Is your nation sick?

[Mediocrates]

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/476171.html

Is our nation sick?
It is incredible that the ideas propounded by supporters of the Oslo Accord, which Achimeir sees as a calculated act of deception, are still bandied about by rational humans.

By Ben Zion Netanyahu

"Hashana Hakhamishim Vekhamesh" ("The Fifty-Fifth Year") by Yossi Achimeir, Nitzanim, 163 pages, NIS 68

Among the recent additions to the Zionist bookshelf, Yossi Achimeir's "The Fifty-Fifth Year," an anthology of short glosses on the events of Israel's 55th year, deserves a closer look. Achimeir offers his thoughts on those events, as well as the responses to them of others - journalists, political figures, etc. - and what he says is interesting enough. He doesn't insist that he is right, nor does he try to prove that he is. But even without trying, his views sound convincing and the reader is won over. Achimeir knows that many of the things that happen in the public arena need no explanation or proof, and one can jump to whatever logical conclusions present themselves, without further ado. Achimeir's articles are formed from a series of observations leading to the specific conclusion he is trying to impress on the reader. It is the readers' personal, moral and even civic duty to support the views he expounds because they are critical for the defense and survival of this country. That, too, is self-evident - a kind of mathematical axiom that needs no proof.

In the days of yore, when lifestyles were carved out, assassinating opponents in times of peace was considered a despicable crime for which there could be no forgiveness (see 1 Kings 2:5). In modern times, this crime has been carried out not only against individuals and towns, but against the entire Jewish people. In his article "Oslo I," Achimeir writes that the peace agreement between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat not only failed to bring the citizens of Israel the peace they had been promised. It brought "10 years of suicide bombings, missile attacks, roadside ambushes, the deaths of hundreds of innocent people and the injury of thousands who will be disabled for the rest of their lives."

Do we need proof that the accord signed at Oslo was a calculated act of deception and a bad bargain? Achimeir thinks we don't. This conclusion is borne out by the facts he cites - facts that speak for themselves. And yet, amazingly, the architects of Oslo are still trying to show that the agreement was necessary, and hence justified, and not a bad bargain at all.

Achimeir does not elaborate on this. Neither does he castigate the architects of Oslo. What he does mention is how opponents of the accord were mocked for scrambling to their feet and decrying the dangers that lay in store for Israel. "Cowards of peace," they were called. Accordingly, those who died in the terror attacks that followed on the heels of the signing ceremony were "sacrificed on the altar of peace." Supporters of Oslo tried to convince us that peace could not be achieved without such sacrifices. They claimed they knew in advance that the peace plan would be "carried out" this way (via the wholesale murder of Jews) and thus decided - having no other choice, of course - to "bravely" agree to it.

`Political visionaries'

The incredible thing is not so much the argument per se and the audacity of it, but the fact that these ideas are still being bandied about by rational human beings. Achimeir's example of such a man is Ami Ayalon, former commander of the navy and head of the Shin Bet security service. For Ayalon, the words and deeds of the architects of Oslo were not a miserable failure, but the product of a totally sensible, realistic and, above all, courageous outlook - again that courage Oslo people so love to flaunt.

To Ayalon, Achimeir says: "You say the time has come for brave decisions. But your path is not brave. There is nothing brave in surrendering to terror. There is nothing brave about total submission to the aggressor. There is nothing brave about giving up the eternal rights of the Jewish people just because the sword of terror hangs over our neck. Brave decisions of the type you advocate are merely signs of weakness and breaches in your Zionist faith. Carrying them out means to withdraw, which only invites further pressure and offers more reason to blame and blackmail Israel."

This is how Achimeir writes when he is talking about our principles, rights and national aspirations. Will his words have any effect on Oslo supporters? I doubt it very much and so, it seems, does the author. After the War of Independence, it appeared that we were finally on the political high road, necessitating a cautious but realistic assessment of life in this country. Since then, it is hard to believe how many "political visionaries" have sprung up in our midst, achieved political power, and insist that it is possible to make peace with an enemy that has never stopped declaring its aim to destroy us, all the while training its people to do just that.

After all this, one cannot help wondering, as we read the arguments of the Oslo supporters, where their logic is. Do they care nothing for the truth? Don't they have any sense of responsibility to the nation, which was promised peace - not endless bloodshed? Are we living in an upside-down world? Is there such a thing as common sense any more? Like the author, I am astonished at all the "respectable names" - professors, artists and writers - who sign the petitions of the "Oslo-ites." Why, wonders Achimeir, are so many members of our cultural elite, as opposed to intellectuals in other countries, drawn to the anti-national fringes?

