by Ruthie Blum
One neat trick Indyk employs is referring to the peace camp in Israel as the "center." This is not only false; it is also a complete misreading of the electorate. Just as the Democratic party in the United States was dealt a heavy blow in the mid-term elections due to utter disillusionment on the part of the public with the Obama administration, so too in Israel has the bloc to the left of Netanyahu disappointed the voters who believed they were opting for some better alternative that turned out not to exist.
The disbanding of the
Israeli government this week is breathing new life into dead arguments
from the American Left about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
One example worth
noting is Christiane Amanpour's "interview" with Brookings Institution
foreign policy director Martin Indyk on Wednesday. The reason for the
quotation marks is that the exchange between the two celebrities, who
owe their careers to the promotion of a twisted view of the Middle East,
was more like a victory volley than a question-and-answer session on a
serious topic about which each is touted as an expert.
It is hard enough for
Israeli voters to stomach the internal scramble for Knesset seats that
will dominate the public sphere for the next three months without the
added cacophony from abroad.
That the noise from
overseas is going to play into the hands of the Israeli Left, which is
as adept at twisting the truth about the Jewish state as its
international counterparts -- makes it even more unbearable.
But it, like Indyk's take on the situation, has its advantages.
Indeed, if anyone can
serve as a negative gauge by which to measure a political climate, it is
he. Oh, yes, and the think tank that has served as his cash-cow
fallback whenever his peace-brokering between Israel and the
Palestinians ends in abject failure. (You know, the research institute
which receives most of its funding from Qatar, where it has its
"Overseas Center.")
One neat trick Indyk
employs is referring to the peace camp in Israel as the "center." This
is not only false; it is also a complete misreading of the electorate.
Just as the Democratic party in the United States was dealt a heavy blow
in the mid-term elections due to utter disillusionment on the part of
the public with the Obama administration, so too in Israel has the bloc
to the left of Netanyahu disappointed the voters who believed they were
opting for some better alternative that turned out not to exist.
In both countries, the
fantasy that socialist policies (cloaked as a viable marriage of the
free market and a welfare state) would cure economic ills, and that
peace overtures would make the West safer from radical Islam than
military might, was killed by reality. This is not to say that average
voters in the U.S. or Israel have all shifted their support to the
Right. On the contrary, many of them blame their plight on their
leaders' not going far enough.
It is this mind-frame that Indyk and his ilk possess.
He began his interview
by calling Netanyahu's firing of Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and
Finance Minister Yair Lapid on Tuesday a "collapse in the ability of the
government to function."
That's one thing he got right, but for all the wrong reasons.
Livni has been acting
as Israel's chief negotiator in talks with the Palestinian Authority. In
spite of her kowtowing in every possible way to reach a two-state
solution, she, like all her predecessors, was given the cold shoulder.
Nevertheless, she holds Netanyahu -- the person who appointed her to
that job in the first place -- responsible, rather than Palestinian
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Lapid, with zero
experience in politics and even less knowledge of economics, has been
moving in a decidedly socialist direction. Both have been fighting
Netanyahu on every issue brought to a cabinet vote.
Indyk's analysis is
that "the Right is enjoying a surge … which really started over the
summer, I think as a result of the Gaza war."
Ya think?
Of course, neither he
nor Amanpour delve into that inconvenient detail. They just leave it
hanging there, as though it is a shame that Israelis are wary of a
two-state solution with an entity that is in a unity government with
Hamas.
What Amanpour does
raise, however, is the question of the Obama administration's part in
why "this [peace process] is not happening."
"There was no lack of
leadership on the part of the United States," replied Indyk. "Secretary
[John] Kerry, backed by President Obama, made every effort to move the
parties towards a resolution. But American will and ingenuity and
creativity on its own is not enough. … The two parties have to be
committed to it."
Aside from his omitting
incessant Israeli efforts -- including by every leader Indyk himself
considers kosher politically -- to reach a deal with the Arabs in the PA
and the rest of the region, he resorted to the vile practice of
creating moral equivalence between the sides.
"I think both …
President Abbas … and Prime Minister Netanyahu … were looking over their
shoulders at the more extreme parts of their polity -- in the
Palestinian case… Hamas, which is absolutely opposed to a two-state
solution, and on the Israeli side, within Prime Minister Netanyahu's own
coalition, you had groups also adamantly opposed to a two-state
solution," he said. "In those circumstances, it takes very strong-willed
leaders to be able to push through the kind of opposition they were
facing and, frankly, a public on both sides that didn't believe in a
two-state solution anymore, because they didn't believe that the other
side actually wanted it. So a kind of distrust permeated the
negotiations that was, in the end, impossible for us to overcome."
Such insidious comparisons are evil.
Not only does equating a
liberal democratic society with a terrorist-honoring Muslim-Arab entity
provide the latter with a veil of legitimacy, but it removes the
conflict from its global context, thereby perpetuating the lie that
Israel is at fault for the entire war against the West.
It would be wise for
sane Israelis to follow the winds blowing from Brookings when we head to
the polls on March 17 -- and go for the opposite.
Ruthie Blum is the author of To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the 'Arab Spring'.
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=10831
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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