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The simple truth of the matter is that almost all Israelis by now
understand clearly that removal of Israeli occupation does not reduce
violence, but rather it escalates violence.
Posted By Steven Plaut, FRONT PAGE MAG
There seems to be a wide misconception that the Middle East conflict
is complicated. In fact it is really rather simple. Indeed, one can
basically summarize and explain the entire conflict within the context
of the words “occupation” or “occupied territories” and with respect
to beliefs about the effects of such “occupation.”
Let me explain. For most of the past 46 years (since 1967), there has
been something of a universal consensus among those agreeing that
removing or eliminating the Israeli “occupation” over the West Bank
and Gaza, areas dubbed “The Occupied Palestinian Territories,” would
reduce tensions and make the region more tranquil, possibly leading to
full peace between Israel and its neighbors. Let us dub this theory
the Removal of Occupation Lowers Violence (henceforth the ROLV) Axiom.
It would be hard to exaggerate how broad the ROLV consensus is in the
world. Outside of Israel it is essentially universal. Even within
Israel, for much of the past two generations this ROLV has been the
consensus position of the bulk of the Israeli political spectrum.
Almost all Israeli parties have long agreed, certainly since the “Oslo
Accords” of the early 1990s, that the key to reducing tensions between
Israel and the Arab world is via partial or total removal of Israeli
“occupation” of those territories. With the exception of small parties
on the Israeli Right, basically the entire Israeli political elite,
including Bibi Netanyahu and the Likud, is at least nominally
committed to the ROLV axiom. In this sense, (Israeli President) Shimon
Peres’ recent pronouncement that there is near consensus in Israel
behind the so-called “two-state solution” was only partly his
imagination. (The President in Israel is little more than an honorary
post like the queen of Holland, whereas the real head of state is the
Prime Minister, and so Peres really represents no one.) While
acceptance of the ROLV axiom, holding that removal of occupation leads
to reduction in violence, is not quite the same thing as the
“Two-State Solution” that Peres advocates, its broad acceptance by so
many Israeli political parties provides a small basis for Peres’
grandstanding.
Everything needed to understand the Middle East conflict can be
grasped if one bears in mind that near-universal consensus behind ROLV
and one second fact. The second fact is that the international
consensus about removal of Israeli occupation is empirically false and
nearly all Israelis understand that it is false.
It is somewhat difficult to document exactly what Israelis think about
the “removal of occupation” and the so-called Two-State Solution. Many
of the public opinion polls in Israel are deliberated distorted by
people with an ideological axe to grind, one that precludes asking
candidly what Israelis think. An example was a recent poll that asked
what the respondent would think about a Palestinian state if it were
to be effectively demilitarized, proclaimed its friendly intentions
towards Israel, and proved its intentions over a long testing period.
The question was science fiction; it was like asking how you would
respond if friendly space aliens landed in a flying saucer on your
lawn and offered you a Starbucks. So it was not surprising when fewer
than half of Israelis said that even then they would still be opposed
to a Palestinian state.
Occasionally the truth seeps through, such as in another recent poll
in which Israeli Jews opposing the “Two State Solution” outnumbered
those who endorse it by between 6 and 10 to one.
The simple truth of the matter is that almost all Israelis by now
understand clearly that removal of Israeli occupation does not reduce
violence, but rather it escalates violence. Almost all Israelis
understand that a copy-and-paste job of the unilateral Israeli
withdrawal from Gaza applied to the West Bank, which is pretty much
what the whole world is demanding (including the Obama
administration), would result in tens of thousands of rockets and
missiles fired at the Jews of Israel by the Arabs in those “liberated
territories.” And probably also weapons of mass destruction. The
universal ROLV axiom is simply wrong and almost all Israelis realize
it is wrong, even if nearly 100% of the rest of the world thinks it is
correct.
And wrong it is. The unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza proved
better than any controlled laboratory experiment how invalid ROLV is
and what the real effect of “ending occupation” is. True, the
anti-Semites and their terrorist allies claim Israel never really
relinquished its occupation over the Gaza Strip, although their claim
exhibits Orwellian levels of NewThink pretense and cognitive
dissonance. If there is not a single Jew in Gaza and the Gazans enter
and leave Gaza freely and smuggle in unlimited stocks of weapons from
Iran, while running their own economy, in what way exactly can this be
considered to be Israeli occupation? It is occupation only in the
sense that the US “occupies” Castro’s Cuba, by imposing some limits
and restrictions on the trade done with the pseudo-occupied by the
pseudo-occupier.
In my opinion, at least 95% of Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs
understand perfectly that the ROLV axiom about removal of Israeli
occupation producing tranquility is fallacious. Israeli Arabs and the
Jewish Far Left (and that includes the Tenured Left) support the
removal of occupation precisely because they know – like other
Israelis – that it will produce escalation of violence and tens of
thousands of rockets and missiles landing on Israeli Jewish civilians.
Unlike other Israelis, the Radical Left and Israeli Arabs favor those
developments because they hate Israel and want it eliminated. They
understand as well as everyone else that the axiom of Removal of
Occupation Lowering Violence is incorrect.
For the rest of the Israeli public, skepticism and disbelief regarding
ROLV is nearly universal, almost as widespread as belief in the ROLV
axiom outside of Israel. The only group within Israel that still
believes in ROLV is confined to one or two political parties (the
Labor Party and Meretz) of the less-extreme Left, and these parties
are expected to get less than one vote in 6 in the upcoming elections.
