"I think that after the Six-Days war, we should have annexed the freed territories, developed them, and planted there millions of Jews and deployed a strength that our enemies would've been forced to acknowledge. As for the demographic threat, if we had treated the Arab minority of Eretz-Yisrael as we should, they should've been given the choice between the Israeli and the Jordanian citizenship.
I do not think that Arabs referring to themselves as "Palestinians" have the slightest right to a State. There is no Palestinian people, and the Arab group living in Eretz-Yisrael are but a branch of the Arab nation.For me, they have no right to any kind of linguistic, religious, or cultural autonomy".
"The possibility that an Arab state will be created in the middle the Jewish state is a nightmare to me. Such state can only be a permanent terrorist base. Hence the crucial role played by Bibi. The goal of the agreements with the PLO being the creation of an Arab State, we must avoid this trap without formally cancelling the agreements, so that we are not accused of breaking our word. The important thing is not to clash with the US."
"We must be inspired by the Reconquista and the Spaniards, who did not hesitate to lead a war for centuries. They did not stop until they had liberated Granada from the muslim oppression. They understood they only had one choice: to conquer the entire territory, or to be in a permanent state of war. With no such ethos, such a popular move, we will never be able to maintain our presence here. The only difference between us and the Spaniards is tiny: we regained our country after 12 centuries of exile, the Spanish only after 8. The essence is in what our peoples have in common: they had no other country, and have never given it up".
I do not think that Arabs referring to themselves as "Palestinians" have the slightest right to a State. There is no Palestinian people, and the Arab group living in Eretz-Yisrael are but a branch of the Arab nation.For me, they have no right to any kind of linguistic, religious, or cultural autonomy".
"The possibility that an Arab state will be created in the middle the Jewish state is a nightmare to me. Such state can only be a permanent terrorist base. Hence the crucial role played by Bibi. The goal of the agreements with the PLO being the creation of an Arab State, we must avoid this trap without formally cancelling the agreements, so that we are not accused of breaking our word. The important thing is not to clash with the US."
"We must be inspired by the Reconquista and the Spaniards, who did not hesitate to lead a war for centuries. They did not stop until they had liberated Granada from the muslim oppression. They understood they only had one choice: to conquer the entire territory, or to be in a permanent state of war. With no such ethos, such a popular move, we will never be able to maintain our presence here. The only difference between us and the Spaniards is tiny: we regained our country after 12 centuries of exile, the Spanish only after 8. The essence is in what our peoples have in common: they had no other country, and have never given it up".
This is the essence of Israel's next prime minister's ideas.
Good luck with that.
From an interview of Benzion Netanyahu with Ari Shavit, in Haaretz, 1998. (via the print edition of Courrier International, hors serie "Juifs et Arabes: les haines, les conflits, les espoirs". Translated from French.)
11 comments:
I don't think it's fair to say that because these are his father's ideas, that he shares them as well. I don't know that he doesn't, but I wouldn't assume that he does just from this.
Anyway, I'm not voting for either of them! : )
Its not that you are a fan of Livni and Barak, right? And Meretz will never win elections(of course they supported the war in Gaza, so they are not better than the rest of them). What's the big deal then?
Hey, he's got some things right.
Palestinian Arabs are not particularly distinct from other Arabs linguistically or religiously. The cultural differences are a comparatively recent invention, part of the weaponization process. And a Palestinian state will, of course, be a permanent terrorist base.
Everything else is bull, though.
I just love the way you cynically judge the sons by the words of the fathers. It's one of my favorite fallacies, and an excellent Hebrew proverb as well.
Mohamed, Gideon Lichfield, correspondet of the Economist, seems to think that the right's takeover could be a good thing....It'll give the left a chance to get their act together. Comments ?
He's got an exellent blog-http://fugitivepeace.com/
Helen in London
Benji:
Fair criticism. Absolutely.
But I think he shares a good chunk of his father's ideas. The apple doesn't fall very far from the tree, usually.
And notice the reference Benzion makes to Bibi's "crucial role" - and that was during his premiership: the article was published in 1998.
And if Haaretz found it interesting to publish the father's rhetoric, I think it was for a reason..
Leonid:
You are right, of course. But as often in elections, we should go with the lesser of two evils... (and that's the topic of the post I'm posting in the morning. :)
Abu Sa'ar:
Kindly see reply to Benji's comment.
Also: your first comment lumping all Arabs together is a rookie mistake that I wouldn't expect from you.
You know, might as well consider all Europeans as homogeneous. They're all white, aren't they?
But.. you're kinda white yourself! Ergo, you and a random Albanian or Afrikaner should be just at ease with one another.
(Yes, I am exaggerating. But you get my point.)
What proverb is that?
Helen:
For some reason I seem to have missed this excellent blog. Thanks!
As for the left regrouping - the left needs a complete overhaul, a change of leadership, and more importantly something to show for itself.
Plus, Israel operates by "fait accompli". Nothing can be undone, stupid as it may be. And I fear the worse from a Bibi-Lieberman government. So I'm not willing to take the chance...
