The Israeli Cliffhanger

"The days when the Jewish people remained passive in the face of genocidal enemies, those days are over."
"We are no longer scattered among the nations, powerless to defend ourselves."
"The government of the right is in danger. Leftist activists and the foreign and international media are conspiring to get Tzipi and Buji [Tzipi Livni and Isaac Herzog, joint leaders, Zionist Union] elected via illegitimate means, using innuendo and foreign money."
"Those foreign organizations understand that if Tzipi and Buji are in charge, they will give up everything. They'll withdraw to the 1967 boundaries and they will divide Jerusalem -- just as Tzipi and Buji promised they would do."
"They know that unlike Tzipi and Buji, the Likud and I will never surrender to pressure."
"This is a fateful struggle, a close struggle [Likud's second place in election polls]. We must close this gap. We can close this gap."
Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu

JACK GUEZ / AFP / Getty Images    A giant billboard rotates the images of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, of the Likud party and Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog.

 

Far-fetched? Not really, in actual fact. The Scandinavian countries have led the European Union in exerting pressure tactics through condemnation, withholding of diplomatic relations, urging boycotts to undercut the government of Israel. Specifically, the Likud-led government of Israel. As for the United States, where the White House fumed that Benjamin Netanyahu's accusations and objections to the U.S.-Iran nuclear complicity endangering Israel and the stability of the Middle East, interfering with U.S. politics; it is clear enough that President Obama has been doing the reverse himself.

Those challenging Mr. Netanyahu from the left have stated unequivocally they will push forward negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. With whom will they come to the negotiating table? A man whose Fatah party plans the destruction of Israel, but is at virtual war with Hamas which promises to get there before Fatah in destroying the Jewish state? Mahmoud Abbas is president of the PA in a default position of ignoring democratic elections whose time has long since passed and who prefers to blackmail Israel with threats rather than bargain in anything resembling good faith.

Mr. Netanyahu's predecessors were prepared to give the Palestinians everything and anything they insisted on, to achieve peace; Ehud Barak as much as said that the PA walked away from the offer to satisfy their every demand. Negotiate with whom, precisely? A Palestinian Authority that will be satisfied only if and when Israel no longer exists, returning the land, all of the land, forget Partition, to the Palestinian Arabs convinced that it is theirs and theirs alone?

In accusing the international media and "leftist organizations" of a co-ordinated campaign to remove his party and him from office he is only speaking truth. The opposition that the European Union and United States would prefer to see in government would be prepared to satisfy the demands of the Palestinians, only to find that they are insatiable in their ever-increasing demands. But their desperate attempts to meet those demands, as promised, would doubtless find great approval among the EU countries and the United States.

Why should the Palestinians defer to Israel's determination to maintain as its capital an undivided Jerusalem? What gives them the right to demand East Jerusalem as their own, and the holiest symbols of Judaism to be under Palestinian rule? The Palestinians are relative newcomers to Palestine which was originally Jewish, just as they co-opted the description of themselves as "Palestinians", wrenching it from the Palestinians who were Jewish, not Arab.

Palestinians and Muslims in general excel at destroying the places sacred to religions other than Islam, and occasionally Islamic symbols as well, when fanatical Islamists go berserk as they have a tendency to do, often and blood-curdingly. The opportunity to achieve a Palestinian State has time and again been refused by the Palestinians, not by the Israelis.

That Israel finds itself through no fault of its own, surrounded by increasingly threatening jihadis who pose a threat to all the countries of the Middle East, is reason enough not to submit to the uncertainty of an Palestinian State launching attacks against Israel alongside attacks by a devil's covenant of fanatical Islamist terrorist groups.

Israel Hayom, a mass circulation free newspaper in support of Likud has reported that a U.S. Senate committee plans to investigate claims an American non-profit group, OneVoice broke U.S. law by funding another group campaigning for a change of government in Israel. The activist group, V15, is working with Jeremy Bird, one of President Barack Obama’s former campaign strategists, tellingly enough.

JACK GUEZ / AFP/GETTY IMAGES    Supporters of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rally in Rabin Square Sunday. Just two days before Israel's general election, Netanyahu make a last-ditch effort to garner support by appealing to the centre.