Not impressed with Bibi’s tough talk

PM Netanyahu – “Jerusalem is not a settlement”

Author unknown

While right-wingers in Israel are “kvelling” – falling over themselves in joy with “Nachas” – Yidish pride upon hearing Bibi’s “firm” response to the American condemnation for Israel’s renewed building contracts in Jerusalem, I am not impressed. Obama is back to his old tricks now that the midterm election race is over and the Americans have once again castigated Israel for “harming efforts to rekindle the peace talks, and for taking steps that could prejudice the final outcome of the talks” by building Jewish homes in Israel’s eternal capital of Jerusalem. Bibi, in yet another effort to woo his nationalist coalition and constituent base before he agrees to yet another freeze on building beyond the Green Line, is talking tough on Jerusalem, “Jerusalem is not a settlement”. Jerusalem is not a settlement? Why not? What is the difference between Jerusalem, The Cave of The Patriarchs in Hebron, Joseph’s Tomb in Shechem, or Bet El and Shilo? Any delegitimizing of our Biblical and historic claim to Hebron and Ariel puts into question our right to Jerusalem, for it is the same Bible and the same history from where we derive our G-d given birth right to all of Judea and Samaria.

Bibi does not believe that Jerusalem is a settlement, as if to say the rest could and should be frozen. I would rather if he said that Jerusalem and Tel Aviv are as much a “settlement” as is all of Judea and Samaria and that we will not relinquish one inch of Jewish land in the ”territories” just as we would never surrender Jerusalem and Tel Aviv! I would rather him say that we are all settlers, settling our historic homeland! Make no mistake, in the eyes of the Arabs and the Americans Jerusalem and all of Israel are “occupied territories”! Make no mistake, Bibi has already agreed to surrender most of Judea and Samaria. That is why he distinguishes between Jerusalem and the rest.

However, on any map and certainly in the minds of any Arab, East Jerusalem is on the same side of the Green Line as is Hebron and Ariel. From the moment Bibi initiated his first freeze over Judea and Samaira he sealed their fate. After all, why is it that only Jewish building negatively prejudices the final status talks? Bibi has essentially said that the Jewish future in Judea and Samaria is fully negotiable, whereas the future Arab presence there a permanent given fact. By Bibi once again isolating his unwavering position only covering Jerusalem thereby distinguishing Jerusalem from the rest of Judea and Samaria, he has restated his willingness to surrender the rest of Judea and Samaria. This is no cause for the celebration and for the accolades he is now receiving from brain-dead, myopic and naive nationalist leaders for his alleged tough words to Obama.

This is yet another sign that the conflict will never be reconciled as long as there is an Israel of any size and as long as there are any Jews living in Jerusalem. Israel is no longer on a collision course with the U.S., that has opted to support a foreign policy that has prioritized appeasing the Arab and Islamic states and that sacrifices Israel under the bridge that Obama seeks to build between Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the rest of the Muslim World and Washington.

Israel is no longer on that collision course because the collision has already happened. And only deaf and blind Hebrew s refuse to hear the bang or to read the writing on Obama’s wall. In the end, Israel will no longer be able to satisfy the suicidal dictates emanating out of Washington and the demonic dens of the United Nations. In the end, as the demands on Israel mount to impossible heights that would sacrifice Israel’s very existence, Israel will have no choice but to say “no”. Every day that passes and every additional land surrender that Israel makes will only be used against Israel in the inevitable war. The war is already a done deal and Israel stands to gain nothing by reducing its strategic territorial depth into indefensible distorted borders of Auschwitz , G-d forbid.