On August 2nd., 2011 the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu said that he has finally seen the light and that he was prepared to resume the peace talks with the Palestinian Authority based on the 1967 borders if the latter stopped seeking United Nation recognition of a Palestinian state. Well, Netanyahu may be sincere or he may not be. Whatever the case, however, it really does not matter in the grand scheme of things because Netanyahu and those like him will flip from one position to another every minute of the day for no apparent reason whether he is sincere or he is not.
With this in mind, we should know that there is one important lesson to learn here and one crucial point never to forget. The lesson is that Netanyahu, like all the Israeli leaders who preceded him, does not see the light unless it is made very bright and shone directly into his eyes. In other words, if you take a positive action such as attempt to nudge these leaders or if you try to appease them, you do not impress them. What will impress these characters is the taking of a negative action. And what this means, unfortunately, is that these people will do the right thing only if they are made to fear the consequences of doing otherwise. Put simply, fear is what prompts these people to do the right thing not reason.
As to the crucial point we must not forget, it is that when we deal with such people, we must not fall into the trap of letting our guards down before obtaining what we expected of them originally. And neither should we let them disarm us with the false promise that they will do the right thing in due course. In fact, the worst thing we can do is to sit back and wait for them to deliver on the promises they make. Our inaction will only buy them the time they need to nullify the clout we may have developed through hard work and perseverance, the clout which forced them to see the light in the first place.
For all these reasons, I say that the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas should pay no attention to what Netanyahu has said and that he should adopt the policy of: Damn the torpedoes, it is full speed ahead with the plan to declare the birth of the Palestinian state. As to the President of the United States, Barack Obama, he should go along with the plan and not impede it with the use of the veto or anything else. In fact, he should encourage the plan, being the American patriot that he is and being a man who wants to work for the welfare of the American people. Far from being a stooge in the pocket of the Jewish lobbyists who are out to draw what blood is left in the nearly dried up arteries of the American political body and its economic arms, Mr. Obama has the opportunity to clean up the soiled image of America. Despite a good-for-nothing Congress, the President can return that nation to health and restore to it the wealth creation capacity it used to have. He can do all this if only he refused to be distracted by the never ending needs of the Israelis and concentrate on the needs of the American people instead.
A close look at the situation will show that the creation of a Palestinian state that is recognized by the nations of the world, including the United States of America, will strengthen the weak clout that is now in the hands of the Palestinian Authority thus maintain the pressure on Netanyahu and his probable successors. This will force them to really see the light and change course. A Palestinian state will force the Israelis to deal seriously with the Palestinian issue, a development that will result in the honest search for a solution by making this important issue the paramount preoccupation of the Israelis. When this happens, the outcome will be a salutary one because the situation in existence today is that the issue is only used by the Israeli leaders as an excuse to milk every illegitimate windfall they can draw from the rest of the world. What these people do now is portray themselves to the American Congress of idiots as being under siege and forever in need of financial, political and military aid. And to the rest of the world, they portray themselves as being the sole owners of an American Congress of male and female bimbos who will do anything that the Jewish lobby will command them to do as long as it is idiotic and destructive.
Lest we get too excited, we need to be mindful of the fact that the creation of a Palestinian state will not automatically mean that in the matter of the ongoing negotiations between the parties, the playing field will be leveled. No; this will not be the case because Israel will still enjoy enormous advantages that the Palestinians could not dream of developing on the spot. What the creation of an independent Palestine will mean, however, is that the picture will have changed from that of a cat negotiating with a bird kept in a cage to that of the bird being out of the cage and free to pursue other interests while negotiating with the cat. And what this will mean in terms of the psychology of the situation is that the cat will now be conscious of the fact that it no longer owns the bird. Thus, the cat will come to understand that the bird has options which may extend as far away as the horizon and even beyond it. And the result of the change in psychology will be that the cat will now take the bird seriously and negotiate with it a little more honestly. The cat will do this not to buy time or to play games that will amuse the American Congress of morons but will negotiate with the view of securing for Israel a meaningful share of the promising future which is now developing for all the serious players in the region.
And there is here a paradox with which we need to be familiar. It is the fact that the peaceful development of the region is something that frightens the Israeli leaders no end. The reason is that if peace were to be achieved, the Jewish leaders will find themselves in a situation where they will no longer have a convincing argument to take to the American Congress of imbeciles where they can cry out the refrain: gimme, gimme, gimme. In turn, this will mean that the people of Israel will have to earn their daily bread by the sweat of their foreheads. It will also mean that the people of Israel will have to compete on a leveled playing field against all those who will engage in the same pursuits. But working honestly and competing to earn a living have never been the forte of the Judeo-Yiddish culture. On the contrary, this culture has always been based on the principle of living the life of a parasite. This is what recorded history says how the ancient Hebrews used to live. It is what constitutes the core of the Jewish religion according to the Old Testament which is used today as a book of learning and of worship. It is why the activists who promote the human rights of Jews make the point that the world owes the Jews a living. It is why they call the Jews a distinguished lot of chosen people created with natural rights that trump those of everyone else and why they demand that the rest of us acknowledge and honor this insane fantasy.
