INTO THE FRAY: The Enemy – What the “Right” seems unable to grasp

For your perusal, my latest INTO THE FRAY column

The Enemy – What the “Right” seems unable to grasp

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The time has come for the “Right” to “bite the bullet” & give up trying to advance convoluted political prescriptions in lieu of the two-state formula. It is time to identify the Palestinian-Arabs as the enemy

It appears this week on the following sites (in alphabetical order):

ISRAELI FRONTLINE: http://www.israelifrontline.com/2018/02/fray-enemy-right.html
ISRAEL NATIONAL NEWS: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/21647
ISRAEL RISING: https://www.israelrising.com/enemy-right-seems-unable-grasp/
ISRAPUNDIT: https://www.israpundit.org/into-the-fray-time-for-the-right-to-bite-the-bullet/
JERUSALEM HERALD: https://www.jerusalem-herald.com/single-post/2018/02/02/INTO-THE-FRAY-The-Enemy—What-the-Right-Seems-Unable-to-Grasp
JEWS DOWN UNDER: https://jewsdownunder.com/2018/02/03/fray-enemy-right-seems-unable-grasp/
MEDIUM: https://medium.com/@martinsherman/into-the-fray-the-enemy-what-the-right-seems-unable-to-grasp-f96ec721aa05
JEWISH PRESS: http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/columns/into-the-fray-martin-sherman/into-the-fray-the-enemy-what-the-right-seems-unable-to-grasp/2018/02/04/

Several short excerpts:

The goal of our struggle is the end of Israel, and there can be no compromises…the goal of this violence is the elimination of Zionism from Palestine in all its political, economic and military aspects…We don’t want peace, we want victory. Peace for us means Israel’s destruction and nothing else —Yasser Arafat – 1970, 23 years before the signing of the Oslo Accords

The PLO will now concentrate on splitting Israel psychologically into two camps…We plan to eliminate the State of Israel and establish a Palestinian state. We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion. Jews will not want to live among Arabs. I have no use for Jews. They are and remain Jews –Yasser Arafat – 1996, 3 years after the signing of the Oslo Accords

The Arabs are [the same]Arabs … the sea is the same sea, and the aim is the same aim: extermination of the State of Israel – even if you call it ‘self-determination.’– Yitzhak Shamir, 1989

In my column last week, I made the case for Israel to identify the Palestinian-Arab collective for what it openly admits itself to be—an implacable enemy, not a prospective peace partner—and urged that it to formulate policy commensurate with this diagnosis.

Hardly a hapless victim

A large model of a M75 long-range missile is seen as hundreds of thousands attend a rally to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza city in December. (photo credit: AP/Hatem Moussa
A large model of a M75 long-range missile is seen as hundreds of thousands attend a rally to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza city in December. (photo credit: AP/Hatem Moussa

In this regard, I underscored that it is imperative to keep in mind that, while there are certainly many Palestinian-Arabs with fine personal qualities, the Palestinian-Arab collective is not the hapless victim of radical terror groups…Quite the opposite….It is, in fact, the societal crucible in which they were forged, and from which they emerged. Its leadership is a reflection of, not an imposition on, Palestinian-Arab society.

Reluctance to recognize reality

This reluctance to recognize that innate hostility towards the Jewish state is a societal characteristic of the Palestinian-Arab public (which engenders its Judeophobic leadership), expresses itself in two broad categories of policy proposals advanced by stern critics of Palestinians and of the “peace process”.

“Palestinians cursed with incompetent, corrupt leaders…”

“Palestinians are… cursed with incompetent and corrupt leaders”
“Palestinians are… cursed with incompetent and corrupt leaders”

Two recently published articles illustrate the logical flaws in proposals of the first category….One was a piece that appeared in “The Forward”, “How Aid To Palestinians Hurts — Not Helps — The Peace Process” , authored by Asaf Romirowsky, executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and Alex Joffe of the Middle East Forum…The other was a piece posted by political analyst, Daniel Krygier, entitled Time to demand the Palestinian Authority’s unconditional surrender, which in itself tends to reveal the author’s hawkish predilections.

Leadership a reflection of, not an imposition on, Palestinian society

In his article, Daniel Krygier takes a similar line.

After vividly cataloging the years of nefarious malfeasance of the Palestinian leadership, in his concluding paragraph, he writes: “The time has come for Israel and America to demand an unconditional surrender of the PA and replace it with a new Arab leadership committed to genuine peace and progress.”

Delusion that two-statism can be fixed

Moreover, when Romirowsky, Joffe and Krygier called for reforming and replacing the Palestinian leadership, who is supposed to do the reforming and the replacing? And how is this to be done? If it is the Palestinian-Arabs themselves who are supposed to do it, what reason is there to believe that they will do now that which they have not done “since the 1920s”?

At the root of this flawed thinking is the belief –even by those who excoriate the Palestinian-Arabs—that the two-state paradigm can still be fixed- and need not be nixed.

Lebanonizing Israel

This brings us to the second category of policy prescriptions…These do not focus on any future reformation/replacement of Palestinian leadership, but on dissolving the current leadership, dismantling the mechanisms of its administration and incorporating the Palestinian-Arab residents into the permanent population of Israel, under Israeli governance… However, this would, in effect, comprise an almost certain recipe for the Lebanonization of Israeli society.

Time for the “Right” to the bite the bullet

The time has come for the “Right” to “bite the bullet” and give up trying to produce all sorts of convoluted political prescriptions in lieu of the two-state formulathat propose replacing Palestinian leaders, reforming Palestinian  governance or co-opting Palestinian residents. It is time to identify the Palestinians for what they are and for what they claim to be–not prospective peace partners but implacable enemies–and to formulate policy prescriptions that treat them accordingly.

As usual your talkbacks/comments/critiques welcome,
Best wishes,
MS

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