By Simon Fischler
During his first term as Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu lacked the most important quality of a great leader, pragmatism.
That has all changed in his second term. Benjamin Netanyahu has become a true pragmatic, Israeli leader.
Faced with the constant barrage of negativity from a naive American president who was totally inept at seeing the Middle-East for what it is, Bibi – this time around – has been forced to contend with American pressure no Israeli PM has dealt with since David Ben Gurion.
Attempting to make good on the Israeli promise to do all it can to assist America in her foreign policy, Bibi carried out PEACE diplomacy that no other Israeli PM had been willing to do: freezing settlement building in Judea and Samaria.
That was Bibi showing what was needed to be the pragmatist he has become.
After the Palestinians spit this peace gesture back into the face of Israel and American President Barak Obama, Bibi was again forced to make a monumental decision.
Under intense American and European Union pressure Bibi had to decide to either appease an unappeasable Palestinian leadership by continuing the settlement freeze, or stand up to the world powers (as David Ben Gurion did when he declared the state of Israel) and say enough is enough: Israel cannot be the only side that gives in these negotiations.
Again Bibi showed colleagues how to be pragmatic by rejecting appeasement and demanding evenhandedness in the Mideast negotiations. Of course this sent the daydreamers, who think we still are living in the nineties and the Oslo Accords are still alive and well, into complete distress. They called Bibi ungrateful for not being an American Toady.
The great Thomas Friedman, sitting in his multi-million dollar home in Bethesda stroking his ridiculous mustache, said Bibi and Israel had lost their minds by refusing to accept the wave of freedom sweeping across the Middle East.
Today we see Bibi was once again proven right.
Mr. Friedman’s wave of Arab freedom movements have been replaced by the Muslim Brotherhood (the same people who ASSASSINATED, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat for making peace with Israel) in Egypt and more Islamists in Tunisia, Libya and anywhere else an election has been held.
While Friedman and Obama’s Middle East house of cards has crumbled around Israel, Bibi is again faced with a monumental decision fraught with possible repercussions.
After two weeks of ongoing negotiations in Amman, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority is threatening to walk away from negotiations if Israel does not succumb to their asinine preconditions. Those preconditions, a halt to building in Judea and Samaria and Israel accepting the so called 1967 borders for a Palestinian state, totally negate the purpose of negotiations.
What should Bibi do? What is good for Israel? More appeasement? More giving to an Arab wolf in sheep’s clothing? I think not!
Bibi must take this opportunity to end this now insane fallacy called negotiating with the Palestinians.
Think for a moment about the most interesting comment to come out of these ludicrous negotiations it will help you to understand why Israel must stop the fallacy called negotiations: a diplomat from the Palestinian Authority said the 21- point document presented by the Israelis for achieving peace was worthless.
Of course this is a predictable comment coming from a Palestinian diplomat, because if Israel does not immediately wave the white flag and cry surrender, they immediately declare the Israeli side null and void.
But what is truly worthless in all of this mess?
Is a piece of Paper signed by an Arab calling himself the leader of the Palestinian nation worth something to Israel?
NO!
It will give us nothing, no peace, no TRUE recognition of our rights, as AL Pacino would NOTHING!
For the record, Egypt is proof of this.
The side that is getting something of no worth in the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians is the Israeli side!
We have a state; they do not. We have control of most the land we want; they do not. We can set borders and tell the world to go fly a kite, as Ben Gurion did in 1948; the Palestinians can’t.
And to those who like to threaten Israel with the One State solution, take a good, long look at what Israel could do.
It would be possible to maintain a large Jewish Majority by taking the land WE really want and recognizing a Palestinian State on what is left over.
Just as America and the EU are shutting their borders to immigration, so can Israel.
The Palestinians would get what land is left for them in Judea, Samaria and Gaza; from there they would have to fend for themselves.
On the other hand, if there were a one-state solution it would not include Israel. This is why the European-placed King of Jordan is doing anything and everything to push Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table.
Do not forget it was England that was nice enough to give three quarters of the land promised to the Jews by international law and the League of Nations to a Saudi war lord named Abdullah. Thus creating the Kingdom of Transjordan; todays Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
If there were a one-state solution it would be Jordan and what is left to the Palestinian’s in Judea and Samaria.
For America and her buddies in the EU it will also mean the end of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and a Western ally. After all the State backed SEGREGATION that is practiced in Jordan, suppressing the seventy percent majority population of Palestinian's can last only so long. Eventually the Palestinian majority in Jordan will take control.
Basically everyone but Israel has something to lose by the Palestinians walking away, and that needs to be made very clear to the Obama administration and the European Union.
It is time for the Pragmatic leadership of Israel, lead by Bibi, Uzi Dayan, Ehud Barak, Moshe Yaalon and Dan Meridor to put their aces on the table.
The Israelis need to make it clear that if the Palestinians walk away from the table and do not return to negotiate -- without preconditions, Israel will declare all principles of Oslo and thereafter invalid.
It needs to be made clear by our leadership that if the America and the EU do not start cozying up to Israel, there could be absolute hell to pay.
We are no longer in the mood to be had by anyone; especially not this made-up, colonialist rabble of Arabs that calls itself the Palestinians.
Welcome back to Fort Israel -- are you ready to mount the ramparts?
I once read that, in any negotiation, not saying anything can be more powerful than saying something. When Israel doesn't like what it hears from the 'palestinians', or the Americans, sometimes the best thing is not to say anything. They'll get the message eventually.
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