by Dr. Yitzhak Dahan
The recent peace accords pose some embarrassing questions for the peace camp
In the late 1990s, when the cracks in the Oslo Accords became clear, the peace camp sought to deepen public support through an entire industry that would provide support to an idea that was gradually disconnecting from reality: think tanks, research grants, literature, the press, and the academia all marketed this product to the people with reasonable explanations: If we continue to maintain control of the territories, it will be at the expense of peace accords, meaning at the expense of economic growth and welfare. A paper published by senior IDF officers for the Peace and Security Association in 2012 determined that "the settlement enterprise does not bolster Israel's national security, harms its international standing and societal resilience and constitutes a central obstacle to progress ahead of a diplomatic settlement." This argument was made long after the 1993 Oslo Accords and Israel's 2005 disengagement from the Gaza Strip, in a sign that they are continuing to teach us what it really means to keep the faith.
The recent peace accords make the peace camp look bad and raise some embarrassing questions: How will the IDF generals appear before the public when for years, they explained to Israelis that the gateway to the Arab world was in Ramallah? How will they explain that economic growth is dependent on withdrawal when the most recent accords were not conditioned on territorial concessions? How can it be that the same Right that we said would forever be rattling its sabers is now the party holding the olive branch? How can we continue to call ourselves the peace camp when the party actually advancing peace is the Likud? Have we no shame?
The ones who will need to answer these questions are the harbingers of "peace" themselves, and therein lies the problem. Conventional psychological theory teaches us that when reality hits us in the face, we are forced to enter a state of cognitive dissonance followed by a stage of disillusionment. But those who took an oath to the vision of peace set out in the 1990s will find it difficult to renounce their beliefs. Disillusionment is a painful process. Everything crashes down around you. This is exactly the point where an industry that provides both evasive techniques and false narratives begins to evolve.
One method to avoid reality is to attribute your enemy's success, not to the leader's qualities or worldview but external circumstances. According to this method, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu found himself quite by chance at an optimal historical-political crossroads; Iran's enmity toward Saudi Arabia and its allies, combined with pressure from US President Donald Trump, pushed the Arab states into Israel's arms. The fundamental problem with framing the situation in this manner is that it removes the personal leadership factor and the public's independent thinking from the equation.
So, for example, in a weekend piece for Yedioth Ahranoth, Nahum Barnea attributed Morocco's willingness to normalize ties with Israel to geopolitical domestic circumstances and its desire for recognition of its control over Western Sahara.
While this may seem to make a lot of sense, it is in fact a distortion. To prove this point, we can suffice with just one example. From a realpolitik perspective, the decision by the United Arab Emirates to make peace with Israel does stem from an external factor – Iran. But why did they rush to make peace with Israel? Israel is seen as strong; the determined action of its security forces in cooperation with the US over the last decade has made Israel a power you would want to do business with.
Interests? Certainly. But also faith; The Right's idea that to thwart your enemy's plot you must crush it is a matter of faith. So too is the peace camp's notion that to heal society you must first appease the enemy by, for example, giving up territory. One who has faith, they say, is not afraid. But only to a point, and that point is when faith meets reality.
Dr. Yitzhak Dahan
Source: https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/members-of-the-peace-camp-have-you-no-shame/
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