Western governments and media critical of the newly elected government coalition led by Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu failed to ask themselves how it happened that the likes of Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir are now prominent ministers in Netanyahu’s government. The same critics in the west labeling Smotrich and Ben Gvir “extremists,” haven’t attached that title to Mahmoud Abbas.
Had the western critics of Israel bothered to consult history as it unfolded since the Oslo Accords of 1993, they could easily grasp the political shift that occurred in Israeli politics. In fact, the turn to the political right began in May 1977, when Menahem Begin became Israel’s first right-of-center Israeli prime minister. It was because of disillusionment with the socialist, center-left Labor party who led stagnant economies, and failed to bring the yearned-for peace. Menahem Begin, who like Smotrich and Ben Gvir was labeled an “extremist” and “terrorist” by some in the western media, made peace with Israel’s most important Arab foe – Egypt.
The Israeli public elected Itzhak Rabin in 1992. It was an endorsement of the peace platform with the Palestinians that the Labor coalition initiated. The Oslo negotiations were supposedly secret, hinted at by the Israeli media of a breakthrough and a final peaceful solution with the Palestinians. Earlier, at the 1991 Madrid conference initiated by the Bush Senior administration following the US triumph in the Gulf War, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was excluded from the negotiations that included a Syrian, Israeli, and a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation comprised of Palestinian notables. Intimidated by Yasser Arafat and the PLO, little progress was made on the Israeli-Palestinian track.
Toward the end of the Reagan administration an attempt was made to negotiate with Arafat’s PLO, if Arafat would recognize “Israel’s right to exist,” and “renounce terrorism”. In December 1988, this reporter held an international press conference at the Geneva, Switzerland United Nations headquarters to warn of Arafat’s duplicity. The US administration was nevertheless persistent in seeking a dialogue with Arafat. In Geneva at the same time, Arafat failed to say the words the US required, and this reporter witnessed it. Eventually, the US accepted Arafat’s Algiers halfhearted words. The US then opened a dialogue through its ambassador in Tunis, Robert H. Pelletreau, Jr. Six months later, a terrorist faction belonging to Arafat’s PLO landed a terror team in Palmachim, a coastal point south of Tel Aviv, with the aim of killing Israeli civilians. It was meant to be a spectacular terror mission at the heart of Israel. The US was forced to suspend negotiations with the Palestinians.
Arafat’s PLO support for Saddam Hussein’s brutal invasion of Kuwait had isolated the Palestinians in the Arab world and the West. It was Shimon Peres, Israel’s foreign minister in Rabin’s government, who endorsed the secret negotiations with the PLO in Oslo. It rescued Arafat from obscurity and isolation at the PLO’s weakest point. In September 1993, President Clinton presided over the signing of the Oslo Accords. Speaking at a Johannesburg, South African mosque on May 10, 1994, soon after Arafat had returned triumphantly to Gaza, he called for “Jihad to liberate Jerusalem.” Arafat alluded to the Oslo Accords as being NO MORE than the Hudaybiyyah agreement signed between the Prophet Mohammad and the Quraysh tribe of Mecca, which the Prophet soon violated when he got stronger, attacking his Quraysh enemies and conquering Mecca.
To the Israelis, the euphoria that accompanied the Oslo Accords turned to disillusionment. To the left-of-center Israelis it seemed that the idea of a two-state solution with the Palestinians was merely a pipedream.
A spate of suicide bombings in major Israeli cities between 1994-1996, including the blowing up of buses, restaurants, etc. convinced moderate and even those who professed to be ardent peaceniks, that it was a zero-sum situation with the Palestinians. It led to the 1996 election of Likud’s young contender, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Hamas strongman Mahmoud Zahar, confirmed in September 2010, that ten-years earlier, Yasser Arafat was playing a double game, encouraging Islamic militants to attack inside Israel while publicly insisting that he was trying to stop the violence. Arafat’s prisons became revolving doors for terrorists with blood on their hands. Arafat’s knack for terror and violence came just when Palestinian statehood was attainable.
