So much spin from so many mavens.
They think they know what makes me tick, what will shape
my decisions. But they are really trying to tell me what to do. The
left-leaning journalistas think Israel’s Holocaust obsession (their
crude phrase) will lead the Jewish State to attack Iran. They are
joined by American Jews for whom self-defense and Israeli security
are more problematic than Palestinian terror.
I know what my opponents told President Obama and his
team. That I bend to pressure and will cave to American interests.
So they tried to intimidate me and Israel by condemning the
construction of a few apartments in a crowded Jewish neighborhood
in Jerusalem more viciously then they condemned terror.
I did not waver. To me the President’s statement was not
just another example of a belief that “getting tough” with Israel
was necessary to win over the Palestinians and Arab states and form
a grand alliance to pressure Iran into not going nuclear. Every
administration makes this mistake in one way or another. But Obama
really believed that Israel needed to be brought down a peg. The
American “silence” in the face of the Goldstone report and
international criticism of our enforcement of the naval blockade
was not just calculated but the product of a worldview in which
democracies should defend themselves in terms acceptable to the
UN.
All it did was signal to Abu Mazen that Obama could not be
counted on to stand up to Iran or stand by us if we had to go to
war again against Hamas, Hezbollah or Iran. And in the weird world
of Middle East politics, Obama’s words and deeds made Abu Mazen and
other Arab states who fear Iran less confident about America. If I
were Abbas I would dig my heels in too. Without America willing to
stand up to terrorism (what was the deal about trying to sweet talk
Syria out of transferring missiles to Hezbollah with promises of an
American ambassador to Damascus?) he is weaker, not stronger. And
by making settlements an issue the Obama administration made our
“partner in peace” more vulnerable to Hamas.
Obama called the murder of four Israelis by Hamas
terrorists “a senseless act of violence.” Wrong again. It was a
direct result of removing security checkpoints and turning the
patrol of the highway where the four were killed to Palestinian
security forces. And it’s only the beginning.
Both my friends and enemies take my caution as a sign of
weakness. But I’ve already made my decision: I will not let the
West determine Israel’s destiny. I told Obama, “We left Lebanon, we
got terror. We left Gaza, we got terror. We want to ensure that
territory we concede will not be turned into a third
Iranian-sponsored terror enclave aimed at the heart of
Israel.”
The West will pressure Israel to take down even more security
checkpoints, require the massive relocation of entire communities
and the partitioning Jerusalem. And it
will try again to entrust Israel’s security to hapless
international forces.
The only way a Palestinian state would not
become a forward base for Iran and threaten Israel is if the West
can guarantee that Iran will not have a military nuclear
capability. The Palestinians and Arab states have a problem; to
them peace is a smaller, weaker Israel limited by world
opinion, perpetually indicted for acting in self-defense by the
media and international courts. But a smaller, weaker Israel will
be unable to prevent Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah from launching an attack or spreading
weapons. That means Arab states would not support meaningful
sanctions or military action against Iran to eliminate its nuclear
weapons capability. I still don’t know if Obama understands how all
this is connected.
No one wants war. But the greatest threats to world
security over the past 100 years are focused on exterminating the
Jewish people. Days before The Six Day War, then-Prime
Minister Levi Eschol told Menachem Begin he worried the risk of
casualties and enraging Arabs more were too high. Begin told
Eschol: “We are going to war. When an enemy of our people says he
intends to destroy us, the first thing we have to do is to believe
him. People did not believe Hitler. The Arabs say they want to
destroy us and so we must believe them. We must seize the
initiative and destroy our enemies first.”
If forced, Israel will do the same today. The
people of Israel have lived 3,800 years without American or
international approval and it will continue to live for another
3,800. It may be the only way we can.