The left will have to get its act together under pressure. It cannot afford to take a time-out.
The israeli politicians have a common ground at the time being: No futher agreements with the palestinian authority. No further withdrawals. And No matter how good Bibi is:
1- The future coalition wouldn't exist without the approval of the far right parties which will not pass any agreement.
2- The israelis would keep the international community busy with new problems in the region . Sort of problems that would make talking about peace ridiculous at their time
You have I mean you have to watch the israeli promotional campaigns. They are ridiculous. They lack subjects. They lack promises even.
Yisrael Beytenou: "Liberman Understands Arabic" . "No citizenship without loyalty". "The head of the municipality of Sahknin bless the martyrs and he receives a monthly salary of 27000NIS from the State".
Kadima : "Livni was raised on good principles" "Bibi is a liar"
Likud: "We warned that the rockets will reach Ashkelon"
!!
And the list goes on.... Do you think that they are ready for "Peace".... NO NO NO!
أقلب الطنجرة على فمها تطلع البنت لامها ;)
عندنا بتصير "اقلب القدرة..."
و طبعا حيث اننا شعب لسانه زفر, ف"البنت" بتصير "البت".
:)
Mo -
The Arabic culture, language and (to a lesser extent) religion are all pretty significant common elements. The generalization has nothing to do with skin color or race (once again :) ) - it is a cultural thing. Like a black lawyer from Seattle and a white tobacco farmhand from Tennessee: both belong to the same culture, share the same language and quite likely share their religion (if not the denomination). I, therefore, lump them together culturally as Americans, despite their differences.
What's this obsession with race/skin color?
Palestinian Arabs, by the way, are a semi-distinct cultural grouping nowadays, after decades of intensive brainwashing and cultural weaponization. But not too much - kind of like American baby-boomer hippies are a semi-distinct cultural grouping. That's my analysis, anyway.
Haaretz is a very Left paper. They often publish articles to damage their political opponents. Don't be surprised. Arutz 7 does the same thing.
The proverb is "אבות יאכלו בוסר ושיני הבנים תקהינה" (Fathers ate unripened fruit and their sons' teeth are dulled/darkened). From Yermiyahu, I think.
And as for the Left... it's pretty much dead. Mortally wounded by Oslo and Arafat, wounded again by Fateh pretending to remove "destruction of Israel" as their stated goal (without actually doing it). And then, as the dying Left was crawling across the floor, Israel's 5th column and their friends Hamas and Hizballah put an end to its misery. We lost more civilians to "peace" than we did to any wars. This particular pipe-dream is all out of pipe.
That there is strong kinship between Palestinians, Egyptians and Syrians is obvious.
That doesn't mean they don't have their own distinct culture, tradition, outfits, etc - which is what makes them, well, Palestinians, and us Egyptians.
Plus to go from "are a branch of the arab nation" to "have no right to any kind of autonomy" is silly; ignorant at best.
What's that with weaponisation anyway? I let it slip the first time but you bring it again, so I have to ask. I know you're not keen on Arabs but at least you should know that they don't build their lives around you. They have better things to do.
And you can't talk about "losing civilians to peace". You never sought peace to begin with. Oslo was mortally wounded in November 1995; then you voted in Likud.
Then Sharon. Seriously, dude.
When you do achieve peace, then you'll be allowed to make such a comparison. Before that, it's just hot air.
Lovely proverb, much appreciated. :)
Assuming, arguendo, that there was never a "Palestinian people" in the past, there is now.
There were no "American people" when they were a collection of 13 British colonies--they were simply part of the British Empire. Likewise, other "peoples" evolved out of the struggle to reach political maturity and national self-determination. The fact that all English-speakers of the US, Canada, Australia and NZ can understand each other's English doesn't mean they haven't created distinct nationalities and cultures (I also have a premise that culturally Californians are quite distinct from Easterners but lets not muddy the waters).
We have a lot of the same issues, Israelis and Palestinians. The Palestinians want us to give up the Greater Israel concept but are reluctant to surrender the Great Palestine claim (the River-to-the-Sea stuff); the Palestinians want recognition as Palestinians in their own right with a Palestinian homeland for their expats and refugees to return to, but decry the Jewish desire for the same as "racist."
I work from the premise that the Palestinians are a distinct people seeking their right to self-determination just as the Jewish people have done in Israel. OK, we all eat humous -- that doesn't mean that we're all the same.
We'd get a lot farther in this balagan if we could see what we have in common instead of denying it.
As for the Israeli shift to the Right: unfortunately Herb Keinon's print article isnt in the Jerusalem Post (yet) but he sums it up this way: in the 90s, people were pro-peace, pro-2-State solution, overwhelmingly so. Now after the failure of Oslo, the Intifada's wave of terror, the missiles from Hezbollah and Hamas following withdrawal, the Israeli public no longer believes that peace is anything but a 5-letter word without any substantive meaning.
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