Topic: Decline of the West
There’s no denying that Israel has a serious public-relations problem.
Over the past thirty years or so Jewish state’s image as a small, heroic nation of pioneers and warriors has faded out. The postmodern colonialist narrative of people like the late Edward Said combined with traditional Arab anti-Semitism to produce a new and far less flattering image: the ugly caricature of an imperialist, racist colonial overlord. Things have gone so far that people who think themselves progressive and enlightened do not blush to compare Israel to Nazi Germany, the plight of the Palestinian people to the Holocaust.
The long-range aim of these people—Western progressives and Jew-hating Arabs—is to delegitimize Israel and demoralize its people. Eventually, its enemies, the Jews will lose heart and give up their dream of a Jewish state. And if the end of Israel is accompanied by pogroms and perhaps even genocide…oh well, the Jews will have only themselves to blame.
It’s certainly plausible to suppose that the unremitting hostility of the “world community” will eventually have that effect. Are not the people of Israel sick and tired of their quasi-fascist government? Are not they clamoring for peace at any price? Well, no. As Jonathan Tobin explains in this post on the Commentary “Contentions” blog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to win a third consecutive term, this time with a solidly right-wing majority. His current centrist allies are expected to fare poorly in the elections probably to take place next year, while the peace-at-any-price Israeli Left has lost all credibility. This is so despite Netanyahu’s lack of personal popularity both at home and abroad. How is it possible?
The short answer is that Netanyahu’s policies reflect Israeli public opinion, which has given up all hope of concluding a peace agreement with the Palestinians. As Tobin notes, most Israelis would be happy to be rid of responsibility for the West Bank. They see, however, that the Palestinian Authority has no intention of negotiating a peace settlement that recognizes Israel’s right to exist and its legitimate security concerns. The recent Gaza crisis only reinforced these views. Until the Palestinians have a change of heart, until they give up their fantasies of the destruction of the Jewish state, Israeli public opinion is content to let the peace process stagnate.
This explains why the Obama Administration’s confrontational policy toward Israel has failed to bear fruit. It was based on the idea that by brow-beating Israel, Obama & Co. could turn Israeli public opinion against Netanyahu and produce a government more amenable to the President’s views. In fact, though, Obama’s bullying has had the opposite effect, convincing a strong majority of Israelis that he’s no friend of their country. The credibility thus lost by the US president has been credited to the political account of the Israeli prime minister.
The ultimate losers are, of course, the wretched Palestinian people. Their leaders will never agree to a peace settlement that might spell the end of their own power. Their supporters in Europe and America merely encourage the delusion of a Jew-free Palestine that makes a genuine peace agreement possible. The American president has spent the past five years alienating the Israeli people and destroying their faith in the peace process. When one’s great friends are more of a threat than one’s deadly enemies, an agonizing reappraisal is in order. But it does seem that the Palestinian people are prepared to pay a high price for the maintenance of their dream world.