America in the Balance

Israel & The Palestinians — An Interesting Argument & An Anomaly

By

Ken Eliasberg

If the reader thinks that my last columns presented an unduly pessimistic portrayal of the situation in the Middle East, and, more specifically, my appraisal of the prospect for either peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors or Israel’s future, then I refer him (or her) to a recent column by Dennis Prager at nationalreview.com on June 8th entitled

If Israel Is Not Evil, the World Is in Big Trouble — Nearly everyone in the world is against Israel; let’s hope they’re right. The column is incredibly insightful in its analysis and terrifying in its assessment of the situation. In essence, what Prager does is expand on my suggestion that we may be gearing up for another holocaust (actually, he takes it a giant step beyond my focus on Israel). He does so by presenting a litany of arguments and attacks launched by various of the forces aligned against Israel, concluding after each with the statement — Let’s hope (e.g.) the world is right.

At the conclusion of his piece — after 4 pages of enumerating the world’s complaints about, criticisms, and attacks of Israel — Prager makes the following observation as to why he closed out each attack on Israel with the expression of Let’s hope that so and so or such and such argument is right:

“The reason mankind has to hope that the world, its leaders, its newspapers, its so-

called human-rights organizations, and the United Nations are right about Israel is

quite simple: If Israel is the decent party in its war with the Palestinian Authority

and Hamas, and nearly all the world’s countries, nearly all the world’s media, and

the United Nations are morally wrong, what hope is there for humanity? If the

world’s moral compass is that broken, are we not sailing into a dark age?”

And Prager is absolutely right. In a previous column I concluded that the world’s animus toward Israel might be leading to another holocaust — the extermination of Israel with the concomitant annihilation of her people. Prager takes it further — a very logical step further — connecting the dots to what’s happening to Israel with what would (will?) happen to all of Western Civilization if Israel were to meet with such a fate. That is, Israel is, as I have always argued, America’s (Civilization’s) canary in the coal mine. If her light were to be extinguished, it would not just be the end of illumination in the Middle East; it would be a precursor to the lights of Western Civilization going out all over the world.

Meanwhile, in the day-to-day happenings in the witch’s brew that is Middle Eastern politics, I would like to point out a curious event that demonstrates how awkward and delicate is the balance in that region of the world. I received an email from a friend, a friend who is very engaged with respect to matters pertaining to Israel. In the email she included an article from The Jerusalem Post by Khaled Abu Toameh in which the author observed that Fatah, the group that presides over the Palestinian portion of the West Bank, was somewhat distressed overTurkey’s actions on behalf of Gaza, and, as a necessary consequence, of Hamas (the Palestinian group (of terrorists) that governs Gaza). My friend seemed somewhat surprised by this turn of events, i.e. that a Palestinian group might actually favor Israel, albeit in this somewhat indirect fashion. Actually, Fatah was not favoring Israel, it was just expressing its concern over the possibility that the world, or at least significant portions of it, were according favorable recognition to Hamas, thus possibly weakening Fatah’s leadership position within the Palestinian community. I emailed her back that Fatah’s position was not at all surprising. Abbas, Fatah’s leader, is understandably threatened by any improvement in Hamas’s position in the world. Why? Because it might carry with it an authority that would strengthen Hamas’s claim to leadership over the Palestinian people. You may recall the savagery that Hamas visited upon Fatah leading up to expelling its supporters from Gaza.

An interesting corollary to this proposition is that all that really keeps Abbas from being overthrown by Hamas is the Israel Defense Force (IDF). I feel very certain that were the IDF not in the area, Hamas would do to Fatah on the West Bank exactly what it did to them in Gaza. Why the IDF support of Abbas? Because Fatah is the designated Palestinian driver of the alleged peace process with Israel, Hamas being an unwilling and an unworthy candidate for the job.

In this regard, it is interesting to note that, notwithstanding Fatah’s favored position in the “peace process” negotiations, she is equally vociferous in denying Israel’s right to exist. And, frankly, this leads to the inescapable conclusion that there will be no peace in that area. Indeed, there can’t be. Abbas has almost no choice but to deny Israel’s right to exist (to his people in Arabic); a Palestinian leader who would recognize Israel’s right to exist as part of an agreement according Palestinians the rights they claim, would undoubtedly end up in the same position as Anwar Sadat (who signed the peace treaty with Israel in which Egypt recognized Israel’s right to exist (and, in exchange, the Sinai, an area rich in resources, was restored to her)). This is both the anomaly with respect to conditions in that region of the world and a very dark cloud that hangs over any effort the parties may make toward peace. Indeed, even after Arafat was brought back to the territory as the result of the Oslo Accord, he continued to broadcast — in Arabic — to his people that they should not be dismayed by his entering into the agreement with Israel; it was just a ploy — his desire to destroy Israel was still in place, now strengthened by his being better geographically positioned to do so.

Jews were aware that Arafat was speaking out of both sides of his mouth — those on the right were concerned; those on the left, desperate for any concrete effort to secure peace, wrote it off as just the necessary cost of doing business, i.e. Arafat had no choice but to take that position with his people if he were to be allowed to remain in a position of leadership. The left’s position, in this regard, was reminiscent of LBJ’s view of geopolitical reality with respect to any foreign despotic leader that we did business with, i.e. he may be an S.O.B., but he’s our S.O.B. This has been the favored geopolitical position of our foreign policy leadership types, i.e. the “stability” doctrine; we don’t choose the leaders of other countries, we just have to live with, and, where necessary, do business with, those who are chosen. Let me assure you that Abbas is much more afraid of his own people than he is of any Israeli; he is Netanyahu’s designated “peace partner,” and there is no way the Israelis will do anything but keep him alive. If they never raised their hand against Arafat — a despicable monster — there is no chance that Abbas will meet with harm at the hands of the Israelis.