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Friday 10 February 2012

The lethal delusion

Friday, 23rd November 2007

As the Annapolis tragic farce approaches, Natan Sharansky as ever tells it how it is:

I have never understood this strange reasoning: First strengthen the weak leader, by giving legitimization to anti-Israeli actions that he allows (or encourages, and sometimes even operates) and then, once the anti-Israeli positions have made him popular, expect that he will suddenly change his spots and lead his people determinedly toward the desired peace.

This distorted approach has become a kind of sacred cow. ‘We must strengthen Abu Mazen,’ say Israel's leaders as a kind of mantra. It is of no importance that along the way they are educating another generation of Palestinians to hatred, violence and the aspiration to destroy Israel. It is of no importance that the way to the strengthening is the diametric opposite of peace and dialogue. The main thing is that we are strengthening Abu Mazen.
The old argument of President Shimon Peres and Meretz MK Yossi Beilin and Defense Minister Ehud Barak on ‘with whom to make peace, a strong leader or a weak leader’ is no longer relevant. A look back over the years since the Oslo Accords shows clearly that the direction in which Palestinian society has marched is not the direction of peace. It was all in all just a hudna (truce) before another intifada. And when the society is becoming more extreme, what difference is it to us if the leader is strong or weak?

So many of Israel’s leaders — no less than the west but for different reasons — inhabit a fantasy world in which they ignore the reality that is directly confronting them, because it is just too difficult and terrifying, in favour of wishful thinking. It is a particular feature of politicians on the left. That is why so many innocents tend to die on their watch, because they insist on believing that they can tame the men of violence even while such men continue to kill. As Sharansky says, it is not the absence of sufficient concessions that will doom Annapolis to failure — it is the fact that its whole premise is a piece of grossly distorted reasoning.

For Annapolis, read the entire Middle East tragedy -- and the west’s key role in ensuring that it goes on and on.

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raymond joseph douglas

November 23rd, 2007 4:37pm

Another fine analysis of our cock-eyed approach to Israel and the so-called peace process.We should be standing four-square with Israel,backing up their demand that the "Palestinians" call off their incitement in the education sector and a halt to the rocket attacks before even talking to them!Anyway a Palestinian state already exists is just called Jordan!

Edward Solomon

November 23rd, 2007 4:45pm

Annapolis 2007, Munich 1938. Like a lamb to the slaughter another small state is led to be sacrificed. The greatest lesson from history is that we never learn from history. The tragedy here is that the Powers That Be do not recognise that Abu Mazen and Fatah are just as dedicated to Israel's destruction through the path of slow jihad just as much as Ismail Haniyeh and Hamas are through the path of fast (i.e. violent) jihad.

Les.w

November 23rd, 2007 7:14pm

In any event, these so-called 'peace talks' are bound to fail, due to the Palestinian's refusal to compromise in any way, and their unreasonable demands (i.e. the destruction of Israel). In some way it is at least an opportunity for Israel to again show their reasonableness and desire for peace, while the Palestinians will as always show their intransigence and desire to destroy Israel ( as well as eventually the West). Will the west listen and see? Of course not.

Daniel Goldwater

November 23rd, 2007 9:59pm

Unfortunately, most Israeli politicians deal in the fantasy land of "Politics" where slogans become their own reality and their persuit often means their own political longevity.The "Palestinians are not fighting for "Palestine" and a just settlement... blah..blah, but are in fact carrying on the ummahs struggle to return this geographic region to its "rightful owners, ISLAM. Until Israeli leaders understand that they are not in fact playing in the same game as their adversaries they will continue to inflict misery on their own people and in all likelehood contribute to the downfall of Israel and the destruction of its Jewish and Christian inhabitants.

