Wednesday was “let’s fight over the meaning of Yitzchak Rabin’s death” day in Israel, with President Shimon Peres and leading center-leftists still defaming the memory of the slain Prime Minister and exploiting it for its agenda that was signed long ago by the U.S. State Dept.
President Peres headed the hit parade at the Mount Herzl Cemetery in Jerusalem and began by rightfully noting that Rabin was a veteran warrior who fought for Israel’s independence and survived the enemy, only to die at the hands of a Jew whose “crime never will be forgiven.”
He then went on the usual peace tangent, equating Rabin with the quest for peace as if he knows better than God what Rabin would have said had he lived long enough to see dozens of suicide bombings, missiles on Jerusalem neighborhoods and trading 1,000 terrorists, many of whom returned to their favorite pastime of killing Jews, for some bodies of soldiers or the return of one live soldier.
But this is nothing new. We go through this every year, for 18 years now, since Rabin was gunned down. The inherent assumption is that there is no peace because the government does not do enough for peace. The government, if it’s not headed by Labor, is to blame and never mind the Arabs’ rejection of Labor government leader Ehud Barak’s offer to give it almost everything it supposed wanted plus the silver platter.
Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but when Peres “remembered” Rabin on Wednesday by declaring, “Those who delude themselves that the status quo between us and the Palestinians will continue may become a victim of their delusions,” the only one who suffers delusions are Shimon Peres and his flock of cluckers.
It was 25 years ago, in mid-1988, when the Intifada was six-months old. Any armchair Zionist from the United States or Europe who drove through the winding hills of Judea and Samaria saw the isolated Jewish communities under the shadow of hundreds of Arab villages tucked away in every valley and exposed in every turn of the back road.
“This cannot continue” was the refrain I remember hearing.
On the surface, nothing much has changed. There are dozens more Jewish communities, but there also are hundreds more Arab communities.
Politically, the same gap remains.
But the status quo has changed because what really matters is not Bush’s Roadmap nor John Kerry’s peace plans. United Nations resolutions in favor of the Palestinian Authority don’t matter. Not even Israel’s “goodwill” gestures matter.
What matters is that the Arab population at large couldn’t care less about a Palestinian Authority state.
If there is a status quo that exists and cannot continue it is the corrupt and impotent Palestinian Authority. The only meaningful riots among the Arabs are those against their own so-called leaders.
There is not one dominant urban center in the Palestinian Authority. There is Ramallah north of Jerusalem, Jenin further north, and there is Jenin even further north, closer to Lower Galilee than to the Ramallah.
There is Kalkilya bordering Kfar Saba on the northern edge of metropolitan Tel Aviv; there is Jericho, in the middle of nowhere in the Jordan Valley; and there is Tulkarm overlooking Netanya. In between all of these cities, there are miles and miles of rural villages.
Each city has its only culture and identity. Hevron Arabs never would feel at home in Jericho, and those in Shechem would not feel at home in Hevron. They all have different mentalities, as different as Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews.
But those two Jewish tribes are bound together by Jewish blood and the need for a State of Israel.
The Arabs are not.
Nothing binds them. Even a common hate of Israel does not bind them because facts on the ground show that while they would love to see Israel annihilated, they would choose three square meals a day if given the choice between the two. They can’t have both because the Palestinian Authority never has had a will to become a ruling entity.
Israel has relinquished rule over most of the Palestinian Authority, but it cannot function. The security it provides for its own people is far less than Israel provided before the Intifadas.