Israel’s Shift To The Right Not Surprising
A rising star in Israeli politics is Naftali Bennett, a former chief of staff for Bibi Netanyahu, whose views represent the sentiment of not only the settlement movement but likely that of a good portion of the Jewish State. He might become Israel’s prime minister within ten years, which says much.
Closer to his ideological core is an unswerving conviction that the Palestinian Arabs of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem might as well relinquish their hopes for a sovereign state. The Green Line, which demarcates the occupied territories from Israel proper, “has no meaning,” he says, and only a friyer, a sucker, would think otherwise. As one of his slick campaign ads says, “There are certain things that most of us understand will never happen: ‘The Sopranos’ are not coming back for another season . . . and there will never be a peace plan with the Palestinians.” If Bennett becomes Prime Minister someday—and his ambition is as plump and glaring as a harvest moon—he intends to annex most of the West Bank and let Arab cities like Ramallah, Nablus, and Jenin be “self-governing” but “under Israeli security.”
“I will do everything in my power to make sure they never get a state,” he says of the Palestinians. No more negotiations, “no more illusions.” Let them eat crème brûlée.
Such shows that the peace movement might be dead in Israel, since as it stands there are no partners for peace: any trust or good intentions previously held by at least the Israelis has been eroded over the last decade by a decided lack of good will on the side of the Palestinians. Years of patiently waiting has resulted in nothing good.
Such is the dominant view in Israel, the article points out: “The lessons that Bennett draws from recent history are familiar, and not only on the right: If Israel were to allow the establishment of a Palestinian state, what is now the West Bank would quickly become a second Gaza—a Hamas-led bastion of Islamic radicalism, a launch pad for rocket fire aimed at Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion Airport. If Israel were to sign a deal, Bennett told his audience in Tel Aviv, ‘we’d get praise from the world and, two weeks later, we’ll see the first demonstrations on the Green Line.’ “