Labor MK Omer Barlev (first term), son of the Illustrious Israeli general Chaim Barlev, has told the NY Times about a plan he dubbed “It’s in Our Hands,” calling for Israel to unilaterally define its own borders to ensure its security.
That doesn’t sound so bad, now, does it? The new Barlev Line (the old one collapsed under the attack of the Egyptian army in 1973, but who can remember all that history) keeps control of all of Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley and hands over 60 percent of Judea and Samaria to the Palestinians, “evacuating 35,000 Jewish settlers — less than 10 percent of the total.”
A bargain, right? What’s 35K Jews? About 7,000 families? We can do it in our sleep.
“The basic idea is taking our future in our hands,” explains Barlev. That’s sounds good. Of course, we’re also taking the future of some 35 thousand loser settlers in our hands, but not to worry, they’ll thank us in the end.
“There are things we can do today,” he says. “There are things we can lead today and not be led. I’m saying, in order to keep Zionism and to keep the Jewish state, we don’t need a partner.”
Of course, his definition of Zionism is very different from that of those 35,000 poor sods. He thinks of Zionism as a political solution to the ongoing state of insecurity of Jews around the world. His way of thinking dates back to Minsk in the 1870s. Indeed, this is still the prevailing view of Zionism among secular Israelis: the aim of Zionism is to establish a secure place for Jews. Heck, we almost grabbed Uganda as a fine place for a Zionist state, because we needed refuge from the Czarist Pale of Settlement.
But those 35,000 settlers are mostly there for the other Zionism, the Zionism that views all of Eretz Israel as the legitimate home of the Jews, based on a very popular religious manuscript which can still be found in many secular Zionist homes.
Back in 2005, when the Ariel Sharon thugs dragged 8,000 Jews kicking and screaming, they had the element of surprise on their side: the majority of the Gush Katif Jews simply did not believe that Jewish policemen and soldiers would load them onto buses and take them away en masse. It could not be imagined.
Just as, to strike a very heavily dramatic chord, but one which must be struck, the Jews of Berlin couldn’t in their worst dreams imagine that they would be pushed en masse onto train cars and hauled to a place far away in the east, to be destroyed systematically.
But those parlor tricks can only be pulled once. No Berlin Jew in his right mind is ever staying around once there’s talk of trains and rides to Poland in the air; and no Jew is waiting around peacefully, letting government thugs pick them off like so many squirrels, without a serious fight. One that might involve more than shouting and hitting. We learn fast.
Here’s a precious quote from the NY Times article on MK Barlev’s plan: “Like the majority of Israeli politicians — and the public they represent — Mr. Barlev seeks a two-state solution but sees it as an almost impossible dream.”
Really? The majority of Israeli politicians want a 2-state solution? For heaven’s sake, even the left is abandoning this idiotic notion. The only Israeli politicians still vehemently believing in the 2-state bait are Tzipi Livni and John Kerry.
Having said that, there is something the Israeli government can do right away, and have no doubt—MK Barlev will vote against it: impose Israeli law on all the areas inhabited by Israelis.
You should know that the institution that prolongs the temporary state of military occupation of Judea and Samaria is the government of Israel. This despite the findings of a three-judge panel this very prime minister appointed, which recommended that Israeli law become the law of the land for Israelis.