DB

November 24th, 2007 1:39am

Israeli suicide watch: RAFAH: Egyptian police discovered a ton of explosives hidden in an underground cache on the border with the Gaza Strip during a search for smuggling tunnels, a security official said Thursday... Egypt has asked Israel to renegotiate their peace treaty in order to deploy more troops along the border in a bid to stem the arms flow. But the Jewish state is "very reluctant" to agree, an Israeli diplomatic source said after a Tuesday meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh. http://www.dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=10438

BJ

November 24th, 2007 12:33pm

Sharansky has always had a blind spot when it comes to recognising the Palestinian right to self determination or any basis of reciprocity in peace settlement negotiations. He spent years in prison for his political beliefs but what a sad contrast with Mandela. Copies of Sharansky's book on Democracy are still available at a bargain price on the remainders shelf at Blackwells in Oxford if anyone is interested.

Mike Featherman

November 24th, 2007 2:54pm

The West's key failure has been to fail to stop Israeli settlement expansion. The cowardise to stand up to the Israelis over this is shameful. Lots of hand wringing about 'oh we don't agree with the settlements' but not one governement has taken Israel to ask over this. What hope that Cameron will show bravery over this ? Very little I fear.

field

November 24th, 2007 7:19pm

I certainly think the incentive package has been all wrong. We should have been saying to the PLA - let's see you take the poison propaganda from your TV screens and replace it with something more positive. Let's see you share your wealth with the people. Let's see that PLO constitution changed (I don't think that ever happened did it?). Then you will get the aid, the support, and the pressure on Israel to give up land. But instead we always pander to the Arab "street", to the clerics and to the extremists.

Roger Fulton

November 24th, 2007 8:17pm

awfully instructive to get your view points from your side of the ocean. Yuma Arizona here. Viewed extremist Muslim fotos with signs in London via Internet here in western US - scary. One difference in our side of the ocean should it happen here, ours is a gun culture. I don't know what you guys will do if the nutsos go overboard outside of Whitehall.

trumpeldor

November 25th, 2007 9:47am

To feathermann West key failure was refusal to demand from palis full stop to vilence incitements Let me recall you that judea samaria(west bank for you:5.000 sq kms)status is disputed I am not shocked that judeans settle in judea and even under a pali state,why should judeans leave whereas 1 milion arab thrive on israel i soil????

Mladen Andrijasevic

November 25th, 2007 2:47pm

Annapolis cannot succeed until the participants stop ignoring the 8 ton elephant in the room. How about if they start their meeting with the screening of the documentary “ISLAM What the West Needs to Know “ and then the 40 participating countries discuss it?

J. Isaacs

November 25th, 2007 5:49pm

Which of BJ's books have, as Natan Sharansky's has, and as Nelson Mandela's probably hasn't, been read and quoted by George Bush and influenced US foreign policy?

N. Simon

November 26th, 2007 1:34am

Do people forget that Abu Mazen took his PhD in Holocaust denial?

And as for the disputed territories, why didn't the PLO protest about the occupation by Jordan and Egypt? The truth is that the Arabs of the West Bank only lost their Jordanian citizenship and passports in 1988.

But Fateh was created in 1956 to exterminate Israel. Terror attacks happened long before 1967.

The Arabs tried every which way to destroy the Jewish state. Maybe this time with the help of the US and EU, they'll succeed, and make another part of the middle east Judenrein, just like Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, etc.

Ahad Ha'amoratzim

November 26th, 2007 5:51pm

BJ, if you had bothered to read Sharansky's book, you would know that he is committed to Palestinian self-determination, conditioned only on their democratizing and giving up their goal of extinguishing Israel, their insitutionalized anti-Semitism, and their suppression of Christianity. Unlike Pres. Bush or PM Olmert, he is not willing to sanction dictatorship, genocide and oppression in the name of self-determination.

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Melanie Phillips is a Daily Mail columnist. She also writes for the Jewish Chronicle and is a panellist on BBC Radio Four's Moral Maze. Her most recent book is 'The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle over God, Truth and Power', published by Encounter.

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