Three cheers for Israel's right

[azurnoir]

At this point the Western world is looking at Israel with a complete lack of understanding. Is it just a banana republic, something like a failed state? Or is it just behaving like a spoiled child, as Tom Friedman lately argued? Or is it an ethnocracy that, unsuccessfully, tries to hide ethnic cleansing and colonial ambitions behind protestations that it is under existential threat?

Israelis, in turn, feels misunderstood: After all, their country faces very real threats: Iran keeps calling for Israel's destruction, and may become a nuclear power. Hezbollah is armed to the teeth with rockets, and it has shown that it is willing to use them against Israel's population centers. Hamas rules Gaza, and its official position is that it will never accept Israel's existence. So why doesn't the world understand us?

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The phenomenal creativity of Israel's right truly shines by mixing these real dangers with a few others. First, we are told that Israeli Arabs are a fifth column and will tear Israel apart. Then say that the world no longer accepts Israel's existence. Make sure to conflate Ahmadinejad and Hamas with France, Britain and the European left. The former deny Israel's legitimacy; the latter just want us to stop building settlements, to get out of the settlements, and to let the Palestinians have a state. Just keep the distinctions blurred so you can fan hysterical fear.

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Hope and constructive thinking have never been good for the right, so make every effort to prevent Israelis from knowing how effective Salaam Fayad has been in building institutions and a viable security force in the West Bank, and that Israelis are having coffee by the thousands in Jenin.

If the right is lucky, the voices in the world that argue that Israel has gone nuts and that Israel doesn't intend to reach an agreement with the Palestinians will grow ever stronger. As a result, they will use the UN to recognize a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders. Then we can also say that the world as a whole hates us and that the language of international law and of human rights has been designed specifically to hurt Israel.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/three-cheers-for-israel-s-right-1.321726