In 1999, Ehud Barak, the Labor party leader replaced Netanyahu as Prime Minister. President Clinton sent some of his campaign people to assist Barak in the election. A year later, in July 2000, President Bill Clinton secured a summit at Camp David with Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak. Hopes were high again in Israel for an end of the conflict with the Palestinians. Barak made far-reaching concessions to Arafat with Clinton’s encouragement. According to historian Benny Morris in The Guardian (May 22, 2002), “For the first time in history of the conflict the American president put on the table a proposal based on UNSC resolution 242 and 338, very close to the Palestinian demands, and Arafat refused even to accept it as a basis for negotiations, walked out of the room, and deliberately turned to terrorism.” Arafat never intended to reach a peace settlement or sign an “end of conflict” with Israel.
A year after the Camp David fiasco, Likud’s Ariel Sharon was elected prime minister. The Israeli electorate once again moved rightward, forced to admit that there will never be peace with Arafat’s Palestinians. The Second Intifada led by Arafat killed over 1,000 Israelis, mostly women and children. Israelis had no more illusions about a two-state solution and peace. Arafat’s mission was to replace the Jewish state with an Arab Palestinian Muslim state.
In August 2005, PM Sharon carried out a unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, abandoning flourishing Jewish settlements with more than 8,000 residents. Sharon agreed to leave lavish greenhouses as an economic asset for the Palestinians. They destroyed them. Israel’s abandonment of territory to the Palestinians didn’t bring peace closer. On the contrary, Gaza became a launching pad for Hamas’ rocket attacks against Israeli civilians. This convinced most Israelis that the left-of-center parties’ laborious efforts at peace with the Palestinians were futile.
The concessions Ehud Olmert made to Mahmoud Abbas in 2008 exceeded even those made by Barak. Olmert succeeded Sharon who died after a prolonged coma. In addition to swapping territories with the would-be Palestinian state, Olmert was willing to share Jerusalem as capitals of both the Palestinian state and Israel. He proposed to admit 5,000 diaspora Palestinians into Israel, to arrange for compensation for other Palestinian refugees, and offered a tunnel that would connect the West Bank with Gaza through Israel. Like his predecessor Arafat, Abbas walked out, fearing to commit to an end to the conflict with Israel. Soon afterward Netanyahu and the Likud won the 2009 elections, with Netanyahu becoming the longest serving Israeli prime minister.
While demographics might have played a role in the shift toward the political right, it was primarily the realization by Israelis that there was no hope to end the conflict with the Palestinians in the foreseeable future. They sought an Israeli government that will focus on a more secure Israel, one that will effectively combat Palestinian terror, and not compromise with it. Smotrich and Ben Gvir’s party emerged as the third largest party in Israel with 14 seats in the Knesset, because they offered a decisive stance against the Palestinians.
Should a courageous Palestinian leader emerge willing to make peace with Israel, the political landscape in the Jewish state might change yet again.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Thank you sir. Obama, the president who thought it would be a good idea to build a mosque at Ground Zero, never forgave Netanyahu for going straight to congress. His creepy spirit still occupies the White House, and he is still trying to “level the playing field” at Israel’s expense.
Biden and far too many Democrats as well as the secular Jewish establishment are certifiable woke and believe in interfering with Israeli election results and supporting terrorism sponsored by Iran
Ive never grasped it. Why do they care so much about the politics of a nation that poses no threat to the USA? WTF hands off, do we not have enough of our own problems to keep Washington busy?
There has to be a money trail some where.
One obvious such trail leads to all the Muslim countries with massive amounts of oil.
Kenneth Levin’s book “The Oslo Syndrome” describes the self-deception within the Jewish community when it comes to believing the lies of the Palestinian/Arab leadership. In the foreseeable future the Palestinians of the Judea and Samaria can take solace that they are not in Syrian, Iraq, or Egypt.
Perhaps 50 years from now they will love their own families more than they hate Jews and there will be hope.
This is what the late Golda Meir said. When they love their children more than they hate us maybe there will be peace.. Netanyahu: if they will lay down their arms there will be peace. If Israel lays down its arms there will be no Israel. We have no choice. And finally, more Israelis realise this and voted accordingly. As to the West not liking that: tough. No other country on earth has to justify its existence or fight to survive against murderous enemies. So they need to stop judging us by their western standards Those standards do not apply in the Middle East.
It is a kind of dream.
Arabs will never end their hatred, and thirst for murder. Only if they totally change their murderous ideology called islam. there will be no peace.
