What about the peace process?

What about the peace process?

Dror Eydar


Nothing has been done in the last four years. This is the consensus view held by the overwhelming majority of pundits regarding the outgoing government. The "nothing" they refer to has to do with the "peace process," of course.

Imagine, if you will, a small boat making its way amid stormy waters and crashing waves. At any moment the enormous waves may crush the boat and splinter it into pieces. But the boat continues on its way. Inside, wonder of wonders, life effervesces: there is creativity, culture, science and Torah, and there is even time for debate and demonstrations. Not just for a day or for two months — but for over four years the boat safely navigates this stormy sea.

If we enter one of the cabins on the left, we overhear harsh complaints against the captain, whom people say "did nothing" for over four years. Not only is this blind and naive, but it is enormously ungrateful, wouldn't you say?

This blindness seeks to take us back to a place where we have been many times before. God forbid, the boat of Zionism could be crushed against the rocks of reality, all in the name of "making progress" on the peace process.

How long can we cast about on the waves, they say, thrown about by the sea? This is despair speaking — despair with the Zionist vision, despair that pushes us to clamor for any dry land we see on the horizon, even if it harbors existential danger. This despair arouses hatred against those steering the boat because if it were not for them, we would have long ago reached dry land.

The Israeli Left, which attacked Yair Lapid prior to the elections, is attacking him now for his alliance with Naftali Bennett. You know, Bennett is one of them, the settlers. It's a kind of projection, projecting one's self-hatred onto the ultimate other.

The settlers are the mirror image of the Israeli Left, which is what makes them so threatening. "The settlers have dazzled many of our young people, Haaretz journalist Ari Shavit wrote last week. "They have led them to believe that settlers are their brothers." Something bad has happened to Shavit in the last year — he has totally lost his bearings.

If there is any hope for us in the face of the Arab and Muslim threat against us on this small strip of land, it is because of these brothers, who are today's pioneers.

These settlers are continuing the enterprise of Zionist settlement, which began with the founding of Petach Tikva and continued with the hundreds of isolated settlements built from before the establishment of the state until our day. This is Jabotinsky's iron wall: The Arab hope to sever us from our land will be dashed only when they accept that we've come home for good.

"We hold on to this land, just as much as they do and even more so," wrote Jabotinsky, The settlers teach our neighbors that we too know the meaning of tsumud (in Arabic, a tenacious attachment the land).

Shavit also lamented that the settlers had succeeded — alas! — in convincing Israeli society that "the post-Zionist settlement enterprise is an inseparable part of Zionism." Indeed. The only post-Zionists are you and your friends, Mr. Shavit. You have forgotten the fundamental tenets of Zionism.

Zionism aside, why has rational thinking been replaced by a leftist Orthodoxy that substitutes articles of faith for facts? What word can we use to describe the Left's repeated pursuit of solutions that have proven dangerous and delusional — if not romanticism?

Here are the facts: Every "breakthrough in negotiations" over the last 20 years has led to disaster: terrorism in our streets, delegitimization around the world and missile attacks on Israel. Each time we thought we'd finally be able to rest, reality blew up in our faces. For one hundred years we have been trying to make peace with the Arabs in this land, for one hundred years we have agreed to share our precious land with them, and still they refuse.

Because they are not interested in compromise. They will definitely not be satisfied with a small part of what they consider sacred Muslim land. But the Israeli Left also refuses to see reality. Over and over they repeat the frenetic mantra: "if there is no diplomatic breakthrough" — woe unto us! What breakthrough? What breakthrough hasn't been made?

Let's examine which option is preferable: a certain possibility of daily bombardment of central Israel and the international airport by various "flying objects," including the smuggling of heavy weaponry and the establishment of an Iranian outpost on a mountain right next to us; or an outbreak of worldwide protests and delegitimization?

How long will the applause last for any "diplomatic breakthrough" before we once again sustain harsh criticism over new claims the Palestinians will make of us, as they tend to do. Because this is the way they operate. They will never take responsibility for anything. Rather, they will always blame it on the Jews. You can always count on the Left to willingly accept another reason to cultivate their guilty feelings.

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=3619