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* What if Israel told the world that we have no guilt concerning our actions over the last one hundred years and that the mess in the region is certainly not because of Israel?
* What if Israel told the world that had the Arabs prevailed victorious in 1948, 1967 or 1973, it’s a safe bet that the world would not be clamoring for the Arabs to return “occupied territories” or to make good-will gestures to Israel? Does anyone honestly believe otherwise?
* What if Israel finally put its foot down and said “no” to the world? What would happen?
* What if Israel utilized all its technological know-how and bombarded YouTube, Facebook and the rest of the social media world with endless ideas promoting the above messages?
* What if Israel’s leaders and diplomatic corps actively promoted these messages?
What would be the ramifications of such an abrupt change by Israel? No one can say for sure although undoubtedly many will claim that if Israel were to make such a shift in direction it would only damage itself by bringing on more condemnations and boycotts, which in turn will lead to further de-legitimization. Perhaps this assumption is accurate, but then again perhaps it isn’t. More importantly, since Israel is already being vilified and ostracized despite years of acquiescing to continue with a political process that has already weakened its image in the eyes of its enemies and has also cost it dearly in terms of lost lives, should we be overly concerned about the implications of making such a change in direction? Likewise, if more and more people are coming to understand that continuing down the current path might eventually lead to our destruction, should we just blindly carry on and ignore all the concerned voices?
The truth is there’s a good chance that such a shift in direction would actually garner a fair share of support. The average Israeli Jew is somewhat right-wing, nationalistic and traditional, as evidenced by both the last elections when the largest winning bloc by far was a right-wing/nationalist/religious bloc and by data from the Central Bureau of Statistics which finds that 60% of the Jews in Israel identify themselves as traditional or religious while even amongst the 40% that call themselves “secular” they still observe various aspects of the tradition. Together, these factors suggest that such a change of direction by Israel would be welcomed by a large percentage of its Jewish citizens.
In America as well it’s safe to assume that such a qualitative shift by Israel would resonate well with its many backers there, be it pro-Israel congressmen, conservative pro-Israel Christians or simply with the many average Americans that are naturally pro-Israel.
Although no one knows for certain how the various world leaders would react, I think the silent majority of Jews and non-Jews throughout the world, those who see through the lies and international hypocrisy and understand the true worth of a strong, vibrant and confident Israel, would be very happy and most supportive. Moreover, this grass-roots support in turn might just influence the respective world leaders.
Yoel Meltzer is a freelance writer living in Jerusalem. His personal blog is yoelmeltzer.com.
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