Older and Weiser

In five years of marriage to Julie, I have learned some facts about retailing, among them:

* A store is only sometimes referred to as a “store.”  A store often is called a “box.” A store also may be known as a “door.”

* People who work on the “floor” – meaning those who are selling in a “door” – wear black.  This is not intended as a mass shiva, it only seems that way considering the state of the economy.

* Without proof of purchase, “no return” means no return.  No matter what you say, it’s not coming back.

It is on this last point that retailers, Israel’s leaders and 93 percent of Israelis find themselves aligned.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s June 14 speech at Bar-Ilan University laid out his vision for the creation of a Palestinian state – “two states for two peoples” he calls it.  Explicit in this vision is retaining the original intent of Israel as a Jewish state.  This is far from a new notion.   The concept of two states was first embraced by Israeli leaders when they accepted the UN partition of Palestine in 1948 and under which they declared the Jewish State of Israel.  It was immediately rejected by Arabs who forced Israel to fight a War of Independence.   This created refugees, who are now referred to as “Palestinians.”

After failing for sixty years to “push Israel into the sea,” as they used to be fond of saying, those Arabs who now speak on behalf of Palestinians adopted a different strategy for extinguishing Israel.  Groups like the Islamic Association for Palestine, as well as other Arab organizations, claim that Israel’s Law of Return, which allows Jews from everywhere to make aliyah and become Israeli citizens, is a “racist law.” In turn, they demand a so-called “right of return” for Palestinian refugees.  They make common cause with sympathizers, including the UN and anti-Israel academics, and extort support from politicians in countries with significant Muslim minorities with whom they must curry favor.

“Palestinian refugees are the result of not the cause of the War of Independence,” explained Ron Dermer, Netanyahu’s communications director, prior to our meeting with the Prime Minister on August 12.  “The War created two refugee problems, one Arab and one Israeli.  Have you ever been to a camp for the Jewish refugees of the War?  600,000 Jews came from Iran, Iraq, Tunisia who were driven out (of their homes).  Israel absorbed them all and we doubled our population.”

The Arab refugees, both Dermer and Alan Dershowitz, author of The Case for Israel, point out, were forced out of their homes by their own leaders or chose to leave when Israel was attacked by its Arab neighbors.  The demand of Palestinians to return to land they once occupied is a non-starter in any negotiation with Israel on a two-state solution.  It is Israel’s “no-return” policy.

“We’re supposed to solve both refugee problems that we didn’t create” says Dermer incredulously.  “We’re being told that the solution must be found inside the borders of the State of Israel…When we sign a peace agreement, there can be no further claims.  A peace agreement must end all claims.”

What Israel requires, then, is an agreement to end all agreements; a deal that would, once and for all, secure Israel as a Jewish state.  Barack Obama’s June 6 speech at Cairo University seriously damaged his credibility among Israelis as the person who could produce such a bargain.  In one month, Obama’s approval rating went from 31 percent to 6 percent.  (Or, as my brother Scott put it: “You mean the six that comes after five; that six?)  It has since “recovered” to 7 percent.

In his passion to establish rapport with the Muslim world, it would seem that The President committed a cardinal political error: he lost his base.  In emphasizing the West Bank settlements and by ignoring the issues important to Israelis, he has lost the support of voters in a democracy with the power to direct their leaders to follow him in a peace process.

I have been asked several times by dear friends, who are Jewish and supported Barack Obama in 2008, what I had heard in Israel about the West Bank settlement issue.  The answer is that I really didn’t hear much about it; a number of Israelis with whom I met consider it a secondary issue.  They are a great deal more concerned with the rearming of Hezbollah in violation of the UN-brokered cease fire and the virulent forms of anti-Semitism being taught to Palestinian school children that will poison the minds of the next two generations in the West Bank and in Gaza.

The President may be coming to his own place of “no return” with the Israeli people.  We spent a good deal of time in the company of religious Jews in Israel and I was not surprised to find their ‘hearts are hardening’ on the question of whether he stands with Israel.  The secular Jews with whom we spoke were only modestly more open.  They would like to think that he and his advisors only have made an error – albeit a serious one – from which he can still recover their confidence.

Secular or religious, Israelis will need more than florid phrases from the President to be reassured.  Like good retailers, they will need a “proof of purchase” – of his friendship and support – before he can return to a place of trust with them.

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Filed under: Israel by Michael Weiser