The danger of a politician with a big mouth and a larger ego is that he will place himself and his opinion above the needs of the country. Rather than serve the country, this type of person tends to inflate his own self worth and take advantage of the privileges of office. Worse, he endangers lives and security by offering options that really are not on the negotiating table – most likely because there isn’t actually a table on which we are negotiating and there’s currently only one chair in the room. The chair is marked with the only people willing to be there unconditionally – and that would be Israel.
It has always been recognized that only the standing government has a mandate to determine the future of its people, especially in a democracy. This has been true throughout the centuries; it is true today in Israel. Yitzhak Herzog is a very dangerous man because he believes he is entitled. His entitlement comes through his blood, he will tell you. He is, after all, the son of Chaim Herzog, a general and former president of Israel. He is the grandson of the first Chief Rabbi of Ireland who then became the first Chief Rabbi of Israel. He is, the grandson and son, a rather pathetic and pale shadow of these great men, ever seeking stardom and importance.
To be a thriving democracy, which Israel most definitely is, you must have a strong opposition, unafraid to challenge the path the government chooses to take. What you cannot have, is one that seeks to subvert, undermine, weaken the government, and therefore the country itself. This and much more, Yitzhak Herzog has done in the past and yet again more recently when he took it upon himself to enter negotiations with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Who is Yitzhak Herzog to reach an agreement that Israel would surrender land and our capital? He has decided that Israel will pay financial compensation to the descendants of Arabs who chose to run away so that their brothers from five nations could invade the tiny and vulnerable new entity called Israel?
Will he also pay, perhaps out of his own miserable pockets, the hundreds of thousands of Jews who were robbed and expelled by numerous Arab nations? These are the Jewish refugees that came to Israel with practically nothing and we clothed them, fed them, housed them until they were able to pull themselves up and become active, vital, thriving, inseparable parts of our society today. Will Herzog compensate them?
I would expect such idiocies from Barack Obama but I think even he would be surprised at the absurdity of a standing member of the Knesset having the nerve to attempt to negotiate without any power behind him.
Forever ready to twist facts, Herzog doesn’t deny that he circumvented the legally elected government but haughtily declares, “In my contacts with the Palestinian Authority president during 2014, I made efforts whose goal was to reach understandings that would have prevented the wave of terror whose arrival I foresaw, just like I’m making efforts now so that this extreme right wing government’s abandonment of the initiative for a regional conference won’t bring the next war down upon us.”
Really, Herzog? You foresaw a new wave of terror? Gee, after so many previous waves I guess that makes you practically a prophet, huh? Who would have thought that without an agreement of utter capitulation from Israel, the Palestinians would revert to violence again. You’d think after 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982…2001, 2008, 2012, 2014, 2016, they’ve have learned, right?
And if you think Bibi Netanyahu’s government is “extreme right wing”, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. If the violence continues despite all our efforts to achieve peace, believe me, Israel WILL turn to the right.
Abandonment of the initiative for a regional conference, are you serious? What initiative? What regional conference? The one that is regularly held without Israel? The ones that have been consistently rejected by Palestinians?
There will be another war, on that Herzog is correct. But it will not be brought on by the actions of the Israeli government but rather by the unwillingness of the Palestinian leaders to truly accept that only through negotiations will there be compromise.
But perhaps the best response to Herzog’s inept attempt to thrust his opinion on the people of Israel can be found in the Palestinians’ response to Herzog’s pathetic efforts, “We didn’t treat it as if it’s something that can be implemented, since obviously the one who makes the decision ultimately is the Israeli prime minister.”
Roger that, Yitzhak. You’ve been defeated again.
