Two articles brought memories that go back almost fifteen years.
One came under the title: “The new EU Push for Palestinian Statehood Is
Dangerous for Israel,” written by Yoni Ben Menachem, and published on December
15, 2019 in the Jewish publication Algemeiner.
The other article came under the title: “Like Pepsi, Democrats
Need To Reverse Course on Boycotting Israel,” and the subtitle: “A growing
number of Democrats tolerate, even gladly support, the movement to boycott
Israel. They justify it in the name of free speech and social justice, but it's
economic warfare.” It was written by Melissa Langsam Braunstein and published
three days earlier, on December 12, 2019 in The Federalist.
The title of the Yoni Ben Menachem article put the story in a
nutshell: “Palestinian statehood is dangerous for Israel.” As to the title of
the Melissa Braunstein article, it hints to how the Democratic Party in America
may begin to alleviate the pressure on Israel. Stop boycotting Israel, says the
writer.
These two articles brought memories of the day when the small
hospital in the town where I live sent me to do a bypass operation in the big
hospital of a nearby city. In fact, that hospital was setting aside one day
every so often for patients that came from the nearby small towns. The hospital
had several operating rooms, and the patients waited up to an hour for their
turn to be wheeled into one of those rooms.
We waited, each in our bed, separated by portable walls, in row
after row of makeshift cubicles. The rows themselves were separated by walkways
that served as corridors. We were mostly people of advanced age, except for
one. He was a child of about three or four years of age … and he cried most of
the time. His mother held him in her arms, bounced him up and down, and sang
him a lullaby. He would quiet down, and when she stopped bouncing him or
singing, he knew how to get her going. He pretended to have a terrible cough,
and before he started crying again, she would bounce him and sing to him.
At some point, the mother got tired and handed him to the nurse
who started telling him he'll be okay because the doctor will not hurt him. But
the child was not satisfied with that, and so he started coughing his terrible
cough. He kept at it till the nurse got the message, and started bouncing him
in her arms. That's when he stopped coughing … to start again when she stopped
bouncing him.
You could tell this was one spoiled child that knew how to get
what he wanted from his parents. And that's precisely the character I saw in
the Jews who reminded me of him. The Jewish parody that imitates the child's
cough has always been to cry out gimme this, gimme that and gimme the other
things, or Israel will cease to exist because anything that upsets the status
quo is an existential threat to Israel.
That's what Ben Menachem is saying with regard to the moves
initiated by the European Union (EU) to recognize the Palestinian State. Bear
in mind that the Foreign Minister of the EU reassured everyone that, “Such a
move would not be anti-Israel … We must never lose sight of Israel's security
conditions, as well as of justice and dignity for the Palestinian people.”
Still, like a spoiled three-year old, the Jews continue to whine and cough out
the discredited claim that, “An independent Palestinian state in the West Bank
is a serious danger to Israel's security”.
By that, they mean a Palestinian state will pose an existential
threat to Israel. Come to think of it, I never heard of a three-year old that
said do not reward another kid with something he wants because if you do, I'll
die. Only the Jews would say something like this … and they did.
As to Melissa Braunstein, she put a saying she agrees with between
quotation marks without attributing the quote to someone. It doesn't matter.
She agrees with it, and that's what's important to this discussion. So,
speaking of the old Arab boycott of Israel, as distinct from the modern BDS
movement, here is that quotation: “The boycott was part of the Arab League's
policy to weaken and eventually destroy the Jewish state.”
She says she learned about that when in 1983, she was 5 years old
and on a trip to Israel. Well, I was in Canada then, and was almost as old on
that year as she is today. But the Arab boycott of Israel started long before
that, and during the 7 years that I lived in Egypt, I never heard of anything
which meant to convey the notion that the boycott intended to destroy Israel. Instead,
the discussion was always about forcing Israel to stop its expansionist policy,
which it did at the expense of the Palestinians.
And this happens to be the same spirit that's motivating the base
as well as the leaders of the Democratic Party in America. Here is what Melissa
Braunstein discovered: “The intra-party debate has shifted to leveraging
American military assistance to shape Israeli policy.” As you can see, nothing
in here hints at the destruction of Israel.