They are exactly as the nazis (they cooperated with the Nazis and they made “farhud” ( pogrom) in 1942 in Iraq led by the hitler´s best friend grand mufti Hussaini who was one of the then new terrorist group muslim brotherhood founded by Hassan Banna in 1920
The peace can be only of they really leave islam which is not possible for them
Jerusalem isn’t mentioned in the Quran. Its only significance to Islam is that Muhammad said he had a dream in which a first horse, ascending from Jerusalem, took him on a tour of Heaven and Hell. That’s it. The Real reason the Muslim world is obsessed with it is due to Islamic doctrine which hold that any land once conquered by Islam remains an eternal endowment for Islam (the Islamic waqf). That is why Islam similarly claims Spain. For this reason, not Arafat, Abbas, or any other Muslim can conclude an agreement with Israel that allows it to remain an independent Jewish state, something Abbas has repeatedly said he will “never” do. Yet the delusional West still pursues such an agreement and lavishes money on the the PA in a futile attempt to bribe it to enter into one.
We seem to be looking at a world where lawlessness and morality are upside down, and judges don’t uphold the laws for the innocent.
I refer to what God says. Psalm 33:5 God loves righteousness and justice.
He blesses the home of the righteous. Proverbs 3:33.
The fruit of righteousness will be peace. Proverbs 32:17
The prophet Isaiah, Isaiah 5:20 offered a foreshadowing of this season of lawlessness. “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! People reject the justice that comes from God’s righteousness. Righteousness exalts a nation. It would be wise for Israel to maintain the laws of God, especially those handed down by Moses, and maintain a more Conservative Government.
Psalms 33:5. The Lord loves Righteousness and Justice.
Proverbs 14;34. Righteousness exalts a nation.
Isaiah 32:17. The fruit of righteousness will be peace.
Isaiah 61:8. For I the Lord, love justice, I hate robbery and wrongdoing, In my faithfulness I will reward my people and make an everlasting covenant with them.
The laws, morality, and justice matter to God. We need those kind of governments in place.
there is no peace with islam , its a cancer . you don’t treat cancer by recommending aspirin for treatment . you eradicate it before it takes over your whole body . unfortunately it is now too late for treatment of any kind . the jewish nation was exiled to babylon because of their immorality . the west has now been exiled to babylon . it is GODS judicial judgement on any nation that transgresses his laws and statutes . it is only going to get worse . the jews rejected their messiah when he came just like all gentile nations reject CHRIST and his gospel .
The Messianic Jews are already saved because they are believers that Jesus is Lord., just like Christians. They will be taken in the Rapture with the rest of the believers. The Pharasees, the lawgivers, who were Jealous of Jesus power to bring people to him and preach the Good News, are the ones along with Pontius Pilate who condemned Jesus. This was God’s plan all along to send his Son to die on the cross and save mankind. (Luke 19:10 “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.)
(Nobody escapes judgment. 1 Peter 4:17. )For it is time for judgment to begin with God’s Household, and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God.
The Great Shaking has begun, At the End of the Age, God is going to shake the earth and the heavens and everything will be changed that has not been established by God. Every Nation will be shaken, Hebrews 12:26.
When you murder the Son of God you should expect retribution from God the Father.
Basic Bible Knowledge., and Proof that the Sacrificial Lamb was crucified to save mankind from sin and death. John 3:16 For God so loved the World that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. God’s plans were to sacrifice his only Son to show his love for humanity. Romans 9:31 Israel stumbled over the stone. See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.
2 Peter 2:7 They stumble because they disobey the message…(The Gospel) (which is what they were destined for by God’s plan.)
Prophesied by God what would happen. Have hands and feet pierced Matt 27:35
Soldiers cast lots for his coat John 19:23,24
Betrayed by a friend. Judas. Psalm 4:1-9, Sold for 30 pieces of silver. Matthew 26:14.
Be beaten and spat upon Matthew 27:34. Be despised and rejected, Isaiah 5:3, Crucified, Matthew 27:35… Conquer Death through Resurrection. 1 Corinthians 15:3
When you overrule the Son of God who said, “FATHER, FORGIVE THEM…”, you should expect a corresponding judgment from both the Father and the Son.
I hate to say they’re slow learners, but millions of American Jews voted for Obama and since he’s left the WH the Democrat Party has grown into even more anti Israel.by electing known anti Semites like Ilhan Omar and her fellow Squad members.
True, there are liberal Jews who don’t recognize the truth and seem to vote for their destroyers, but many Jews voted for Trump too, and DeSantis.