the panel uncomfortable.

The ever-eloquent Alan Dershowitz garnered a standing ovation from the crowd when he appealed to Israelis not to hang their dirty laundry in public, keep internal debates in Israel and, when on American soil, refrain from criticizing standing presidents such as Obama, who was essentially a friend of Israel.

For his part, Dershowitz focused his anger at what he called the almost eroticized delegitimization of Israel among certain intellectual elites, including Jews and Israelis.

This new form of anti-Semitism, he said, was as lethal as the rhetoric before the Holocaust, and he urged Israel and world Jewry to combat it effectively.

So let’s be sure I understand this correctly. Dershowitz would presumably see this post as one small part of the delegitimization effort — whether he would discern an almost eroticized element I have no idea. At the same time he apparently does not regard Caroline Glick’s promotion of Jewish fascism as in any way undermining the legitimacy of Israel. Fascism OK. Criticism not OK.

Maybe this explains why Linde was able to wrap up the event feeling deeply satisfied.

As I took a taxi to JFK, the Russian Jewish cabbie asked what I had done in New York. When I told him, he said: “Oh, I heard it was a big success.

“I gave a few of your people a ride to and from the airport.”

And at the airport, the El Al security employee remarked, “Wow, you guys created a big buzz. I’ve seen it on the news all over the place.”

With such glowing reviews (“the Zionist dream is alive and well, and the Jewish state has many more fans than foes,” says Linde), it makes you wonder why anyone’s worried about delegitimization.

Oh right, it’s because there’s another Holocaust lurking round the corner. How could I forget?

Paul Woodward - War in Context

Paul Woodward describes himself by nature if not profession, as a bricoleur. A dictionary of obscure words defines a bricoleur as “someone who continually invents his own strategies for comprehending reality.” Woodward has at various times been an editor, designer, software knowledge architect, and Buddhist monk, while living in England, France, India, and for the last twenty years the United States. He currently lives frugally in the Southern Appalachians with his wife, Monica, two cats and a dog Woodward maintains the popular website/blog, War in Context (http://warincontext.org), which "from its inception, has been an effort to apply critical intelligence in an arena where political judgment has repeatedly been twisted by blind emotions. It presupposes that a world out of balance will inevitably be a world in conflict."

3 thoughts on “Why Israel Needs To Keep The Palestinians Under Its Heel – OpEd

  • May 2, 2012 at 12:08 pm
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    Is being a Jewish state better than an Islamic state; the former control the domestic and foreign policies of most of the Western world; the other will control most of Europe and England by sheer demographic expansion. Most of wars were carried out on behalf of Wall Street and the City of London with the complicity of overly ambitious and corrupt Christian politicians who were bribed by Wall Street with tax payers’money; hence the global resentment of oligarch bankers by main Street worldwide, including Israel.Both will bring down Western civilization as we know it.Civil war is now a plausibily rather than a possibility. Amen

    Reply
  • May 10, 2012 at 10:52 am
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    Look no one knows how the Arab Spring will end, Egypt will tear up the peace treaty. That allows you to kick the Palestinians out of Gaza into the Sinai and drive them out of Sinai. No one wants Abdullah to fall but if he did and a MB state was formed, then it would be wise to kick the Palestinians out of the West Bank. We don’t even know if the Kingdoms will survive look at Bahrain, unrest is Saudi Arabia, the UAE saying the MB are going to takeover the gulf.

    Look at Lebanon, Gaza, now Sinai same thing if the Golan was handed back or if the WB is handed to the PA.

    In adversity is opportunity, I did not want Mubarak to go or a war with Egypt. But it is not all bad, clean out Gaza no more rockets, no more Sinai problems.

    Now with Jordan I would prefer that Hamas stays marginalized, asymmetrical terror organization not state. But a Jordan controlled by the MB and Hamas is a threat to the West Bank. You do the same thing in the West Bank and kick them out into Jordan.

    A lot of pressure to hand back the Golan so to take some heat off we said half the Golan. Look at Syria now be the same as Egypt.

    Lebanon if Syria falls you will have cross boarder violence, the Sunnis are suddenly a majority. When Iran gets hit or something happens Hizbullah gets deconstructed they will struggle to remain in control.

    The same can be said for Iraq also.

    The threats are still there as they will be when land is handed back, only the threats are pushed back. Which was one reason why the Golan was kept.

    Wait and see what Egypt does, wait and see what happens in Jordan.

    We can tell you that Hamas will in the end take over the PA, that they will not make peace and it is a stepping stone to liberation. And that is the same thinking of those that back them from the MB to Tehran.

    So the real question in relation to the middle east peace process is not who is going to live side by-side, but who is going to leave. People say it all the time if only the Jews would leave and go back to where they came from. So the counter argument is pack your bags, the mid east is a big place there is plenty of places for the Palestinians to live.

    The deal Netanyahu put forward about leasing land, Jerusalem, that is the only deal Israel will accept. It is across the board Olmert offered a great deal then went to war in Gaza. Mazen could not accept it a peace deal after that, then he used Obama for cover in regards to the settlement freeze, because of Cast Lead.

    What about the Kurds no one cares about them, they are more important than the Palestinians, it is what stops a civil war in Iraq and is the game changer in Syria.

    Reply

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