A tale of two types of Israelis
A few weeks spent in Israel is like going on a rollercoaster of emotional ups and downs.
Ron Weiser
From exhilaration to sorrow, from exasperation to a clarity of purpose, and from moments of incredible unity to a realisation that the biggest dangers to Israel’s long-term future come from internal divisions rather than external threats.
There were also times during this visit that it was just plain embarrassing to be an Australian.
A good example, amongst many, of an Australian position devoid of fact, but masquerading as a rationale for current policy, was a piece in the Australian press by Foreign Minister Wong on the 25th of November where she wrote: “the failure of the international community to honour the 1947 promise made for a Palestinian state when Israel was established.”
It was of course not the international community who failed at all and certainly Foreign Minister Wong knows this very well, as she ignores reality to try and play to Labor’s domestic constituency.
The very core of the conflict then and still today, is that it was the Arab/Palestinian world who would not accept an Arab/Palestinian State, and who vehemently and very violently, opposed UN Resolution 181 in 1947.
They never ever had an interest in a Palestinian State, but only in ensuring there would not be a Jewish one.
Across Israel we met two types of Israelis. Those who support Prime Minister Netanyahu with a passion and those who do not, with equal feeling. The irony is that both sides welcomed the election of Donald Trump.
The first group because they believed that now Netanyahu would have a free hand and the second who were looking forward to Trump putting the brakes on Netanyahu, that they themselves could not.
Much has changed in the past year – and most assuredly for the better – but with almost unbearable Israeli sacrifice.
Iran’s ring of terror around Israel has been smashed.
Hamas’ barbaric 7 October atrocities have proven to be a miscalculation of historic proportions.
Iran’s direct assaults on Israel have failed and Iran has proven much more vulnerable to Israeli reprisals than previously thought, but cannot be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.
In Lebanon, Iran’s most powerful proxy, Hezbollah, has suffered huge losses, but has not been destroyed. Lebanon is a sovereign country and Israel has treated Hezbollah as distinguishable from Lebanon itself, agreeing to effectively the same UN Resolution 1701 that has failed miserably since 2006.
The problem with 1701, however, lay not in the arrangement itself, but in its lack of enforcement by the United Nations.
The key difference today is that southern Lebanon will be taken over by the Lebanese army, replacing Hezbollah and that compliance with the agreement will be determined by the United States and France.
American oversight will be what Israel will rely on, not the French, who are led by a shameless Macron struggling for his own legitimacy. It is a very important positive, that the 60 day first phase of the agreement, will expire when Trump will already be in office.
Whether or not backroom discussions involving both President Biden and incoming President Trump are taking place, their respective administrations’ policies are in sync on Lebanon.
Gaza remains a large issue, and here, Israel finds a different situation compared to Lebanon. There is no sovereign power to deal with. Hamas is the integral factor in Gaza. Hamas, aside from the odd guerilla attack, is defeated as a military force. However, Israel has no credible ‘day after’ policy, as yet. Broadly speaking, hints from the Trump team sound like very much the same policy as Biden’s – immediate release of the hostages, against the background of a temporary ceasefire.
This to be followed by a rebuilt Gaza, with its inhabitants returning to their homes under some sort of joint Arab/US/International auspices.
Both Biden and Trump appear to be in sync with each other on this too, but simultaneously out of step with the Israelis.
When it finally became so unclear as to who Qatar was negotiating on behalf of, especially against the background of Qatar being a major Hamas sponsor and home of the Hamas leadership outside of Gaza, Biden put pressure on Qatar to have the Hamas leadership expelled. The ever-more increasingly and outrageously anti-Israel Erdogan-led Turkey became their new home.
Interestingly, the Trump interim team asked Qatar to accept the Hamas leadership back, believing, probably correctly, that that will more likely bring the hostage situation to a better and quicker conclusion.
With Iran’s proxies on the retreat, the rebels in Syria chose to take on the Iranian-backed Assad regime. The fall of Assad sees yet another loss for Iran. It also cuts down one significant pathway for Hezbollah rearmament from Iran. The rebels are backed in part by Turkey and whilst it is the lesser of two evils, the border with Syria remains a potential flashpoint.
Israel in the meantime is making the world a safer place by taking out Assad’s chemical weapons, missile stores, airforce and navy, before the rebels can get their hands on them.
Trump showed great moral clarity in bringing to the fore the most vexed issue torturing Israel and the Jewish world, the matter of the hostages.
The question is how far he is willing to go on the this and/or whether the mere threat of Trump will be a game changer.
Everyone is trying to guess which Trump we will get.
The one who in January 2020 took out the Iranian General Soleimani, or the Trump who shortly thereafter refused to take military action after Iran launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles at American troops based in Iraq, “because no American lives were lost”?
Trump has been clever to give few specific details on policies toward Israel and the Middle East, although he made some additional very positive comments in his interview with NBC’s Meet the Press and then in TIME magazine. We can, however, possibly see a very wide but fluid policy direction emerging, both from his comments and by listening to those around him with direct influence on the matter.
The very pro-Israeli settlements incoming US Ambassador Mike Huckabee, has publicly and very carefully said that he will be in Israel to represent Trump’s views and not his own.
Lindsey Graham, one of the staunchest supporters of Israel in the US Senate as well as Trump’s own new Middle East advisor Massad Boulos, have both cautioned parts of Netanyahu’s government against Israeli resettlement in Gaza. Both have also outlined an aim of some Abraham Accords-type arrangement with Saudi Arabia, which they say will again involve some movement on, or commitment to, the Palestinian issue. However, in some as yet undefined way. Reminding Israel that it previously gave up annexation, for a period of time at least, to get the UAE on board with the Abraham Accords in 2020.
Whilst it almost certainly suits Netanyahu himself, to have solutions such as on Gaza and Judea/Samaria/ West Bank settlement imposed on Israel by a friendly Trump, for internal political reasons, it flies in the face of the whole concept of Jewish ‘self-determination’.
Israel needs to stop kicking the can down the road on the external and even more importantly, internal challenges, and to take some serious decisions about its own future.
The current government of Israel, with and because of its coalition make up, seems incapable of doing so.
The most amazing thing about Israel, at the end of the day, are not the politicians or the top military brass, but rather, the everyday Israelis.
Whether the parents of a hostage, those in the IDF and serving reservists, the families of Nova lives lost and those who survived, those displaced from the north and the south, and many others – they are just ordinary people.
However, actually, they are all extraordinary.
To meet with them is to feel raw emotion, but to understand what resilience truly is.
They are the reason that Israel and the Jewish People have a brighter future.
Their resilience is the secret weapon of Israel.
Netzach Yisrael lo Yishaker.
The eternity of the people of Israel will not fail.
Am Yisrael Chai
