REVISITING BIBI’S VISIST: DAVID ISAAC….VERY GOOD COLUMN
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Revisiting Bibi’s Visit
By David Isaac
On his visit to the U.S., Netanyahu gave speeches to the Council on Foreign Relations and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. He also held high-profile interviews with Katie Couric and Chris Wallace.
His performance was disappointing. Netanyahu didn’t use these opportunities to make Israel’s case, but instead talked repeatedly about the ‘urgent need to advance peace.’
Here is the speech Netanyahu could have made. Much of it is based on Shmuel’s exact words. They are indicated in bold.
“Resetting U.S.-Israel Relationsâ€
By Bibi Netanyahu
Benjamin Netanyahu
Thank you friends for inviting me to speak and giving me the opportunity to spend some time discussing the urgent matters of the day. We had a long and frank talk at the Oval Office. And I would have to say it went better than the last time we met (mild laughter). I did ask the president for an apology, which he gave, assuring me that the special relationship that exists between the U.S. and Israel may hit some bumps but it remains on a firm foundation.
But in this talk I would like to get beyond rhetoric. And while the personal relations between myself and Mr. Obama have improved, I must state here, as I did in the meeting, that fundamentally nothing has changed in the administration’s approach to the Arab-Israel dispute, an approach that is flawed to the core and predicated on the idea of a “two-state solution†– a concept that ignores history, legality and the Arabs’ true aims. It is founded in a gigantic hoax, perhaps the hoax of the 20th century.
The Arabs do not want or intend to make peace with Israel. They could have had peace and a state – instantly – in 1947. That is what the UN offered them. They refused it. At any time between 1947 and 1967, when the areas in question – Judea, Samaria and Gaza – were actually in Arab hands, cooperation among the Arab states could have brought about a state, and peace, had they wanted it.
In 1967, after Israel’s stunning victory, Israel made the no less stunning offer to hand back the captured territories in return for peace. This too was refused.
After the Arabs had waged two major wars against Israel and blazoned to the world the message that their war aim was the ‘annihilation’ of the Jewish state – what possible reason was left for the nations of the world to assume that, of all things, the Arabs were longing for peace with living Israel?
Since then, and never more fiercely than today, what is the Arab-Muslim message, coming out of every Arab radio station, every Arab television channel, booming out of every Muslim mosque, and, most significantly, every Arab school textbook?
The claim of the Arabs that the whole Land, ‘from the river to the sea’ belongs to them, and that Israel took it from them and introduced its settlers has led to the demonization of the settlers.
The Jews who have settled in Judea, Samaria and, until recently, in the Gaza district are utterly and immaculately legal. They are legal in the strictest interpretation of international law, and they are legitimate by the strictest test of historical right – not to mention their civic residential rights. Any attempt from outside to move them would be a threefold crime, first of all against the Jewish people.
In our meeting, the subject of Jerusalem was again broached. The president repeated his request that Israel cease building in areas of Jerusalem taken after 1967.
To the Jews, Jerusalem is the eternal centre, an indestructible part of the warp and woof of the people and its religion. Already in the Bible it is mentioned over 600 times as the mainspring of the nation. For over three thousand years it has been the focus of a national passion manifestly unique in human history. Indeed, in Jewish lore it is identical with the Land of Israel itself.
The feelings of both Christians and Moslems for the sites that hold a place in their hearts deserve every respect, and the State of Israel rightly ensures to all three faiths complete freedom of access to and worship at these Holy Places. These sentiments cannot, however, be equated with the profound significance of Jerusalem in the history and faith of the Jewish people.
To compromise on Jerusalem is to compromise on the heart of our people. We will not “donate†this vital organ to those who already possess a heart of their own and who have no historical or legal claim to ours.
I mentioned to the president that we have already vacated areas twice, first in Lebanon and then in Gaza. Those areas that we vacated were very quickly taken over by Iran’s proxies, which poured rockets and missiles into them later fired on us. The president suggested that our security concerns could be met with a demilitarized zone.
Experience demonstrates that “demilitarized zones†are valuable aids to aggressors. The terrorist organizations would soon establish themselves throughout the whole of Judea and Samaria, and then operate from the demilitarized border zone against the heart of the civilian population in Israel. No U.N. force could or would prevent such terrorist activity with the appreciable sacrifices necessary for this purpose. It would however be on the alert to prevent counteraction by the Israel Army.
This force would in fact provide the physical screen — as the Security Council would provide the political cover — for the gradual, or not so gradual, conversion of the demilitarized zones into fullscale Arab bases for the next attempt on the life of an Israel cramped and handicapped even more than she was in May 1967.
The president did in fact from time to time say that a strong Israel is an American interest. But the shrinkage of Israel to which he is committed cannot by any stretch of the imagination have any other effect than to weaken her beyond the bounds of any value she can possibly have in a meaningful United States geopolitical plan.
In plain words, the consummation of Obama’s policy will at least emasculate Israel, and expose her directly to the threat of physical destruction. The airing of the slogan that “a strong Israel is an American interest†is either a hypocritical soporific for the simpleminded, or an example of political inanity unparalleled since Chamberlain and Daladier in 1938 handed over “only†Sudetenland to the German Nazi Government.
These dangers are ignored and overlooked, and certainly grossly underestimated, by the administration. The community of interest with Israel, concerning both the maintenance of a bastion of Western culture and democracy … is to all intents and purposes not a factor in U.S. policy. This – notwithstanding platitudes to the contrary occasionally uttered in Washington and notwithstanding even the supply of aid and arms to Israel. These, in the final analysis are intended to give an attenuated Israel the chance of putting up a fight for the bare bones of existence against odds made overwhelming by the other, coercive, aspects of the administration’s policy towards Israel.
In response, the president pointed to the success of our treaty with Egypt and offered the hope that that could be a model for an agreement with the Palestinian Arabs.
The only material difference in relations effected by the peace treaty – and the only one that cannot be cancelled by a stroke of the pen – is that whereas before it was signed Sinai was held by Israel, now Sinai is in Egyptian hands Egyptians will admit that that indeed is all the peace treaty was intended to achieve.
It has developed a military infrastructure far beyond the level permitted by the treaty. It has introduced military elements into the zone – designated as demilitarized – and regularly carries out prohibited reconnaissance activity. Israeli protests have been ignored.
Optimists pinned their hopes on “normalization,†which in time would change the climate of relations. Normalization was amply provided for in the peace treaty, and the principles laid down were, in fact, bolstered by a variety of agreements on special subjects.
Diplomatic personnel were exchanged. Beyond that – not one single clause on Relations Between the Parties has been honoured by Egypt. I think you would agree that this is not a model on which to build further agreements.
There has been a developing international design to reduce Israel. It was long foreseen – as the inevitable aftermath of the surrender of Sinai to Egypt. The battle against it will, moreover, have to be waged in unprecedentedly difficult, indeed tragic, circumstances.
All the friends of Israel around the world, Christians as well as Jews, should be alerted to the urgency of their joining in the battle.
They, like all of us, must moreover open their eyes to the even darker cloud that has been gathering for many years; the campaign for the delegitimization of Israel as a nation and a state. This obscene project is reflected by the new wave of anti-Semitism unprecedented since the days of the Nazis, whose central target is now the sovereign State of Israel.
The purpose will surely be defeated but the battle has yet to be waged with steadfastness, and with skill.
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