Going on the Offensive?
Paul Eidelberg
When Menachem Begin signed the Camp David Accords in September 1978, and followed this up by signing the Israel-Egypt peace treaty of March 1979, he initiated Israel’s defensive and losing strategy.
Let’s face a simple but unpleasant truth: Only a fool surrenders land won in a war of self-defense to the aggressor—surrenders land for what Anwar Sadat mockingly called “a piece of paper.”
Without firing a shot, Sadat won the greatest victory in military or diplomatic history. From an adversary superior in arms he regained the entire Sinai, including its strategic air bases built by Israel, and oil fields Israel had made productive. Begin surrendered all this—a twelve billion dollar infrastructure—for verbiage!
Sadat also manipulated Begin into abandoning the Jewish settlement of Yamit. This surrender infected Israel’s mentality with the pathological policy of “land for peace.” If this were not enough, Sadat conned Begin into signing the first international agreement that referred to Judea and Samaria as the “West Bank.”
Say what you will about Begin’s virtues, he didn’t really know what he was doing at Camp David. This pretty much sums up the story of his colleagues and successors to this day. Connect the dots: from Begin at Camp David to Bibi at the Begin-Sadat Center at Bar-Ilan University, where Netanyahu renounced the Jewish people’s biblical as well as legal claim to Judea and Samaria.
The State of Israel has been led by losers since the IDF’s miraculous victory in the June 1967 Six-Day War. It had to be miraculous, since it was achieved without the any thought or intention to incorporate Judea and Samaria into the State;! In fact, that bold but logical idea was opposed by Israel’s timid and myopic leaders. No wonder they ceded control of Israel’s holiest site, the Temple Mount, to the Arabs—who were stunned by this gesture of the conquerors.
The word “gesture” tells it all. Israel’s ruling elites think they can obtain peace through “gestures,” like yielding strategic assets for parchment—nay, for less than parchment, as witness the hero who retreated from Gaza for nothing. Let’s face it: Using a term coined by Lenin, we have to admit that for more than four decades this country has been ruled by “useful idiots,” whose mindless behavior was facilitated by Israel’s inane system of government—a system that allowed Ariel Sharon to nullify the 2003 Knesset elections and become Labor’s surrogate prime minister!
Let’s stop the pseudo-sophistication, the obscurantism: It’s not the Arabs but Jewish prime ministers that have laid the foundations for a Palestinian state.
And it makes no difference which party or party leader or party coalition heads Israel’s government: you get the same suicidal policy: retreat and surrender. Barack Obama could have drawn his anti-American foreign policy from Israel’s anti-Zionist foreign policy!
I am not a defeatist. For decades I have offered constructive alternatives to the self-destructive policies of this country. In fact, when I made aliyah in 1976—the year after the UN equated Zionism with “racism”—I brought with me the unheard idea of encouraging Israel to quit the United Nations, and I even gained support for the idea by a politically influential Israeli.
In any event, I have repeatedly proposed an offensive foreign policy, beginning with a serious exposé of the repressive nature of Arab regimes. Alternatively, since Israel was not going to quit the UN, I suggested that Israel submit a proposal in the General Assembly to expel this or that Arab or Islamic regime on grounds of its violation of the UN Charter or the anti-Genocide Convention?
I have often advocated an “ideological offensive” against Israel’s enemies, for example, exposing the hatred of Israel propagated by Egypt’s state-controlled media, which violates the Israel-Egyptian peace treaty.
The Arabs have never ceased their ideological offensive against Israel, playing the “victimization card” or inciting the UN to pass anti-Israel resolutions. Meanwhile, Israel’s political leaders continue to play the role of blind-deaf-mutes.
But what am I saying? Jews must not irritate the “goyim,” certainly not the descendants of Ishmael. Jews much show how magnanimous they are, how peace-loving they are, how long-suffering they are, vis-à-vis their Arab assailants. Yes, Jews must suffer the cruel attacks, the murderous hatred, the obscene lies of the Arabs. The last thing they must do is tell the truth about these compulsive liars, which means they must imitate these Arabs with a good conscience!
Paul Eidelberg
http://www.foundation1.org/
Prof. Eidelberg's latest book:
Toward a Renaissance of Israel and America
available from
www.lightcatcherbooks.com
http://www.lightcatcherbooks.com/products_books_Renaissance.shtml
You might also be interested in these Paul Eidelberg writings:
A Plan for Israel’s Future
This Land is Ours!
Peace Now: The Greatest Enemy of the “Palestinians”
To Hell With the United Nations! Welcome Israel!