What will make matters even worse for the Israeli leaders if peace came to the Middle East is that the fantasy does not stop here. In fact, the promise of the founding of the Jewish state had been from the start that those who will choose to live like Jews in a Jewish state will find themselves in the midst of a never ending miracle that will never stop giving them something. With the use of terms intended to allude to a reality more than describe a metaphor, prospective immigrants to Israel were told and made to understand that they will be required to do no more than collect and eat the manna that will drop from the sky. They will wash the thing down with a drink of milk handed to them by domesticated animals trained to do more than produce milk. And they will sweeten the mouth with honey brought to their lips by bees that turn into a storage hive every human mouth that is hungry for dessert. Thus, the promise of Israel had been that the Jews who will choose to live in this modern version of the promised land will not have to lift a finger to feed themselves. They were told that everything will be done for them by miracles from heaven the way that Jews are meant to live.
Fantasy aside, the trouble started when the new immigrants to Israel discovered that contrary to the promises made, the Jews have never felt they were better off living in a Jewish state. The reality and the bitter irony have been that when the Jews cease to be driven by the fear of a world that wants to annihilate them, and when they are required to work to earn a living, they find themselves shedding their Jewish heritage. Thus, it happens that when calm descends on the Middle East, the Jews feel less Jewish in Israel than they would anywhere else in the world. Because of this, they reckon they might as well go live somewhere else which is what many of them do eventually. Thus, the paradox that the leaders of Israel face is that to make Israel look like a normal functioning state but a Jewish one, they must create disturbances that remind the local population what a dangerous world exists out there. The disturbances also help them fabricate excuses they can take to the American Congress of the mentally challenged and cry out the refrain: gimme, gimme, gimme. And when the Congress gives them something, the Israeli leaders take the gift and present it to the populace as the manna, the milk and the honey they promised will be forthcoming.
What all this demonstrates, in effect, is that the creation of a Palestinian state will break the toxic pattern now gripping the Middle East. What you can expect to see as a result is the gradual transformation of Israel from a parasitic terrorist state to something that can only be better for its people, for the region, for America and for the world. Israel will come to look more like a normal state and less like the monstrosity it is today. What you can also expect to see is the transformation of the relationships that Israel has created and maintained with its neighbors, with America and with the rest of the world.
As to the neighbors, no longer will the Jewish propaganda machine inside Israel put out stories that will prompt idle talk to the effect that because one Palestinian mother was seen throwing stones at an Israeli tank that came to demolish her house, this proves that three hundred million Arabs and a billion plus Muslims do nothing twenty four hours a day, seven days a week but talk about Israel and plot to throw the Jews into the sea. Instead of defining themselves by the fantasy they repeat to each other that they exist because they are on the mind of the Arabs and the Muslims, the Israelis will now wish to define themselves by the normal relationships they will need to develop with their neighbors and the rest of the world. Until such relationships are forged – which may take some time -- the Israelis might want to try the North American method of pinching themselves to ascertain that they are awake, they exist and they are alive. In time, the Israelis will recognize and will come to accept that they are not this important in the grand scheme of things. And they will no longer see the need to imagine the Arabs or the Muslims talking about them incessantly.
As to Israel's relationship with America, no longer will the Jewish propaganda machine in that country put out stories like those it regularly puts out about Israel coming to the rescue of such high-tech conglomerates as Intel and a few others to save them from ruin or a slide into oblivion. This is what the Americans are accustomed to hearing when they are told about the adventures of the young Israeli super tinkerers who swing into action every time that America hits a technological impasse and gets into difficulty. The American public is told that these are the boys who were schooled not in technology as you might expect but in the arts and the discipline of the Israeli army which itself is nurtured, looked after and protected by the glorious and beloved Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, the cute puppy known to the Americans for the habit of turning the rug in the White House into his favorite litter box and favorite lamppost.
Furthermore, we are told – not always metaphorically – that the tinkering Israeli kids can wave their magic wand and fix anything that may go bad with a microprocessor or a piece of software that would otherwise bedevil the best of minds in Silicon Valley or any valley or any hill for that matter inside America or outside of it. Honest; this is what the authors who write such books make it sound like -- more or less. It is what they flog on television and in the print media. If you look closely enough, you see them repeat this nonsense with a degree of shame that parallels the shame displayed by a dog that sits in the middle of the town square and licks its genitals in full view of a disgusted public. And this would be the same level of shame as displayed by Netanyahu when he pisses on the rug in the White House. Sometimes they call it chutzpah and sometimes they call it hubris but it is all Yiddish to me.
As to Israel's relationship with the rest of the world, the hope and the expectation are that the Israelis will cease to accuse the human race of being defective genetically, that it is programmed to be antisemitic or that human beings commit acts of antisemitism without a reason or provocation. When such accusations are halted, the likelihood will be that the Jews inside and outside of Israel will begin to develop normal relationships with their fellow human beings rather than act in such manner as to provoke what they say they dread the most. The pattern thus far has been that their accusations have served as the prophecy that fulfilled itself. But never again after the creation of a Palestinian state will something like this be allowed to happen.
Will Palestine be a good thing to happen for the Arabs, the Israelis, the Americans and the rest of the world? Of course, it will be. And all this goodness will materialize when Abbas and Obama will say damn you to the torpedoes that will be hurled at them, and when they will call for the sailing ahead at full speed toward the creation of a Palestinian state. This birth will cause the Holy Land to erupt in a joyful exaltation not seen since a similar day of nativity happened in that place more that two thousand years ago. Hallelujah.