Moshe Dann: Stayin' alive in Mideast
[The author, a former assistant professor of History (CUNY) is a writer and journalist living in Jerusalem]
In the Middle East there are only friends and enemies, those on whom you can count, and those on whom you can't. Survival depends on knowing where people stand, and, like the shifting desert sands, and vagrant, unsteady winds, it's sometimes not easy to know.
Ironically, the response to the Goldstone Report and the UNHRC may have helped define these categories. Jew-haters use it to demonize Israel; Israel's friends offer support. It shows whose side you're on.
For those who have been selling "The Peace Process," and "two-state" proposals, their task is more difficult, as Israel is more isolated by the international community, while threatened with annihilation by Iran, missile attacks from Hamas and Hezbollah and continuing Arab terrorism.
The situation is not conducive to having tea, and even if it's offered, Israel rightly wonders if it's been poisoned. Despite a siege mentality, life goes on normally, as it must. The downside, however, is that negotiations to arrive at some modus vivendi blur the reality: Arab "Palestinian" leaders and the Arab world are infused with an intense, Nazi-like Jew-hatred.
Those who have not read German-scholar Matthias Kuntzel's Jihad and Jew-Hatred (Telos Press, 2007) should do so immediately. Kuntzel identifies a crucial aspect of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Israel is best, however, when it is under pressure; it's not the first time, and isn't the last. Goldstone's Report generated more anti-Jewish hatred, but that reservoir of bigotry is overflowing already and Israelis are used to it.
With generous first rains, in the midst of a severe regional drought, Israelis also pray for miracles, even amidst increasing hostilities and massive arms shipments to Hamas and Hezbollah. But Israelis are also practical and innovative – as clearly evident in science and technology - and understand that one can't be too careful and less sanguine.
There are, after all, and with much hope, realities...
Read entire article at YNet
In the Middle East there are only friends and enemies, those on whom you can count, and those on whom you can't. Survival depends on knowing where people stand, and, like the shifting desert sands, and vagrant, unsteady winds, it's sometimes not easy to know.
Ironically, the response to the Goldstone Report and the UNHRC may have helped define these categories. Jew-haters use it to demonize Israel; Israel's friends offer support. It shows whose side you're on.
For those who have been selling "The Peace Process," and "two-state" proposals, their task is more difficult, as Israel is more isolated by the international community, while threatened with annihilation by Iran, missile attacks from Hamas and Hezbollah and continuing Arab terrorism.
The situation is not conducive to having tea, and even if it's offered, Israel rightly wonders if it's been poisoned. Despite a siege mentality, life goes on normally, as it must. The downside, however, is that negotiations to arrive at some modus vivendi blur the reality: Arab "Palestinian" leaders and the Arab world are infused with an intense, Nazi-like Jew-hatred.
Those who have not read German-scholar Matthias Kuntzel's Jihad and Jew-Hatred (Telos Press, 2007) should do so immediately. Kuntzel identifies a crucial aspect of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Israel is best, however, when it is under pressure; it's not the first time, and isn't the last. Goldstone's Report generated more anti-Jewish hatred, but that reservoir of bigotry is overflowing already and Israelis are used to it.
With generous first rains, in the midst of a severe regional drought, Israelis also pray for miracles, even amidst increasing hostilities and massive arms shipments to Hamas and Hezbollah. But Israelis are also practical and innovative – as clearly evident in science and technology - and understand that one can't be too careful and less sanguine.
There are, after all, and with much hope, realities...