In my opinion, even many of those who vote for these two parties do
not really believe in ROLV, and in fact much of the remaining vote in
favor of Meretz is coming from the anti-Israel extremists who seek
Israel’s elimination.
While Israeli political parties, especially the Likud, may still pay
lip service to ROLV, almost none of their rank and file supporters and
voters believe in it. Indeed, the parties pay the price for their
superficial posturing in favor of ROLV. Some of the posturing is to
gain support (including financing) from overseas believers in ROLV, or
to curry favor with the Obama administration and other foreign
governments. But those going through the posturing are as aware as
everyone else that the ROLV is false and that almost all Israelis
understand that it is false.
There have been proposals to condition any “deal” that removes Israeli
occupation from large swaths of the West Bank on an Israeli national
referendum. The Likud and most of the establishment Israeli parties
strongly oppose this. The Israeli radical Tenured Left opposes such a
referendum with hysterical jeremiads, labeling any proposal for such a
referendum anti-democratic and fascist.
Everyone, including Israel’s treasonous Left, knows that a referendum
on ROLV would not pass because almost no one in Israel believes in
ROLV anymore.
@ Felix Quigley:
Felix Quigley Said:
I agree. I don’t know enough about what the real political climate is in Israel, but I do know that for Israel – or for the Jews anywhere – to rely on an Obama-led America is a sign of fatal naivety.
yamit82 Said:
Any comparison between the two is insulting to we Jews.
@ Raymond Felsted:
I don’t believe Bennet to be revolutionary in spirit. I believe him to be a typical politician here and now. But that is my opinion and it is based on intuition, from things he’s said during the campaign and during his past political career.
@ Shy Guy:
Shy Guy, I know you’re right. They all start out so revolutionary and gung ho and then when they get in the thick of battle they tend to lose their resolve or compromise away their principles. I remember Reagan and Thatcher and just wish we could have leaders like them today.
Raymond, not in desagreement with you. When I remember 2000 years of humiliations, mass murders, persecutions, burning at the stake, gazing, incinaration and blood libels, I have little patience for naive people who think that giving in will bring security and peace. Nobody respects weekness, nobody. It is true that Obama, the liar in chief, wants to remake and redefine America’s relations with Israel. Maybe that is a good thing and prop the jews to look for other pastures and rethink other strategies.
salomoni Said:
Very true but Israel’s leaders are too timid or too in need of acceptance by the world to ignore public opinion.@ salomoni:
No, most of the left does not want to destroy Israel.
They are just living in dreams. They don’t want to, have no courage to face the horrible truth that NOTHING will produce peace. No amount of compromises, concessions, nothing. This is too scary so they hallucinate peace.
Other leftists think that maybe there is not going to be peace with Arabs but the rest of the world is going to love them and support them. They think that the “world”, Europe and America are going to defend them after they have laid themselves belly up.
But of course this is a fantasy, too.
So leftist are cowards who live in fantasies because the real world is too scary.
Finally, I am happy to see more and more people understand that the idea of peace with the arabs is a dangerous one, a futile utopia. After all, the withrawal from Gaza, which I was against,will at least serve, among many many many other reasons to convince a score of israelis to better see the madness of “land for peace”. We got to stop wanting the world to love us: ain’t gone happen. The world is as it has always been, specially Europe, regardless what sweedish FM Carl Bidt proclaim: frankly antisemic, always under their skin, not far in. Maybe that was Sharon idea after all. Maybe.
Ending the Muslim Arab occupation–will end most of the violence–and this day is coming!
@ Bill Levinson:
Why do you say they have ceased killing ea. other? I look to the east of us the North of us and the South of us and I see no indication they have stopped killing ea. other. Wanting to kill Jews for them is a hope killing each other is the norm.
@ Raymond Felsted:
Any comparison between the two is insulting to we Jews.
Raymond Felsted Said:
Were it only true. My prediction is you will be sorely disappointed. If Bayit Yehudi joins a coalition government, it won’t take too long afterward to draw that conclusion. Wait and see.
The Tea Party in America and Bennett and his party in Israel.
Steven Plaut is correct.
The obvious conclusion is only full Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria will produce lasting stability and peace.
That can be squared with Arab demands for self-rule. But let’s be clear: an Arab state will lead to the destruction of the Jewish State of Israel.
There is no third option and virtually every Israeli Jew realizes that allowing the Arabs to do whatever they like is not going to lead to the two sides co-existing together. The Oslo delusion must be eliminated from the Israeli Jewish psyche if Israel is to survive.
This is more affirmation of my continual theme nowadays, and that I made on Israpundit yesterday, that we are in a truly revolutionary situation, in relation to Israel.
Yesterday I pointed to a poll in America where the American people have moved rapidly to more support for Israel and against “Palestine” INSIDE ONE YEAR.
Steven Plaut studies Israeli politics closely and he notes the same thing IN ISRAEL. A major change from OSLO times.
My point to Steven and others is that this is NOT ABSOLUTELY NOT reflected in leadership politics.
Of course it is pushing through and is reflected in a dim way, as in the Bennett development.
But it is not consciously expressed in a party.
I look all the time for a party, for a leadership, AND IT IS NOT THERE IN ISRAEL OR INDEED IN AMERICA.
Is there anybody on Israpundit who agrees with me on this simple statement?