Fringes? Here I beg to differ. I do not believe that the majority of Israelis support the plans of the Oslo-ites, nor do I believe that Oslo supporters are only on the fringes. I think we are looking at a social phenomenon whose roots can be traced back to the Weltanschauung of our nation, to the ideas it has worshiped and the political tactics backed by large sectors of the people. Without elaborating, here are few historical facts that will make my point clear.

The Oslo phenomenon is an example of the Jews' poor political sense, with the two main symptoms being a serious malfunction in the perception of danger, which is critical for all living creatures, and an acute lack of foresight, which has been a problem throughout Jewish history. Suffice it to say that these weaknesses led Jewish leaders in the First Temple period to make poor policy decisions based on the belief that their actions would bring peace ("Peace, peace but there is no peace," cried the prophets), but in practice wreaked only havoc.

[Mediocrates]

The same phenomenon, with the same outcome, resurfaced in the Second Temple period: A peace movement arose protesting the wars of the Hasmoneans, which were fought to increase the size of the commonwealth and strengthen it against future attack. The situation evolved to the point where this movement, or one of its parties, sent a special delegation to Demetrius III, king of Syria - a historic foe of the Jewish commonwealth - asking him to invade the country and help topple the Hasmonean king. Twenty-five years later these peace activists tried again: Another delegation was sent to the Roman commander, Pompei, this time requesting that he overthrow the Hasmonean kingdom and instate a high priest. The result of this mission was the Roman conquest of Judah, which led to the destruction of the Second Temple.

Imaginary peace

These examples should be enough. But the fact is, this reliance on an imaginary peace was also a feature of Jewish life in the medieval and modern times. The Jews of Spain, for instance, lived peaceful, tranquil lives on the eve of expulsion in 1492, never fearing for their future although anti-Semitic hatred was rising at that time to new heights. In the modern era, it is worth mentioning the victory of the anti-Zionist Bund party in the Jewish municipal elections in Poland in May 1939, when Hitler was already in power all over Europe and there were only about four months to go until the outbreak of World War II. The source of all these phenomena, and others like it, was a false sense of security and the inability to see ahead. These were failings that kept recurring, and largely determined our fate.

Recurrent symptoms are usually the sign of a chronic illness. Must we conclude that our nation is sick? Is that why we submitted to the British (naively believing that Britain was not anti-Zionist, and therefore we should compromise rather than fight against it)? Is that why we adopted the stance we did at Oslo, putting our faith in an accord with the Arabs, although they have never concealed their goal of destroying the "Zionist entity"? Does Achimeir address this problem at all?

Toward the end of the book, in one of the last articles, he writes: "Today, as in Hasmonean times and the days when Israel was fighting for its independence, we have cowards who justify the enemy, claiming that we are violating its rights and usurping its property ... These people are trying to break the nation's spirit and ruin its reputation, encouraging the other side to step up its efforts to harm the Jews. The heart aches to see that today, more than ever before in our history, this group is being joined by writers, artists, media people, professors, educators and politicians. It is a real sickness that one would be hard pressed to find among other peoples."

Achimeir does sense that this phenomenon was not "born" in our day. He sees it as a pathological condition analogous to the Hellenized Jews in Roman times, who clearly suffered from the most acute and terminal form of the disease. There are such people today, but he believes that they are a minority and their efforts will not succeed. I share that prognosis, but only if something is done to treat the condition - and that, of course, starts with recognizing the causes of the disease: obliviousness to danger and unfounded optimism that pave the way to bogus peace agreements.

In making these and similar observations, obviously springing from some serious contemplation of the state of the nation, Achimeir has moved up the ranks from a journalist who faithfully records events to a commentator who looks at them from a broader perspective and plumbs their depths. I look forward to his observations on Israel's 56th and 57th year, and a further probe of the disease in all its stages and medical presentations. There could be some improvement in our condition, of course, depending on global developments, but those are not odds I would bank on. At the moment, the sky looks very overcast.



Prof. Ben Zion Netanyahu's book "The Five Founding Fathers of Zionism" was published by Yedioth Ahronoth.

[Binyamin]

Interesting that Haaretz published this.

I do not really agree with his diagnosis. The problem seems to be an attitude that "we can't really do it, we don't really deserve it," similair to what we see from the war protesters in America.